Come for the mystery, stay for the atmosphere of this point-and-click dystopian adventure with serious vibes.

2016’s Shardlight is a post-apocalyptic game that immerses you in a dying world after a WWIII-like catastrophe. Exactly what happened to cause this world isn’t ever revealed, though hints are scattered throughout.

You play as Amy, a mechanic suffering from the endemic plague that’s probably not (cough definitely is cough) a result of radioactive shards of glass everywhere that people basically use as lamps. She’s running odd jobs in the hopes of earning a vaccine that will extend her life. Like so, so many such worlds, there’s a hard divide between have and have-nots, and she’s distinctly among the latter.

Your quest is to secure a vaccine for yourself, but along the way, you get embroiled in politics and conspiracies, get recruited by both sides in a brewing rebellion, and decide who you can trust with the future of this wounded world.

The gameplay is solid, but standard, point-and-click fare. You have plenty of inventory to play with and the uses of items make a good deal of sense. It’s far from the hardest game in its genre, but the puzzles are well-themed and engaging, and it’s possible that I do enough puzzles that the ease of solving them might be a little exaggerated.

It’s a fairly long game but more or less linear. You can solve your way through it without worrying too much about backtracking or getting lost.

The real draw is the atmosphere. The old woman living outside town in an abandoned train. The kids playing jump rope with the creepy rhymes. Crows. Crows everywhere, and people think they’re a sign of the grim reaper. Oh, and multiple endings, depending on how you choose to align yourself at the end.

If you like fighting the good fight, dredging truth from beneath government lies, and solving a few nifty puzzles along the way, maybe check out Shardlight when you have a chance.