Author's Note: Here are links to previous episodes of this series:
Preamble
If you are one of the few people who even remember this game before I wrote this blog, then I tip my hat to you. For those unaware, Drowned God is not so much a "cult classic" and more a game that time has forgotten. For reasons we will discuss shortly, the game is essentially abandonware and has ZERO chance of ever getting a remaster or even an official release on GOG. Regardless, the game has a fascinating but lurid backstory, right up until it becomes morally dubious. Its complicated history explains its MANY shortcomings as both an adventure game and a form of entertainment.
First, the game is the brainchild of Richard Horne, better known through their pen name, Harry Horse. Horne was an illustrator, children's book novelist, and political cartoonist who had aspirations of making a video game based on New World Order conspiracy theories. When he initially pitched Drowned God, it was billed as an adaptation of a purported manuscript by English poet Richard Henry Horne, whom Horne claimed was his long-lost relative. However, the manuscript was later revealed to be a forgery, and literature and video game circles blacklisted him as a fraud for over ten years. The situation ruined his reputation, and you would think that would be the end of this story, but it wasn't.
Richard Horne did not give up on the premise of making a video game about his favorite conspiracy theories. He held on to his fraudulent manuscript and pitched it to any publishers willing to listen to him. However, Horne had a problem. While he zeroed in on the theme of Drowned God, he struggled to articulate how it would play or what type of genre it would attempt to emulate. With the release of Myst and The 7th Guest, Horne pitched Drowned God as a sci-fi twist on the CD-ROM adventure game formula to Time Warner, which was willing to overlook his previous failings. We often forget, but CD-ROM adventure games were making the lion's share of income in the PC gaming arena, at least at that point in history. While many like to talk about the avid communities surrounding Doom, Quake, and Diablo II, Myst comfortably outsold all of them by over four million units.
So, Time Warner was champing at the bit to get some of that CD-ROM paydirt and (probably) overlooked Horne's past when they approved his project. However, Time Warner also gave him and the team he could assemble an incredibly tight leash. All reports I read indicated the game was designed, programmed, and tested in the span of about six months and had a budget ranging in the lower six figures. Interestingly enough, the game's art assets, environments, and story were completed before its puzzles. For those, the game's producer, Algy Williams, hired Chris Maslanka, who is more commonly known as the host of the BBC's "Puzzle Panel" program. This creative split poses one of my fundamental issues with Drowned God. The puzzles are all designed by a Mensa-approved game show host. The vast majority rely on pure logic and pattern recognition, which suggests that this is one of the most challenging adventure games I have covered thus far.
During one sequence, I had to turn on a radio, transcribe a message in Morse code, and transmit a message back using dots and dash inputs with the length of my mouse click translating into either symbol. The ones that do not require pattern recognition or transcription are filler puzzles the design team programmed when they realized Maslanka's asking price was rapidly running up their budget. There are a TON of simple sliding-block or number-input puzzles that stick out like a sore thumb in Drowned God. Correspondingly, while some of the puzzles feel married with the theme of the game and its various locations, the vast majority do not. At one point, you enter an Aztec pyramid and play a game of Nine Men's Morris. Speaking of which, you play a TON of board games in place of puzzles in Drowned God, and they all feel incredibly discordant. Ultimately, the game is a mess and an absolute chore to play. Now, maybe you enjoy playing messy games that try new ideas or tackle story concepts rarely represented in video games. Well, even in that regard, I would advise AGAINST playing Drowned God, but not for the reasons you might think.
WARNING! This Game's Director & Lead Designer Committed a Murder-Suicide
Maybe you, like me, read the first part of Richard Horne's early life and thought there was something commendable about their drive and perseverance. Regrettably, the man does not warrant such commendation. On January 10th, 2007, Horne was found dead along with his wife. At the time of the murder, Horne's wife had multiple sclerosis deemed terminal by her doctors. I will not detail what Horne did to her body, nor will I describe what police indicated was the source of Horne's death. I will say that the details are gruesome, and the initial police report classified it as a murder-suicide. Friends of Horne later came forward to suggest he likely suffered from untreated mental health issues. On the other hand, others believe the police report distorted what was present at the crime scene. For this blog, I will indicate that this tragic event is the primary reason Drowned God has become abandonware and that I side with the initial police report.
