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Somervilleputs players into the shoes of a father who gains an unusual extra-terrestrial ability in strange circumstances. This ability becomes crucial to navigating the world, solving puzzles, and overcoming obstacles in a tense, post-apocalyptic terrain that sometimes feels a bit like the eerily quiet atmosphere of the A Quiet Place movies. This list contains top tips to help players along their journey and contains spoilers.
11 Follow The Dog And Family For Clues
In the opening sequence of Somerville, it’s up to players to explore the house and figure out what to do, as likely expected from a cinematic platformer experience. However, there are nifty design features that breadcrumb the way for new players in the form of the protagonist’s dog and family.
After playing as the infant, follow the dog outside and pull the lever above the doghouse. The dog then runs back inside with its bowl to the basement, where players must get the dog food and return to the kitchen, where the action kicks off. The mother in the family also points to objects that players can interact with, like the backpack.
10 Interact With And Move Objects To Progress
To progress in Somerville, players need to assess their immediate environment and determine which objects are interactable. Press X on an Xbox controller to pull, push, carry, or turn, like pushing over a wardrobe to escape the collapsed house in Chapter 3 or pulling planks of wood from mine tunnels in Chapter 6.
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Only some objects in the post-apocalyptic game setting are moveable, but they usually stand out with flashing lights or a stand-out color to get the players’ attention, like the yellow handles of turnable wheel systems. Players can often overcome obstacles, complete a puzzle challenge, or open pathways to new areas by interacting with objects.
9 Use The Lights
When the protagonist gets the ability to manipulate light, players can power up lights in the world to solve puzzles and access new areas. Sometimes this involves using the character’s arm to charge objects, like power lines.
In other circumstances, players can physically pick up light mechanisms and drag them to the strange, pixillated alien walls blocking pathways to blast them away using the power of light. Sometimes players must balance this ability with good timing, like when players must move the lamp beside the airplane in Chapter 4 while avoiding getting squashed by the falling debris above.
8 Run & Hide To Survive
In Chapter 4, when players venture into the woods, a purple light from above hones in on the player, who must outrun it as quickly as possible. If players try to escape by climbing over the fence, they die.
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Instead, to survive, players must run and hide in the small tent to the right of the fence until the eerie light leaves, when they can jump the fence and continue the journey. At other points in the game, when running becomes impossible, players must hide in objects rather than run, like tents and even a porta-potty, in order to stay alive.
7 Find The Simple Solution
Sometimes the answer to moving forward to the next area or puzzle is about finding the simplest solution to a problem, often based on real-world physics.
In Chapter 5, players must solve a light mechanism puzzle using two string lamps, but one of the lamps isn’t quite long enough to clear the area at first. To solve the problem, players only need to unwrap the lamp wiring from around the circular stage, which is a common sense, simple solution. The game often challenges players with puzzles that test problem-solving and logical thinking to find the simple answer.
6 Learn Light Patterns
Often, players must watch and learn light patterns to move to safety and survive. Sometimes this is straightforward; for instance, players can learn the timing of the red light that moves from left to right and move when the light is fixed elsewhere inside the tent in Chapter 5.
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At other times, the lights can trick the player into thinking there might be a path ahead. For example, in Chapter 6, when escaping the mines, players can climb a ladder guarded by a creature monitoring the area with a simple red light pattern, but they only need to maneuver to the left by hugging the wall.
5 Stick To The Shadows
As much as players need to watch and learn light patterns, sometimes they need to use shadows to survive. In Chapter 5, players encounter the deadly purple light in a wind tunnel path and must stand in the shadows of 2 large umbrellas to safely move forward. It’s a clever puzzle that adds variety to the puzzles in the game and makes players stop and think.
As long as players hide behind objects or stand in shadows that the light can’t reach, the light cannot destroy them, such as when players descend the highway slope and move around the purple light amongst the shadows Chapter 5.
4 Make Use Of Sidekicks
New players may soon realize that the strange, ball-like tech that sometimes follows the player around is attracted to the strange, light-responsive, pixel-goo that looks a bit like water. Players first encounter these unusual glowing balls in the farm surroundings in Chapter 3 and sometimes need them to get past blocked paths.
Towards the end of Chapter 4, after players cross the lake, they grab a bucket from a wishing well and need to use it to lure the glowing balls towards the blocked path to clear it. However, although these strange, temporary, but powerful tech sidekicks have their uses, sometimes they aren’t needed at all.
3 Look Out For Arrows And Letters
Another way the game helps players decide what to do or where to go is by placing drawings of controls onto parts of the level design. Eagle-eyed players might spot arrows and letters like A and X painted onto walls in the mine caverns of Chapter 6. This gives players a clue as to where to climb and where to pull objects like mine carts and also reminds them what buttons to press.
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Sometimes players can find other types of carefully placed arrows to help lead them toward their goal, like the lit green arrow in the stadium stage area of Chapter 5 that indirectly instructs players to move the camera along the track to the right.
2 Check Head Movements
For players stuck on where to go, another trick is to look at the protagonist’s head movements. Often, the character will look toward the direction players need to venture in, whereas sometimes it’s a simple case of running around an object to progress. It’s a small, subtle head movement, but it can help when lost.
For instance, when players are exploring the woods in Chapter 4, the hero’s head turns towards explorable pathways that might not always be completely obvious from the camera angle, like ducking underneath a log.
1 Timing Is Everything
Some puzzles in Somerville are tricky, especially in Chapter 6, where players swim underwater to move between areas. Some test other skills and abilities in combination with the player’s use of game mechanics, like combining good timing with the fluid and solid switching states of materials.
There is one instance of clever timing and innovative design where the player must use their character’s ability to turn materials into the blue, pixel water substance to swim up. At the top, they must quickly turn the liquid into a solid, then release it before swimming around a corner to avoid getting crushed by the collapsing rocks, making clever timing especially important.
Somerville is available to play on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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