Munin

Following the old Norse lore and legend, "Munin," which means memory, is a puzzling adventure through the nine worlds of Norse myth, Midgardr, Asgardr, Jotunheimr, Niflheimr, Helgardr, Vanaheimr and others. Odinn's crows, Hugin and Munin, were scouts of the King of Gods. Every night, Odinn would release them from Asgardr to Midgardr to track the movements of progress in man. In attempts to sabotage the rule of his father, Loki, brother of Thor, has transformed the scouts into mortal form. Munin now must travel through the nine worlds as a mortal man to gain back his feathers in a journey to sit upon Odinn's shoulders once again.

In Munin you will move mountains, while dodging boulders like Indiana Jones. You will systematically flood and drain different compartments, one after another, by spinning the sections of the environment to spill fire and water to gain access to new heights and levels where you must grab every feather to continue progressing.

It starts off fairly simple as do most games to get you comfortable with the mechanics and true to life physics of gravity, for example, the elements, whether it be lava, water or stone will react to how you choose to manipulate your environment. If you turn your world upside down the fire will rain down on you like Revelations. The water will run from place to place flooding different compartments to make it possible to swim up to your feathers or clear a path to avoid getting cooked along the way.

Munin is unique in many ways for a puzzle game. Many quick movements and strategizing are needed to get you through some of the later levels in the game and you will find yourself screaming at your computer screen when you realize you made a mistake. You will be dodging obstacles and manipulating the sections of the level to allow you to maneuver Munin away from death from above or below.

Personally puzzle games aren't my niche, but I thoroughly enjoyed Munin to the bitter end. It gets pretty difficult as you progress and it makes you feel clever when you finally overcome the obstacles that have been giving you so much difficulty. Games such as this is hard to rate for the sheer fact of it possessing the content of old Norse mythology, which I always have found very amusing. And for a puzzle game I believe it makes it that much more of an intriguing explanation as to why exactly you are collecting these random feathers scattered about. But overall, this game in a category with every other game of this genre it can be considered as a good game. Unfortunately it’s a fact that Munin lacks an in-depth plot and yet still complicated to understand the plot that is actually given due to the cryptic style of writing and text based storytelling. I believe if the developer chose to add animation between chapters it would make this game raise a good standing.

Rather than providing the extra dynamic of animation in order to tell the story; the creators of Munin distribute a short. Thought it's frustratingly cryptic explanation as to what is going on in a text-based format split between each chapter in an attempt of giving you more of a sense of purpose through play to learn exactly what happens next in the dispute between the Gods. A little more work in the story-telling aspect of the game could have made Munin absolutely brilliant and addictive. Other than that I believe it is very original and I am very satisfied with everything else involved in it. I believe it is available on steam for only $8 and it is worth every penny. I would recommend this game to any and everyone who enjoys puzzles, Norse mythology and those willing to improve their brain function.

Raymon Kass, NoobFeed