Kicking off a brand new series of point-and-click adventures, Mateusz Skutnik, creator of the Submachine series, has just sent word of the immediate release of Covert Front Episode 1: All Quiet on the Covert Front. You play Kara, a spy in a world where World War I is triggered in 1901 instead of 1914, in which technology is more advanced and your target, physicist Karl von Toten, is on the verge of a revolutionary discovery. Your task is to break into von Toten's house and find clues to his secret.
Controls are the usual point-and-click fare, with inventory items stored in opaque bubbles at the top of the screen. Just like Mateusz's Submachine games, Covert Front is dripping with lush visuals and a deep atmosphere. It also contains a number of red herrings — items, scenes and other oddities that look like important clues but serve no real purpose other than to enliven the environment.
Play the entire Covert Front series:
The key to progressing in Covert Front is to have a sharp eye for details. Don't just dash through the corridors looking for blatantly obvious clues; you'll miss the subtle nuances of the game. Instead, take your time, breathe in each scene and look in the shadows for odd shapes in the dark. Eventually your unanswered questions will begin to make sense.
It's rare for me to enjoy point-and-click games —they usually make me feel incredibly stupid (I have a contract out on Bart Bonte's head) and I almost always fly to the walkthrough if I keep playing at all. Covert Front, however, is logical both as a game and as an alternative-reality story.
The puzzles all make perfect sense, with the possible exception of the library and that one is rather easy. I was assisted by some hints around the web, but at the time of writing there was no complete walkthrough anywhere. The artwork is absolutely incredible, reminiscent of Mike Mignola's work on Hellboy (waits for shouts of "Blasphemy!"). Best of all, this is Episode 1, meaning that there's more to come.
Read all our Covert Front series reviews and walkthroughs...
Walkthrough Guide
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Complete Walkthrough
Honestly, it wasn't that hard. Because if I can solve it, everyone else should be able to.
.....although I wouldn't be surprised if somehow I missed something.
Now, I've organized this thing by floor, sort of like an intuitive 'if I were playing this step-by-step' format, rather than the "go here and grab this, and then here, and then go to this room and put it all together" taking all of the exploration out. That also makes it awfully hard to just use a Walkthrough as a guide of hints if you're stuck on just one problem. So, hopefully this gives you just a little help right as you need it...and hopefully I didn't miss any secrets or anything.
Are you sure you've looked everywhere?
Are you sure you've tried EVERYTHING?
Are you sure you've paid enough attention to your surroundings and all the details of the house, both inside and out?
Ok, if you MUST resort to the Walkthrough, here it is.:
Intro:
Flying Newspapers! Then...Don't you love that modern handbag? Give it a click.
Undo the clasp, of course. and then open it.
Take out the contents. You can play with the lipstick. :) Then answer your razor-looking hi-tech spy communication device. A mission!
In the Courtyard:
The door won't open, surprise. Turn right and grab the garden hose on the ground(for later). Look also at the statue and in the box. Grab the garden scissors.
Check out the left side. Note the grate in the corner and the fusebox on the side of the house. How to disable the locks?
Use your garden scissors on the gold middle panel. Dangerous kids, don't try this at home. The door is now unlocked (yaaay!)
Welcome to the von Toten Manor:
First Floor:
Don't you love this music? Turn into the first door on the left. Grab the orange matchbook behind the crate, in the fireplace. Open also the second drawer and take the scary labotomy ice pick from between the silverware. Back to the hallway.
Take a good look at that lovely portrait of the woman on the right wall. Blegh.
Click the locked door underneath the stairs on the right. Pick the lock with the ice pick to retrieve the crowbar from behind the lovely bottle of poison.
Head back outside to use it.
In the Courtyard, part 2:
Head left, to that grate in the corner. Pry it open with the crowbar and head down.
In case you can't figure it out, turn the wheel. Yes, that's really all. Climb up and back inside.
Welcome back to the von Toten Manor!
First Floor:
Let's go back into the kitchen, the first door on the left.
