At Eve’s Wake Definitive Edition

I was originally going to give this a thumbs up after the first hour or two, but I felt like the more I played the more things fell apart. The story starts off pretty well; a mysterious cult, dead bodies, and a foreboding atmosphere, perfect for a murder mystery thriller. Your character arrives at the family mansion but has forgotten their entire life history due to amnesia from a car accident. As they go through the days of the Convergence, they (and you) start figuring things out step by step, but soon the story ends and you have to restart with the knowledge gained to uncover more of the mystery. Yet, the more knowledge you gain and the more routes that open, the more the holes, bugs, and inconsistencies seem to pop up. Some examples: - A character can be killed the day after the Convergence starts. Yet a couple of days later they pop up again in a random narrative line as being alive (and then never mentioned again afterwards). - Your character can drown a different character to death on Day 4. They show up alive again later on, once again to no consequence. - You can attempt to kill another character and they never acknowledge the attempt or act any differently when they see you again. - There are certain actions that you take that cannot be reversed even on subsequent runs and can block you from obtaining some endings. I'm not sure if this is a bug, intended, or I am missing something. On my first run, I helped a certain candidate win by allowing them to keep a certain object. There is another group of characters looking for this same object. This object has completely disappeared from the game in subsequent runs (in fact is noted as being gone) and you can never complete their storyline. These characters also blame you for stealing the object even though you never did in the first place. - There is a rule preventing certain characters from killing others during the Convergence, otherwise their faction is disqualified from winning. You can watch a character get killed on Day 2. On the night Day 3 or morning of Day 4, the killer literally admits that they killed that character to everyone but there are no consequences. This seems to be an oversight - this murder can actually occur in a legal manner as well, but the same dialogue is used. - The branching narrative causes incongruent dialogue. Some events happen or characters say things that just don't make sense based on what happened previously in a run. Other negatives - As other people have mentioned, this absolutely needs a roadmap. You just have no idea what you have discovered and what you haven't. - Also needs an already read text skip option. Once you're past your fourth or fifth run, the vast majority of text is a repeat. If you do 10+ runs, you'll spend probably a third of the time manually skipping through text. - The game is quite short on a per-run basis. The cast of characters is very large and there is not enough time spent with any of them to develop any connection. At Eve's Wake sets up a good mystery, but leaves a lot to be desired.

[h1]Description[/h1] [b]At Eve's Wake[/b] is a horror visual novel where knowledge is accrued over multiple playthroughs and unlocks new options. You have amnesia and are attending the funeral of your grandmother. Things devolve quite quickly and you must soon pick sides. Lots of sides. [h1]Pros[/h1] [list] [*] Interesting premise [*] Beautiful visuals [*] Serviceable music [/list] [h1]Cons[/h1] [list] [*] No "skip read" feature, making later playthroughs a painfully slow click-fest... especially egregious in a game that fully expects you to play it many times [*] Clicking on options sometimes stops working for no apparent reason [*] Inconsistencies galore (the game may or may not remember your actions in any given playthrough) [*] Some events in the game do not have any impact on the later proceedings for unclear reasons (example: [spoiler]if you agree to marry Woden to break the ritual... the ritual will proceed anyway[/spoiler]) [*] One special object ([spoiler]the Black Heart[/spoiler]) can be lost forever, forcing you to reset the game to access some endings [/list] [h1]Verdict[/h1] I really wanted to like this game... and I suppose I did during my first couple of playthroughs. But trying to unlock more endings, secrets, and achievements is way too frustrating. A pity.

