It's fun how the internet deal with spoilers nowadays. Some people watch hours of theory videos to know as much information as possible before a thing comes out, and some believes the fifth horseman of the apocalypse is called Spoiler. I actually in the middle here: sometimes, knowing a little bit more is important to hook me up into the story, but some secrets are better hidden until it's the time to reveal them.

I started playing CLeM without knowing a lot about its plot and I'm happy the game falls onto the second category. You awake as a plush doll that gained life, with a mission of "bringing beauty" to someone and a strange notebook with the word "CLeM" in the cover. There isn't much in the notebook besides alchemic concepts, symbols and related insects. Now, your goal is to explore the house you are in, trying to understand what it's going on and who you are.

I will not talk much more about the plot of the game, but I can say that I really liked how it develops during each new discovery. New characters are slowly included, things start to get clear with new information... It's not mind-blowing, and I got what was happening a little before the end, but I was intrigued by what's happening. I was a little worried at first because I get scared easily and some imagery can be a little out of place, but there's nothing worrying in this regard.

Well, if I didn't knew nothing about the story, what picked my interest on the game, you may ask? CLeM titles itself as a "puzzlevania": a mix of puzzles and the concept of a metroidvania, an action game with an extensive maze as a map and abilities that helps the player to navigate on it, opening new paths. CLeM has a lot of elements you can see working in this scenario — like magical toys that functions as tools to open locks or reveal secrets — but it fails to bring the same exploration feeling from Castlevania or Metroid.

Truly, the game is extremely linear. Instead of using the abilities and puzzles to naturally unlock parts of the house you are exploring, the plot is divided by well-determined cycles and goals. Once you accomplish the current goal, the plush is sent back again to the place it awakened and a new cycle starts, with a new room open in the house to explore.

You can collect some items that only can be used in future chapters, but there's nothing too much different from other point-and-click games. Exploring the house in this context also didn't get me that feeling of uncovering secrets, and just became a boring and slow backtracking in some parts. There's one puzzle involving books, however, that uses the concept of a connected map so well that I can't stop thinking about the wasted potential of the idea.

BUT if you go to CLeM without expecting this "puzzlevania" thing to work, it becomes an interesting and well-made puzzle game. Some puzzles are more in the veins of adventure games — like finding items in a room to combine them in another room — while others feels like out of escape rooms, with ciphers to decode and patterns to find.

There isn't a proper hint system, but your notebook gets automatically completed with puzzle (and plot) information when you get in contact with objects, being more as a "fast guide" for data you already have. Not that you would need a lot of hints anyway, most of the puzzles have well communicated rules and interesting (but not frustrating) solutions.

It's so interesting to see a team missed their initial goal but creating an incredible experience anyways. For me, a "puzzlevania" is still a good idea that I wanted to see well executed. Even so, CLeM was a really good puzzle game, with enigmas inspired by a lot of different genres. From the one-off inventory combining to the ciphers and patterns, and even coming to the tool aspect of the magical toys: CLeM could have a linear progression, but thinky fun is sprinkled all through it. And the big mystery of all, "what's happening here?", hit me so hard that I needed to finish it in one night. If you are also curious, you may wanna see what's inside the pages of this intriguing notebook.