Mastodon

Review – Rayon Riddles – Rise of the Goblin King

Rayon Riddles game screenshot 1 courtesy of Steam
Review – Rayon Riddles – Rise of the Goblin King
1.5

Platforms: Windows PC, Steam

Game Name: Rayon Riddles - Rise of the Goblin King

Publisher: bitComposer Interactive GmbH

Developer: Lost the Game Studios

Genre: Adventure, Strategy

Release Date: November 11th, 2016

Rayon Riddles – Rise of the Goblin King from Lost the Game Studios

Rayon Riddles – Rise of the Goblin King is a generic comedic fantasy puzzler. Based around the premise of a group goblins escaping an orc prison, it focuses on simple environmental and crafting puzzles, not to mention puns. Unfortunately, neither its puzzles nor its humor are particularly amusing.

Rayon Riddles game screenshot 3, courtesy Steam
Rayon Riddles – Rise of the Goblin King, screenshot courtesy Steam

Gameplay consists largely of rudimentary crafting puzzles. Scrolls provide blueprints for simple crafts, leaving the player to gather ingredients, create simple tools, and figure out where to use them. For the most part, these are fairly simple to parse. Find a lock, get blueprints for the lockpick, gather the ingredients, and you’re done.

As you free additional goblins for your team, you’ll also need to steer them through the prison camp, but the puzzle-solving never gets particularly complex – or frankly all that interesting.

Rayon Riddles game screenshot 1 courtesy of Steam
Rayon Riddles – Rise of the Goblin King, screenshot courtesy Steam

The lack of innovative or challenging gameplay could be more easily forgiven if the game’s humor and presentation were more appealing. Unfortunately, the game’s jokes are silly and simplistic; the titular Goblin King’s name is “Hung Ree,” for example, because he’s fat. Rubber chickens also make regular appearances.

Wind-up Robot Chicken

The game’s graphics are similarly unappealing. The goblins are halfway between cute and grotesque, looking like a hybrid of claymation and action figures rendered in mediocre Unity-powered 3D. It seems Lost the Game Studios were going for comical, but I found the character designs off-putting.

Rayon Riddles game screenshot 2 courtesy of Steam
Rayon Riddles – Rise of the Goblin King, screenshot courtesy Steam

The third-person navigation is similarly mediocre, bordering on motion sickness-inducing in places, and the controls are clumsy and awkward. And that’s not even bringing up the interminable cutscenes and loading screens.

A Riddle Wrapped In Burlap

Rayon Riddles – Rise of the Goblin King had the potential for being a cute fantasy puzzle adventure for all ages, but too much about the game’s implementation just leaves for an unpleasant experience.

[xrr rating=”1.5/5″]

Watch the official trailer for Rayon Riddles – Rise of the Goblin King below: