The humble point-and-click adventure game has gone through many iterations, with ups and downs year to year, but the genre has given up its relevance entirely.
I know this because at least once a year I see one that's just drop-dead interesting for some reason or other. Rauniot, out now from Finnish indie developer Act Normal Games, is drop-dead interesting because it's drop-dead gorgeous.
With a world of rich, sepia-toned pre-rendered backgrounds, Rauniot promises point and click adventure puzzling in a pretty unexplored videogame setting: Northern Finland.
With people unable to trust each other, small bands now scrabble for survival—that's where protagonist Aino comes in, working to establish a group of survivors supporting each other.
Interestingly, while the setting is bleak, not everything in the game has to be: achievement descriptions hint that there's a way to survive without firing any bullets.