Shardlight

Wadjet Eye Games develop or publish old-school style adventure games made in Adventure Game Studio game engine. As usual, there's plenty of the usual Wadjet Eye voice acting cast, as well as Director's Commentary throughout the game. There are several instances where the voicing for Amy is noticeably different but not sure why this was.

Ben Chandler (who has worked on Wadjet Eye Games in the past like Technobabylon) did the artwork but sounds like he also contributed to the development of the game.

Shardlight takes place after World War 3 although you don't get much world-building from there. There seems a defined class system, dead bodies lay in the ruined streets, and areas are lit with green shards. There's a disease called Green Lung which people require a vaccine (is that the wrong word? isn't a "vaccine" to prevent a future illness, and not cure/slowdown the illness itself?). The government known as the Aristocracy offers jobs in reward for a lottery ticket to acquire a vaccine. You would think the shards would be causing the disease but the source is never explained (a bit weird when the game is called Shardlight and it's not involved in the plot). It's not clear how it is transmitted either. There is a Quarantine Zone as if it is contagious (and one character says he was infected after visiting this area), yet some infected people walk around the populated areas, although a couple of people wear masks, like the lead character. There is a tale of a Reaper who visits the infected at the time of their death, and plenty of suspicious crows are lingering about.

You play as Amy, a Green Lung-stricken woman who signs up for such a job. She goes to reactivate a reactor but finds the previous worker crushed and dying. He gives you a letter to take to Danton, the leader of a rebel group. What I found weird is that when Amy reports back to the governor, Tiberius, she then tells him about this letter she needs to deliver to the rebels. Was that just so the plot can happen?

The director's commentary states that they tried to make the characters more morally grey, so the main villain isn't pure evil and has some good intent. I didn't think it was convincing though, although Danton probably was a bit too blood-thirsty.

The gameplay is the usual point-and-click affair, so talk to characters, pick up items, combine or use items, with a few puzzles thrown in. I thought it was very linear, there's only short moments with any kind of branching with multiple objectives which is often key to making point-and-clicks feel interesting.

I thought there were many puzzles that were just "use object to extend reach", "use crossbow to hit far object". Then some areas of the game had limited locations and limited items which meant it didn't require much thought to progress.
Some areas I found to rely on pixel hunts - since a few occasions have objects blend into the background, or being quite high up in the scene.

There are some more physical puzzles but some are so simple. One early example is the chalkboard puzzle. You need to acquire some chalk, then work out what you need to draw on the board. Then you need to realise what the clue it reveals is telling you in order to enter the rebel hideout. It seems a contrived puzzle because surely the rebels would just know the code, and there is literally a guard outside who is Amy's friend so he could have just let her in.

There is a train that you come across early in the game. You do enter it near the end, but it seemed to imply something big - but it was insignificant and I thought it could have just been cut.

The end of the game felt a bit rushed. You storm the tower, and you would think it would feel a bit more epic, but it just involves a couple of clicks and some dialog, even the boss doesn't even involve any kind of puzzle or smart dialogue. You do get three options which provide alternative endings.

It definitely has its flaws but it’s just a competent point-and-click adventure.