Vesper

Vesper is a charming and smart platform, with lots of good ideas and a stunning design.

Vesper is a highly impressive indie platformer. Its stunning visuals and mysterious game world will likely immediately hook the player, while its gameplay hits a sweet spot that will maintain that interest throughout its short runtime. It may sometimes go into comfortable spaces seen by other games in the genre, but even so there's more than enough flair here to make Vesper worthwhile.

Don't be fooled by the reduced duration of Seven's adventure: after the finale you will be delighted by numerous additions during the second game, and the new awareness gained in the course of exploring Aryish could push you to renew your approach, looking for other avenues. The narration will satisfy the fans of Isaac Asimov's great science fiction, with suggestions of a religious nature that recall the works of Roger Zelazny and Philip Kindred Dick; the possibilities for in-depth analysis offered by the documents then recall works such as The Talos Principle (2014). There remain some small regrets: we would have liked a greater characterization of the inhabitants, robotic and otherwise, of the planet Aryish, and on some occasions the lack of variety of enemies leaves room for a small dose of monotony. Vesper, however, remains a star that shines bright in the sky of Italian videogame development, and which we recommend without reservation.

Contemplative, smart and well design, Vesper is not perfect but will leave you in awe with its art direction and refinement.

Vesper is full of redundant screens that you simply run across, which made the campaign longer but at the cost of watering down the gameplay. In theory, complexity of challenges rises due to introduction of time limits, increasing number of robots and longer escape sequences, but I completed most of the game almost with my eyes closed. It’s a beautiful, atmospheric adventure, but it would definitely benefit from being a bit harder. [10/2021, p.73]