#Quern series

Because they are so powerful, the Dulmarians now worship them as gods and begin destroying themselves in civil war. Upon their return from eons spent in this magical realm, the Seekers are so unbelievably powerful they destroy The Shadows in seconds. When an unknown world-ending catastrophe called вЂњThe ShadowsвЂќ threaten the Dulmarians, they send three of their own - вЂњThe SeekersвЂќ - to search for GwanвЂ™Quernelok as a last-ditch effort to save their people. Inside it, time does not flow normally: people do not age, nothing dies naturally, and you can spend billions of years there without one second passing elsewhere. It was rumored to contain secrets of great power and wisdom. Long ago, a race of people called the Dulmarians had a legend about this world they called Gwan QuerвЂ™nelok. And the game only concerns itself with, and takes place on, one such world. ThereвЂ™s no way to and from a particular world except via an ancient gate. ItвЂ™s not like Stargate, where the portals take them to faraway reaches of the same space rather, they would be transported to entirely new dimensions. The game takes place in a universe where multiple worlds are connected in the вЂњworldchain.вЂќ People can use mysterious ancient gates to travel between worlds. I donвЂ™t think this game is well-known enough for me to assume you are all familiar with the story. But itвЂ™s such a nice, clean example that I hope by writing about it we might see how any story can be improved by examining how we present choices to a player. Quern is hardly the only game in which the storyвЂ™s payoff falls flat. Whatever spoilers you see from this point are on you.

If you havenвЂ™t played Myst and donвЂ™t want the ending spoiled, you had 26 years to catch that train.ДЄlright, thatвЂ™s enough of a warning. If you havenвЂ™t played Quern, I recommend you go buy it and play it now.

#Quern series

And because Quern is heavily inspired by the Myst series I will be using those games as comparisons in a few places, so IвЂ™ll be spoiling the stories for those, too.

I will do my best to not reveal puzzle solutions, but everything else is fair game.

Naturally, I will be spoiling this game in its entirety. Having said that, IвЂ™m going to dedicate this entire post to nitpicking. ThatвЂ™s too bad because itвЂ™s a really good game. I wasnвЂ™t even aware of this game until I got it in a Steam recommendation and it seems to have flown under the radar. Metacritic gave it a positive score of 83/100.I donвЂ™t normally write reviews on this site, but I recently played Quern: Undying Thoughts and I had some thoughts of my own. PCWorld gave the game 4 out of 5 stars, saying it was similar to Myst of old with excellent gameplay. All are needed to find a way off the island. There are dozens of puzzles to solve that open approximately 50 locked doors. The plot involves a character arriving through a large gateway, which destructs upon their arrival, on the mysterious island of Quern with no memory of the past. The game was developed by four Hungarian graduate students, one of whom lives in the United Kingdom. Quern was released for Xbox One on April 24, 2020. It runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux, and has Oculus Rift support. Quern вЂ“ Undying Thoughts is an adventure video game by Zadbox Entertainment. Windows, macOS, Linux, Oculus Rift, Xbox One