A Doctor's Term

Alright. [i]A Doctor's Term[/i] is done and dusted. I've played through it twice and gotten two endings. Comically, the one where you seem to do the right thing has you also abandoning your family whereas when you do the seeming wrong thing, your family life improves, lol. It looks like there is either one or two other endings, and all three to four endings are dependent on how you mix and match the decisions you are given in the game. Of which you are given a couple decision moments. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3535168752 To me, this seems like a game influenced by movies like [i]THX-1138, Logan's Run and even Equilibrium[/i]. Perhaps some [i]Alvin Toffler[/i] mixed in as well. It's the idea that you are now in a dystopian future where thought is policed. If you are a good follower, then your life will be peaceful. If you aren't, then the government will turn on you. The setting is post-whatever revolt had happened, and you seem to be unwittingly experimenting on the rebels captured. You don't ever see who you are working on, but it's implied that if their mental state hasn't shifted back to docile follower, they are removed from society permanently. More or less. You will be presented with flashbacks or replays of past events that fill in some of this story for you; as well as notes left for you by subversive elements working in this facility in secret. The presentation is very sterile and devoid of emotion, with the occasional color splash from plants placed strategically throughout the facility you are working in, as well as red prints left from the rebels; and certain portals also change colors based on your decisions. Additionally, there are also random sculptures placed throughout this technological center that juxtapose the sterility with remnants of a forgotten but more creative past. And this actually creates an evocative visual experience. You could compare the visual experience to THX-1138 or even something like 2001: A Space Odyssey (or its sequel). https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3535168646 This is enhanced by similar sterility from the voices of the security AI. In contrast to this, there is also voice acting for the humans in the game, reminding you that even in this world, there is humanity to be found. I did find it amusing that Dr. David's voice actor sounded like a ghoul from the Fallout games. Probably not intentional, but it did lighten the mood a little bit and made me chuckle. This game also has an OST, and I feel it was also very mood setting. Not really something to jam to in your free time, but it is another effective means of building atmosphere here. From a gameplay perspective, this is a walking simulator through and through. There are no puzzles, but there are, as mentioned, some decision moments, which do change both the dialogue as well as give you access to different areas that are otherwise closed off to you. The game takes about a half hour to play through the first time, and a bit less the second time. Presumably, you could continue shaving this down a little in your next one to two playthroughs after that, should you be so inclined as to witness everything the branching paths have to offer. That said, the endings are not substantial and probably the most underwhelming part of the game. They do tell you what impact your decisions had, but they're not very in-depth and leave plenty to your imagination. Which isn't a bad thing, but I would've preferred a bit more detail with them. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3535168555 I think this was an interesting experience and I'm glad I had a chance to check it out. That $3.99 price tag is fair if you intend to play through four times. If you're only going to play through it once or twice, you'll want to wait for a sale. Either way, it's worth a look. [b]I received this license via our IndieGems Curator program.[/b] [code]If you found this review helpful and would be interested in supporting my Curator group, [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32549618/]Robilar's Reviews[/url], it would be appreciated. Cheers.[/code] [code]Also follow [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32732116-IndieGems/]IndieGems[/url] for more reviews like this one.[/code]

EN - Here's a short, easy-going walking sim, about an hour (1h) long. There's not much to do besides pick up an object and place it where it needs to be, there are a few notes to read, a bit of dialogue, and that's it... (some of you might get bored playing this game) and despite that, I found the story intriguing, even if it's not groundbreaking. Good voice acting. Good graphics; I liked the design of the lab building—it's quite stylish and a nice change from plain white walls. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FR - Voici un petit walking sim de 1 heure, assez tranquille. On ne fait pas grand chose à part prendre un objet et le placer où il faut, il y a quelques notes à lire, un peu de dialogue et c'est tout... (autant dire que ça risque d'être chiant à mourir pour certains d'entre vous) et malgré ça j'ai trouvé l'histoire intrigante, même si elle n'est pas innovante. Très bon voice acting. Bons graphismes, j'ai apprécié le design du batiment-labo c'est assez stylé et ça change des murs blancs.

