Plot
An estate agency has recently acquired Hawthorne Mansion: a house on an English moor that is rumoured to be haunted, and previous residents supposedly went insane after living there. The player takes the role of an employee of the agency, and arrives at the house to inspect and clean it. The house was built on the site where a 15th century castle once stood, and in the 1920s a scientist named Owen Jugger lived in and studied the house and its haunted past, and then abruptly died. In the midst of cleaning the house, a parcel arrives to the house addressed to Jugger, that has been in transit for 70 years. It contains Jugger's diary, which contains research about a cult that worships the eponymous god Kal, a malevolent god that has been asleep for eons. The protagonist must continue Jugger's work to stop Kal from waking and returning to Earth, bringing about the end of the world. Doors in the house allow the protagonist to time travel to different points in time: the Mesozoic Era, the ice age, a medieval mine, a 19th century ship in the midst of battle, and far in the future. To defeat Kal, the protagonist must recover five crystal shards from five different periods in history, in addendum to a sixth shard included with Jugger's parcel.Gameplay
In contrast to classicDevelopment
''Hexuma'' is the finale of a trilogy of text adventure games about time travel by developer Weltenschmiede; ''Hexuma'' is preceded by ''Das Stundenglas'' (1990) and ''Die Kathedrale'' (1991). ''Hexuma'' was bundled with feelies, including a replica of Owen Jugger's diary, a letter detailing the significance of the crystal shards and the awakening of Kal, and a replica crystal shard. These feelies serve as a form of copy protection as they are referenced in the game and required for puzzles. The DOS version of ''Hexuma'' uses VGA graphics. A sequel to Hexuma was announced to be in development as of December 1992, titled ''Hexuma 2: Dämmerung auf der Höhlenwelt'' (English: ''Hexuma 2: Twilight in the Cave World'').Reception
''Amiga Joker'' gave the Amiga version of ''Hexuma'' an overall score of 82%, noting its fantasy setting as 'dated' but "fun", expressing that "Admittedly, old ruins, strange dimensions and broken rocks are nothing new in adventure games, but the story is full of fantasy, has atmosphere and is fun." ''Amiga Joker'' praised ''Hexuma's'' 'bright' graphics and noted that in contrast to other text adventure games, "the textbox manages to avoid looking ugly and grey". ''Amiga Joker'' praises ''Hexuma's'' music as "harmonious", however they express that in the absence of sound effects, ''Hexuma's'' feelies provide the atmosphere that sound effects would. ''Amiga Joker'' praises ''Hexuma's'' UI, noting the compass as 'convenient' and automapping to be "very good", furthermore calling ''Hexuma's'' controls 'user-friendly', and noting its text input as "much easier to edit than in ''Die Kathedrale''." Amiga Joker concludes their review by expressing ''Hexuma'' to be a 'complete experience', stating that "So what's missing in ''Hexuma''? Well, in ''Hexuma'' there's basically nothing missing, but maybe ''Hexuma'' is missing – in your game collection!" '' Aktueller Software Markt'' gave the DOS version of ''Hexuma'' an overall score of 9.8 out of 12, labelling it as an ''ASM Hit''; it was reviewed by two reviewers: Klaus Trafford and Michael Anton. Trafford praised the game's "many mysteries" and puzzles, as well as its 'intuitive' inputs and UI, expressing that "When you type ommands you can edit individual letters without having to retype the whole thing. he player canre-input previous commands and click important words", and particularly praised ''Hexuma's'' auto-mapping feature. Trafford expressed that ''Hexuma'' improves upon '' Die Kathedrale'', particularly citing its "evidently" improved graphics; Trafford also praised its "great" gameplay & "very extensive" parser, and expressed that ''Hexuma'' is more intuitive than ''Die Kathedrale'', stating that "the common commands from ''Die Kathedrale'' have been optimised." Trafford notes ''Hexuma's'' writing as "casual" and "not as serious as its predecessors", something that they note as a detriment to the game's "eerie" atmosphere. Trafford criticizes ''Hexuma's'' soundtrack, stating that "Not so great is Chris Hülsbeck's music: every world has a different soundtrack, but tracks feel indistinct from one another. In addition, only two tracks are memorable." In his conclusion, Trafford summarised ''Hexuma'' as a "superb German language graphics-accompanied text adventure game that has definitely earned the ''ASM Hit'' star." Michael Anton from ''ASM'' was more critical of ''Hexuma'', criticising its "unoriginal" gameplay and comparing it to '' House II: The Second Story''. Anton criticised ''Hexuma's'' music as being a detriment to the game's otherwise "eerie" atmosphere, expressing that the music quality deteriorated as part of porting the game from Amiga to DOS, and stated that "the translation to PC is sometimes so badly done, that it's genuinely horrible." Anton praised ''Hexuma's'' "especially intuitive" controls, and stated that "for a text adventure it's essentially very good", but noted that he was "irritated" by certain aspects of ''Hexuma's'' gameplay. Anton furthermore remarks that ''Hexuma'' 'feels dated', stating that "the adventure game genre has developed considerably since ''Die Kathedrale'' – ''Hexuma'' unfortunately arrives too late to be revolutionary."References
External links
* * * {{Software 2000 1990s interactive fiction 1992 video games Amiga games DOS games Europe-exclusive video games Single-player video games Software 2000 games Video game sequels Video games about dinosaurs Video games about the paranormal Video games about time travel Video games developed in Germany Video games scored by Chris Huelsbeck Video games set in England Video games set in medieval England Video games set in prehistory Video games set in the 19th century Video games with historical settings Weltenschmiede games