THE ACADEMY: The First Riddle Review for Steam

Go back to school with The Academy: The First Riddle, by developer Pine Studio and publisher Snapbreak; solve puzzles and train your brain all while solving mysteries within the school. Find your way around campus by completing quests and side quests, advancing through each level in order to complete adventures and advance your character’s time in the Academy. This game is a mix between fantasy and reality in the sense that its setting is in a school, but there a lot of things happening that are unexplainable, which are being thought through with puzzles and mind tricks within the game. When I first started playing this game, it seemed very ominous, with the first couple of scenes before the main page going from a guy opening his door to a uniform laid on his porch to the front of the Academy on a stormy day, complete with rain and lightning.

There are several different puzzles that the player is presented with as they advance through the storyline and the levels, each one harder than the last, which is essentially meant to simulate the different difficulties in advancing through an Academy in real life. It is quite clever, although this seems to be a game for a certain niche of people who prefer games that challenge their mind, and I for one wasn’t expecting to have to do math within this game.

It’s definitely a different sort of game than I’m used to. I’ve played a lot of puzzle-packed adventure games and they didn’t challenge me nearly as much as this one did, and there’s actually a storyline and quests to this one instead of just playing against the computer the whole time.

The graphics were also high quality with no glitches and completely smooth gameplay all the way through. The Academy: The First Riddle seems to be better played over a long period of time in order to fully get the storyline brought forward and have adequate time to participate in the different puzzles. Overall, this game is challenging at times, but it’s interesting to follow the storyline and follow the characters reaching new quests along their journey to finish their exams and schooling in the Academy.

I would give The Academy: The First Riddle a 7 out of 10. It’s fun to play, but it’s not necessarily built for all audiences and may be a bit too challenging at times for it to be completely fun all the way through.

Check Out The Academy: The First Riddle Video:

The Academy: The First Riddle is available on PC and Mac via Steam and on the App Store and Google Play. The title will arrive on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch later this summer.

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Courtney La Verne

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I am an army veteran and currently a sophomore at Portland State University majoring in English. I have always looked to gaming as an outlet outside of my everyday life and a way to experiment with playing different types of games and take on new and exciting characters with different backgrounds. It's kind of like getting to become a new person every time you play a game.

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