I want to preface that I committed to playing this game BEFORE learning about Horne's untenable past. In some ways, I regret going forward with my playthrough. As I advanced the story, the narrative's scattershot structure did not feel like something that came from a person in the best mental state. The story itself seeks to represent ALL grand conspiracy theories circa the 1990s. Drowned God mishmashes grey aliens helping the Aztecs with the Knights Templar being the founders of the Illuminati. When the game brought up the assassination of JFK and Project MKUltra, I couldn't help but shout, "OF COURSE!" However, it becomes more incoherent and more uncomfortable as the story progresses. If any part of this game seems appealing to you, I must advise that you use your discretion. Likewise, take note that grand conspiracies are bullshit.
Puzzle Rankings (In Chronological Order)
Binah
The Starting Computer Terminals & Your First Interaction With the Bequest Globe - 2/10 - For this "puzzle," I'll review how you explore the many worlds in Drowned God. You start the game in a circular convention center called the "Bequest Room." After you click a valve and turn on a computer terminal, you are given your "Sacred Number" and "Sacred Symbol," which are different depending on your copy of the game. You need to write these down for later puzzles or risk encountering a fail state. After getting your number and symbol, the game presents the two differing "New World Orders" vying for your favor: the Knights Templar and the Men in Black. Each provides a number you need to input into the computer terminal from earlier to transport yourself into the past.
Nothing here is complicated per se, and the puzzles here serve as your "soft" introduction to your sacred number and symbol, which the game does not do a great job communicating you should write down. However, this game bearing its influences from Myst is quickly apparent before you complete this sequence. You navigate environments using mouse clicks and rapidly transition from one screen to another. The inventory management system is also on par with Myst, with a pull-up menu on the bottom portion of the screen that you can toggle whenever you want. When you need to use an item, you pull up the menu, click the article, and drag it to your intended location, with the game doing the rest of the work for you. You do not need to use a parser or any verbs. Regarding this particular puzzle, the presentation of the competing conspiracies is pleasing, but the execution is "meh." Finally, the terminal you input this information into could be easier to find.
Knights of the Round Table Puzzle - 5/10 - It is worth noting that the four realms you explore in Drowned God are essentially open worlds, and you can complete the puzzles in each realm in any order you see fit. For example, when you first enter the "Realm of Binah," there are FOUR disparate story locations, each with its own series of puzzles. It's awkward and one of the fiddlier aspects of Drowned God. In my case, I decided to head to the home of the Knights of the Round Table. While there, there's one chair that has a series of circles and glowing orbs on it you need to use. Here, you connect all the circles with a line without crossing.
Did I mention how this game hired a professional puzzle columnist? Because if ever there was a puzzle that felt like it came from a New York Times column, this is the one. Needing to check all of the tables to find the one chair with a pattern you need to interact with was tedious. Additionally, the puzzle poorly communicates its directions regarding what the player needs to do with the dots. I initially thought you solved the dilemma by connecting every dot, but you also need a star symbol and a funnel shape to be part of the equation. Otherwise, it is an incredibly uninspired puzzle that does not fit the game thematically.
Man in Black/Mission Impossible Terminal Thing - 6/10 - I did warn you that this game gets weird, right? After watching a few cinematics involving the Knights of the Round, their table gives way to an alien spaceship. Near the spacecraft is a computer terminal where you need to input your Sacred Symbol, but two more fields need inputs before the terminal powers up. The game wants you to remember that you are in the realm of Binah and should select the symbol representing Binah (i.e., a grail). You also need to set the correct year for the third field. The symbol for the realm is easy to figure out, but the game communicates the year and time only twice to the player, which was during the cinematic from earlier. If you forget the time and date, you are shit out of luck.
All in all, this is an odd puzzle to grade. If you do not remember the information from earlier, it is very frustrating. Even if you know the answer, your mileage depends on how much you like clicking on fiddly symbols until you reach the correct solution. Otherwise, you're just looking at this Mission Impossible-style transmitter, not knowing how to get it to turn on. It does not help that all parts of the interface are downright confusing. You need to input your symbol, which is the easiest part, identify the icon for Binah Time (i.e., the grail), which is logical, and finally figure out which red button on the square represents the year. If anything, it is an absurd difficulty spike after the previous two puzzles, but wait, there's more!
Templar Chalice Puzzle - 9/10 - Remember when I mentioned how many of the puzzles were board games? Well, here's the first one of those! After exploring one of the other parts of Binah, you can encounter a drunk Templar Knight. The boozed-up man challenges you to a board game where circles on a table have flames, and as you move a goblet on the table, the fires disappear. The objective is to have your opponent put out the last flame. It's essentially the game Nim, but on steroids as your goblet impacts an X and Y-Axis. There is, however, one issue with this puzzle and Nim in general: If you go first, you can guarantee yourself a victory. Drowned God knows this and even rubs it in your face. The Templar plays first and makes machine-perfect calculations that ensure your first match against him goes in his favor. As a result, you need to win the next two matches as the game is a best-of-three series.
