Anna. A girl’s name yes, but in this context it is one of the finer Indie games to have been released this year in 2012. This Indie PC title is a Horror Adventure waiting for you to explore.

What is Anna?

Straight from the game’s Deusra page,

“Anna” is an adventure game designed to analyze what the player does and react around his behavior. It features three ending according to how much the character has gone deep into madness. The more you play, the more you find, but to really discover everything, you’ll have to lose yourself. With the game, you’ll also get the main character’s notepad, giving you more insights on the plot, and the original Soundtrack.

Review Hardware

• AMD Athlon II X4 620 2.6GHz Quad-Core
• Sapphire AMD Radeon HD 5850 1GB GDDR5
• 4 GB DDR3 1333 MHz RAM
• Logitech MX 518 laser mouse
• 21.5″ Full HD BenQ G2220HD
• F&D A-520 2.1 Speaker Set

Gameplay

So how is this game? Well. Anna to begin with is extremely fluid on maximum settings. Upon starting the game, you can choose one of the presets. The game itself is based on the Unity3D engine, so it isn’t very resource demanding. In my opinion a dual-core and mid-range graphics card would run it without hitches. The movements in the game is fluid as expected, mouse movement is not much off the mark and there is no visible lag upon rapidly shifting the character’s point of view. All points towards good optimization.

The game itself is based on simple w,s,a,d movements, and the mouse. Right and left click of the mouse are pretty much the most important parts of the entire gameplay, including you closely inspecting everything in the game’s environment. The game tries it’s best to make it feel like you are actually there as its happening. After a while you feel desperately hopeless (not lost, as the environments are quite small) having no clue whatsoever as to how to proceed. But it’s not the game’s flaw. It’s the feature that makes this game unique. So don’t stop playing this game if you feel like you don’t know what you’re doing or what to do. The game is designed to make you feel that way. Patience, and careful inspection (yeah, detective style!) is the way forward. And surely, after spending 15 minutes on the 1st scene, I eventually figured it out. It took a lot imagination, and even more of crazy thinking such as “Maybe I should try burning that, no no that doesn’t work” or “I’ll break it open with my knife!”.

The inventory is extremely simple and even simpler to use. Complexity is a part of only some aspects of the game, and clearly the inventory is meant to be easy to use so you can entirely focus at the task at hand, i.e. figuring out where you are, what is happening, and how to get to the bottom of this.

The game has puzzle elements, which can be tricky to figure out. But keep tinkering for more than 10 minutes and you are bound to figure it out. There are only so many combinations of using tools in your inventory to opening a chest drawer isn’t there?

The game does have spook elements. It does feel like a adventure, and horror elements creep in as you are doing everything alone. After a while, you actually feel you are alone in the room and start feeling jumpy. Especially when you see the ghost turning up in front of you. Don’t worry though, she doesn’t bite. But I’ll let you figure that out yourself.

Graphics & Sound

The game does extremely well in environment setting. It manages to make you feel like its happening live and you’re in it! The textures may not be top notch, and there will be sharp lines here and there but the overall effect the game creates at a glance makes you feel your’re playing a high game of high graphical fidelity. On the first level, the extreme brightness of the sun actually makes the place feel surreal, yet it only adds more flair to the graphics.

Another critical aspect of this game is the sound. And to say that the sound is good is an understatement. The game does an exceedingly good job in the sound department, and while moving about you can actually feel the difference in the sound levels coming from the different speakers. It’s like you’re facing sideways to the stream, so only one side hears the noise of the rushing water, which adds a whole lot of realism to the game.

The Good

• Interesting, unique gameplay
• Nicely optimized
• Good graphics
• Neat sound work
• Multiple Endings (3)

The Bad

• Becomes frustrating to figure out, despite the game being that way
• Could have had bigger more dynamic environments
• Plot should be clearer, with more messages
• Lacks a bit on the horror department

Verdict – Good (Rs. 550 or  £6.99)

Overall, the game is pretty good. If you do enjoy adventure games with lots of thinking involved, this game is just right for you. The game cost is pretty reasonable, although due to exchange rates it becomes a bit unfavorable to Indian buyers. Nevertheless, the game is time and money well spent.

You can purchase Anna from the digital store DEUSRA by following the link posted below.

Buy Anna PC Indie game – DESURA

Gallery

Indulge yourself in the screen shots from within the game.

Preetam

Preetam Nath actively follows mobile technology. He has been following computer hardware keenly since 2007, only to start digging more into mobiles ever since the smartphone revolution. Studying his Engineering at MIT Manipal, Preetam devotes most of his time to update himself with the latest happenings in the technology sphere.

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