The Pini Society: The Remarkable Truth Gameplay Video

(Click video screen to start or stop gameplay video)

Uncover the mysteries of a once secret organization.
Group tiles and fill in mosaics.
Play unique mini-games!
Challenge yourself with extreme inlay puzzles!
Can you reveal the truth of this mysterious society?

Embark on the story of one of the world`s most elite and secretive organizations. Founded in 1854 and only recently re-discovered, The Pini Society was responsible for the greatest archeological finds of the last 200 years. Through the game and with your help, you can uncover more of the Society`s secrets. This is the story as it’s been pieced together thus far.

The Pini Society: The Remarkable Truth Screenshots - Click to Enlarge

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The Pini Society: The Remarkable Truth PC System Requirements

OS: Windows XP/Vista
CPU: 1.2 GHz
RAM: 512 MB
DirectX: 7.0
Hard Drive: 99 MB

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Vroya’s Game Review - The Pini Society: The Remarkable Truth

If you’re an ancient history or archaeology buff, or simply love a good challenging inlay puzzle game, The Pini Society: The Remarkable Truth will be right up your alley. Based on the exploits of the real-life Pini Society, a secret organization dedicated to the preservation and protection of valuable historical artifacts, the game lets players follow along on some of the society’s most important missions, learning valuable information along the way.

The Remarkable Truth does a great job of evoking an older time – to be precise, the nineteenth century, when the Pini Society was founded and did much of its most important work – with graphics depicting dog-eared maps, hand-drawn journal entries and diagrams, and vintage exploration equipment like old binoculars.

The story line is just as much about educating the player as it is entertaining them. If you’ve had your fill of cloying, cartoonish characters (like Will from Hide & Secret), then you’re likely to appreciate The Remarkable Truth’s more academic approach.

The game is broken into sections where you retrace the exploits of various chapters of the Pini Society, whose members were active all over the world from Guatemala to Egypt. As you progress you’ll learn interesting facts about some of the society’s more colorful members, like Maudslay, who pioneered the technique used to make plaster casts of artifacts – but who then turned renegade and made sent fake casts to the society, keeping the real ones for himself. At any time, you can go back and read about the information you’ve gathered so far in a journal.

Each section requires you to solve a series of mosaic puzzles where you’re shown an image composed of geometric shapes and you have to fill it in by placing tiles of the correct size and shape in the right places, which you pluck from a row along the bottom of the screen that replenishes itself every time a tile is taken out. It’s similar to the tangram-style puzzles in Arctic Quest but much more sophisticated.

At times it may seem impossible to complete the levels in the required time limit, but it is doable, provided you use your power-ups in the form of symbols and gem tiles. I almost gave up once, but actually found it became simple once I simply concentrated on making the symbols. If you can achieve a certain minimum points total then the rest of the tiles will automatically fill in for you. The goal, therefore, is to rack up as many points as possible by placing special gem tiles, which are worth more, and using other techniques and power-ups.

For example, you can use the workspace to the left of the grid to fit pieces of the mosaic together in advance, then click on the whole thing and drag it onto the mosaic, which greatly increases the number of points you get. There are also power-up meters that, when charged, unleash a special power to help you, like revealing all available spaces to place the tile you’re currently holding, filling in all adjacent tiles to the one you’ve placed, or creating a duplicate tile of your choice.

Filling in certain specific patterns in the mosaic activate special “power symbols,” which also grant bonuses like extra time, or filling in a large portion of the board for big points. As you discover new symbols they’ll be marked in your journal so that you can memorize them and learn to recognize their patterns when they appear in the mosaic. As it stands, unless you’re inclined towards memorization, it’s hard to remember what all the various symbols look like and what powers they grant. Some kind of visual reference on the main puzzle page itself would have been helpful.

The mosaic puzzles are a unique game mechanic, but even veteran puzzle fans will probably find the time limits a bit severe. The clicking mechanics for picking up and dropping tiles in the workplace proved awkward; supposedly one click picks up one tile, and a double-click picks up the entire shape to place it onto the mosaic, but the double-click often doesn’t seem to catch. The frustrating situation is exacerbated by the fact that symbols in the workplace disappear over time, so you might find yourself frantically clicking trying to pick up the shape as its individual pieces slowly pop out one by one.

Final Verdict: The Pini Society: The Remarkable Truth will appeal to history buffs and puzzle lovers that want to be challenged with a game they can actually lose at. Those players that are getting bored with the simplicity of most inlay or mosaic puzzle games should enjoy this offering immensely, while your average player may get too frustrated to truly enjoy this game. The fact that the game is based on real people and events is definitely a unique and interesting touch. If you aren’t sure you’re up for the challenge, you might want to download the demo first to see if the puzzle-based gameplay is to your taste. Just click on the red “Download” button and get the full version trial of The Pini Society: The Remarkable Truth. If you enjoy the first hour, you can easily and securely purchase from within the game launcher itself. There’s never an obligation, so it cost you nothing to play and find out how you like it!

Have you played The Pini Society? We’d love your comments and reviews.