If you are unfamiliar with Nim, the rules for this puzzle/board game are bizarre and inscrutable. Your first match is a forced loss, which leads to more confusion than clarity. Worse, the Templar does a terrible job explaining the rules and even the win conditions. To add insult to injury, the CPU almost always makes the best possible move during the second and third rounds. Overall, this board game is one of the worst controlling puzzles I have ever played. However, I need to emphasize "one of" because there's at least one more board game in Drowned God we need to discuss.
Einstein/Newton Puzzle - 1/10 (***SPECIAL PRIZE***) - Fun fact, I have two "secret" ratings for this series. A score of zero out of ten means I found a puzzle, not just fun but brilliant, whereas a score of eleven out of ten means that I could not solve it without hacking the game. For the few people that have played Drowned God, the Einstein/Newton puzzle is bound to be one of the few things they will recall positively. Here, you enter a room with two talking statues, one for Albert Einstein, and the other is Sir Isaac Newton. When you talk to the statues, each will repeat a sentence, and to the right and left of the sculptures are doors that lead to rooms with different sets of figures that repeat other sentences. The trick is to interact with the busts in the correct order to piece together a metaphysical debate between Newton and Einstein. When you have played the sentences from start to finish correctly, the statues praise your efforts and open the door to the next stage.
This logic puzzle is incredibly well-made, and it almost got my highest score. Piecing together a conversation is a good idea for a puzzle, and the game's production values are stunning. The only issue is that navigating the environment and tracking down the phrases you need is tedious and kind of a pain. There's nothing more frustrating than knowing what word or sentence you need and being confused about where that phrase or sentence might be. Otherwise, this is a pretty stellar puzzle and a gold standard for the genre. Unfortunately, it's all downhill from here!
Star Map Puzzle - 3/10 - After interacting with Einstein and Newton, you make your way to Leonardo da Vinci's workshop. While here, you notice a map of a star constellation and a grid with numbers. At first blush, the grid for the star map is confusing. The trick is to input the numbers in the grid that match the stars in the constellation to make the Roman constellation shape of Sirius Major. This is another innovative puzzle. The only issue is that the workshop is a large environment where you only need to interact with two random parts. There's not enough clear direction from the game that the workbench is connected to the puzzle until well after you unlock the star map. However, once you piece two and two together, it is a clever math-based puzzle requiring you to plot out points in a constellation, which is a bit of a recurring motif in the workshop.
Merlin's Retort Matching Puzzle - 1/10 - This is a simple task. You need to flip around a cube and match two like symbols with each other. It is such a simple task that it feels like something that should have happened at the start of the game. The only troublesome part about this puzzle is its time limit, but it is hilariously easy even with that limitation.
Clock Nonsense At The End of Binah - 6.5/10 - In this situation, you have to travel across the four major set pieces in Binah and find clocks in each location. After you encounter the clocks in each environment, you then click them. The hints for this puzzle are incredibly cryptic, and the solutions are often unclear. Correspondingly, some of the larger environments are confusing enough as they stand, so engaging in a pixel-hunt in them is even more untenable.
Chesed
Stone Tablet Of Horus Puzzle - 6/10 - Upon entering the realm of Chesed, the player encounters a dozen Aztec pyramids as well as a walkway to a submarine. I started with the Pyramid of Horus for my playthrough and then worked my way to the U.S.S. Scorpio. The first thing you need to do at the Pyramid of Horus is to use a tablet at the top of the pyramid to power up its entrance so you can enter it. The only tricky part of this puzzle is how the game does not communicate what the heck you need to do with the stone tablet. For example, I spent seven minutes clicking it and not knowing what I was supposed to do. Again, the open-world structure of Drowned God more often is not a feather in the game's cap, and instead, a demerit. With this puzzle, you are meant to fill in the tablet by clicking blank holes until you create a pattern, but nothing in the game tells you what design it wants you to make. It is relatively simple and impossible to forget once you understand what you need to do. Nonetheless, poor communication on the part of the game makes this sequence a challenging task.
Ball Court Puzzle - 1/10 - You have to roll a ball across the floor of a room until it reaches the other side and creates a leveled playing field. Sometimes, a trap will deploy to throw your ball back, forcing you to try again. I solved it by randomly clicking things and not knowing what I needed to do. Enough said.
