Buy Anna - Extended Edition

The game requires you to input a CD key and create an account in a "Kalypso Launcher" before being able to login and play, and thus joins the unwanted garbage that is U(don't)play, GfWL, Rockstar Social Club, The Black Plague, Ebola and Aids.

Basically you have this adventuregame with a pretty intriguing story and a very cool atmosphere. Sounds like it has a lot of potential right?

But let's talk about the controls. There's idiotic things like not letting you escape out of your inventory by hitting escape. You have to hit "I" again. And then there's the inventory itself. It's very awkward where you have to scroll through a bunch of stuff you have. The interface could use a lot of work.

And now let's talk about "pixel hunting". You know what's frustrating? Going into a dark room with a bunch of items scattered about the room. The thing you want isn't an more noticeable and hidden a certain area and it looks just like all the other stuff you can't click on. So the only way to find it is to move your mouse over every possible item on the screen. Ugh. I combed rooms and missed things before and I had to use a walk through a few times to find things.

And now let's talk about the worst part of the game. The puzzles. Some make sense, many do not. There's a very thin section of wall you need to break through. Maybe use a stone or something? Nope. You have this metal gear piece. Maybe you can use that to break through? It's metal and looks fairly heavy, should bust through. Nope. I have a full canteen, that should be kinda heavy... Nope. Solution? You gotta use a tree branch to break through.

Yes, that makes sense, right? The whole game is full of puzzles that barely make sense. The other use for a tree branch? Knife lodged in a wooden table. Your possible tools to get this knife blade out? Your hands. Nope, you''ll cut yourself, that makes sense. An axe! Let's just chop it out. Nope. A shovel? Maybe you can whack it out or pry it? Nope. Ah ha! A woodworking tool! That's gotta be it. HAHA YEAH RIGHT. Use that tree branch, silly.

Some of the puzzles are just utterly horrible. Good puzzle games, when you figure them out, you go "AHHHHH! That makes sense!" Anna, you can actually play with a walk through and be like "uhhhh, ok, I don't get it but sure whatever. I guess it might make sense maybe?" That's what made the Lucas Arts games so much fun. You might have NO idea how to pass a certain part of the game but if someone tells you the answer or you brute force the answer you think "Oh my god, that makes sense!" I remember in Monkey Island where I couldn't figure out what to trade the head hunter. So I offered him everything in my inventory until it worked. And when the item that worked was offered I had to laugh because it made complete sense once I thought about it. Anna, I used a walk through heavily after figuring out how terrible the puzzles were.

So basically, do not recommend this game in the form it is in now. Now, if they went through and fixed a bunch of things and redid a lot of the puzzles, I think this could be a very good game. It's just fairly minor things that need fixing, but a lot of things. Inventory fix would be very easy and then it's just fixing the puzzles. It almost feels like it would only take a week or two of work to fix the game completely.

It's a shame too because I think the story and atmosphere is great.

Anna is an amazing, yet disturbing experience with a unique and engaging story. The game seems relatively tame when starting in the lush green yard of an abandoned house that doesn't look all that sinister from the outside. However, once gaining access to the inside, things start to unfold that maybe you really didn't want to see in the first place. There a many different puzzles to be solved, some requiring a fair amount of reading various notes and books for the necessary clues and information. The music is fabulous and definitely one of the brightest spots in the game and the supernatural events will test your sanity. There are even several different possible endings adding some replayability.

I did find Anna to be a little on the difficult side as far as figuring out what items were used for what purpose mostly because there are a lot of different items and sometimes the solutions were far from obvious. Then there are the intuitions which I didn't understand at all without finally reading a guide. It also has an intrusive Kalypso DRM installed requiring an e-mail account and password.

Everything told, Anna is definitely a worthwhile chilling adventure that is sure to have you second guessing yourself.

It's a horror game with find-the-right-pixel type adventure gaming. The interface is frustrating and terrible and requires WAY too many mouse clicks to do basic stuff that you do constantly, especially if you have no idea what to do next and are just trying things out. The quality of the sound is terrible, as well, which is too bad because the sounds and narration is a lot of what is creepy about the game. It sounds like they recorded all the voice acting in a bathroom or something. The graphics, especially the grass outside the house, were nice to look at, though, and the music was decent. The story was really disturbing, which is to be expected for a horror game, but dang, this is bad.

Nice graphic at start game then you will be at dark home, but very must green(outside). Not easy gameplay. Scared game ^ ^ Don't play this at night with headphones :D

This game was a huge dissapointment to me. I usually like point-and-click games and am also a fan of horror games, so I assumed that Anna would be a great fit. Boy, was I wrong.
While the game looks pretty and you can feel that is desperetly tries to have a deep, thrilling story, it fails utterly at it. The story is predictable and one that has been told over and over again, in better and more engaging ways. The "horror" is hardly able to amount to slight tension and to top it all off, the music and sound effect is horribly annoying; After 5 minutes in the first room, I wanted to kill the person I was supposed to be reaching and the looping music was driving me mad.
In addition to the bad sound effect/music and a dull story, you have to battle with (often) ridicilous and illogical puzzles and sub-par controls, and to top it all of, you have to log into your kalypso account on startup, of course in addition to being logged on steam.
The only good side I can say about this game is that the graphics and lighting are both fine.
In conclusion, I would say that taking a walk in a thunderstorm with no umbrella, while having to go to the toilet is slightly more appealing to me than to play this game.

