**DISCLAIMER: THIS GAME DEMO WAS PROVIDED TO US FOR THE PURPOSES OF REVIEW BY THE DEVELOPER FREE OF CHARGE. HOWEVER, THIS WILL IN NO WAY AFFECT THE WAY IT IS REVIEWED. ALL OPINIONS EXPRESSED ARE THE AUTHOR’S OWN.**
This afternoon, I sat down to have a go at the demo of Hidalgo: A Don Quixote’s Adventure. This new title comes to us fresh from Infinite Thread Games’ very successful Kickstarter Campaign, where they reached their funding goal in less than 24 hours. Not only did they meet their original goal, but they have also met five of their stretch goals, meaning they have enough to add a host of other features. This includes voice acting in both English and Spanish.
The attention they’ve received seems well deserved. Not only is their campaign page done to a quality that larger studios routinely fail to reach, but the game seems likely to please fans of whimsy and adventure.
The Story
Hidalgo follows the titular family as they play through the adventures of the slightly insane Don Quixote and his squire Sancho, adventuring through the handcrafted landscape of La Mancha. The Hidalgo family consists of a single parent and her two children, who are playing through this handmade game of theirs.
While not much of the story was present in the demo yet, the Kickstarter page describes the story of a single parent who has struggled to make time for her children. Through playing with their homemade tabletop model, Mama Hidalgo discovers the troubles her children have been going through. At its heart, it’s a tale of a family bonding over these stories and the fun way they’ve found to tell them.
The Visuals
My favourite aspect of the game so far is the visuals. Virtually everything in La Mancha is noticeably made of recycled materials, meant to have been handcrafted by the family. The ground is layers of painted cardboard, the long grass is made of tissue paper, and the buildings are crafted from old boxes and cups. It’s all very colourful and just wonky enough that you can easily imagine two children and a parent managing to make this.
The Gameplay
By controlling either Don Quixote or Sancho from a top-down perspective, you explore the map, solving the problems of the locals for the sake of chivalry and the occasional sheep cheese. You can either play co-op with a friend where you each control a character, or play single-player and swap between the characters as needed.
Both characters are necessary for the puzzles you’ll find throughout, as certain obstacles can only be solved with the correct character. For example, only Sancho on his trusty donkey Rucio can move heavy objects that you might find in your way. Similarly, you’ll need Don Quixote’s delusional imagination when you reach viewpoints. Here you’re switched to see through his point of view, where you’ll be tasked with looking for items to open your way or positioning parts of the environment together to fit Quixote’s delusions.
The example of this in the demo is when you position a windmill and a crystal ball that’s not even on the table to look like a giant, which then comes to life for you to fight. The fight was pretty easy. It’s your standard dodge-attacks-and-hit-the-weak-spot boss fight. Unfortunately, I’m not a huge fan of the perspective challenges… or at least this one in particular.
I’m not sure it was just me being dumb, but it wasn’t obvious what I should have been doing. It came to the point where, after 5 minutes of spinning around a windmill, a tooltip popped up telling me that the crystal ball could be a head. I’m not opposed to puzzles in games having some difficulty, but since that’s the first puzzle with a perspective challenge, perhaps they could have made it a touch easier. Perhaps they could add a tutorial-level puzzle of the same kind a little earlier.
In Conclusion
As the game isn’t complete yet, I’m sure many of the problems I came across will be sorted out in the full release. I won’t dwell on them. There are just two niggles I have with the game. First, there’s next to no sound effects in the demo. There is some pleasant music that I’m not sure ever changed track, but no real sound effects. This ends up leaving your actions feeling a little weightless.
Secondly, I got locked inside a viewpoint. When I went back to it after I had already completed the puzzle, there was no way for me to leave. Without the end of the puzzle to take me out again, I was stuck; they need to either lock you out of complete viewpoints or add a way to exit them.
Honestly, these are just the small issues that you’ll find in unfinished games. I can’t particularly hold it against the developer. The game is well presented and shows some real heart. I don’t doubt that once it’s complete with all the stretch goal features, it will be an absolute treat for players. I’ll be keeping a lookout for this when it fully releases on Steam.
If Hidalgo: A Don Quixote’s Adventure has taken your interest, head over to the Steam page and add the game to your Wishlist. I’m sure your support will be greatly appreciated.