[h3]Review Copy[/h3] I received a review copy. As usual I jumped into the game without researching the studio or publisher, and was pleasantly surprised. The game is a minimalist choices matter, but it has some pretty environments to explore too. For the size of the dev team, pretty good job quality wise. Not a long game and so worth playing through again for all possible endings. [h3]Psychological[/h3] I'm not entirely sure how to classify this game, very much a mix of things going on. If you liked it you might like other games in this list of slightly distressing games https://store.steampowered.com/curator/41773079-EmpathyGames/list/91748/

There are many, many dystopia games out there, but how each actually depicts its dystopia says a fair amount about its creators and the ideas it's trying to express. In the case of A Doctor's Term, there is clearly a dystopia being depicted, but exploring its nuances and the ideas behind it becomes...difficult. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3626293344 A Doctor's Term is a walking simulator set in some far-off dystopia. You play as Dr. Batten, a doctor hired by the Ministry of Health, ostensibly to study sick patients, but in reality, to medically torture them and explore their psyches. I say all this with a bit of assumption. While narratives are the soul of any walking simulator, A Doctor's Term is so brief that its narrative doesn't get time to breathe before it's smothered by an ending. A third of the game's playtime is devoted to a tutorial, which, given this is a walking simulator, is wholly unnecessary and serves only to detract from the rest of the setting and story. The narrative also suffers from clunky writing and abysmal voice acting, making it, at times, difficult to figure out what the narrative is supposed to be. This, paired with the conventions of the genre and not expecting the game to only be half an hour long, makes it difficult to get invested in the story for anything more than the fact that this is a dystopia, and I'm supposed to be invested based on that and that alone. And yet, there's still something weirdly compelling about A Doctor's Term. Despite coming off like a student's best attempt at making a full walking simulator over the course of a semestre — which, to be fair, it is — there are elements of the game that absolutely land, despite the voice acting's best attempt to murder them. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3626293609 Once the player makes it through the tutorial and enters the game proper, there comes a moment where the scale of the world-building and design becomes clear. Whatever the game lacks in its writing and voice acting and gameplay, it makes up for with its world design. Reminiscent of Terry Gilliam's Brazil, the dystopia depicted in A Doctor's Term is beautiful in its brutalist simplicity, conveying everything I need to know about the world in a few pillars. It's a masterpiece of environmental storytelling, and I enjoyed just lingering in the space. This brilliance in world design is further highlighted by the submaps and the ability to explore "patients'" psyches. Moving through a psyche and hearing voices fade in and out and watching the world change to reflect memories is an excellent experience and shows hints of the game this could have been, given a bit more time and investment. Instead, much like the memories themselves, once I move out of them, that game and that potential fades away, and I'm once again left with dire voice acting on a plain text screen. But for a moment, there was a glimmer of something real in the dystopia that is A Doctor's Term. There was the faint ray of hope for something more, and that ray of hope is worth clinging to. [quote] If you enjoyed this review, please check out my other reviews at the [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/41449676/] Summit Reviews curator page. [/url] Thanks for reading! [/quote]

