Thank you Vertigo Games for sending us this game to review!

Ana Eberling comes from a family of geniuses.  The major downside to her family tree is that several of the members have mysteriously disappeared.  The most recent is her father whom she has not seen in ten years.  On her sixteenth birthday she is given a mysterious gift from him that she has to figure out its significance.  The only thing in her way is her over-protective mother who will not let Ana outside of their mansion when it is raining outside.  

Perils of Man is a 3D adventure style game where you have to explore your surroundings and collect and combine items in your inventory to eliminate various obstacles in your way.  For example, Ana's mother locked her inside of her house.  To retrieve the keys to the front door, Ana has to get her mother to leave her chair by the fireplace.  By lowering the fireplace's temperature, Ana'a mom will become cold and leave her chair to turn the thermostat back up.  While she's away, this is a perfect opportunity to examine her chair! 

While that puzzle is relatively logical, there are some in the game that make little sense.  Of all of the ways to knock over a mug of beer, using an umbrella to do so is not on the top of my list.  Thankfully, there are several helpful video walkthroughs available online.  Be warned that some of them have some salty language in them.  The developers are also willing to help in the Steam forums without any cussing.  When it comes to language in the game there is one use of the word b*stards. 

As the game progresses Ana realizes that her and her missing relatives have the ability to time travel with the help of a gadget invented by her great-great grandfather.  She sets out on a time traveling journey to locate her missing father. While many of her adventures involve saving lives, one of her journeys requires sacrificing a few for the benefit of many.  There are not many choices in this game so there is no avoiding this decision.  Because of the lack of options, there is little room for re-playability.  I managed to beat this game in three hours.

Despite the short amount of gameplay, I enjoyed my time traveling with my mechanical bird named Darwin.  The voice acting is well done and the characters are likable for the most part.  There are some jerks thrown in for good measure.

Visually, The Perils of Man has a neat art style that works pretty well.  Most of the maps are simple to navigate and the objects that can be interacted with are relatively easy to find.  The water retention area of the game was completely wonky to move through.  It was so bad that I had to watch a video tutorial to see how to get to the other side of the room.  It was not very intuitive at all.  To make matters worse, the camera often went off screen and took a while to reset to the proper position.  Other than that area, the rest of the game was fairly straight forward.

Overall Perils of Man is a fun adventure game that is relatively clean.  The tough decision and one instance of cussing is worth considering before letting children play this game.  Adventure gamers will find much to like in this game.  Because of its short length, we recommend holding off on a sale before purchasing it.