Twenty years ago, the point and click genre was one of the most popular genres of video games, however, this popularity ended a long time ago. Nowadays, none of the AAA developers show interest in making point and click titles. Additionally, gamers who like these genre are few. Despite the decline in the popularity of point and click games, we still see some of the independent developers coming up with new ideas and trying to revive the genre. ARS GOETIA is one of these independent studios, developing The Blind Prophet as their first video game.

Strange events are happening in Rotbork. Humans are converting into evil creatures and attacking others. The one-eye protagonist of the game “Bartholomeus”, finds himself in the middle of one of these attacks and helps the victim. He who comes from paradise and has special powers saves the life of an innocent girl. He then tries to find some clues about these unusual events and their sources. Soon, it becomes clear that evils have captured the town and they are trying to eliminate all humans. Therefore, Bartholomeus starts a dangerous mission to wipe the city from evil creatures and reveal the one who is behind the events.

The game consists of several acts, some of them have plausible stories and some others are boring. For example, you enter a group of underground villains to uncover their evil goals. The act is very exciting thanks to a good characterization and great suspense in meeting the group leader. On the other hand, the second act includes an illogical story and long dialogues, making it dull and boring. In total, despite some good parts, the story is not the strong point of the game. The main reason is a large number of characters and events, most of them remain unexplained. We never realize who is the man helping the protagonist find the directions. Is he one of the villains? Why does he disappear after a certain point and we never see him again in the game? Unfortunately, the game does not answer these questions. All in all, a more compact story with fewer characters and events could have resulted in a better outcome.

The Blind Prophet’s ace in the hole is its storytelling. Most of the point and click games are unable to depict action and thrilling moments. This is mainly due to the calm nature of these games and their limitations. Thus, independent of the story's quality, they become boring after a while. The developers of The Blind Prophet come up with a unique idea to overcome this problem. They use a series of comic book pictures to tell the story in important moments when for example a fight is going one. All the comic book pictures enjoy a high design quality and you have never seen something similar in other video games. Therefore, the game triumphs in conveying the feeling of critical moments thanks to the brilliant idea of using comic book pictures.

There is a map in the game showing different parts of Rotbork. The main purpose of the map is to help you reach a certain location to begin your mission. Unfortunately, the name of the locations has not been written on the map. As a result, finding the locations, e.g., the church on the map is a hard and frustrating task particularly at the beginning of the game. Practically, you should use a trial and error approach to visit different locations and find the right one.

When you start a mission or act, the environment where everything is occurring there is limited. It means that all interactable objects and characters have been gathered in a few locations. As a result, finding and interacting with them is quite easy. It has helped the game to avoid the complications of other point and click titles when it comes to exploring areas and finding important objects.

One of the most important parts of every point and click game is puzzle solving. Puzzles play an important role in gameplay and act as a bridge connecting the game and the gamer. There are two types of puzzles in The Blind Prophet: puzzles requiring interaction with objects and mixing them, and mini-games. The first type of puzzles are quite standard, and similar to other point and click titles, mixing several items and using them correctly solve the puzzle. However, the mini-games suffer from serious problems. Although there are many mini-games in the gameplay, the quality of them is not good. Most of the mini-games are too simple and trivial and it is possible to solve them without even thinking. Basically, a good mini-game or puzzle forces the gamer to think about it deeply and then praise himself or herself for solving it. Unfortunately, the mini-games in The Blind Prophet are unable to do so.

Verdict:

The Blind Prophet manages to create a thrilling and unique experience with the idea of using comic book imagery in a story that one might not find in other titles. Undoubtedly, choosing a stronger storyline along with enhancing the quality of the puzzles would have led to a much better game.