Down in Bermuda
Release Date Developer Publisher 14 Jan 2021 Yak & Co. Yak & Co.
Down in Bermuda is Yak & Co.’s second release, and sadly, it did not impress me as much as their first. Like Agent A, the game revolves around solving puzzles to make progress. Instead of moving around between locations in the first-person, this game gives you a birds-eye view of each island you traverse, helping the main character, Milton, find his way home. In that way, it sometimes feels like a “Where’s Waldo” as you search for puzzles and “light orbs” you need to unlock the gates on each island.
But while some of the puzzles were on par with their previous work, many of them instead felt like a series of levers to pull and buttons to push rather than actual puzzles. Yes, it took some time to “solve”, but it was more about determining the controls than piecing ideas together. It was very reminiscent of Monument Valley, but without the Escherian architecture to give it an extra dimension.
I will commend Bermuda’s character design — the various animals and inhabitants you meet on each island are quirky and comical, but a puzzle game with poor puzzles is hard to make a case for. By the end of the game, I felt like I was going through the motions more than I was solving any real problems and missing those “Aha!” moments from Agent A.