Before They Catch Us

Despite being a-yet-another visual novel on Steam, Before They Catch Us offers interesting interactivity that goes beyond simple dialogue choices. We play as a prophet who must interpret dreams and visions! After reading a dream, we sort its essential components into several categories. Success or failure in doing so affects the progression and ending. Thankfully, a brief summary of the consequences is presented at the end. Properly interpreting a dream requires understanding the game's writer and being able to "translate" literary images in a way that aligns with the author's intent. This makes it quite impossible to get it all right on your first try, and you will fail all your visions because you are new to this type of reading material, characters, and world (even if you try to take notes). However, after getting your first ending and acquiring the necessary knowledge about the in-game future, you can turn the tables and get some of the visions right! I assume this is how the play loop was intended from the beginning. The downside is that some visions, especially those with many components, are hard to interpret because it's not always clear what the writer wants to express. However, I suppose this is where a notebook, pencil, and investment in the story become necessary to make any progress. The characters, including the protagonist, appeared superficial to me: you can tell from the beginning that nothing is as it seems (in a typical way), and there will be a couple of random, sudden plot twists that "change everything!" (in a typical way). Those aren't necessarily a bad thing, as you get to focus on puzzle-solving and progression instead. So, the literary aspect of the game should be viewed in a utilitarian way, as a tool to help players work towards a specific ending and solve puzzles. Good stuff: - Puzzle interactivity beyond dialogue options. - The music being quite pleasant. Together with the visuals, it creates a certain "vibe", and I'm glad effort was put into it. - Solution for the interface is cool. Also, your choices affect its appearance! - Essentially, it ends up being a not-very-time-consuming story sandbox where you achieve certain things every new game cycle. It's long enough to have options, but not so long that it becomes tedious. - Thank god it's not another vn with static sprites over a static background. There are actual drawings in this game, and quite a lot per chapter! Could-be-worked-on stuff: - The game would REALLY benefit from a tutorial on how to interpret the visions. There is a brief introductory description, but it doesn't help at all. Could be something like a dialogue with our master who corrects our mistakes and explains why it doesn't make sense to interpret x as y and etc. It would also solve the problem of ambiguity of the three categories and what makes things belong to each of them. - The writing serves its purpose just fine, but the occasional absence of the characters' speech characteristics is strange. It's clear that the author was trying to capture a vision in their head and maintain consistent tone and speech patterns, but occasionally, it's suddenly absent, and everyone starts sounding like the author themselves in the present day rather than in this dark fantasy setting. This doesn't get in the way of gameplay, but the potential for increasing immersion is maaaaassive!!

Прохождение: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT0JpI3ZL_s Before They Catch Us - текстовая игра с очень интересным, мрачным, сюжетом. Механика игры простая - много чтения, выборы, а также трактовка видений. Развилок и выборов немало. Управление левой кнопкой мыши, выглядит и звучит отлично. Я прошел игру с удовольствием, рекомендую.

игра неплохая сделали бы получше обучение с трактовкой событий а не то немного непонятна сама механика. персонажей мало но интересны своей судьбой и историей. Игра как по мне немного короткая надо было бы еще может несколько механик добавить и тем самым можно было растянуть сюжет на 2 часа. например количество клана вооружение клана доверие клана и тд и может какие то навыки которые бы могли бы помогать где видение леса а где правда. в целом игра 7 из десяти спокойно скрасит один вечер

Круто!!

Кусок дерма, очень жаль, что наиграл больше двух часов и теперь не рефнуть монету. Если взять за эталон вкусной текстовой игры сира бранто. то эта ♥♥♥♥♥ будеть плестись уже с обратной стороны, уже возглавляю топ худших текстовых игр.

Fun and enjoyable game though I was very shocked when it ended as I felt like the game was just really starting. Overall a good beginning hopefully more will come. Worth the price and nice to support games like this

owlsome

Прошел Before They Catch Us - сначала было немного непривычно после The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante, но быстро втянулся. Интерфейс удобный, всё работает чётко, а главное - интересный авторский сеттинг. Приятно осознавать, что можно погружаться в инопланетные миры просто читая книгу. Советую попробовать!

лайк за воомуров

Highly enjoyable, well written novel with beautiful visuals. It throws you right into the story, which takes some time getting into, but once it has you, you need to know how it continues. Has high replayability due to the many choices you make throughout the game that completely change the story that unfolds before you. The visions you get are rather complicated, especially on your first run through the story. Don't know if they are intended to only get deciphered on your 2nd or later playthrough or not. They could, maybe even should, be made clearer. In any case, I recommend this game!