A No-Frills Point-and-Click That Scratched our Puzzling Itch
Midnight Swamp whisked me back to a better time, playing Shadowgate on my NES (a game that’s available in the 8-bit Adventure Anthology – Volume I on Xbox). The two games share the same perspective and DNA, even if Midnight Swamp is about a million times more accessible. There’s something about a first-person point-and-click-adventure in a grimdark location that unlocks a mental treasure chest of nostalgia in me.
Midnight Swamp starts with our unnamed hero camping in a forest, next to a swamp. If you think that’s unwise, he’s not got the means to start a fire, either. We will let him off, as a well-prepared hero with everything in their backpack doesn’t make for an exciting point-and-click adventure.
Alice in Swampyland
Having made some berry tea, a giggle from the swamp leads you to a nereid/mermaid-looking being who unceremoniously hoists you into an alternate world where talking cats, tentacled creatures and giant were-beavers very much exist. You need to find your way home, and that means navigating the Midnight Swamp, which can feel reminiscent of a twisted Alice in Wonderland on occasion.
Midnight Swamp is effectively sliced in two. The first half takes place in the titular swamp, as you find winding paths that lead to new locations. It doesn’t take long until a castle appears, which is your ultimate destination – but you need eight dolls to dangle from eight nooses (ooh, very grim) if you want to enter. The first half of Midnight Swamp is spent finding those eight dolls.
The second half of Midnight Swamp is spent in the castle, and it’s a slight nudge up in quality. I think it’s because of the mental-map. While the swamp doesn’t entirely come off as a connected space, the castle very much does. I could draw it for you on the back of a napkin.
A Surprising Focus on Puzzles Over Adventuring
I was a little surprised by the proportions in Midnight Swamp. About 60% of your time is spent on the graphic adventure stuff, finding items in the environment and shipping them to other locations where they will be used. The screenshots made me think that Midnight Swamp was 100% point-and-click.
The other 40% is actually spent playing puzzles. I really like how Midnight Swamp handles these; I have clearly played too many hidden object games, because I expect that finding puzzles and completing puzzles will be very different things. In those games, you almost always need a piece or component to get the puzzle working. In Midnight Swamp, it’s almost always the opposite: when you find a puzzle, you can play it immediately. You have everything you need to find the solution now. It removes that nagging sense that maybe you shouldn’t be playing the puzzle yet.
Each puzzle is well-crafted, too. A few were extra-familiar – there’s a colour-matching puzzle in the castle that feels like it got overly simplified at a feedback stage – but others felt fresh. I loved one that used stencils to add or remove light from a pattern, with the aim of ending up with a particular symbol. It made me do a little head-nod of appreciation. There’s also a few that classify more as process rather than puzzle, as you need to display your ability to follow instructions. I don’t have much of that ability, as it turns out.
Even better, the logic is sound. I only had to look at a guide once (I’m still not sure what I was meant to do with a mini-castle in the woods with card-suits on the top), but Midnight Swamp never felt too easy either. It consistently sat in that sweet-spot of making me feel clever for working things out myself. A good sign for this kind of game is that I had a notebook in front of me with plenty of psychotic scrawls inside.
Getting Stuck in the Swamp
I do wonder if an inbuilt hint system might have helped Midnight Swamp, though. I can see some players getting stuck on puzzles but not having the means to get past them as there is no skip or hint button. Online walkthroughs do exist, so you will have the means to leapfrog these situations, but it’s a shame that you’re forced out of the game.
Presentationally, I found Midnight Swamp to be a little functional, but supremely clear. That’s the baseline really: you want to know what you can or cannot interact with, and there shouldn’t be any doubt about what something is. Midnight Swamp gets this part right: very rarely did I get confused by the art. But the art is also a little basic, and doesn’t manage to feel oppressive or immersive, nor does it really show its imagination. Almost everything is borrowed from other fairy tales. It’s in the presentation where Midnight Swamp most shows its budget.
I came to the end of Midnight Swamp after about three hours. It’s not a sprawling point-and-click, but it’s not short either. For £8.39 it feels suitably placed. Bring out Midnight Swamp 2 for the same price and I would happily snap it up, which feels like the beginnings of a compliment.
Midnight Swamp isn’t going to blow anybody’s socks off – the art and story are a little too basic for that – but I reckon it will satisfy most point-and-click fans. It gets the job done with fine interactions, tight logic, and an unexpected focus on puzzles. I get the graphic adventure itch every so often, and Midnight Swamp very much scratched it for me.
Important Links
Buy Midnight Swamp, Optimised for Series X|S – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/midnight-swamp-xbox-series-xs/9NFSZ956SGV1/0010
Buy an Xbox One version – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/midnight-swamp/9MZFCBZ1ZZ2J/0010
Or a Windows PC edition – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/midnight-swamp-windows/9PGT682V6P1N/0010
