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About the StoryA mysterious death, a secret to be revealed… and someone who wants to know the truth, at any cost.“Oh, another nice question… Well, look at the glass boxes… look inside them… Many say that the answer is inside yourself. WRONG, my dear. I always say that the answer is inside a glass box. Or… let’s say… a yellow bag. But, unfortunately, we don’t have any yellow bag at the moment…” Game Details
Language: English (en)
Current Version: 2 License: Creative Commons Development System: Inform 6 Forgiveness Rating: Polite Baf's Guide ID: 2817
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Awards
2nd Place - 11th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition (2005)
Winner, Best Story; Winner, Best Individual Puzzle; Nominee, Best Individual PC - 2005 XYZZY Awards
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Member Reviews
| Average Rating:  Number of Reviews: 1 Write a review |
A mystery in which exploration is central, October 24, 2009My main interest is in IF that focuses on the story rather than puzzles. Beyond certainly falls into this category, for playing it is very close to reading a book. I only wish that reader actions had more influence on the story outcome.
Beyond is a mystery story of surprising length. Your main role as reader is exploration, so the ``examine'' command is your friend. Though you can learn enough to finish the story without looking around too much, you'll certainly figure things out sooner if you attend to objects' details. You also might find some Easter eggs. ``Talk to'' probably takes second place, for other characters can tell you a great deal, though not always the truth. You needn't worry about consuming precious turns; the game is usually kind enough to let you take your time.
In a similar vein of politeness, there's a hint feature, cleverly integrated into the storyline so that you don't just get a blurb of text as a clue, unless you're in an interlude between chapters. (Of course, if you're doing a decent job paying attention, you certainly won't need any hints.) As far as I have explored, the hints are usually quite good: enough to give you a vague idea of what you should be looking for without giving much away. At only one point is the hint completely useless, but that's because a real hint would spoil the conclusion that you must come to on your own.
Beyond suffers from misspellings and grammatical errors, but I didn't find them very distracting. Perhaps a more important issue, the tale is darker than it first seems; some parts certainly made me uncomfortable. Like De Baron, it's not for young readers.
Other than that, my only complaint is that I still had questions after the code declared the mystery solved. Your milage may vary.
If you enjoyed Beyond...
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Recommended Lists
Beyond appears in the following Recommended Lists:Xyzzy "Best Individual Puzzle" winners by Nusco
All the games that won the Best Individual Puzzle award, year by year. I'll avoid giveaway spoilers in my comments, but I'll still comment on the type and difficulty of the puzzle. I'll describe the puzzles by my own categories. A puzzle...
Either Interesting or Emotionally Involving by Mark Jones
Works that have either broken conventional IF rules to some degree and have successfully gotten away with it (in my opinion), or involved a good storyline. Coincidentally, these types of games happen to be my favorite games.
Polls
The following polls include votes for Beyond:Games with graphics and/or sound by eyesack
I couldn't find an easy way to search for this, so I figured I'd ask the hivemind: What games use graphics and/or sound to enhance the gameplay, similar to City of Secrets and Necrotic Drift?
This is version 5 of this page, edited by Paolo Lucchesi on 18 March 2008 at 12:31pm. - View Update History - Edit This Page - Add a News Item