bontegames

Hi! I'm Bart Bonte, a Belgian independent game designer and bontegames.com is where I blog about new interesting browser and mobile games. My own games are all in the left column (or at the bottom of this page on mobile). More info about me and my games on bartbonte.com.
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May 26, 2021

imagine [browser]

Search for your missing girlfriend who seems to have disappeared in the paintings of an eccentric artist in the point and click adventure IMAGinE by The Argonauts. Left click to interact, right click to examine, the inventory is on the top edge of the screen. (note: the game takes some time to load and initialize)

18 comments:

Tea said...

Great game! But I'm stuck. I probably need the chameleon for the girl. But how?

Stevens Miller said...

It really needs a way to advance the text manually. Bob takes so long to say anything and the dialogs go on forever.

Anonymous said...

@Tea There is a PDF walkthrough that you will need. The chameleon does nothing.

@Stevens Miller If you click then the text skips ahead.

There are a lot of flaws in the logic and puzzles. Not much of it feels intuitive. However, considering this was made in a fortnight for a competition I'd say they did a fine job.

Tea said...

@Anonymous
A walkthrough? :O Where?

Stevens Miller said...

Thanks, that changes things for the better. Not really my kind of game, though. Nice artwork, I will say.

Jonas72 said...

The walkthrough can be downloaded at the bottom of the game's splash page.

Anonymous said...

I can't see where the walkthrough is

Anonymous said...

the walkthrough is down there, with the game download, same orange button (there are three).
... and this has been a walkthrough to get a walkthrough.

imterriblystucked said...

NICE, BUT
Like one of the comments on the page of the game said: "...At this point it felt just too arbitrary. I feel like there needs to be a lot more description to hint the next steps, for this to make sense".
Some things are meant to be guessed out of nowhere or by chance and some clues become too far fetched. I downloaded the walkthough and it turned out that it was a 21-page PDF document. Great.

One example of a far fetched action: SPOILER ALERT...getting the resin from the jungle, the magnifying glass from the lady (after many other actions), having to put the resin in the plunger, having to MELT the resin with the magnifying glass with the SUN from the little girl's drawing, having to move the black rectangle with the molten resin and the plunger... Come on...

I get the effort of creating the awesome sountrack, and the art of the game is beautiful, but the gameplay... leaves room for improvement.

isnahansi said...

The game does not save. I am feeling bored, starting all over again..... Even when I use the save button, and it shows the timestamp under the frame, I cannot load the game next time I want to proceed :-(

Calli Arcale said...

I downloaded the walkthrough, but I've run into bugs twice now that make it unplayable. I started twice, but even with a walkthrough, that becomes tiresome very quickly. In one example, the player character began walking at 45 degree angles behind the Mondrian painting, unable to interact with anything other than the painting to return. Upon coming back into the Mondrian painting, it was still borked. My second attempt ended when trying to catch the big fish; I put the bait down, and then the fish came and ate and left before I could get the net up. I still had the bread in my inventory, but it could no longer be placed. It reminded me of the old text-adventure version of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", in which you had to achieve a state of having both "tea" and "no tea" in your inventory -- only in that case it wasn't actually a bug. I'm giving up, even with the walkthrough, which is sad because the game is lovely.

Anonymous said...

That might be a fun game, but the introduction is far too long...

Anonymous said...

Way too long is right. So exasperating having to wait and wait and wait. I gave up not long after that.

Tom said...

@isnahansi I didn't have any problem saving and loading. Just click on the desired save, then click "load" and it should load.

Jeff said...

Pros: Nice graphics and music. Story is ok.
Cons: I would say this is nearly impossible to complete without the walkthrough. By the time you get stuck there are so many possible combinations of things to try that you would have to spend hours to figure out the right one. As the game goes on the number of combinations just increases exponentially. As already pointed out there is not enough context or clues to know what to do next so it's just trial and error.

Some tips if you do play it:
Download the walkthrough, you will need it.
You can left click to advance the text so you don't have to wait for it to auto advance. (Unless this is your character saying No that does not work. Those you have to wait for.)
If you get an item from your inventory stuck in your "hand", wait for the "No" text to clear then right click back on the same item in your inventory to put it back.
You will need to Right click at points in the game but it tells you when.

Anonymous said...

Wonderful adventure game, for free! I love it.
And not a short one: My playtime must have been around 3 to 4 hours.

The only part where i was stuck real bad was the riddle
in the jungle, where you had to turn the tiles of a picture.
This took me a long time to finish, i must admit.
But the idea behind it was

For another riddle it helped me to re-focus after a twenty-minute break.

As it's no story-driven walking simulator, but an adventure game,
i didn't expected to rush through the game, but to get challenged.

I found the solution to that one riddle described above,
rather creative - as "art" and "imagination" are the main themes,
you literally "enter" pictures and use, in case of the example with the sun,
a child's painting to progress on. Saves worked for me, too.

Hope, some fellows will atleast have some fun with game, like i had.
Although i already played through this one, thanks for posting this, Bart.
Always happy about finding nice independent adventure games to play.

Anonymous said...

This game is really hard but awesome !
I've stayed stuck a looooong time with the green riddle (I missed the yellow block) but it was great !

A wonderful point and click.

Thanks

Anonymous said...

imterriblystucked, do you know if it's safe to download the pdf? i'm a bit mistrusted about that. I don't want a virus or something.

 

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