Hang a left in front of the grate into the dark stairwell down to the flooded basement. Water + Electricity? looks dangerous. Hit the light switch on the right for a better view. Look, a key down in the lower left corner. But how to get to it?
Hook up the garden hose to the top of the pump. Flip the switch on the pump.
Grab the key, in case that was counterintuitive. Let's head back upstairs!
This time though, before you leave the kitchen, head into the dining room, through the archway on the right. You can check out the weird head on the right, but I never got it to do anything. Look at the clock on the left, though...doesn't that just feel like a puzzle?
Where have we seen a clock before?
Well, if you did as I told you, you should've seen it in the background of the woman's portrait. Put that time on this clock.
Last I checked, it read 2:35. Grab the key in the bottom right compartment, and back out into the hall.
Second Floor:
Hopefully you made your way upstairs, maybe stopping to check that lovely picture on the landing. Again, I think it's just a red herring, like the head and SO MANY things on this floor that seem like you should be able to pick them up.
Head into the first door on the left, von Toten's bedroom. This is where the magic happens...but I don't think the magic is what happened in here too recently--look at that mess.
After realizing you can't interact with or pick up ANYTHING, click the blue lamp at the left on the other side of the bed and grab the book off the nightstand.
Head into the second door on the left ....which only brings disappointment. There's nothing to do in here! That screw on the floor just taunts you, doesn't it.
Use the key from the basement on the right door. Books? Hmmm looks like a puzzle agaiiiin....
Place YOUR book on the lower right portion of the shelf. Then you can click around at all the books and try to match up the symbols
.....but in the end, no other books matter than those with that eagle insignia you might've seen around the house, so only keep those out, and push the rest back in. If you've actually TRIED to play the game and not just follow this Walkthrough, you should've found the guy's portrait on the back wall covered in that logo.
If you can't find both books, though, it's the short red one in the middle of the top shelf, and the 3/4 tall beige-grey one at the left of the third shelf from the top. Look, a secret passage!
Second Floor, continued:
Grab the rotating floaty ball things in the right corner, and then inspect the desk at the left. Grab the plans. Next, click the desk on the back wall, in the left corner.
Use the clock key in the gold hole. WHOOO BOOTY! Too bad you can't take it all. What a virtuous spy you are, indeed. However, jack the ring from the back right corner.
Go Back and click the desk with the red chair. Look at the book (which does you no good...but you can get a little joy from the name "Manfred" hehehe)
Go back, back to the library, back to the second floor, back to the first floor, and then, back to the back wall.
First Floor, yet again:
Let's go to the back wall and check out that portrait of Von Toten. If you head to the left, you see ....more stuff you can't do anything with. To the right of the portrait, you find a bathroom....again, with nothing to interact. I guess all that's left is the portrait itself, or more importantly....
a hole in the wall, featuring our new favorite symbol. Let's stick that ring in there, since the symbols match. Hey, pretty high-tech for 1904, hmm? Although that Razor device in the intro wasn't very believable either. haha
Well, I guess we're headed in. Go down the ladder.
Use your matches to light the lamp and illuminate the well-hidden fuse on the floor in the middle of the screen, right next to that rock. Right again and there's MORE stuff you can't mess with. Darn. One step over there, and you can interact with this big thing.
Sitck your fuse in the tray with the two others. Flip the round switch under the guages.
OH NO AN ALARM!!!! You wondered what those speakers were all over the house, didn't you? Turns out they weren't just broadcasting this lovely violin track. Head one screen to the right. Use your crowbar on the grate. Oops, broke it. No time to mope, head on in.
You're in the sewers, but you can still hear that blaring alarm. Hope you didn't wake the neighbors. Turn left to see...almost nothing. It's so dark. Light a match to see your way. It burns down and....to be continued? How suspenseful.
Congrats! You made it (with help)! All in All, a short game by comparison, I mean...no secrets, not a lot of excess stuff, puzzles pretty straightforward--unless I missed something. I'm sure we're just being lulled into a false sense of security, and the later chapters will be completely bewildering.
Posted by: *Jacob*
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July 18, 2007 4:25 AM