Marie's not letting any corner of this 2D open world go unexplored!
Treasures Of The Aegean is a Platform Game by Undercoders. It contains elements of Le Parkour, Puzzle Platformer and Roguelike.
One day, at approximately 7:05 AM, a mysterious island just burst into existence of the Santorini Coast. Marie, a treasure hunter who was vacationing in the area, is called about it by her archaeologist friend James. James theorizes that it's the lost land of the Minoan civilization
, which sunk into the sea during the Thera eruption four millenia ago. Said to hold the tomb of King Minos.
Beyond curious to investigate, Marie and James head out to the island to see if his theory is true. From there begins the adventure of a lifetime.
The game was released on November 11th, 2021.
Treasures Of The Aegean contains examples of:
- Advanced Ancient Humans: The Minoan city shows signs of technology far more advanced than what was known to exist during its time, with an actual computer terminal eventually discovered. This is a result of Maria's tablet being sent into the past.
- Alternate History: Actual examples of Minoan history shows in the form of architecture and treasures, which contain descriptions explaining their historical use and origin. At the same time, the Minoans are rather more advanced than history remembers them.
- Autosave: This happens when you see a cloud in the top-right corner of the screen with "Saving" inside it.
- Bulletproof Vest: Marie wears this, thus the armed enemies around the island cannot kill her, just cost her some time. This is depicted in a brief, comic book panel-style cutscene.
- Earth-Shattering Kaboom: The eruption of the volcano causes this.
- Falling Damage: Handled in an unusual way. A brief, comic book panel-style cutscene depicts Marie bandaging up her injuries and standing back up, and a minute is docked from the clock.
- Giving Radio to the Romans: Each loop ends with Marie dropping her computer tablet while evacuating from the island. It somehow gets sent back to 1800BCE, where it is found by King Minos. The entire time loop and the destruction of Earth are eventually revealed to be a consequence of technology designed by the ancient Minoans as a result of this.
- How We Got Here: The game begins with a cutscene of Marie and James being held at gunpoint by a mysterious woman, and it cuts to black at the sound of her pistol being fired. Then it jumps back several hours to when the island appeared that morning.
- Le Parkour: Marie runs, jumps, climbs up walls briefly, jumps off walls, and slides under spaces. These skills are required for getting the trickier treasures that involve a time limit.
- Puzzle Platformer: There are some puzzles to be solved which sometimes require things like reading hints about what switches to press in what order, while other puzzles involve timing-based challenges.
- Ragnarök Proofing: Lampshaded in-game with Marie commenting on how the ancient Minoan machines are still somehow functional.
- Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: None of the human characters have this, not even the Player Character, but eventually Marie encounters ghosts who are aware that they are stuck in a time loop. Some even offer permanent benefits or unlock passages for all subsequent loops.
- Roguelike: Every time the timer runs out, you start over, at a new, randomly chosen location. You do keep any upgraded abilities, all puzzle hints and all of your treasures, but all physical progress on solving the world's puzzles is undone.
- Side View: How the game's viewed.
- Sliding Scale of Linearity vs. Openness: Level 6 on the scale. Players start in randomly chosen locations and can explore freely in any direction. Ultimately, they're required to solve a few specific puzzles to be able to reach the ending, but the rest of the gameplay, including finding the treasures themselves, is totally free-form.
- Stable Time Loop: Not the most stable, but Marie dropping her tablet during the escape, which is then subsequently sent back in time, is revealed to be the direct cause of the time loop. In the end Marie manages to escape the island, tablet in-hand, which seems to end the loop (and also the destruction of Earth).
- Time Loop Trap: As the ghosts remember each loop, they are effectively stuck in this.
- Timed Mission: Each loop is on a timer before the eruption of the volcano, giving Marie (and thus the player) a limited amount of time to explore, solve puzzles and find treasure. Finding treasure increases the timer for subsequent loops.
- Vine Swing: There are plenty of vines for Marie to swing on.
- Wall Jump: Marie can pull these off.
- Written Sound Effect: A handful, due to the game's comic book-style presentation. BANG from every enemy that shoots at you, for instance.
