Alone in the crowd

Found this game during a recent sale (bought for $5.39 CAD), and after seeing a bit of the gameplay and the clear passion + dedication the dev has towards this game, I bought it! And I'm so glad I did! I've always wanted to play papers-please, but after seeing full gameplay walkthroughs of it, I wasn't really burning to play it. At first glace from the store page, this game is in the same genre, but definitely has very unique spins on the mechanics and gameplay, plus the story is more future-dystopia based. It's my first time actually playing a game of this genre, so I found the tutorial/walkthrough a bit of a slog because I put pressure on myself to understand everything... But it was absolutely necessary and I didn't find anything confusing by the end of it; in fact, overall, utilising the systems the game gives you is rather intuitive! But if you're a vet of this genre it'll probably be easier! It seems this game is overall more forgiving and cares quite a bit about onboarding, which was good for a newb like me. There are definitely some "tricky" tasks, even in the beginning, but they are just curveballs the game throws at you to keep things fresh and keep your gears oiled. Very intrigued by the video and navigation system, it feels really cool to observe and find people w/ the way the game does it. I personally haven't encountered a game system that was thought-out this much in other games, and can really appreciate the effort put into the system and how dynamic it can make the variety of puzzles/challenges/clues in the game play. Overall, the gameplay is smooth, I love the style, and I'm intrigued by the world-building. The sound design is also good; I appreciate the low ambient ost (really immersive "boxed-in" feeling), along w/ how crisp buttons/wheels/machines sound. The occasional challenges bring me the perfect bit of frustration that is soothed and satisfied when I figure out what needs to be done. I also like how it saves often. Typically, when I play, I go for longer sessions, but I've been too exhausted for those, recently. This game allows me to play for however long of a session, and easily let me stop when I feel done. I can pop in to my box job for maybe 30 minutes, and then leave when I feel done because it auto-saves after you ask a question-- I don't feel like i have to force myself to play until a certain "checkpoint", which I now realise I greatly appreciate from this game. I'll try to come back and update the review once I have played through even more of the game (i.e. reached 1-2 "endings"), but after nearly 2 hours of play (split over a few sessions), I already knew I had to leave a recommendation for this game. I like the achievement system too; from what I can tell, I should be able to play this game w/o referring to external guides, which is very nice, and shows that the devs care quite a bit about a smooth user experience, so, props! Regarding the price-point, in my opinion, this game is VERY good for the price-point-- to reach my first ending, I expect around 15-20 hours (I'm a bit of a slow gamer to be fair); and by extension, for $9, it seems that the overall/total content from this game is surprisingly extensive. For a while now, I had an itch to scratch, and was looking for a new game, but I just couldn't find anything that would satisfy it. When I stumbled upon "Alone in the crowd", something just clicked-- and I'm quite glad. I would say that even within the genres this game is part of, this game is very unique and definitely deserves more attention! Solid game, if you've read this far in the review, definitely at least give the demo a try!