Backfirewall_

A fully narrated [b]first-person puzzle-adventure[/b] - think The Stanley Parable or Dear Esther, but with considerably more actual gameplay. The game takes place in the world of an anthropomorphized phone, where the operating system, apps and processes are all characters and the player character is the Update Assistant app, launched by the phone's user to replace the current operating system. The operating system isn't very thrilled about that prospect and points out to the player that going through with the update also means that the update assistant (and thus the player) will be deleted in the process, along with the old operating system. And so starts a wild caper all over the phone, with the player trying to disrupt as many operations as possible (guided by the old operating system, who serves as the game's main narrator), in order to trigger a system reboot that would eventually cancel the update. The game is lavishly produced for a such a small indie title - [b]tons of superb voice acting for key characters[/b] (and text-only dialogue for the rest), considerable runtime if you interact with everything (9 hours for me), graphics are on the somewhat simpler side, but fit in with the inside-a-phone theme and the animations are well done, too. There are some performance / optimization issues - despite being a Unity game, and the playable demo through which I discovered this game back in 2022 (you guessed it, once again during a Steam Next Fest) is no longer available, so giving it a quick test play after buying to see if it works fine for you or if it's time to refund is advised. I really [b]really enjoyed this game[/b], it completely delivered on what the demo promised. It's very funny in a tragicomic way, the writing is up there with The Stanley Parable, albeit a little less absurd and self-referential - most of the gags and plot points are very cleverly built around the concept of the phone (and its user) going through the usual problems encountered with aging smartphones. What's really tragic (without much comedy to it) is the criminally low amount of reviews on this game, indicating less than stellar sales figures. This may be a case of a game being somewhat behind the times - for the gags to land, the story to make sense (and to solve some puzzles, although through most of the game, plenty of in-game help and hints for the puzzles are available), the game assumes some knowledge about how software and computers work - everything is built around that. Barely any pop-culture references, no quips, no zany comedic relief characters ... if this game had come out around 15 years ago (i.e. as a contemporary of Dear Esther and The Stanley Parable, and probably set in a computer rather than a smartphone), it genuinely might have been the biggest hit of the three - because back then, a large fraction of PC gamers were tech-people or at least tech-hobbyists. But times have moved on, gamers on average are less technically minded and knowledgeable than ever, and at this point in time this game might simply sail way over the heads of most of its potential buyers. The game is not without some actual flaws - towards the end, there is a somewhat lengthy 3D puzzle platforming section that is a bit dodgy to control - and even worse, comes without any of the plentiful hints the game is so happy to give out earlier - I actually got stuck there for a couple minutes and had to look up a video walkthrough to get unstuck. But all in all, this is a [b]real gem[/b] and a new personal favorite of mine. [b]8/10[/b]

Only one save slot, no manual saving, no loading of previous saves, no revisiting previous areas. What year is this? My save got corrupted somehow so hey, guess what, start all over again. No backups, no cloud saves, nothing. I'm just going to uninstall it instead. This is not acceptable. FWIW it was okay when I was playing it, but it's over-scripted. You're not supposed to take control away from the player in a first person game -- the whole point of first person is to minimize the disconnect between the player and player character. They do it constantly. Very obnoxious and psychologically fatiguing.

One of those hidden gems that are just not popular for some reason. The game is pretty good, with VERY pleasant visuals, fun mechanics and puzzles. Also the story is incredible and very captivating. The Voice Acting is also really well done, no joke. What I was pleasantly surprised with was the game's atmosphere and some occasions where it kind of felt like I was actually playing a horror game??? Some hall ways/areas due to the amazing atmosphere and music had me on EDGE even though I knew something scary wouldn't happen but I still had this feeling that something wasn't right. PLEASE give this one a try and YOU WILL NOT be disappointed.