• Bad story
  
• Bad puzzle
  
• Bad controls
  
• Bad launcer
  
• Bad experince

I definitely don't recommend this game. The graphics,controls and lighting are really bad. its really glitchy. the solutions to the puzzles dont make sense.

The atmosphere is great, but it's broken and barely playable on Linux, and as such I can't recommend it for the $9.99 asking price.

Plus, the achievements are broken in Linux. You have no idea how much that irks me.

Good atmosphere and story ruined by horrible UI, wonky controls and illogical puzzles. Plus, you have to make an account for that unnecessary "Kalypso Launcher" in order to play the game.
Avoid!

This might be the worst puzzle game I've ever played.
It's presented nicely. It looks very pretty, and It's optimized nicely.
But the puzzles are such ♥♥♥♥ing nonsense to the extent that the first puzzle in the game involves an eye shaped mirror broken in two, and lighting a PINECONE ON FIRE to UNLOCK A DOOR.

So, the game itself was good and it had a decent story. However, it was very short and unplayable. Allow me to explain.
A vast majority of all players experienced the dreadful graphics glitches as soon as you enter the house. It was technicially playable, but it would near cripple my 8 core CPU gaming rig...
I'm not sure if this was ever fixed, but I know I waited 3 months and never got a patch. There was a workaround, but it's not what you think.
The extended edition also includes the option to play the original Anna. This version did NOT have the house bug, but it was almost like playing a different game! The interface, story, and puzzles were very different and had an unpolished feel to it.
So, basically, I never actually finished the extended edition...

Broken at least on Linux, I couldn’t read some documents nor get into the house. Also, I hear there’s some sort of DRM.

It’s too bad because it looks great and could have been a great first person puzzle adventure game.

Technically - has potential but suffers from very poorly optimized performance, extreme frame drops and frequent crashes, even on low settings with a more than capable system.

Gameplay - not scary or creepy at all, basically a glorified hidden object game.

In summary - do not buy even if, like me, you are tempted to pick up another first-person horror experience on the cheap. Stick with Amnesia TDD, Slender or even Penumbra.

Anna is a horror/puzzle/indie game made by Dreampainters and was published by Kalypso. It was then released in 2013.

The game is about you, and you have lost your memory. You are dreaming about a sawmill and the woman of your life. You wake up at this house/sawmill and you must go inside to find the truth about yourself and your dreams.

The game has diffrent endings depending on what you do throughout the game, but there is one absolute final ending. There are also fun achivements to pick up aswell.

I love psychological stories, and this one is a killer. As you progress in the game you unlock intiuitions you can puzzle togheter to get more and more story and get further to the truth. If you dont succeed with every puzzle or if you can't get the intiutions right, you wont get the whole story in the end.

And that bothers me.

I want the story told to me while I get scared in graphical and psychological enviroments. (Which this game have.)
I don't want to puzzle my way through the game. It's a great idea and I think alot of people who play this game loves it because of that. But I don't like it.

Besides from that, I got the whole story and I like it. I also, kind of, like the graphics and enviorment. There are some disscussable events and unshaped, ugly hands or pretty bad voice acting here and there though. The whole games feels very... "Cheap" and they could have put more effort to it and just fix small things to make this game much much better.

There isn't much "horror" in this game either. It is scary rooms and through the whole game you do not feel welcome at all in the house, which I like alot and it's a great experience when there is no jumpscares or scary monsters, just chills down your spine.

If you are a puzzle person who like stories and solving mysteries i think you should play this.
I wouldn't "recommend" this game to anyone though which is why im putting a "No Recommendation" on this game because of wierd graphics here and there and cheap enviorment here and there.
Get it on a sale!

Anna is the game which gives you much more than a standart horror game. First thing if you like Dear Esther than you'll like this game too. Anna's story reminded me usually Fatal Frame 2 Crimson Butterfly because of twin sacrifices and the mask puzzles from the first Fatal Frame. Soundtrack is great but it's too soft for the horror game or mystery game. one of the main soundtrack is very similar with first Risen game. It makes me feel like wandering around and cutting chickens in the Risen :D I seriously recommend this game. I'm sure it's story will catch you.

I keep seeing reviews putting this game down over the DRM that goes out of its way to be non intrusive. Would it be better if it wasn't there? Sure, but it doesn't really detract from the experience much if at all.

As far people claiming how difficult the puzzles are, they must be pretty dull. The puzzles are just challenging enough and they're even spelled out for you in-game. Almost all of the longer more complex puzzles are laid out for you in various books and notes, complete with pictures if you're not much into reading.

