There isn’t a lot of dialogue in the game, but the few conversations are often vital to solving puzzles. While not a large part of the gameplay, I was a bit put off by the voice acting. Both the narration during the opening scene and the voices of some characters feature heavy reverberation. I imagine this was done to convey a haunting aspect of these characters, but it feels excessive and often makes the dialogue difficult to listen to. The game is fully subtitled and there is an option to adjust volume, but all audio is connected, so turning one down means turning everything down.

Although the game has an uneasy atmosphere, there’s nothing that should keep the faint at heart from playing. There are plenty of skeletons and creepy crawly critters along with the odd otherworldly creature, but the few startling moments aren’t excessive. On occasion, some characters appear out of nowhere, resulting in a ‘jump out of your seat’ fright. However, if you happen to leave the area where these take place and come back, the same sequence will often play again, taking the scare factor away and adding to the wait time until you can proceed. I did feel some reservations poking around the abandoned town at first, but once I got used to the frequency of scares, I felt a little more comfortable and just enjoyed exploring the different areas and figuring out what I needed to do next. I’m personally not a big 'horror' fan, so this game fit the bill of being occasionally chilling but not terrifying.

Most of the environments are open to you right from the beginning of the game, allowing the ability to explore elsewhere should you get stuck on a particular puzzle. There are a variety of challenges, including standalone logic types like balancing proper weights, plus inventory puzzles (occasionally combining items) and a couple of minigames that aren‘t exceedingly difficult, including one that requires sliding pieces to maneuver a ball from one side to another. None of the puzzles are timed or require good hand-eye coordination, so that’s one fear that can safely be put to rest. There are a couple of puzzles that can result in your death, but the game allows unlimited do-overs.

The puzzles are generally well-clued, though many of the clues are found in the printed journal and other materials that come with the game. Even the game disc is useful for something other than installation, as are those plastic spiders, as they are used to help solve a couple of puzzles. The majority of obstacles are well-integrated into the story, but I found it easy to lose track of what I had and hadn’t solved, which is a good reason to take notes. It’s a shame there’s no in-game journal to help keep track of key details, but it’s all up to the player.

Like many lonely exploration games, Tomb of Zojir’s story often takes a back seat to the gameplay. Part of that is due to so much of the backstory being detailed in the physical extras. There is some reading to do in-game, but it certainly isn’t as extensive as it often is in similar games. So while I quite enjoyed the atmosphere and the overall experience of making my way through the puzzles to the final task, the journey did feel a bit empty, as the elements of the story that are so rich in the external materials were easily forgotten as I played.

Currently available only from the developer's website, Tomb of Zojir isn’t a very difficult game or a particularly long offering, so many players should finish in under ten hours, though as always mileage can vary. Along the way, you also have the ability to collect gold coins which are scattered throughout the environments and serve as part of your final score. At the end of the game, you receive a code to redeem for a bonus game which needs to be claimed that same day. This is a casual game downloaded from the WRF Studios site called Secret of the Idol that basically involves matching tiles. Like other casual games of this type, it’s repetitive but a fun diversion and can be a bit addicting.

Overall, Tomb of Zojir is very similar to its predecessors, continuing the themes of eerie locales, mostly solitary explorations with well-clued and fun puzzles, and not much has changed in terms of puzzle difficulty, graphics, and voice acting. The story this time around does seem relegated more to the secondary materials, and the gameplay is unlikely to dazzle you at many points, but it still manages to provide a solid experience for fans of first-person adventures and the Last Half of Darkness series in particular. And it comes with spiders! I’ll leave it up to you to decide if that’s a good thing.