Calendar Puzzle - 4/10 - You find a circular table where an Aztec calendar should exist at the top of the Moon Pyramid. You need to scour the entire realm for pieces of this calendar and place them in the correct positions to open the door to the pyramid. The most challenging part of this puzzle is navigating the environment. There are four tablets, and you can only pick them up one at a time. Why place them ten screens away from their input if the tablets were so important? Well, that's just some Myst-ass game design. Which is to say, it's not hard, just tedious.
Nine Men's Morris 10/10 -Fuck this puzzle! Fuck this fucking puzzle! Inside the Moon Pyramid, you discover its inner chambers are guarded by an alien computer that refuses to let you progress any further until you beat it in a game of Nine Men's Morris. For those of you that played Assassin's Creed III or Black Flag, you are very familiar with this board game. With this game, each player has nine pieces, and using the points on the board, try to assemble "mills" or straight lines of three of their color. There are two phases of the game: the first is when players select where they wish to put their pieces, and the second is when players move their pieces from one point to the next. When a player forms a mill, they remove one of their opponent's pieces, and the game continues until one of the players can no longer make a mill. There are a few issues with this puzzle, and for many people who play Drowned God, this and the Morse Code puzzle are the primary reasons they never finish the game. And that's entirely understandable because the game stacks the deck against you in the cruelest and most sadistic ways.
First, the game uses a reasonably above-average A.I. ranging from ~1500-1800 ELO. For those of you who cannot do calculations for games like chess or checkers, your ELO generally ranges from 500 to 800 points. That means the average person is at an over 700 point disadvantage against the starting difficulty. I decided to use an algorithm to highlight why this is an issue. Luckily for me, Nine Men's Morris is what we call a "solved game" wherein the starting player always wins with optimal play. So, I tested the game's A.I. and discovered something pretty startling. After running my simulation, I found that the starting difficulty makes exactly one blunder and then plays machine-perfect moves every single time after that. In this case, to win, you will need to play the best move every single time without blundering.
Nonetheless, the game does throw you one bone. The A.I. gets easier every time you lose a piece. HOWEVER, this assistance is not as helpful as you might think. First, the A.I.'s difficulty resets to its maximum after each game. Second, as is often the case, by the time the game gets "playable," you are already two to three pieces behind, which is an unwinnable hurdle to climb even if the computer blunders repeatedly. Overall, this puzzle is BY FAR the most unfair and fucked up thing I have ever seen in my life!
Body Tattoo Puzzle - 2/10 - After dealing with an ancient board game, you encounter the corpse of a dead alien because, OF COURSE, ALIENS MADE THE AZTEC PYRAMIDS! With the dead alien, you need to use a scanner to locate tattoos on their body which you then input into a nearby computer terminal. This gets a two instead of a one because it has a time limit. If you don't locate the symbols in time, the puzzle resets. Additionally, when you have scanned a tattoo, it does not disappear or get marked. As a result, you end up checking the same symbols more than once. Otherwise, if you liked scanning for resources in Mass Effect 2, this is a puzzle for you.
Morse Code Submarine Puzzle - 10/10 - Foremost, navigating the U.S.S. Scorpio stinks. There are two levels in the submarine, and the monotonous grey and black corridors make it impossible to keep track of where you are going. This issue is incredibly annoying with the Morse Code Puzzle, as you will need to hop from a room with a Morse Code reference guide back to a room with a radio transceiver. I know people "loved" it when I described how I navigated the world of Atlantis, but in this environment, I must insist on providing some clue as to how much of a chore it is walking around in the world of Drowned God. From the submarine's starting engine room, you need to go: Forward-Forward-Forward-Forward-Right-Forward-Forward-Left-Forward-Forward-Forward-Left-Forward-Forward-Forward-Right. If you click an incorrect door or end up in a dead-end, sometimes the game will kill you. No matter, at some point, you end up in the Captain's quarters and find a radio next to a Bible. The Bible is your only hint that you need to input the word "genesis" in the form of Morse Code (i.e., --. . -. . ... .. ...) into a transceiver. The length you hold your mouse click determines if you inputted a dot or dash, and before you ask, no, it does not control well.
