Montague's Mount Review

Following the current trend of story-based exploration games popularised by Dear Esther and Gone Home, PolyPusher Studios have released their entry to the genre, Montague's Mount. While these titles usually compensate for the minimal gameplay with strong atmosphere and storytelling, Montague's Mount opts for environmental puzzles, collectibles and achievements. The result is a confused game that cannot seem to decide what it wants to be - an immersive and realistic exploration-based title, or one that relies on more traditional gameplay mechanics.

Waking up on a desolate, Irish island with amnesia (that old chestnut), you begin to explore the environment and uncover its secrets. Haunted by ghostly apparitions of a young boy, the story is pretty standard psychological thriller stuff, but the protagonist’s dialogue is decently written and nicely delivered. Unfortunately, the plot simply doesn’t go anywhere. As the end credits began to roll, I realised that I hadn’t really learned anything about the protagonist, nor what happened to the island and its inhabitants.

This wouldn't be a particularly big problem if the gameplay was any good, but unfortunately it’s a let down in this department too. Aside from wandering around the dreary island, you’ll spend most of your time completing puzzles, which are very hit and miss. Usually, all you’re required to do is find a particular item and use it on another object in the environment; however, other sections require much more work from the player. One of these obscure puzzles appears early in the game when the player must lower a bridge; you must first find a blinking buoy light, translate the light pattern using a morse code chart found in one of the cabins, then use the resulting letters to figure out which way to turn some coloured spinners. That’s a lot of work to simply lower a bridge.

Other puzzles are just plain annoying. Later in the game you are required to collect six candles and place them in a machine in order to open a gate. Despite the fact that there are two nearby buildings filled with candles that look identical to the ones required to open the gate, you must search the area for the six specific candles that the game wants. There’s no justification as to why this is the case - the puzzle simply exists to waste the player’s time.

There are other issues too, like the aforementioned identity crisis which is noticeable from the very beginning; after waking up for the first time you begin to awkwardly limp around in search of a walking stick. While slowly stumbling around the area and examining various objects, some text appears on the screen in large font: "Achievement Complete: Examined 25 Objects”. Moments like this completely destroy any tension or immersion that had been built by the game’s atmosphere.

It's a shame, because Montague's Mount's atmosphere is one of the few things it's got going for it; the game makes good use of ambient audio, with sounds of waves crashing on rocks and wind whistling through trees which provide a sense of place, and a somber soundtrack that helps set the gloomy tone. However, it's not long before this immersion is lost and you become infuriated by the game's numerous glitches or maddeningly slow pace. One extremely annoying glitch forced me to replay the same section three times, which was made more frustrating by a pointlessly slow 30 second door animation and a long, uneventful and unskippable cutscene that I had to endure each time.

On top of the sluggish cutscenes, the protagonist walks at a snail’s pace. Occasionally, either by design or due to missing an important object, the player must backtrack to earlier areas - an extremely tedious affair, at which point the gameplay is reduced to a “Hold ‘W’ Simulator”. Presumably, the reasoning behind this is that the player will spend this time admiring the environment, as is the case in Dear Esther. However,The Chinese Room’s title didn’t force you to replay the same areas more than once, provided constant well-written dialogue to keep the player interested, and was simply a much nicer game to look at.

The visuals in Montague’s Mount’s are best described as ‘murky’. The game’s muted colour palette is overlaid with a film grain filter which makes it extremely difficult to distinguish pick-ups from the rest of the environment. Also, due to the monochromatic colours and dim lighting, it is often a challenge to figure out where you’re supposed to go. At one point I was searching for a passage that I had previously come from, but the entrance was concealed by thick vegetation. I ended up spending several minutes searching for a pathway just so I could return to an area I’d already been to.

I’m aware that this review has been very negative, and that’s partially due to my frustration at the game, which feels like it has potential to be far better. Many of the game’s issues could be eliminated simply by increasing the player's walking speed and illuminating the environment. Some of the flaws are understandable when you consider that the game was developed almost entirely by one man - an impressive achievement, no doubt - but I can’t help but feel Montague’s Mount was too ambitious. The numerous glitches found in the game are likely due to the lack of proper testing, and the anticlimactic ending seems like a result of a lack of resources rather than a deliberate choice by the designer.

Being a fan of the story-based exploration genre, I wanted to like Montague’s Mount. Unfortunately, there are just too many issues to ignore. Due to the game’s flat story and weak gameplay, there’s not enough here to warrant a playthrough. While the end credits promise a sequel that will further the story, Montague’s Mount’s world isn't one that I want to return to any time soon.