Return to the nation of Vespuccia in Rosewater, an upcoming point-and-click adventure game set in the same alternate history universe as Lamplight City, which I reviewed for MonsterVine in 2018. Unlike Lamplight City, however, Rosewater isn’t a detective game but a Wild West adventure. References to the previous game appear even in the short demo, but the developer has said you won’t need knowledge of Lamplight City to enjoy Rosewater.
You play a woman named Harley Leger, who has arrived at the tiny town of Rosewater to accept a writing position at the local newspaper. Rosewater is pretty empty now that the prospectors that once filled its streets have realized they won’t find any gold there, but Harley hopes it’s the opportunity she needs. After accepting the position, she’s tasked with interviewing a man named Gentleman Jake who is in town putting on a show about his supposed heroic exploits.
Rosewater features a similar point-and-click interface as Lamplight City, where your cursor changes when you hover over a particular object in the environment depending on the actions available to you. If multiple actions are available, you then select one from a list. This felt slightly inconsistent in the demo, however. One area had numerous objects I could either “look at” for Harley’s personal commentary or “ask about” to learn more details from their owner, while another area only had the “look” option available yet sometimes involved Harley asking about them anyway. There also appears to be a more traditional inventory system here, where you select items from your inventory in order to use them.
Numerous dialogue options are available when you talk to characters, although the choices in the demo didn’t seem to influence the story at all; one section in particular that seemed to have multiple paths based on the dialogue options forced me into a specific solution anyway. However, the full game is intended to have puzzles with multiple solutions. The full game will also have voice acting, while the demo does not.
One unexpected mechanic added to Rosewater is a timer for certain choices. In the demo, this only occurs during Jake’s show, where you have a choice of applauding, heckling, etc. A Wild West story like this has great potential for such a mechanic to be used in more dramatic and serious contexts, though, so I look forward to seeing how that plays out in the full game.
After a few simple puzzles and a fight scene, Jake presents Harley with a more intriguing proposition than working for the newspaper of a nearly-abandoned town. He has a lead on a vast amount of hidden gold, and since she can fight, he wants her to join him on the expedition. Harley agrees, and the demo ends as they set out the next morning. That’s right, despite the demo being focused on Harley’s work in this small town, the game’s main story will be a treasure hunting expedition.
While there’s no hint yet if Rosewater will have anything like the light supernatural elements in Lamplight City, and it feels much more straightforward in some ways, its charm and potential is already apparent. The build-up to the treasure hunt works well, and the demo ended at the perfect place to leave me interested in what will come next. I would have liked to see a bit of what the gameplay and flow will be like once the characters are on their treasure hunt, but I’m already intrigued by what has been presented here.
Rosewater is planned for a 2021 release.
