Montague's Mount

Montague’s Mount draws you in by creating an eerie atmosphere and a degree of mystery. Some puzzles leave you feeling satisfied, while some have you wishing for a hint system. It looks pretty good, despite some graphical hitches, and it’s backed up by some excellent audio design. There is definitely room for improvement, but it’s a decent debut title from this new indie developer.

Montague's Mount promises a journey through the mind of a tortured man, by the shores of an Irish island and endless emotions. Actually we got an adventure burdened by its design flaws and soft script although it has potential for the future.

At first I was delighted with the dark atmosphere, but it’s not the story of madness that drove me crazy, but pixel hunting, repetitive objects, weak character models and slow movements of the protagonist. [03/2014, p.73]

Montague’s Mount has a fantastic atmosphere, but is too slow to get really creepy. With a mysterious tone, you’ll want to discover it more and more. However, it has too many flaws to be memorable.

Montague’s Mount is a pretty unique experience with a celtic theme and a good atmosphere. The puzzles are somewhat generic, the controls sluggish and the current version of the game is riddled with bugs. But all in all fans of the genre should still find a lot to enjoy here.

The debut installment of Montague’s Mount is very pretty and atmospheric, but the lack of plot, puzzles or scares so far should have you waiting until the next episode before you decide whether to climb on.

A broken 3D graphic adventure.

Montague's Mount is an interesting adventure game with an attractive atmosphere but with a weak storyline and confusing puzzles.

Montague’s Mount really tries to aspire to their level only to fall quite short.

Montague's Mount is a bad graphic adventure plagued by the backtracking and some of the worst bugs seen in recent years.

Montague's Mount is an uncompromising effort to create an illusion of a dark island entrapped in a storm. However, it's forgetting that a game is entertaining if there are compromises. In this case the outcome is frustrating, a drab sloppy thing with crawling bugs along with bad design decisions on the top of it.

The entire time I played Montague’s Mount, I felt lost, helpless, blind, crippled and confused. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make for a very good or interesting game.

Between its lack of polish, its absurd puzzles and its weak writing, there's nothing here to merit a playthrough. Maybe a strong atmosphere can be enough, but it certainly isn't in this case.

I was expecting (and hoping for) a spooky and atmospheric thrill ride, but instead got an ill conceived and unpolished first person puzzle game. The story is weak, the puzzles unintuitive, and the experience wholly unsatisfying. Explorers would be better served travelling back in time and playing Myst, or picking up one of the games I mentioned above. Steer clear of this one.

With senseless puzzles that destroy any potential feeling of accomplishment, incredibly frequent glitches, a total lack of coherent storytelling, boring gameplay and sluggish pacing, there’s not much Montague’s Mount offers that can’t be found elsewhere in a more attractive package.

Just like the island of Montague’s Mount is empty, so too is this game. There’s no substance — just darkness, rain, and the airy affectation of what “emotional” games should be like. But emotions are more than sad-looking photos, plodding pace, quiet narration and soft violin music. In Montague’s Mount, just like that ethereal mountain, emotion is decidedly absent. All that’s left is boredom.

I could bring up a dozen more problems, major and minor, with the game, but what's the point? Montague's Mount doesn't have interesting puzzles or a structure that ties them into a coherent work about mental illness, despite its heavy-handed announcement of that intent. I respect the aim, but the execution is terrible.

Failed attempt at making a game in the vein of Dear Esther. Makes no sense whatsoever and its atmosphere dissolves in a second, being immediately replaced by terrible frustration. [Issue#236]

A haphazard collection of obtuse puzzles strewn about an ill-lighted world that does nothing to call attention to them. While it might be easy to assume these frustrations echo the protagonist's apparent mental illness, PolyPusher Studios utterly fails to teach you about the limits and goals of its own work, and does little to illuminate how its puzzles relate to the real-world experience Montague's Mount tries to evoke.