Trüberbrook (PS4)

Product Information

Hover over the MÖBIUSPALAST sign over to the right. Use the whistle on it to attract the birds and they will move over to the left a little. After the unskippable opening credits, you will be in control of Tannhauser, the protagonist of the story. You will arrive at a bus stop by a lake where you will automatically record Dictaphone Entry 01/36 (Beverly, I have arrived...). You can also interact with the characters by talking to them. This sometimes opens up new interactions such as swapping items and reluctantly handing over your ‘external massager’ to a horny woman… You arrive at the village of Trüberbrook where Dictaphone Entry 02/36 (Arrived at destination...) will automatically record. Walk over to the last building to the right – this door is just past some stairs you will be using soon. Interact with the door in this building to enter the guest house.

Interact with the Reeds to the left of the tree’s trunk and you will collect one of them. Use the Fishing Rod and Worm on the wooden pier to start fishing. You will ‘catch’ a Can Opener.To the right of the barrel is a metal bin and on the right side of the bin is another Bin Lid. Interact with it to collect it. When you can, walk to the right and through to the next area. You can either simply follow the path off-screen or, once you’re close enough, move the cursor over an area right at the edge of the screen and interact with it to automatically walk there. You start with a familiar dark scene. Walk quite a long way to the left to find 4 of the characters around a partially sunken hexagon. Talk to each in turn; they will fade and the hexagon will rise slightly.

The scene will change to the village, with Tannhauser at the window above and just left of the guest house door. Above the steps between the guest house and the movie theatre, there is a clothesline with a Clothes Hanger on it you can interact with to take. Interact with the window Tannhauser is at to return to the room. From the moment you start Trüberbrook, you will be amazed. The way BFT handles lighting, camera angles, movement, and textures are top notch. Multiple times I found myself staring at the screen in amazement. BFT induces feelings of Coraline, Wallace & Gromit, and at times the children’s book series I SPY. All of these are the highest compliment I could give this game. Visually, it’s one of the most unique games I have ever seen. The main town and where you will spend most of your time, aside from the hotel lobby I nteract with the window. That won’t work, but now you can use the Coin to unscrew the barred window. With that done, interact with the Ladder once again to climb out of the cell. To the left of the stairs, you will see a sign over a doorway, MÖBIUSPALAST. Hover over it and use to record Dictaphone Entry 12/36 (Beverly, I discovered...).

Interactive, not reactive

Interact with the 3 glass-like pieces on this side then use the Quantum Discriminator on the portal, this time looking at the central ghostly figure to return inside the bubble again.

The very last person is a man dressed as a sailor standing by a streetlight – you can spot him with a wooden leg. Talk to him.Interact with the Fishing Rod again (it’s on the ground near the boat) to re-collect it, then use the White Towel on the boat. Now use the set of 3 items on Klaus. Once he is down, walk towards Klaus and he will run off into the village. Follow him. Now, look at the Ladder which is leaning against the wall between the bed and the shower. Use the Ladder on the barred window high up on the wall over to the left.

Above the guest house’s door, is a circular antenna fitting you can use the Whistle on. This will attract some birds and Tannhauser will comment on them.

Style

Hover over Tannhauser and interact with him a few times until he wakes. Answers don’t matter during the first round of questions. Here in these mines, there is a portal to other dimensions, called the Saturn portal. That’s where your thief is waiting for you, along with a small twist. This is the climax of the story and soon to be the end. This is where Trüberbrook missteps. If the ending of the game, or the twist, where more substantial it would make the journey feel earned. However, these two things are so inconsequential that the two endings you can choose from almost feel the same. The main character in Trüberbrook is named Hans Tannhauser, an American student of quantum mechanics who has won a vacation to a remote German village. He’s less Gordon Freeman, however, and more Guybrush Threepwood — albeit one that spouts science-adjacent mumbo jumbo every once in a while. Most disappointing of all is that the gameplay itself is merely perfunctory. In motion, Trüberbrook is achingly linear, and relies on a series of barely connected tasks. Almost nothing in the game can be described as a puzzle. It’s more of a pixel hunt, with a contextual interface that does all of the work for you. The end result is a world that’s beautiful to look at, but a game that fails to entertain in any meaningful way.