CLeM Review

We’ve enjoyed Mango Protocol’s previous titles here at the Tavern, so when CLeM dropped by we were immediately keen to check it out. Taking place in the same ‘Psychotic Universe’ as those games albeit with a slightly different gameplay style, CLeM looks to keep the stylish-creepy vibe, this time giving us some ‘puzzlevania’ (their term) gameplay. It’s slight but strangely more-ish, and outside of a few quibbles we had a good time playing.

We awake in the basement of a house to discover we’re some kind of stitched together homunculus, with our only clue as to our next step being a ghostly voice telling us to find an item as we pick up the diary in front of us. It’s an appropriately odd way to start, and throughout the next few hours it remains just as mysterious and bizarre, and all the better for it.

We explore the house in semi-point’n’click fashion; we can move freely, but must find and click on items of interest, combine or break apart items we find, and figure out the – sometimes a little too obtuse – puzzles within. CLeM is broken up into five acts, with each one focusing on a single key item to find, though we pick up plenty of other macguffins along the way that may carry over into later chapters. 

Our first quibble is that even at the maximum setting, our initial movement around the house is quite tediously slow. There are three character speed settings to choose from, but why anyone would pick anything other than Fast (which is still too slow in our eyes) is beyond me. Luckily the house isn’t overly large, but especially when stuck it can be a bit soul crushing to move from room to room so glacially. 

When we’re not stuck though, CLeM offers up some pretty inventive twists on the P’n’C genre. Grab a handle to turn off a water supply, to grab an item to then make a homebrew sprinkler to lure out a snail… that sort of thing. The diary we mentioned does a great job of keeping track of key notes, items, story, and hints, and we can refer to it at any time. There’s a glossary of bugs (the creepy crawly kind, not broken gameplay) that double up as both a key as to what we’re looking for (the titular Clem asks for a certain kind that we must decipher in order to get an idea of where to start) and a few later puzzle solutions. We did find it a tad cumbersome to flick through when looking for something specific but for the most part this was our go to for those moments of confusion.

In fitting with prior games, CLeM has a wonderfully cartoon aesthetic, with bold colours and lines, and a weird but wonderful slant. It can mean that finding specific items to interact with means just grinding up against everything until a prompt appears, but for the most part this was fine due to the rooms being relatively small. One late game section stumped us though as there was a hidden doorway that, rather than opened with A as every other one had been, was simply a case of walking through, and it was only denoted by the light on the floor coming in. We spent far too long walking around (slowly) before getting a small helping hand and kicking ourselves for missing it, even though it wasn’t all that obvious. 

Again though, even when we were wandering aimlessly, there was still something to it that meant we hesitated before seeking a little help. Even though some of the puzzles can push logic a little, for the most part they flowed quite nicely, and sowing the seeds with items over a few chapters was a nice way of spreading things out. All in all, it took us about 3 hours to beat CLeM, and we’d say it was time well spent. 

Conclusion

CLeM maintains Mango Protocol’s track record of quirky, inventive, and slightly hampered-in-places gaming, with a great central premise and gameplay mechanics that are only really held back by slow movement and occasionally frustrating moments.