Ash and amber

The hero of the game is a girl named Ash, but at the start, you don’t learn much about her, except through the first character she encounters, who calls her useless, worthless, and alone. The same sense of strangeness extends to the game’s setting: a business building that seems to be falling apart, with disappearing sections and holes in the walls and floors. Your goal is simply to explore and find a way out. Ash can run, jump, and interact with objects, some of which are marked or prompt a message when usable, like elevators. Unfortunately, many interactions are unmarked, leaving you to constantly mash the interaction button as you move through the environment. The animations and character interactions are underwhelming. Holding the run button makes Ash run in place, and there’s no proper jump animation when she’s standing still—you just see her launch into the air without visual feedback. Stairs present another inconsistency: they aren’t designed for her movements, so she slows down climbing up and hops awkwardly going down. Progress depends on solving logic puzzles to unlock doors. Each door presents a question, with clues scattered around the environment. Some are obvious, while others blend into the background. The puzzles are straightforward: a keypad number written on a wall, numbers extracted from computer logs, letters you must arrange in order, and so on. However, problems start to appear as the game continues. It auto-saves, and while loading always returns you to the beginning, puzzles remain solved. This can break triggers; for example, I got stuck in a conversation I had already completed and couldn’t exit. If you get past that, you encounter the winch, the game’s unique feature. It can only be used in specific locations marked by pipes protruding from walls, but this is never explained. The basic tutorial in the pause menu instructs you to climb by pressing “W,” which doesn’t work. The correct input is the “arrow up” key. I spent far too long stuck before figuring this out. Even after mastering the controls, there’s little guidance on what to do next. You’re supposed to trade items with another character, but despite exploring everywhere and repeatedly mashing the interaction button, I couldn’t find a way forward. Also, steam achievements are broken.