Wandering the streets of Eger is not a chore, of course, as the game is full of interesting places to visit. Dating back through the centuries are many historical buildings such as the Turkish Minaret; the Lyceum-Academy, which contains a huge library and periscope; the Archbishop’s Garden; the Cathedral built in the 1830s; the Turkish baths (my personal favourite place in the game); and even the Castle of Eger. This gothic-styled Castle was originally built in the 1200s, but is most famous for an attack (very important to the game) in 1552, when the Turks were repelled. Interspersed throughout all the cultural monuments are traditional homes and shops and cafes, and the town even has its own McDonald’s. Quite apart from the storyline, the game does indeed do a nice job as a tourist promotion, as the town of Eger is quite lovely and I could see visiting it.

The graphics do a fairly decent job of capturing the appeal of the city. However, each screen seems to have an overly bright quality that washes out some of the colour and detail. This also comes through in the video, which can best be described as faded or muted. This is a small issue, though, as on the whole I think the use of well over an hour of live-action footage in this game is a huge success. It was shot very much like an actual film with characters, locations and objects obviously having been carefully arranged to give the presentation a really natural feel. Even though some of the filmed sequences are quite long, you don’t mind because they are so interesting to watch. However, a quick keystroke lets you jump through a video sequence if you want, which can come in handy when seeing a clip of Jonathan entering the same building time and time again.

Many places in the game feature a pleasant soundtrack of light music that plays sporadically, then fades away. The tunes are quite good, but there is an amazing cacophony of diverse ambient sounds throughout: people eating, talking, walking, and other natural noises of populated areas (a population that is heard more than it’s seen). As you wander the streets, these sounds change to better represent the environment you are in. In a hotel people eat and talk, at a cafe the clinking dishes are moved about, while a city square is replete with the sound of children playing. Combined periodically with the music, I think this is one of the best modulated soundtracks I have heard in a game in quite some time.

The gameplay in Yoomurjak’s Ring is largely inventory-based, so you will pick up items as you move through the story, though interactive locations are limited to key environments, not the numerous stretches of Eger in between. Some items need to be combined to create new objects, but usually you just need to find the right hotspot (door, map etc.) to interact with. Unfortunately, used items don’t disappear from inventory, and other objects like keys have to be used with the proper door each and every time you wish to open it. There aren’t a huge number of articles to carry around, but it would be nice to avoid the clutter and repetition of objects that have served their purpose.

There are also about a dozen standalone puzzles to contend with. I found most of these quite challenging, because there doesn’t always seem to be enough information, exposition, or clues built into the game to solve them intuitively. For at least one puzzle in particular, my issue seemed to be due to a translation problem, as I just didn’t understand what an important clue meant when it was offered, but this certainly is not the case for all the puzzles. A couple others, like a cipher and keypad puzzle, simply rely on players continuing to have faith in being on the right track and keep plugging away without relevant feedback.

In fact, the keypad puzzle to me was the greatest waste of time in the entire game. I have played many games that require players to recreate a series of sounds, which is what you need to do here. The difference is that in other games, the player is given the proper tools to do so. This puzzle isn’t even designed to do that; its central conceit is that you will just keep haplessly pushing buttons while a young boy enters and exits a flat a number of times until suddenly – poof – out of nowhere, Jonathan manages to pull the six-digit code out of thin air. There may have been a way to eventually figure out the code from listening very closely, but it didn’t seem that any amount of extra time would have gotten me any closer to the solution.

And there is a maze. I won’t say much more on this, as it is well known that I think mazes are easy for developers to create, add nothing to a storyline, and are often a pain in the butt for gamers. If you love mazes, please ignore this complaint and enjoy the one here. Other brainteasers in the game like a puzzle involving a brochure are very nitpicky, requiring players to click on the exact right spot to solve. I did this one over and over again, not understanding why I wasn’t getting anything to happen when it seemed I had done everything correctly, so the design here could have made reaching the solution more evident.

The two biggest and most complex puzzles in the game occur towards the end. In a heraldry puzzle, you must put together a family crest based on a poem you find in one of the descendents' homes. This crest is made up of a number of different pieces of heraldic flotsam like tinctures, shields and lozenges, requiring a lot of reading to figure out what goes where and why. This puzzle will take any player a significant amount of time to figure out, though again there is really nothing that happens when you do solve it to let you know your work is done. A book puzzle is even longer and every bit as involved, requiring players to suss out the names of multiple authors based on a series of obscure riddles. I enjoy challenging puzzles, but it’s important that they provide adequate feedback along the way, and at times I felt like Yoomurjak’s Ring came up short in this area.

Along with the interesting storyline, the challenging puzzles will help keep you busy for a lengthy 30-plus hours of game time. There are some people that simply won’t like a subtitled game under any circumstances, but for those with any tolerance of foreign-language experiences, the high-quality acting and fluid film segments give this game a good pace and a natural feel. A few things do get lost in translation, but by and large it is fairly easy to follow along and figure out what you need to do. There are some fairly difficult sections that could have benefited from more clues or guidance, but the in-depth character interaction and cultural richness of the locale make exploring Eger a rewarding experience overall. So if you don’t mind reading (and can handle a sizable download), experienced adventurers will find Yoomurjak’s Ring a solid game that nicely hearkens back to the FMV days of old.

Note: The Adventure Shop is an Adventure Gamers affiliate.