Truberbrook: A Nerd Saves the World

 PC
User Score
5.0

Mixed or average reviews- based on 32 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7 out of 32
  2. Mixed: 12 out of 32
  3. Negative: 13 out of 32

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  1. Fuz
    Apr 1, 2019
    6
    Oh boy, what a mess.
    The good: the art style is really cool. The photogrammetry is spectacular. I love the characters and their goofy animations (they don't have many, though). But you can see how underfunded the developers were. The locations aren't many and the backgrounds are kind of simple. Lots of rocks and other objects that don't take much to model, I guess. Everything screams,    Oh boy, what a mess.
    The good: the art style is really cool. The photogrammetry is spectacular. I love the characters and their goofy animations (they don't have many, though). But you can see how underfunded the developers were. The locations aren't many and the backgrounds are kind of simple. Lots of rocks and other objects that don't take much to model, I guess. Everything screams, "cheap". Beautiful, though.

    Mechanically, it's kind of bad. There's no real inventory, just a reminder on "i" key (which is also not rebindable... seriously guys?) which means that sometimes you don't know exactly what you're carrying (due to no item description in the reminder) and it means no manual item combination, which happens automatically when you click on the puzzle spot. So, there are a few puzzles that are gonna be solved before you can even think about them.
    The puzzles are pretty much all "meh", quite simple but more than that they're just uninteresting.
    By the way... the telegram "puzzle". Are you **** serious?

    And here's the main point. Well, it's not true that there's no story, it starts interesting too, but it's heavily underdeveloped and fastworwarded a lot, leaving the player just assuming and filling the gaps by himself. The exposition and storytelling are atrocious and there are quite a lot of plot holes and unexplicable writing errors. It's also pretty short.
    I am absolutely sure they started with a way bigger idea and wanted to develop much more of the game's world (and the sanitarium is proof of this), but they ran out of cash much faster than they anticipated.

    The scene after the credits is pretty cool.

    Also the concert is kind of cool and sonds like a Tom Waits song, but it's way too long and unskippable.    … Expand
  2. kraenk
    Mar 17, 2019
    7
    A solid experience with beautiful graphics and nice atmosphere, but nothing to write home about story wise.
  3. TwoEars
    Feb 23, 2020
    6
    The pace is slow, maybe extremely slow, and the story is incoherent and jumps all over the place. Small problems become large... but some big tasks are completed in an instance and with no explanation. The game can't seem to decide if it wants to be a logical sci-fi game, or an esoteric dream sequence game with fuzzy logic. The player can be dumped in completely new locations, via instantThe pace is slow, maybe extremely slow, and the story is incoherent and jumps all over the place. Small problems become large... but some big tasks are completed in an instance and with no explanation. The game can't seem to decide if it wants to be a logical sci-fi game, or an esoteric dream sequence game with fuzzy logic. The player can be dumped in completely new locations, via instant fast travel, and our protagonist doesn't even seem to react or care.

    There is a good game in there somewhere; it has beautiful graphics, good animation, nice ambient music, occasional fun humor, colorful voice acting and not a bad plot premise overall. Sadly it just doesn't add up all that well in the end, it's too incoherent and just doesn't flow that well. This game should have gone through a few more iterations of storyboard drawings before being green-lit for production. And definitely more play-testing.

    One of the main characters also has a bit of a schizophrenic event towards the end. To have one of the main characters so completely shift personality, and without any foreshadowing, is pretty bad writing. I think for some adventure game fans this can be a score 7 type game, maybe even a strong 7. But you have to want to play a somewhat original and slow paced game and be prepared to not think too much and just "go with the flow".

    I would only recommend this game to hardcore adventure game fans who have already played most games on the market, and are looking for something unusual. I believe the game can be somewhat interesting and original to hardcore adventure game fans. But if you don't normally play that many adventure games there are probably 100 adventure games your time would be better spent on than this one.    … Expand

Awards & Rankings

10
#10 Most Shared PC Game of 2019

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
66

Mixed or average reviews - based on 25 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 8 out of 25
  2. Mixed: 15 out of 25
  3. Negative: 2 out of 25
  1. DarkZero
    Oct 18, 2019
    40
    Generally, unless you’re incredibly interested in the spectacular visuals, I can’t recommend Trüberbrook. It feels half-made with large sections being completely disjointed from the plot and rooms, that no doubt took someone a ridiculous amount of time to design, build-out, and paint, having nothing in them, even when it’s abundantly clear that they should have. Perhaps cuts were made to meet a budget or tight Kickstarter deadlines but instead of having a lean 3-4 hour game that shows off what it does best, it drags on for around 6 with a lot of stiff backtracking and filler.
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  2. GameGrin
    Jun 24, 2019
    50
    Unless you’re a die-hard point and click aficionado, it’s difficult to recommend this adventure. One thing is for certain though: It’s not worth its RRP of £24.99.
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  3. PLAY! Zine
    May 13, 2019
    70
    Truberbrook is a fine example of interesting design, craftsmanship, and dedication of the developer. But as an adventure game, it does not do anything overly to new and exciting. The story is fine, characters are interesting and the puzzles can be relaxingly easy or frustratingly unintuitive.
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