When I learned that Powerhoof—you’ll undoubtedly know them from last year’s masterpiece The Drifter—was doing an early nineties-inspired classic fantasy adventure, I knew I had to play it. I seem to be unable to resist crude graphics and genuine MT-32 soundtracks (by Brandon Blume who also took care of the King’s Quest III Redux track). I presume it was only a matter of time before this one popped up on The Codex. The Telwynium has been out for a while now: Book 1 saw the light in 2021. The full game should come out next year; Dave plans on packaging all four books together in one continuous adventure. Yes, you’ve read that right: the conclusion chapter isn’t here yet. I’ll leave it up to you whether you want to start it at all. If you feel any kind of nostalgia for older Sierra games, you should not wait. In a way, the game feels similar to The Aching: that’s also just the first chapter in a bigger adventure, and that’s also a new game with very authentic old looks and sounds. Except that they’re not similar at all: The Aching tries to be too authentic. In a good way: it’s only a few megabytes and runs on my 30+ year old 486 IBM PC machine. In a bad way: it’s as obscure as its inspirations. The Telwynium does minimise that by bringing simpler, more modern point & click mechanics to an older atmosphere. Book 2, inspecting an item I picked up: 'The hammer is heavy, with a sturdy shaft, and head of black steel.' For example, there are only three ways to interact with the environment: walk (for walking, who would have guessed), look (you know, for, looking, gathering intel?), and interact (pick up, combine, talk to, pull, push, …). It’s not a text parser and there is no need for SCUMM-like action verbs. That being said, there is no in-game hint system of any kind, not even a button to highlight hotspots. Most of the time, that is not a problem, as the areas are small, there are only a limited amount of places you can go to, and most things are fairly distinctly drawn. There are exceptions. I overlooked a corkscrew on a table and a few times a fork in a road wasn’t obvious for me, leaving me to wonder what I’d missed. It turned out to be an entire area. Whoops. There is no moon logic here, the puzzles are simple to mildly challenging, most things make sense, and the maddening pixel hunting a-la Simon The Sorcerer is entirely absent. All in all, mechanically speaking, exactly what I expected from Powerhoof. As Mr. Creosote wrote in his Book 2 review at The Good Old Days: It all comes down to the graphics intuitively conveying visually what may be relevant and what not. It mostly works and the text box descriptions help to understand what it is we are supposed to recognise. I missed a few things that were obviously hinted at during conversation and information conveyed through the environment that I didn’t read well enough. I like it that this part of “old skool” remains very much present: not every game has to be TAB (show hints) and click click done. Book 3, Witt 'finds' Tani (and is thrown in the same prison). Story-wise, again, coming from the guy who came up with the twists and turns in The Drifter, I was happy to discover quite a few here as well. The story is a bit less intriguing perhaps given its generic fantasy setting that reminds me of The Wheel of Time or The Sworth of Truth. Throughout the different books/chapters, you control different characters, but the main protagonist is a young boy who draws a sword from a stone that can act as a talisman to draw Breath and infuse other objects with life. Or reanimate “things”. Which is where things take the wrong turn as he accidentally reanimates the big bad. Even though some plot twists are fairly obvious, I enjoyed the story a lot and breezed through the books in no time. The fact that each book takes a good hour helps. The pacing of each book feels a bit different though, as in the last book you’re controlling Tani, a farm girl who was first kidnapped but now finds herself in a strange city above a swamp on fire, pursuing boring fetch quests in order to brew a potion. When the potion is finally finished, it’s too late: the big bad is getting badder. End of book 3. Oh well. At least the puns and wit uttered by Witt (ha!) and the other characters are very enjoyable. The end of book 2: uh oh, the big bad is about to pick up some kind of crystal. You know what that means: power surge! It bears repeating that the musical score is excellent. I wish there was more: many scenes are silent, but when the twists arrive, the creepy uh-oh music kicks in gear and you know something is going down. What is less excellent is the same problem I had with The Drifter, except here it’s worse: most animations are completely hidden by blackening the screen and having the player read out what’s happening instead. I understand that the budget for these was extremely tight given the first book was conceived during a game jam and polished up in a few weeks. I hope when the commercial release hits Steam this will change but I doubt it. You get used to it, but even when someone is leaving the scene, a black screen is all we get to see. Why? These animations are already in place? Perhaps not in the way Powerhoof wanted them to come out. Or perhaps some of these screens are there to increase the tension. In any case, don’t expect too much from The Telwynium. This feels like a hobby project geared towards retro enthusiasts who miss The Old Days (TM)—and I do—without the polish of The Drifter that was much more carefully put into the market. It’s unfair to compare, I know, since technically speaking, The Telwynium isn’t even on the market: only in three separate downloadable chapters. A black screen with the text 'Otarr doesn't say a word, but stalks back to the campsite, muttering. I love it that people still make games like this: the atmosphere is authentic and the plot twists build up enough tension to make you want to keep on playing even though some of it falls a bit flat. Of course I’ll be playing the concluding chapter as well. No doubt I’ll be playing anything remotely adventure-like Dave puts out in the future. Until then, don’t try to resurrect fallen friends with your Breath. You never know which undead king you might have stirred in the process… Verdict: 3/5—Good. Related games  ▹  The Aching  ○  The Drifter  ○ By Jefklak on 10 September 2026.  Played on: PC  Genre: Adventure  Release Year: 2025  Developer: Powerhoof Pty Ltd  How long to beat: 4.5 hrs