It’s time to get medieval with some words! Haimrik brings us a narrative focused text adventure with a twist, and I’m not talking like Zork!
The game takes place in the little village of Estria, part of a land that is being ravaged by a young King Udolf. Udolf has discovered an ancient power, choosing to wield it with his band of Word Warriors to lay waste to every town and village they can. Haimrik, the game’s main character, lives in Estria, and while his dream is to become rich and famous for writing stories, he’s about to become the star of his own.
Gameplay in Haimrik is unique to say the least. Haimrik discovers a book which he can travel into with a little blood sacrifice, but he can also bring things out from within that book. While inside, the words of the story travel by underneath, and this is where the focal point of Haimrik comes into play.
While it’s a side-scrolling game, the heavy focus of the story is what makes this game so unique and fun. Haimrik walking over words within the book is what makes them real, so if he travels over the word soldier, he’ll immediately be staring one down. There are also many words that can be activated, which will come in handy for the game’s combat and puzzles.
Words like crossbow, arrows, and sword are weapons that can be literally born from their word. Other things like water can be used if there’s also bucket available. You can even change the weather going on which can come in handy when certain things need to bloom or be put out. 
While it is definitely an experience that hasn’t been done before, Haimrik‘s novelty wears thin pretty fast. The puzzles never really ramp up in any difficulty, and even the game’s boss fights start off fun and become stale with their repetitiveness. It’s a fun play, combined with a great story, so it’s still worth checking out but it may not be a title to rush for. Interacting with the words of the story has been done before, but I’ve personally never come across it done this way.
Speaking of the game’s words, it was hard to believe the amount of spelling and grammatical errors that you can come across within Haimrik‘s book world. Naturally, no game is going to be perfect when it’s released, but it left the feeling that this book skipped the editing stage before it was published. With a little more polish, and a tad bit lower of a price tag, this game might have glowed a bit more, but as is, this one may struggle a bit to climb the bestseller’s list.