There are so many reasons why I consider this one of the worst things I have ever played. First, you need to navigate a labyrinthine submarine environment with many dead ends. Next, you must find the periscope room and observe an actual Morse code translation chart, which the game expects you to write down on a piece of paper. You enter the Captain's quarters, where you find a copy of the Book of Genesis next to a radio. The game wants you to interpret the word "GENESIS" as a significant tell, but it's anything but that. NOTHING in the game hints that this is what you need to do in the submarine. The Bible was just a book for all I knew, and the radio had nothing to with getting out of the submarine. Also, did I mention the controls for inputting the dashes and dots suck?
Rod Of Osiris Puzzle - 9/10 - Hey, do you like high-school graphing problems? If you said "yes," then I have a game for you! With this puzzle, you need to move the Rod of Osiris to the correct coordinates on a 3D grid. You accomplish this by turning dials that move the rod on an X, Y, and Z-axis. There are four knobs to use, and while some only influence one axis, others will move the rod on two. You also have to worry about the mathematical degrees of the rod and what direction it is facing. You have four attempts to move the rod to the correct position before the puzzle resets. Worse, after each failed attempt, the puzzle randomizes the starting position of the rod and the location you need to move it towards to finish it. I want you all to know that I consider myself good to decent at Algebra and Trigonometry, but I wouldn't say I liked solving this puzzle.
Much like the Morse Code Puzzle, the controls are AWFUL! The valves and knobs are fiddly. As was the case before, the game is super unclear how the different values can influence each other. Also, what little input the game provides is not at all helpful. While the game displays blue orbs mapped on 2D graph paper, you need to manipulate an object on a 3D space X, Y, and Z-axis included. This means your primary displays do a terrible job of showing what your inputs are doing to the object. Also, because you only have four tries before the puzzle resets itself, you feel like you are back to the drawing board whenever you need to restart. It is a suck-ass puzzle for sure. However, it's not impossible. It's time-consuming, there's no denying that, but unlike some of the other puzzles in the game, you understand what you are doing and need to accomplish.
Din
Traffic Control Puzzle - 7/10 - It's time for another board game! This time, you need to examine a playing field with green nodes and flick the nodes to move a ball from one end of the board to the next. However, when you click or move towards specific nodes, that changes the shape and routes on the board. I honestly have a hard time assessing this puzzle. At no point did I ever understand what I was doing or how I was influencing the gates when they switched from green to red and vice versa. More fundamentally, I do not understand the rules of this board game. Also, solving this particular puzzle organically is incredibly difficult because you need to use the same track more than once. Finally, you have a limited number of moves, but the game does not manifest your limitations in any way, shape, or form. In other words, it is a hot mess.
Mechanical Door Puzzle - 2/10 - You are stuck in a room and have a chance that one of two doors you can select will either put you forward or send you backward. You need to do this twenty times before juxtaposing to the next environment. Think of this scenario as an adventure game permutation of the repeating corridors in Bowser's Castle in the first Super Mario game. If you pick the wrong route, the game sets you back a level. It is straightforward to solve, but there's something shitty about it being a 50/50 coin flip. Mercifully, the game displays a number for each room you are in, meaning it is easy to track if you selected the right door or not on the previous screen. It is still tedious, and the music in this environment is atrocious.
Carl Jung Memory Machine - 2/10 - You have to fill in pictures on a slot machine and determine which images need to be in each slot. For those of you that have been following this blog, you know I call this a "block sliding puzzle," as you have restrictions on which pictures you can move and where you can move them. It is a puzzle that can be easily solved using brute force. The only complication is that the winning combination is randomized between playthroughs. I got fortunate that my version of the puzzle was hilarious poorly mixed. Nonetheless, I have heard reports that this puzzle can be time-consuming if you are unlucky and have a more complicated series of pictures you need to match.
The Steam Machine Puzzle - GRADE INCOMPLETE - Not sure how to say this, but this puzzle is BUSTED. You are required to go to a mysterious library on top of a power plant. In the library, you read over notes that tell you how to input the correct values on a machine. This is a relatively simple puzzle and, in some ways, novel. HOWEVER, for some reason, one of the parts of the notes is incorrect. The notes say that one valve on the steam machine you are trying to fix needs to be set to four, BUT the game ACTUALLY needs you to put it to five. Thus, the game FUCKING LIES TO YOU!Every guide I consulted points this out as a bug that somehow got past QA testing.
Regardless, this flaw is entirely unacceptable. As such, I am giving this puzzle an "Incomplete" grade. My reason is that the only way you can solve this puzzle is if you have a guide. Additionally, the puzzle itself is infuriating. The symbols provided in the notes are not a one-to-one match with the ones on the control panel. Sometimes you cannot tell if a button or valve is on because the switches have terrible iconography. Even if this puzzle was not broken, it would rank high on my scale.
