Adventure games never died. I feel like I need to say that because this is a point-and-click adventure game, and most reviews of point-and-click adventure games require the author to talk about how the genre "died" and the game being reviewed is "bringing it back." But, they never died in the first place. They just went more niche and were biding their time before re-emerging.

That's exactly what sci-fi/noir hit Gemini Rue did, coming out now for iOS.

About Gemini Rue

Gemini Rue was created by Josh Nuernberger, and was a finalist in the Student Showcase competition of the 2010 Independent Games Festival, then known as Boryokudan Rue. It was pushed to completion and then published by Wadjet Eye Games for PC in 2011, and is now the first of their projects coming to iOS devices, thanks to the recent open-sourcing of the Adventure Game Studio engine.

In Gemini Rue, you play as two different protagonists - ex-assassin Azriel Odin and prisoner Delta-Six. Azriel is on a quest to find his brother, and Delta-Six actually doesn't know what his quest is in the beginning due to a memory wipe. As the adventure continues, their two stories come closer and become intertwined.

The iOS version does not feature any new content compared to the original PC title. The same pixel-art graphics are there, the same voice acting and music are there, and they all look and sound the same way as their PC counterpart. The pixel-art visuals may scare off some more recent gamers that are not used to that aesthetic, but are very well done and detailed given the small resolution. The music is great, but the voice acting and script is a little hit or miss. Outside of Azriel, the inflections seemed very unnatural and forced, and the script sometimes seems awkward, and something that might be better read than said. (Who would ever say "My name is the director" to a recently mind-wiped prisoner, anyway?)

The main changes that were made were in the translation from a mouse and keyboard to a touchscreen device. I played on an iPad 2.

General Gameplay

There are several disadvantages to moving to a single-input method for something that was not designed for a single input method. The PC version allows you to left-click to move and right-click to interact, but on iOS, you can only press, and if you press on an object, you interact it, or if you don't, you walk there. When you interact, you have your inventory and your actions (which include a foot/kick action, proving Azriel has the toughest toes in the universe) in a bigger window than you find on the PC version, but you lose the ability to interact with items in your inventory. This is done by right-clicking in the PC version and allows you to either look at an item (such as an ID card) or use that item on something else in your inventory. In the iOS version, any information or results you would gain from interacting with the item are automatically given to you when you acquire the item.

There IS a welcome addition in the iOS version that was much asked by players of the PC version, and that's about item discovery. You can long-press anywhere on the screen to expose the majority of the clickable items on the screen, or you can drag your finger across the screen to see if there are any interactable objects.

There were a couple of times that my fat fingers just didn't want to cooperate with elements of the scene, and this always seemed to occur during timed events. There is a timed event early on where you are trying to escape an apartment before the Boryokudan (the criminal gang which is a lot more fun to pronounce than should be legally possible) find you, and I was having trouble jumping ledges before they came outside and shot me. Luckily, there's an autosave system that gives me another try immediately, but it felt like I was fighting the interface a lot more on my iPad than I was on my PC.

Combat Gameplay

Gemini Rue also features combat, which was all done with the keyboard on the PC. All the same mechanics are there - going in and out of cover, breathing to steady your aim (for headshots and instakills) and reloading, but instead of having to remember the keypresses, there are tapable icons on the screen. The only problem here would be if you have fat fingers and accidentally tap outside of the bounding box of the icons, or not press them long enough. There was also some rough points during the combat training where I accidentally skipped right past the next line of dialogue because I was busy tapping the shoot button repeatedly.

Because that target DESERVED all those bullets. For real.

Unfortunately, just like in the main PC version, the gunplay, and really the puzzles in general with all their backtracking, just seem to distract you from getting to the next point in the story, which is where you REALLY want to be.

The Verdict

The iPad 2 version was my first journey into the world of Gemini Rue. The game itself is excellent and is well worthy of all accolades, especially for the story. It isn't a very challenging puzzler (unless you're trying to open vents) and the combat difficulty level can be lowered to easy mode for more casual players. I didn't even mind the perspective shifts, since they all occurred at reasonable points in the narrative.

However, I would NOT recommend the iPad or iPhone version as being your first entry if you have a PC that is well enough to run it. This is mostly because the port of Adventure Game Studio to iOS is still in its infancy, and it really, dearly misses having a mouse with multiple buttons. Not being able to double-click to repeat your last action makes for a lot more tapping than you want to do, which will sometimes send your character in weird directions. Perhaps future iterations of AGS will make the games more touch friendly, but right now the effort is admirable, yet not there right now. I've always believed that for a touch game to be truly spectacular, it has to be designed with a touch interface in mind from the start, and not ported over from a mouse.

Gemini Rue is still excellent, and any point-and-click adventure game fan needs to check it out. It's about a 6-8 hour experience, and well worth your time no matter what platform you get it on.

In case you missed it the first two times I said it, the review score below is based on the version played on an iPad 2.

Price: $4.99 ($3.99 introductory price) on iTunes, $9.99 on Steam
Acquisition Method: Promo code provided by publisher, Steam code also provided for comparison