Phoenix Springs Review: A Surreal Detective Mystery of Old and New Wave Styles

Playing Phoenix Springs feels like David Lynch combined the torn pages of a pulpy sci-fi comic with the storyboards of a bleak noir. Its visuals are stark and ominous, its dialogue presents puzzles, and its haunting choral music sounds like it was recorded in a wind tunnel. It’s a point-and-click game that harks back to the Lucas Arts adventure games of the early ’90s, and while it shares some of the same frustrations, the presentation feels thoroughly state-of-the-art. What starts as a standard detective game – talking to strangers, rummaging through trash, finding addresses found on the Internet – soon turns into something completely different. I’ve finished it twice and I’m still not sure I fully understand what it all means.

Founded in 2017, Phoenix Springs has come a long way. It looks completely different than the initial visuals presented on the campaign website, but for the better. However, it remains faithful to its original assumptions. You play as Iris, a reporter looking for her estranged brother. Shortly after beginning her investigation, Iris’s detective work takes her to Phoenix Springs, a lush oasis set in the middle of a extensive desert. As Iris begins to explore this impossible place, she begins to uncover obscure secrets surrounding her brother’s disappearance.

You’ll look for answers in classic point-and-click detective work. However, instead of a Mary Poppin bag with infinite space for items, you will instead collect words for your mental mind map. Clicking on the environment will reveal clues in the form of words, which can then be used in combination with other elements of the environment to create even more words. For example, if you want to find an author’s book, click on the character’s name in the mind map, then click on the bookshelf in the scene, which will display the titles of the works they have published. This soup of words of places, objects and people resembles a detective board, but instead of a mess of red string and a Sharpie, this mental map is black text on a white background – pristine and minimalist. It’s a great mix of ancient school and modern wave.

Connecting words to objects in the environment makes you feel like a real detective, but often the solutions can turn into satisfaction and frustration. This seems more like a stylistic choice by the creators than random annoyances. However, sometimes it’s demanding to tell the difference between awkward mistakes and intentional design. The puzzles start out with a coherent logic, but as soon as Iris finds the titular Phoenix Springs, the game starts to become more surreal, and at that point the puzzles start to feel disconnected from that logic.

The overall feel of the game doesn’t lend a hand in this regard, with minimal sound and seemingly endless reels of cryptic dialogue making it arduous to find your balance if you get stuck. Fortunately, Calligram Studios has a walkthrough link in the game’s menu, but I prefer the game to communicate with me in a way that better guides me to solutions rather than resorting to a step-by-step guide. I often felt like the game was speaking to me in a language I didn’t understand, which felt poetic most of the time but fell into fortune cookie levels of ambiguity.

Phoenix Springs is a poetic game in every sense of the word, expressing itself in a surreal way and often prioritizing atmosphere over gameplay – which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The matte color palette and mix of 2D and 3D make the entire game look rotoscoped, while odd angles and dramatic shadows create a bold first impression. There are also some striking visual moments: a ritual tree burning, a group of sleep-deprived ravers dancing in an abandoned university auditorium, and a strange machine with a tangle of cables and colored wires that can project a person’s memories onto a screen. In that respect, it’s wonderful and certainly one of the most striking games of 2024.

The game’s narrative highlights this strangeness. Iris (voiced by Alex Anderson Crow) comments on everything you click on, expressing her thoughts, describing what awaits her, and even reciting the words of the characters. All of this is presented in a blunt, nihilistic way, and her worldview is as harsh as the world around her. Her raven hair and no-nonsense attitude make it seem like she stepped straight out of a Humphrey Bogart movie. Even when the story deliberately becomes obscure, the author remains extremely focused, precise and factual. Sure, the solutions to the puzzles could be better signaled, but at least she communicates what may or may not be significant, either by commenting on word combinations, providing useful information, or completely ignoring your rambling guesses with a quick remark. She is a woman who hits the nail on the head and remains a welcome beacon in a sea of ​​cryptic prose and interpretation.

Phoenix Springs feels like a state-of-the-art detective game, regardless of its point-and-click gameplay. As far as spoilers go, it’s about birth, rebirth, memories, technology, and ethics. It also has a certain kind of mysticism to it. You’ll find numbers in rock formations, lend a hand a newborn girl gather her memories, and try to remember the melody the prophet-mechanic sang to you. It’s strange, but everything is baked in with meaning and open to interpretation. Detective games always work with logic and structure – but Phoenix Springs is different. It’s refreshing, if a little scratchy around the edges.

This isn’t a game that you can mindlessly consume and it won’t give you a shot of tasty endorphins in your brain. Phoenix Springs is a game that requires slowing down, and whose intentionality will entice some players and deter others. This way you feel like you are on an island, completely separate. I don’t really understand this story – at least I don’t think I don’t – but that’s the point. The puzzles do cause some frustration, but Phoenix Springs has an amazing point of view and sticks to it wholeheartedly, and that’s something I can fucking respect.

The article was based on the review version of the game provided by the publisher.