A full, uncut version of this review is on the [url=https://otomelovers.com/2026/03/02/a-doctors-term-review-by-celtic7guardian/]Otome Lovers website.[/url] [h3]Introduction[/h3] As someone who has never made a video game, I can only imagine how much work is needed to create one. That's one reason why I like seeing student project games. A Doctor's Term is a walking simulator that started as a student project, and I think it's great that the game was finished and released on Steam. That's a first step that many creators don't get to make. I want to state that upfront because I am going to critique a lot about A Doctor's Term. As a game made by students who are still at the beginning of their careers, this product is a great showing. However, it is priced at $3.99 USD on Steam, and I feel that price is a bit too much to ask. I would be reviewing this differently if it was, say, $2 or less. I don't want to jump on the bandwagon that insists first projects like these should be free, but I also think it's important to remember that many customers have to carefully pick what they want to buy. Thus, I respect putting this up for purchase, but it's too much of a cost for what it provides. Here is why. [h3]Story[/h3] A Doctor's Term takes place in the year 2076. You play the role of Dr Vincent Batten, a new employee to the Ministry of Health of the Fourth Republic. He is there to take care of patients during a time of unease. The rebellion group called Red Hand is causing chaos, and while Dr Batten seems to have no reason to cross paths with them, they have him on their radar. Will he stick to the program, or will he take part in overthrowing the system? That's up to you to decide. Due to the short runtime of A Doctor's Term, not a lot is spelled out. I actually had to look up Dr Batten's full name and the exact location he was in. It felt to me like the characters needed more time to develop. Another issue I have is with the dialogue. It feels unnatural most of the time. One of my biggest pet peeves was how Dr Batten and Dr David kept addressing each other by name. If you listen to a standard conversation between two people, they won't say each other's names much. The doctors sound slanted due to this, along with expository at certain points. Walking simulators thrive on story and characterization, so having weak dialogue is a major drawback for this genre in particular. I noticed a handful of typos while playing. Most of them were in the subtitles (I got a particular chuckle out of "Gottcha!") but some did appear in the text-based story sections. I get that this is a student project and they probably didn't have the funds for a professional proofreader. Still, these grammatical and spelling mistakes take away from the experience. With all of this being said, I do want to comment that I liked a lot of the ideas on a conceptual level. I enjoy dystopia settings, and this hints at an interesting one. It doesn't bother me that this game only focuses on a piece of said setting. You're only going to get so much out of a short experience. A Doctor's Term does a good job of providing hints at what the setting is like and leaving the player to fill in the gaps. It just isn't strong enough to stand on that alone. [h3]Graphics[/h3] The graphics are the strongest part of A Doctor's Term. Most futuristic settings involve a lot of metal, glass, and machinery for their environments. This game does have some of that, but for the most part the setting has a heavy focus on stone. The building Dr Batten works in looks stunning. The towering humanoid statues, plant-encroached bridge, and proudly displayed banners are striking for their uniqueness in such a time period. The sheer emptiness of such large locations gives it an atmosphere of uneasiness to go with the awe. Environmental storytelling is a big part of walking simulators, and A Doctor's Term does a great job with it. [h3]Sound[/h3] I played through this game four times. Upon coming to this section of my review, I had the realization that I couldn't remember a single track from A Doctor's Term. I don't think I've ever had that happen to me. Because of this, I had to listen to the soundtrack on its own, and even then it was so mellow that it simply didn't stick with me. The music isn't bad at all when you're hearing it; it just did nothing for me. I suppose the best I can say is that it's atmospheric, yet I don't even know what kind of atmosphere I'd call it. Calming, I suppose? It's definitely trying for some emotions. I'm willing to bet it would appeal to other players, but on my end, it's too subdued even in context. A far bigger problem is the voice acting. The only voice actor that I think did an outright good job was Dr David's. He has a creepy rasp to his voice while speaking in a seemingly pleasant manner. Dr David's is okay at best, as are a few others that appear in flashbacks. Unfortunately, Adrian's was unconvincing, and Julia's was very poorly done. Julia has a lot of spoken dialogue, which makes her flat portrayal even more damning. I honestly think it would have been better if the text-based cutscenes weren't voiced. Again, I'm sure there was a limited budget and that the creators had to make do with what they had, but voice acting in these scenes wasn't necessary and it drags the overall game quality down. [h3]Gameplay[/h3] The primary gameplay element in A Doctor's Term is walking. I am sure that this will shock everyone given that it's a walking simulator. The controls are standard for moving around, using WASD or the arrow keys depending on which you fancy. To the credit of this game's creators, you are able to hold down left shift to run. This gives enough speed to avoid tedium from walking everywhere. Sometimes the text-based story cutscenes will have two choices. These lead to slightly different outcomes in dialogue. While I think it's a nice idea to have that for variation and encouraging replays, the differences are too little for me to think much of. If you had time to get more attached to the characters, then maybe this would have been more compelling. As it is, I don't care enough about Julia to be concerned about whether she's happy with Dr Batten or not, which appears to be the main outcome of what choices you make. It could have been cut down to the two major decisions near the endgame and that would've been enough on its own. My final note here is that A Doctor's Term has a game-breaking bug if you're not careful. A certain section involves taking a capsule from the machine. This capsule has a note attached to it. After reading the note, another capsule appears for you to take. However, my first time around, I was reading a note on the ground when the first capsule appeared. I exited out of the note screen and heard the second capsule being delivered. Thus, when I picked up the capsule from the machine, I was missing the first one due to it being skipped. I had to reset the game to redo that section. It's fortunate that the game autosaves at the beginning of each section or this would've been a real pain. [h3]Conclusion[/h3] Having received A Doctor's Term for free via a curator group, I found it to be enjoyable and a good first outing for the creators, yet with nothing strong enough to make it particularly memorable. Had I bought this for its full asking price of $3.99 USD, I would have felt a bit miffed at the cost for this experience. If you are a fan of this genre and really want to give it a try, I recommend waiting for a sale. To the developers, Council of Pure Sanity, I hope that you continue making games, because this is a promising start and I would like to see where you go from here. - Otome Lovers wishes to thank [i]Council of Pure Sanity[/i] for providing a free review copy for this game. [quote]Please follow our curator page, [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/4680120/]Otome Lovers[/url], if you'd like to see more reviews like this one![/quote]