This game does a good job of maintaining a spooky atmosphere with a variety of events along with an always present AI that pops up unexpectedly. It has some tasteful jump scares as well as creepy audio that keeps you on edge.

Story isn't bad and it's fun to piece things together to get the true ending. It's not grandiose story, but it's short and sweet.

I don't regret picking this up and I honestly found this much creepier than Outlast, Slender, or Amnesia ever were.

This review will be about Anna - Extended Edition. I also played the original version tho im not going to say anything about it. I mean why play the old version when you can play the updated and polished one?

Story 8/10

The story revolves around a man with amnesia who dreams about an old sawmill in the mountains and a woman he can't forgot - Anna. To find his lost memories, the reason why he lost them and the true identity of Anna, he finds himself at this place again. In order to do so, he's got to solve misterys/puzzles and keep his sanity while witnessing a lot of supernatural phenomena to get his way through all the rooms in the sawmill to eventually find out the truth.

Everything will be told to you through voices you hear throughout the game, books you'll find and read, notes the protagonist will make about certain things and with your own intuition. The Extended Edition has 8 different endings which i'll not put on display here so don't worry about spoilers.
I enjoyed playing this game while discovering all the different endings and making conclusions on what exactly happend there. The story is not made that easy so you don't get bored after the first time playing it because you already know whats going to happen, but also not that difficult that you can#t understand everything. You will have a great time playing this gem if you pay attention and take your time to read certain books/notes you find throughout the game, because this game is certainly not something you can rush through and expect to understand everything. I enjoyed the story and everything around it and can only recommend it.

Gameplay 9/10

You see everything from the 1st person view, you have to explore the area and find clues and objects to solve puzzles/riddles in order to progress in the story(If you played something like Amnesia you will have a better image of what i mean). Theres no healthbar in the game so you basically can't die, but theres a bar that shows you your sanity.
Meaning if you witness to many harmfull events, the game will end with a rather unsatisfying ending, depending on how far you got.

the gameplay is easy to understand so nothing really there to confuse you. The only thing i would have to mention is that in the beginning the controls might feel a bit off when you are trying to use the objects you found and when you are trying to interact with your enviroment, but that will go away after playing for a bit so no serious problem. Only bad thing i would have to mention is that sometimes the phenomena you witness are bugged. Well leaving the 2 buggs i witnessed aside the game has a solid, simple gameplay.

Sound 6/10

Dialogs are voiced really good, everything is easy understandable and just fits the situations. Backgroundmusic and sound effects are not especially good or bad. The game also features different background music while exploring the sawmill.

Overall the music,dialogs sound effects are good. Nothing special that will be stuck in your head but im not going to use that as a negative point for the game. What i really didn't like is that you can easily notice when something is going to happen, because most of the time theres a change in music slightly before something happens. Personally i think that is the worst thing about this game since it takes away the fear, which..well.. should be in a horror game

Conclusion 7/10

Taking everything into account im giving this game a 7 out of 10. The story is enjoyable and interesting enough to make you feel like you want to know everything and get all the different endings to find the real truth. Gameplaywise there isn't much innovation but also nothing really bad to say about it.
All in all i had a great time playing this game, playing it multiple times to learn more about Anna and her story. Some of the phenomena scared me for good the first time and some of them even for the second and third time :D. I can really recommend this game for people who like horror point&click adventure games. But don't expect the great horror, if you do, choose something else because this game is focused more on revealing the good story with some nice scare-jumps to push up the mood of the game a bit.

Pros:
>Lighting
>Graphics
>Sound
>Interesting story

Cons:
> Not really scary
> Have to sign up and register to makers of the game to play it.
> Can be very confusing at times.
> Inventory interface is lacking

All in all story is ok-ish but it has been done before, game looks great but just seems boring to me. The puzzles can really cause "WTF?" moments.

Id reccomend it to those who are hardcore fans of this point and click horror genre but if you are not id give it a pass.
You are not really missing much.

4/10

I'm a little torn with this game. When I saw the preview I said, "YES! This looks like some really freaky horror s***!" But when I played it, My first reaction was one of "... Huh... That was a thing, that happened..."

To be perfectly honest, I'm not entirely dissapointed with the game, but I feel like during the development somebody forgot to ask, "Hey, I get that we're working on a horror game but... where exactly is the conciquence?" Don't get me wrong, some legitimately freaky stuff goes on but, it felt more like I was in one of those Haunted House attractions more than playing an actual game. Now I can defend something like Dear Esther utilizing a minimalistic game approach because there was an interesting story woven into the visuals being presented to the player, but this game doesn't seem to really have a story minus "Demons in a shack... maybe?"

I guess it's supposed to be like a 1st person 3D Point-and-click Puzzle adventure, but even then there is a lot of context missing from the puzzles, hell I spent almost an hour trying to figure out how to get into the cottege. If it's on sale and you want a short-lived horror experience then sure, pick it up. Otherwise, it's just kind of "blah" as far as horror games go.

Game is broken and gets stuck every five minutes. It's unplayable. I would recommend it if it actually worked but it's a waste of money.