The city of Neo Berlin itself is a Blade Runner meets Futurama dystopia. You’ll need to swap between both of them often to make progress on Tina’s mission to complete her absent father’s mission to bring a splash of colour back into the world. Tina’s street orphan outlook means she has no such qualms about stealing from folk. This is where the character swap comes in. Unless your budding adventure game fan is already very invested in Encodya’s admittedly unique look, I can’t see it sparking much love for the genre.

Got kids? Show them Chuchel or even Monkey Island 3. In the market for a cyberpunk point and click? Plau Whispers of a Machine, Red Strings Club, or Technobabylon should be your go-to. I got all that upfront because I’d like to spend most of the rest of the review talking about what I liked here. I feel like a cynical monster for not enjoying what is clearly a genuine and sincere passion project. It lacks location variety and feels cramped and rushed despite its standard five hour runtime. The story didn’t propel the puzzles, and the puzzles didn’t pace the story. It references Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle, but the puzzles aren’t clever or playful enough to stand as interesting twists on veteran Lucasarts titles.

It’s colourful and morally simple, but often too obtuse and clunky to feel like a kid-friendly introduction to adventure games. Encodya is a point and click adventure game that exudes so much heartfelt earnestness that I wish I liked it more than I do.

Encodya review