The Great Perhaps lands you back on a destroyed Earth with a time traveling lantern. What is it you will see? What is it you will learn?
The Great Perhaps finds you stranded after a return back to a destroyed Earth. The post-apocalyptic surroundings are the result of natural cataclysms (Mmm, nice and close to home!), and whilst there remains recognizable structures and bones that haven't disintegrated to dust yet, clearly you're not in Kansas anymore.
The foreboding atmosphere will take it's grip straight away with an oppressive soundtrack playing the background and a very apprehensive sounding cosmonaut as your main character. Accompanied by an AI that gives advise, L9, you'll no doubt find that it's you two alone that are going to make your way through some haunting exploration.
The voice acting has it's moments, the protagonist with his some times strange inflections still manages to deliver quite good dialog. Conveying fear and uncertainty aren't always an easy task to do per acting, but he manages to do so, and do so quite well. The AI companion L9 feels a bit more lazy, however, with a--from time to time--immersion breaking text-to-speech voice.
As the gameplay revolves around puzzle solving, most of what you'll be doing is object tagging, where you pick something up, deliver it, or physically toss it around. The puzzles themselves aren't terribly difficult and can get a bit repetitive over time. In fact, the puzzles feel like filler most of the time, to an otherwise interesting story...and it very much feels like the narrative was the important aspect to push, gameplay being a technical "We gotta throw something in". I appreciate the tasks to complete, but there's big parts of me that wish it was solely more of an interactive storybook.
Time travel leaks it's way in by light of your 'magical' lantern, and gives a bit of a creepy effect as you walk through and see bits of future and past live in the light's shadow. I really like this, and paired with the soundtrack, and the narrative, it really does set a spooky tone. I did find myself jumping a few times from sound queues and quick time changes--so you know Caligari Games successfully set the stage.
It's not terribly long, and it's not terribly difficult, but it is a really interesting story and one I think is worth the 'read'. If you're looking for loads of gameplay and tough puzzles to really challenge, probably not the one for you. But if you're looking for a nice way to feel something and hear a great story -- give The Great Perhaps a try.