Aside from the sumptuous hand-crafted visuals and a soft spot for unusual puzzlers, I was drawn to Pavilion by the intriguing blurb, which describes the game as a “fourth-person puzzle adventure”. Turns out that’s not as pompous or as nebulous as it first sounds, particularly if you’re familiar with god games such as Populous or Black & White. It simply means that, instead of taking control of a specified character, you indirectly manipulate the behaviour of the game’s autonomous actors through interaction with their environments and the objects that populate them.
It’s this distance from the action that’s at the very heart of and pervades every aspect of Visiontrick Media’s fascinating creation. As a player you’re an unknown quantity, looking down on Pavilion’s enigmatic world from a fixed isometric viewpoint. There are no text tutorials or introductory explanations, other than an unannotated control layout, nor a single piece of dialogue throughout the entire proceedings. Your relationship with the central protagonist, a modern-suited man, remains largely undefined, as do his goals and backstory. And the reality in which he inhabits seems almost as alien to him as it is to you. The only thing that’s clear is that he needs your help.
Pavilion commences with the screen opening like an eye, as it does for every cutaway. Our hero kneels before an altar within a ruined circular temple atop the narrow summit of a mountain. The rain lashes down and lightning flashes, junipers sway in the wind, and wooden furniture levitates all around him. He raises his arms summoning a great ball of light that condenses into a glowing comet. It is through this cursor-like comet that you interact with the world.
From here on in, it’s up to you to guide the man through each of the discrete scenes, the mechanics subtly and gradually introduced to you. It’s a case of patient observation and experimentation, figuring out where he needs to go, what you can and can’t toy with, and how this affects his behaviour. By default, if there is nothing for him to do or the way is blocked, he will move towards and stay beside the nearest source of comfort, usually a brazier or source of illumination, and will recoil at darkness and other things that frighten him.
As such, he can be manipulated into moving where you want him to go by things like ringing bells, moving blocks and platforms, powering up contraptions, and turning lights on and off. In turn, he will mount stairs and ladders, activate machines, search containers, walk over pressure pads, and enter any gateways that happen to be in his path. A typical puzzle, for example, will involve creating a pathway and then luring him onto one or more symbols to create an opening that he must pass through before it closes again.
By successfully tackling these problems you and the man are able to advance through the world. And what a beautifully surreal and fantastical one it is. As I hinted at earlier, the artwork is simply stunning. Evoking the imagery of Dali, Chirico, Escher and the literature of Borges, it’s a mesmerising concoction of impossible geometry, distorted perspective and towering structures layered on top of one another like the tiers of an enormous wedding cake, all in defiance of physics and logic.
Composed of anachronisms and contradictions, it’s a twisting and infinite maze of inseparably intertwined gardens and temples, bells and brass pipes, staircases and ladders, mirrors and grand halls, lakes and caverns, mystic runes and steampunk machinery, giant trees and imposing marble statues. The ruined and incomplete buildings and causeways formed from a mishmash of neoclassical, Gothic, Victorian, art nouveau, and modern architecture; everything overgrown with moss and ivy and interspersed with antique curios.
As you progress through Pavilion’s labyrinthine universe, an ambiguous and interpretive narrative does begin to unfold. Recurring motifs and looping vignettes play out before you and the protagonist. Glimpses into a past or an as yet unrealised future. A ghostly lady in a white dress, sometimes dancing, sometimes playing a musical instrument, always just out of his reach. Her trinkets and personal affects hidden away among the nooks and crannies for our hero to covet and collect. The environments repeatedly punctuated by a modern apartment, a garden pavilion, wedding portraits, wolves, doves and red roses – what does it all allude to? There’s a pleasant and captivating melancholia and sense of mystery to it all, heightened by the wistful music and haunting ambiance.
Sadly, the overall experience is somewhat tempered by the rather pedestrian puzzles. I love the principal and philosophy behind them, but they’re just a bit too repetitive and simple in their design, failing to challenge, stimulate, or reward you enough. At times they feel too much like a means to an end rather than an end in themselves. The mechanics do appreciably expand as you progress, but they never quite reach a satisfying level of complexity or deviousness.
It’s also quite short. I managed to complete the game in around three hours. You can conveniently revisit the levels once completed via the “memory map”, but given their predominately linear nature and an absence of achievements or any indication of the number of secrets to be found (there definitely are some), there’s not sufficient incentive to do so.
In addition, some may take umbrage at the control system. At first, given that essentially all you’re doing is pointing and clicking with the comet, I was perplexed at only being able to use either the keyboard or a gamepad. I do think that with a little imagination, the controls could have been adapted to a mouse as well; however, later on in the game the decision for not doing so does become much clearer. Personally, I didn’t have any issues using a gamepad.
All said and done, Pavilion is still very much a journey worth taking. It’s such a wonderfully enchanting and meditative experience through a unique, beautifully-crafted and evocative dreamscape. I’ve never played anything quite like it. And I very much look forward to the second and final chapter, which will be made available as DLC sometime in 2017.
Pavilion is available for Windows, Mac and Linux through Steam and Humble for £6.99 and is coming soon to PS4 and PS Vita.
Developer: Visiontrick Media
Publisher: Visiontrick Media
Platform: Windows, Mac, Linux
Release Date: 23 September 2016