Like many who played it, Shadowgate was one of my fav nostalgic games. It was a game I had spent a good chunk of my childhood going back to from time to time until finally figuring out just how to solve every puzzle and finally complete it.

Fortunately, From Beyond Prologue is neither as obtuse or filled with anywhere nearly as many red herrings. I actually managed to complete it in a single night without any walkthrough. You play the role of some kind of anthropologist off on a far off remote place to study what turns out to be indeed very odd happenings. You start out with a trusty bag full of survival gear, some dried venison, an edison lamp, a fancy breech-loading repeater pistol, rope (because always bring the rope!) and last but not least, your grandfather's hip flask full of vodka from the Old West (Too bad the player wants to save it for a special occasion)

It is a sad thing that your adventure does not start out here... with you imbibing this vial of spirits!

In many ways this game is very simplified from its inspirational predecessor. Typically you cannot interact with most objects if you cannot examine them, and the commands are few. This makes clearing rooms quite quickly and I found I did not miss things usually. Most puzzles are fairly intuitive as well (axes are good for cutting down trees, and generally speaking you do not have to burn up rugs or other weird things to look for hidden keys, you can just 'use' them!)

The game has a nice grisly and macabre style too with the Eldritch theme that rears up every now and then. It's not a scary game really but it is a bit reminiscent of the other Icom Simulations classics.

It's only flaws besides being a bit short are there are a few bugs in which you can interact with items you have already picked up, or do things you should not be able to do. the game will let you interact with items that you are supposed to actually place before you interact with them (such as putting a log in the fireplace and lighting it, you can often just light the fireplace if you have the log in your inv.) It also uses a Unity Wrapper that does not have proper native joypad support (which would have been nice)

If you like the ICOM / Kemco classics check it out sometime. It definitely captures the feel and refines a lot of things. Just know it is a bit short and these games are a bit terse (maybe more than you remember them to be) :)