Getting Out Of Din - 7/10 - After you enter a hacker's room, you are forced into a labyrinthine sequence of events to get out of Din. The first involves navigating back to a subway system and knowing which environments in the realm of Din have one-off items and objects needed to complete the game. It is worth noting that exploring the levels of Din sucks because they all look the same, and it is easy to get lost. Likewise, the game's line of logic becomes Byzantine to a fault. For example, you first need to spend a Tarot card on the weird steam machine from earlier, but the game never tells you this. Likewise, once you consume this card, you don't know until much later that this adds a new level to the theater, and this location is only accessible by taking an easy-to-miss set of stairs. Additionally, there are a bunch of doors that blend into the walls and are challenging to see. None of the actual puzzles are complex, but it does highlight how shitty it is to move around in this game. I suspect it is possible to solve this sequence through brute force, but only if you are willing to scan every possible screen and click on every possible item, which could take literal hours.
Chokmah
Brain Implant Puzzle - 4/10 - It's another board game puzzle! With this puzzle, you need to play a game of tag with a computer. The trick to this puzzle is to cause the A.I. to derp. In this case, you control an eyeball, and the A.I. controls the other eyeball, and you need to "capture" the A.I. The computer's movement dictates they always leap to the same color as you. Therefore, unless you do something "special," your opponent will always be at least two nodes away from you. Thus, the trick is to spin around in a circle and confuse the A.I. to go near you. Weirdly enough, this course of action reminded me of Blitzball in Final Fantasy X after you take an early lead in the game and can cheese the A.I. by turtling behind a goal. Overall, it is by no means a natural leap to make, but it is far from difficult. Thus, the moderate mark I gave it.
The 1960s Diner - 1/10 - You go to a 1960s diner set in Roswell and need to listen to a right-wing conspiratorial radio program for five minutes until it repeats a phone number. You need to input this phone number to trigger a cutscene. I almost want to give this puzzle a higher score for the mental damage it inflicted on me by making me listen to a wannabe Rush Limbaugh. However, no part of this puzzle posed even the slightest issue.
The Game's Ending - 1/10 - After subjecting you to some of the most fucked up shit imaginable, Drowned God ends with a wet fart. The player returns to the hub world one more time and needs to decide if they want to give a relic from Noah's Arc to the Men in Black, Knights Templar, or Grey Aliens. Each option betrays you and brings forth their version of a New World Order no matter what. The game's message is that you and I can do nothing to stop the New World Order from forming and how "the fix was in" even before the discovery of extraterrestrials. In other words, it's a terrible ending to a terrible video game.
Should You Play Drowned God (Verdict: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO)
I'm not going to mince words here. Drowned God is one of the worst video games I have ever seen to completion. While the game starts innocently enough, with one of the most clever puzzles I have ever seen, the game falls apart within hours. Not only is its story about grand conspiracies a mess, but the design of its puzzles is all over the place. It plays, looks, and controls from top to bottom like a fever dream. Furthermore, there's no coherent thematic with any part of the game. Knowing the circumstances surrounding the game's director is also something that morally I struggled to reconcile.
And as I said on my 2021 GOTY blog, even if you find the topic of extraterrestrials "Ancient Aliens" or interesting, Drowned God has nothing significant to add to the many disparate conspiracy theories it quotes verbatim. At the start of the game, you are in the land of King Arthur, learning about the activities of the Knights Templar. Eventually, you enter a hellscape where Alister Crowley and Carl Gustav Jung talk about the evils of the human subconscious. Next, you discover aliens constructed the Aztec pyramids. It's an encyclopedia of the most contrived interpretations of every possible grand conspiracy. Worse, the game ends in the most unsatisfying manner possible. After splaying out all of its conflicting conspiracies, it completely fails to bring them all together to a satisfying conclusion.
And it's a mean game. The puzzles here feel as if they are designed with malice. There's no justification for making your version of Deep Blue for Nine Men's Morris and forcing general video game players to go toe-to-toe against it. There's no justification for having a puzzle that is busted. There is no justification for having monotonous repeating environments that penalize the player with instant death if they get lost or take too long. Drowned God is a bad video game, and you should not play it. If I could do things over again, I would not play it in a house. I would not play it with a mouse. I would not play it here or there. I would not play it anywhere.
Finally, here's an archive of me streaming the last three hours of Drowned God:
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