Well, that was... something. Whole game can be completed in less than 2 hours and, during this time, your character will pointlessly walk around the mansion, stumble upon people and their "schemes". The game, obviously, was made to be completed several times each time walking different roads and choosing different sides, but, after my first playthorugh, I just don't want to play it more. The concept is interesting, but implausible and leaves a lot of questions. The 80% characters are same boring arrogant snobs and other 20% have very little screen time. The visuals are nice (for a VN), but that's about it. Also, there is no "Skip Read Text" button which is ridiculous, considering the amount of text you will have to re-read. What was the point of making the game in Unreal Engine instead of more logical Ren Py? The optimization (yes, in VN) is horrible, all the time I've been playing the game my videocard was working at 100% making the fans also rotating at maximum speed. Cyberpunk, Metro Exodus, Crysis, Kingdom Come Deliverance, etc. - not a single game made my videocard work so hard.

Do you want to be haunted forever by the spectre of what this game could have been if its intriguing story and setting (accompanied by a phenomenal soundtrack) weren't marred by an incredibly flawed technical implementation that makes you want to tear your hair out at the unfairness of it all? Then by all means, buy and enjoy. Personally, I'm not sure that's the kind of horror the developers intended players to experience, but it's what I got after playing. The lack of a skip read text-function, story flowchart, or any useable ending guides will be the least of your worries when your PC threatens to overheat from running a VN in windowed mode. Do listen to the soundtrack on your streaming platform of choice, though.

If you follow me you probably enjoy twisty-turny story games with a lot of options and a lot of possible outcomes, and that's exactly what you'll find here. There are many paths to take, some of which are only unlocked on later playthroughs, and many secrets to unravel. If you hate making decisions without knowing what will happen or you're not into spooky family cults, though, you will find it stressful.

This game is amazing! Tt\he characters are all complex and interesting, great art, great story, and I love this game! It's so complex with the story without being overburdened by extensive world building. This surely one of my favorite games to remember. The journey and emotional rollercoasters are wonderful. I've never played a game with this much replay value and I love the idea of such a hard earned win with so many wonderful secrets to discover! This game is worth the asking price and even more! Love this game.

This is what you get when you combine cosmic horror with a family battle royale. I was not disappointed by the amount of choices the story offered. What I would suggest is that dev's make it more clear that choices can be manipulated by loading to earlier points.

