Dimhaven – The Lost Source Review – Plenty Of Sauce

From the creators of Quern is Zadbox Entertainment’s Dimhaven – The Lost Source, a first-person mystery puzzle game where we play as Emily, who travels to the strange island of Dimhaven in search of her uncle, Zack, an archeologist who went missing after travelling there to research their family’s history.

The game begins as Emily lands on the island via parachute, the only way to access it, only to find the once tourist hotspot completely empty. With no employees manning the visa application office, Emily’s first task is to process her own application so that she can bypass the turnstiles and start her search for her uncle. This kicks off the odd world of Dimhaven, with its alternative 1980s setting that feels like some kind of fantasy world. Atop a nearby mountain is a sprawling mansion, bathed in a gorgeous sunset as it overlooks the horizon. Nearby is a small town with European-style architecture, which wouldn’t look out of place in a fantasy game.

There’s a strong variety of creative puzzles, mostly consisting of escape room-style environmental puzzles so that we can unlock doors, power generators, or find tools in order to gradually work our way towards where Zack was staying during his research so that we can finally start investigating his disappearance. To put it frankly, nothing is ever simple in this world; we will spend the majority of the game getting to where we need to be to start our search for Zack.

This isn’t to say that these sections of the game are boring by any means; in fact, I quite enjoyed overcoming each obstacle blocking our path. It did, however, mean that I had forgotten a lot of the story and lore by the time I did get to the point where we properly dove into our investigation.

The photography system is superb and something that I wish more puzzle games would implement. Emily is able to take in-game pictures of clues you’ve found, and not only that, but you can also doodle notes on them and hold them up while working on a puzzle. This was massively helpful, but unfortunately wasn’t always available, especially with puzzles where I needed to interact with an object in my inventory, which was one of the puzzles that most needed this mechanic.

Speaking of which, I did come across a technical issue with this, as there isn’t a zoom in or out function when viewing an object in the inventory. For this particular puzzle, I needed to adjust a key so that it would fit into the shape of the keyhole. But the key doesn’t fully fit onto the screen when looking at it to tweak it, which made this puzzle far more difficult than it needed to be – especially without the help of being able to use the image I had taken of the keyhole. So I needed to constantly readjust the key so that I could look at its different sections, pull out of that screen to look at the keyhole, and then go back in and try to find the part that I was adjusting again because the key’s position had obviously reset.

Dimhaven does have a very strong difficulty curve. While yes, a lot of the puzzles are essentially of an escape room-style, they grow rapidly more complex, and the later ones especially involve quite a bit of math to solve. Dimhaven is an exceptionally challenging puzzle game, even for someone who plays a lot of games within this genre, so I would only recommend it if you are up to that challenge.

Unfortunately, this does have its downfalls, as there were also quite a few puzzles where I felt like the game’s direction was very vague on pointing out what you’re supposed to be doing. It’s one thing for a lot of these puzzles to be incredibly intricate, but it’s another when you’re not sure how the solution is supposed to help and therefore what you should be trying to figure out. In fact, on a few occasions, I did accidentally solve a puzzle, but was unable to work my way backwards to figure out how I was supposed to have solved it.

It doesn’t help that, a lot of the time, the hint system was of no help at all. While it did sometimes offer a gradual reveal of more detailed hints, there were a few times when it would simply say ‘have you looked for everything in that room?’, clearly not registering where I was at in terms of progress for the area I was in.

Despite being a mystery game, I didn’t find Dimhaven‘s story as compelling as I would have hoped for such a gorgeous setting. While I was intrigued by Zack’s disappearance, the resolution felt somewhat half-baked, and the majority of the game’s focus is on Emily’s journey to what should have been the main section of the game. That being said, the mythical atmosphere that the game holds is lovely. With its gorgeous voxel art style, peaceful piano-focused soundtrack, and beautiful scenery – this was the perfect environment for relaxing with a cup of tea and solving some puzzles.

Dimhaven – The Lost Source is an incredibly challenging puzzle game that will appease genre veterans. While its story doesn’t quite hit the way it should after the long build-up, the journey was enjoyable enough that this barely mattered. With stunning visuals, a cozy soundtrack, and plenty of puzzle variety, this is a good choice for puzzle sleuths.

Jess reviewed Dimhaven – The Lost Source on PC with a provided review code. This review is based on the version of the game available at the time of writing and our score will not be changed.