个人游玩印象：震撼神作 超级喜欢 玩得开心 [b][u]略有失望[/u][/b] 强忍玩完 后悔购买 全成就追求：通关即拿 简易补齐 硬核冲刺 以后再说 [b][u]枯燥堆时[/u][/b] 手残放弃 思来想去还是决定给不推荐。 这种模拟大系统内部场景的作品已经有很多了，比较代表的大概就是《工作细胞》，动画很好看，甚至一度想要是有个工作细胞主题的开放世界游戏该多好。但这部作品对手机内部的展现基本没什么特色，各个区域首先就是乱逛，OS9随便开个捷径就可以从这个区直达那个区，一会电池一会天线的很没有章法；以及各种app的塑造也没留下什么深刻印象，不管是社交还是相册还是银行还是健身，都没有感觉它们做了什么和自己对应app功能相关的事情，游戏中散落的各种日志和标语也很难拼凑出关于这部手机内部世界观的信息。 主线剧情也很迷，一开始试图制造各种系统错误阻止更新，到后面用户直接砸手机了，任务目标直接变成把各种app压缩并撤退，毕竟手机已经物理损坏了也没啥必要更新了，但这就会让人觉得前面的各种努力全都打了水漂，系统内部再怎么暗流涌动也抵不过外部世界的物理损伤，这就是作者说的打破第四面墙吗？我怎么觉得传统的打破第四面墙反而都是系统内部的力量反过来影响外部世界呢……而且很多讽刺感觉也都在以前的游戏中见过，比如讽刺官僚主义填各种表格那里，我很久之前玩过的《厕所奇遇记》的支线任务就叫官僚主义，也是去各种窗口弄各种表格，过程比这游戏要精彩得多。 游戏体量也比较小，5小时多点基本通关了，就这么点玩意需要34个G的存储空间？！通关后没有选择章节功能也很难给人补齐落下成就的动力，而且这游戏有很多全收集类成就。好在指南还是比较详细的，想全成就的话再跟着指南走一遍就好。 当然部分谜题还是比较有创意的，比如RGB博物馆那里就要用到光之三原色的知识（我还在HEX打印机那里搞了天依蓝66CCFF，当然那个C0FFEE的梗确实蛮有趣的），还有拼EXIT的T和银行app卡死循环那里都算是挺不错的谜题，所以对手机题材感兴趣的解谜游戏爱好者勉强可以推荐一下。

What a hidden gem this one has been for me! It combines good game mechanics with humor not dissimilar to Portal 2 or The Stanley Parable, and it has tons of interesting areas, gimmicks and plot elements. Fun puzzles too. I haven't finished the game yet but I'm very eager to. Giving this an early recommendation for sure.

A lovely puzzle-adventure game with charming presentation. The style either works for you or it doesn't, and oh boy I sure adore these little processes None of the puzzles were anything remotely hard but they were engaging enough. And I'd say that the set of game mechanics available to the player was enough to create several small but memorable fun interactions with the world, [spoiler] like coloring mechanic giving you ways to help (or not) several characters [/spoiler]. The narrative was in okay-to-good territory, greatly elevated by the voice acting and being able to piece together some of what's been going on in the game world by the epilogue part. The main downside for me is that the game does not develop many of the themes it dives into and sets the stage for: planned obsolescence, social networks and their impact, user data privacy. Navigating the human-like app world was certainly fun, but it could do so much more in terms of the story. That being said, the game does respect your choices and you will see the results of your decisions, some by yourself, some in the credits. And the first choice given to the player being [spoiler] the most pivotal one was a fun idea. Is this false ending really the happiest one, cause the only victims are you and OS9? Will this update really extend the lifetime of the device? Gotta wonder [/spoiler]. Overall, the game was short but sweet and totally worth it, and I'd suggest you to check it out yourself!

It actually saddens me to write that this was a disappointment. The fun puzzles everyone's praising in these reviews? Stop appearing about 70% in, and get replaced by fetch-quest levels and walking simulator levels. The story isn't good enough to carry the game on its own, and the later third of the game felt like a slog. To add insult to injury, we get a new really cool and fun mechanism just for the last 5 minutes of the game. This game was made by amateurs and sadly, it shows. PS Come on guys, seriously? The game came out more than 3 years ago and you still didn't fix the buggy message (one of the collectables) counter, and there's still no level select in a collectathon? Do better.

This one was just not for me. The idea is great and the game has some very clever moments (especially towards the end), but the gameplay just didn't engage me much. I forced myself to finish it because I knew it would be a short game. The story and presentation didn't hit the right tone for me either. Making modern phones your central story device seems like a great opportunity to talk about planned obsolescence, environmental impact, or data privacy. All of these words are in the script, but the game doesn't really have any opinions on them. Instead, the insides of the phone are _physically_ falling apart - an issue that the game pretends will be fixed by an OS update. Potential missed.

Really wish I could rate meh... It's an okay walking simulator but nothing exciting. The white bread of gaming.

Pretty fun little gem of a game