App Army Assemble: Reviver - "Should you play this time-travelling, narrative-driven puzzler?"

A few weeks ago, Cotton Games released Reviver for iOS and Android, bringing the time-travelling puzzler to mobile. It caught my eye with its distinctive art style, but, sadly, point-and-click adventure games have never been my bad. So, I handed Reviver over to our App Army to see what they made of it.

Here's what they said:

Jason Rosner

I’ve become a really big fan of Cotton Games as of late. They continue to bring some top-notch creatively unique games to the App Store. Not to mention, many of these new releases come to mobile at a fraction of the cost before they even hit Steam. Reviver is their newest point-and-click puzzle-based adventure. There’s a singular focus on the romantic narrative presented right from the start that really helps draw your attention to every single detail displayed on the screen. 

You follow the story of Carlos, and his love interest Felicia, throughout their lives with some really cool gameplay mechanics that follow the concept of the butterfly effect: a scientific concept that describes how small changes can lead to large consequences over time.

In the game, you can directly alter time and space by simply swiping on the screen which not only changes perspectives but also changes the various objects that when pieced together, paint a picture of their evolving love story contained within the likes of diary entries and photos. 

The puzzles can become challenging at times, but luckily there’s a bit of help with hints. The hand-drawn illustrations are really quite beautiful to me, and perfectly fit the themes presented here. If you can afford the time Reviver demands, in the end, you’ll truly feel rewarded.

Mark Abukoff

This is a cute-looking game with the intriguing concept of being able to travel back in time to change the future. And then witnessing the results. Also, the fact that you’re confined to just two rooms, the boy and the girl, makes it more interesting. Really, my only issue is that the hint system is not always there, and very early on you’re given an idea of what needs to happen but no real direction for how to proceed beyond clicking around the room until you find something to do.

And yes, there are always walkthroughs to be found online, but when they’re kind of a necessity, for me anyway, that puts me off the game. It doesn’t have to be simple or easy, but a more robust hint system would be a great help. I love this game for the idea- I’m a fan of time travel stories and games, but the difficulty, in my opinion, would make me think hard about buying the full game. If you’re a fan of challenging puzzlers, you’ll like this. It’s certainly worth trying the free trial.

Torbjörn Kämblad

My first impression is that I have played this game before. Both on iOS and on Xbox as part of Xbox Game Pass. A casual point-and-click adventure across time. Controls well, looks and sounds good but something is lacking.

A well-made game, but I am constantly reminded that it has been made better. Both story and the handling of inventory. The aspect of travelling through time and the story sticks out as a good point. Still, I keep feeling that I have done this before and better.
Hard one to score. Would I buy more episodes after the trial? No.

Robert Maines

Reviver is a puzzler where solving the puzzles drives the story forward. Carlos and his family move to a new village and he makes friends with Felicia. For both characters, you are confined to a single screen each and must find and use objects to solve puzzles and play mini-games. You can also travel between different years and this is important to some of the puzzles.

Now a long game this is not but it is a good-looking game. The music is ok and SFX functional. Due to the nature of the game, you need to do a lot of random tapping on the screen looking for clues and objects but the puzzles are not stupidly hard. Had fun playing this game and revealing the story, going to have to finish it.

Eduard Pandele

Reviver answers the question we all ask at some point: what if we could do things differently and change our lives? Expect a romantic adventure, then, in a classic point-and-click game that also allows you to travel back and forth in time, examining the changes that happen to the two locations on offer (his room and her room, of course) and revert or make further changes. As usual for this type of game, you have to do a lot of pixel hunting, item stacking, item merging and so on - which wouldn't be that bad if the pixels were bigger or if the solutions of the puzzles were more logical.

However, the art is charming, most of the puzzles are nice, and the melodramatic story is emotional enough. I wish the devs would hire a native English speaker to clean up their translation, though. Until then, I can't really recommend this to anyone but the most adventurous puzzle enthusiasts, ready to "play" by going back and forth to a walkthrough to avoid frustration.

Diane Close

This is a time manipulation, point-and-click adventure game. Unlike most in this genre, you are limited to only two rooms. Manipulating the timeline brings the changes you need to find solutions, which updates the diary of our two protagonists to slowly bring them together over their lifetime.

Good:

• Beautiful hand-drawn style graphics, great sound, good music, interesting story
• Wide variety of puzzles, including quick-time events, classic games like Othello, sliders, numeric and piece manipulation, and letter and recipe creation.

Bad:

• Several puzzles are quite obtuse. It’s not always clear what you need to do, and while there are hints they aren’t there for all puzzles. Same with skipping a puzzle.
• There is a good amount of either mis- or poorly translated instructions, which complicates puzzle difficulty
• I found the pixel hunting to be hit or miss, more often miss than I’d like
• Gameplay can be frustrating as some puzzles can be solved by just tapping around randomly

Despite its flaws, I really liked it. The story kept me engaged. Recommended.

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