[url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/43083373/]Clever games curator review: 3/10[/url]. Exceedingly short walking simulator blended with a visual novel. Fantastic set pieces, combined with a somewhat underwhelming storyline, and very underwhelming “game mechanics”. Surprisingly high production values, and a lot of potential but in the end I really didn’t enjoy my time with it. Gameplay: There isn’t really much. The walking sim component of the game involves very well done indoor brutalist architecture rendered by a recent version of the Unreal Engine. You occasionally have to interact with computer stations, moving a key object from one location to another and back. This is absolutely just an excuse to get you to walk through the environment. Only at one point do you have any decision to make, and there’s absolutely no puzzling or figuring anything out; you are literally told exactly what to do at every single step. This part could have been a Youtube video, and might have been just as effective that way, and certainly less annoying since there wouldn’t be any question of what exactly the active component of the 3D world is that you need to click on. Storyline: I also mentioned that it has a visual novel component. This is not strictly true in that those sequences are actually spoken dialog against an abstract swirly background, though it is also accompanied with a text transcript. The voice acting is surprisingly good, but the writing is pretty insipid. You will spend at least as much time on these screens as you do in The Walking Sim aspect of the game. Both contribute to telling the story. I use story loosely however, as this is one of those situations where a lot of mundane interactions hint at what’s going on without being all that explicit. It’s a fine approach to storytelling but it’s not done particularly well here, and they lean heavily into “so vague that maybe you will fill in the gaps with something interesting on your own”. Choices matter: There are several decision points in the game both in the Walking SIM and visual novel part where you get to choose one of two paths. These would feel a lot more meaningful if the choices had clear implications. This is I suppose the aspect of the game that most makes it qualify as a game ,but I was left cold by it. In the end I’m rather disappointed by how this worked out. The setting is great. The dystopian storyline has a lot of potential. At times the production value is very high even if they were missing a lot of important quality of life features (No inverted Y look? Come on!). Somehow I managed to spend 40 minutes in game, but I do not feel that time was remotely worth the list price for the game. There are probably some people who would enjoy this game, though I feel like I'm pretty close to the target audience. It certainly clearly involved a lot of effort, in contrast to a lot of the asset flips and other garbage that gets put on steam.

Nice short game. The Voice over dialouges are well made and the story I nice, leaves a lot for interpretation and questions to explore. I only explored 2 routes, I migth would have done more but there is some repeat interactions to get through to get to the branching parts again, I didn't want to repeat. I was playing the game with some friends over discord and had some trouble and frezzes in the game. Nothing major but something you might need to look out for.

A short and sweet narrative game that is definitely worth playing through a few times, discovering more and more details about the world and paths through the story. The visuals and sounds make for an incredibly atmospheric experience.

Short and sweet, experimental narrative game. Very strong atmosphere. The environment and the music leave an impression, and the writing immediately places you in a larger world that you will want to see more of.

A short, but great narrative experience! Futuristic/dystopian visuals that reminded me other underrated gems like Industria or DESORDRE, and a story giving you a reason for deeper thoughts after finishing, nicely reflecting the authorities around us even in real life. Definitely going to give it multiple goes, to see how much it can change, as already in the game there are multiple "hmm what if" moments