Book review time! At Eve’s Wake Definitive Edition is not a game, it's an e-book that's been dumped on Steam masquerading as a game. As a visual/interactive novel, this doesn't feature any notable gameplay, it's just a lot of clicking through badly written dialogue that would never have been accepted or published in print, which poses the question, "How did something this badly written end up on Steam?". When someone hoping to become an author is unable to get published in print, they spend $100 and dump their high school fan-fiction onto Steam, under the guise of a game. This E-book is one of those tired old efforts that exhumes the corpse of HP Lovecraft just to spit on it, then try to Weekend at Bernies the poor dead guy so they can try gouge a few bucks trying to sell a book to gamers on Steam. Yeah, check the reader stats below, this was a massive failure. The author of this book also decided he's a sociologist or something and tries to tackle issues like abuse and racism, because you know, when you think Steam is for E-books instead of games, you probably could easily convince yourself you're an expert in pretty much any humanitarian field you want. Trying to address social issues through the medium of video games is misguided and can be harmful. While it's plausible to suggest the intention was noble, this can do more harm than good. Game developers are not professionals in areas of mental health and social problems, and when they use video games to pretend they are, this can cause far more harm than good. It's my opinion that it's improper to use video games to push political or social agendas. Apart from the harm such hamfisted attempts at addressing social problems can cause, this offers zero benefit to PC gamers. People suffering from health issues or other social problems should seek out professional help rather than going to crap shovelware video games attempting to get sales by exploiting such problems for their own benefit, as is the case here. Visual novels/e-books are tedious at best... imagine the best novel you ever read, be that Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy or 2001: A Space Odyssey or Twilight (if you have terrible taste in literature), but then translate that to a format where the words dribble out and you have to click your mouse every time you wanted to read the next sentence, instead of just turning the pages. You'd think it was garbage. Now imagine that experience, but with much worse writing (because if these guys could write professionally, they'd be published authors and this would be on shelves in bookstores, and they wouldn't have to pay Valve $100 to self-publish this on Steam), and you have your average Steam e-book. One of the chief problems with failed authors polluting Steam with non-game E-books is that E-books can easily just be presented in a web browser... there's no justification for charging money on Steam for what might as well be a webpage. We don't spend thousands on buying a gaming rig to spend money on Steam for something Chrome or Firefox could do. On the upside, the E-Book does feature customisable controls and resolution, so at least some of the basic, minimum requirements have been met. Unfortunately there's a number of other technical defects and shortcomings which contribute to the game being difficult to recommend to gamers. These technical defects push this E-Book below acceptable standards for any modern PC game. At Eve’s Wake Definitive Edition didn't appeal much to the people who own a copy of the E-Book, either. It has achievements, and they show us a very clear picture that the E-Book didn't really capture any interest from gamers. The most commonly and easily attained achievement is for reading the e-book, trivial to get, but less than 20 percent of players bothered to get that far before uninstalling the E-Book. Hardly a success story, even the people who own this E-Book weren't interested in it. Imagine writing a book that's so bad that 4 out of every 5 people who start reading it abandon it almost immediately. That book is "At Eve's Wake". The poor quality of this E-Book is also reflected by how many people spent time with it. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the all-time peak reader number was only 4 readers. This is a remarkably low number, and now, the only reader activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Considering there's over 120 million gamers on Steam and well over 100,000 games for gamers to choose from, the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality E-Book is to be expected. You're forced to sign a highly questionable yet legally unenforceable End User License Agreement... for such a relatively low effort, low quality E-Book this comes across more as a delusion of grandeur. This agreement includes questionable requirements that may attempt to revoke consumer law protections that gamers expect to have, which is also highly problematic. Developers must learn they are here to serve gamers, not control them. [b]Why in HELL does an E-book need a EULA????[/b] So, should you buy this E-Book? You can get better quality books and comics for free online or from public libraries, or from bookstores for a fraction of the price of this "game". Steam isn't a comic book store, neither is it Netflix, it's for games. Your gaming rig is not a Kindle. It's impossible for me to recommend things to PC gamers that aren't really games. For comparison, the $10 asking price for this E-book could get you real, playable games like "Project Zomboid", "Prey" or "Mirror's Edge". Quality, professionally made games like those are frequently on sale cheaper than this. [quote][b][url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/marketing/profile]Profile Features Limited![/url][/b] Valve have marked this E-Book as "Profile Features Limited" at the time of this review. This is usually caused by poor sales figures and low community acceptance for the E-Book (to date). Until this status changes, this E-Book will not give you +1 to your Game Collector badge count, appear in profile achievements or any other Steam meta-accomplishments, nor can it be displayed in some profile showcases. If these factors are important to you, it may be worth holding off before buying this E-Book.[/quote]

Price tag is a skosh high for the amount of gameplay you get out of this, but wow it's a beautiful game. I wouldn't call it horror per-say as its not particularly scary, but, its a fun rich story driven game. There is a lot of murder mystery, decisions, and killing, but still not horror in my books. More like a mystery thriller. I still really recommend this game...just maybe buy it when it goes on sale because I finished several outcomes in a few hours and feel a little disappointed for 20$. ALSO bonus points for including non-binary people, trans folks, lesbians/gay people, polygamy, and a cheeky narrator who seems to learn about you as the game goes on. I was a man who ended up marrying a man, being a cult leader, and having a polygamous royal family...so..yeah pretty dope. :) Edit: [spoiler]ALSO yes, the endings do feel a little short cut...I married Woden, I wanted more meat to that other than just some text and implied frickling lol. In the same play I became the cult leader and he didnt say anything, it felt a little lack luster. I wish specific characters would've said something to you at the end or you got to continue the game and make choices for the family etc. Walk around the whole mansion one last time.[/spoiler]

Absolutely ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Terrible Not only is the logic broken, with events not triggerring the way they should and npcs forgetting or remembering various events at random, it is also generally ♥♥♥♥. And it also likes to preach to you about muh minorities.