Finished "The Hand of Glory", and now it's on to "Roots in the Sky"!

I feel better about the way my own car looks now...

Finished The Hand of Glory in 14,5 hours, which is pretty extensive for adventure games these days. It's proven to be quite a long game but without giving you the feeling it's a long game. Especially when finding out it's actually a two-parter! I was loving it more and more, but there was one minor aspect getting on my nerves: when you're trying to use something in your inventory, and you want to put it back by right-clicking, if you happen to be hovering over a hotspot, Lars will give his description of that hotspot again.

Creepy place, I feel like Indiana Jones and Venice...

The final couple of scenes were over pretty fast. There was a weird spiritual/supernatural scene near the end which I didn't fully grasp, I didn't really have to take action myself mostly, I just had to let it play out. I also lost count of the amount of times I died in this game, but luckily you respawn right before the penultimate moment so you can try to react in the correct fashion again. Sometimes annoying if you have no clue what you're supposed to do, and you only have time to try one thing before you die.

 

Nothing as elaborate as Le Serpent Rouge, but still fun...

I enjoyed how it seemed to try to "copy" some elements from the third Gabriel Knight game, especially Le Serpent Rouge en Sidney. They're not very elaborate parts of this game so I think it's more as little references or homages, but still very fun to do.

Nothing as elaborate as using Sidney, but still fun...

The puzzles are very intuitive, and I kept expecting a new problem to arise right after I found a particular solution. Nothing is easy in this game and will usually take a couple of steps. But because of the limited locations and hotspots (though I did gather quite a few locations on the Italian map) and a good recollection of where you can find what or who, it doesn't take long to figure it all out.

Okay, Alice, hand me that red brick over there, time to draw some voodoo symbols on this crypt!

The Hand of Glory really delivered and it's almost sad to think I waited so long to play this, and even let it pass several times. I'm glad someone mentioned it was worth it and I just had to look past the character design. It's a great story.

Oh, Alice, I'll miss you... Good thing I was able to play with you more...

Now I'm really curious to see what the next game, Roots in the Sky will be like! It'll be released on August 26th, but I received an advanced backer's copy so this is the game I'll be playing next! 

You can find the The Hand of Glory on Steam and on itch.io!

And you can wishlist the second game, Roots in the Sky, on Steam as well!

"The Hand of Glory" is much longer than I thought!

I kinda felt like Tintin in this scene, trying to escape off the Karaboudjan.

I thought I was nearing the end of The Hand of Glory, and then suddenly the credits started rolling indeed, but the game was far from finished! Turned out it consists of two parts - which apparently were originally released separately back in the day - and I had only finished the first part after my earlier investigations. During the credits of part one, I recognized a name: Maxwell Glick! I first saw him in the LonelyGirl15 webseries several years ago, and his character was my favorite! And I just happen to know he's always interested in doing more voice work for adventure games, in case any devs are looking for actors...

I'm a sucker for cute librarians...

I must say the final scenes of part one were a bit rushed. Lars did many things automatically; it would've been better doing them yourself. There was a part where I could finally play as Alice but it was pretty dumbed down; I had to triangulate a cellphone signal on her laptop but it didn't amount to much, puzzles like that could've been made a bit more difficult. The "ending" did give the game an extra dimension, when you realize there's something more going on in this simple kidnapping case, something supernatural. So we're entering the domain of Gabriel Knight a bit.

I'm in Italy during part two of this game!

I'm in Italy now for part two and the game does take on more Broken Sword vibes here. I love how I can finally play as Alice more, that was a really fun part. I hope the gameplay is more balanced here. Not that I don't like playing as Lars, it's just that Alice is there so why not utilise her? Still not sure where it all is leading too, but I'm very much enjoying the game and it definitely doesn't feel like I've almost spent ten hours in this world; more proof of a good game!

Yay, I get to play as Alice!

You can find the The Hand of Glory on Steam and on itch.io!

And you can wishlist the second game, Roots in the Sky, on Steam as well!

Further investigations in "The Hand of Glory"!

I died three times in this room...

Six hours after I started playing The Hand of Glory, so far I haven't encountered anything referring to the title nor the cross in the logo. Whenever I look at Lars, I see Rufus from the Deponia games; there's some similarity in character design, and Rufus would also pronounce his name in that fashion every chance he got.

Devious little puzzle, took me a bit to figure out, but I did it!

I got a few leads since last time and followed them all through. The puzzle are right up my alley, I'm practically waltzing through this game except for a couple of instances, like when getting hold of a certain medaillion proved to be far simpler than what I kept trying to do.

Let's start cooking! Always easy when you have a good recipe to follow! The end result didn't look anything like meatballs, though...

I haven't played as much with Alice as I'd hoped. I thought you'd have to switch between the two characters more often, a bit like with Gabriel and Grace in the Gabriel Knight games, but other than the one time earlier in the game all I do is going to Alice with something I need her to look up online. Would've been fun if you could then do the searching yourself, as Alice.

I hope she'll have a bigger part to play soon...

I just got one big lead which I think I know how it'll help me, so I'm going to check it out right away!

You can find the The Hand of Glory on Steam and on itch.io!

And you can wishlist the second game, Roots in the Sky, on Steam as well!

An older playthrough: "The Hand of Glory"!

Nope, that's not the Cross of Coronado. That one's been in a museum since 1938.

I'm Lars (Lazarus) Bundy, eccentrically dressed detective of the HPD. There's a serial killer on the loose and I have to catch him. A girl is kidnapped and I have to find her. Thus starts the point 'n click adventure game The Hand of Glory. Which has no dirty connotations whatsoever.

Starting out in my fancy Miami apartment! Now if only I could go shopping for new clothes...

There are limited locations and items in this game, so it's fairly easy to solve the puzzles. Common sense gets you far. But one puzzle, involving a particular code, blew me out of the water. Perhaps it's because I did it in different playing sessions, and at the end of my second session I had forgotten a clue from my first session, very early in the game. Should have jotted it down in a notebook of my own.

Meet Alice Sharp. She can Sherlock an NPC just by looking at them with her fancy named abilities...

Lars is an okay character, trying out stuff sometimes gives a funny scene as an easter egg. What did come as a surprise was a second playable character in the form of Alice Sharp, intern at the HPD and helping me out for a bit.

Yay, a map! Always fun... Gives games a big sense of scale.

Curious to see where it all leads to, but for some reason I'm not all that fully engaged in this game, as if there's something off. Not saying it's bad, perhaps it's just the character concepts: some look clearly cartoonish, others try to reach a more realistic human design, still others are a weird mix of both. Backgrounds are nicely detailed, though, and I love being able to read the newspaper every morning (very GK-ish), and I even got a death scene once!

Gabe? And is that the Fig Family coat of arms? #lucydreaming

You can find the The Hand of Glory on Steam and on itch.io!

And you can wishlist the second game, Roots in the Sky, on Steam as well!