Born Punk

It is a bit unfortunate as the story was really growing on me, but the game is so disturbingly unpractical that I quit it at about 1/3rd of the game. It is just not worth the hassle. Two serious downsides for veteran point & click adventurers: 1- The puzzles have more than one path of solution (nice innit?); however, the game accepts only one of them as valid. There is absolutely no reason for another to be as useful as the others, you cannot find any in-game logic in this. 2- Some of these other paths, regardless of how logical they can be, directly hard lock you out of the game. And it takes lots of time for you to figure out what you did wrong, as it could be anything.

Started out promising. Unfortunately that didn't hold. It starts out with the strongest stuff. You begin playing as Eevie, and you get a sense of the world through the interactables and a few simple puzzles. Cut and dry but effective. Then you get some good characterization with her supporting cast like Hussar and Klump. It's pretty by the book but is working well. Then you find yourself controlling Mira who has a whole different thing going on. Initially this is ok too, because the situation she's in is intriguing and the perspective during her first segment is handled interestingly. But then... then we go to Grand Master Flashdrive. And I won't mince words: I can't stand this character. Here's the easiest way I can explain it: ever see the second Transformers movie that had the two robots that came across as really racist and everybody involved in the movie tried to blame everybody else for it? He sounds exactly like them. There is a reason suggested for why he's like this, but that doesn't make it any less grating. And to make matters worse: his entire first segment has zero to do with the story. But they decided to introduce him anyway, so not only are you dealing with a mind-numblingly annoying character but it's not even clear why you're being made to do it. Unfortunately the design started to degrade from then on even after I got control of Eevie again. Or maybe it was just that the GMF segment annoyed me so much that I became way more aware of issues I'd given a pass to initially, I can't be sure. But it certainly felt like there were more unintuitive solutions for things, and the dialogue started to come across as very overwritten. Not the little things said when items are described, that was largely fine, but the times that characters interacted. I found myself repeatedly thinking "ok, I get it, why are we still talking over the same points?" The plot isn't bad, but it just wasn't good enough for me to keep putting up with the annoyances. Maybe I'll check a letsplay to see where it goes, but even if it's great I don't think I'll regret stopping my playthrough and just looking it up.

All the gear, but no idea. OK, so "no" idea's a little too harsh, there's certainly some potential here, but it also definitely feels like a game which is nothing more than a tribute to the Lucasarts adventure game rather than a good game in itself. Playing this is a bit like loving the band Guns N' Roses but getting the tribute band Guns To Roses instead. You've probably already read about the game-breaking bug and awful maze puzzle, but I didn't even make it to those. What put me off the game was the fact that there was little motivation to play and far too much early world building dumped on you - the game felt awfully paced. The early game your motivation for progression is to clear a hangover and undertake a job...that's it. No "become a mighty pirate!", no "find the ancient lost artefact of X!", no "explore the twisted virtual world and take down an evil/insane AI computer!", just do your day-to-day crap. A voice in your head provides a bread crumb trail to bigger events of course, but it's all too slow. And that's not helped by the fact that the devs clearly fancy themselves as Twitter politicians, dumping tons of political gumph in your logs which slows the pace down even more. To make matters worse, Russia are painted as mighty military machine who has taken several European countries, including Ukraine....and in 2024 that's just a hilarious suggestion, which makes the whole game far less believable. The humour is flat and predictable, the puzzles aren't particularly funny, interesting or clever either, and overall it was just a bore. A bore which looks good and which clearly has good intentions born from it's inspirations, but it's clear the devs just don't "get it". Playing this felt like me going to watch a punk band and expecting Sex Pistols/Clash/Ferocious Dog vibes, and instead getting Take That or New Kids On The Block. Nice effort, but a definite fail.

Kinda disappointing. Good voice acting, but everything else feels like it was done on a budget. Lots and lots of filler that just makes you travel back and forth between locations. Story started like it was going somewhere and then ended in a super anticlimactic way that kinda at a sequel, but there's no sign of a sequel.

Has some potential but the char sprites are muddy and indistinct, puzzle design is extremely linear and there's a game-breaking bug 1.5 hours in that can force a restart. The bug has existed for over a year and nobody seems to care to fix it. I can put up with the first two things for a good story, but not the third.

Pros - Fantastic pixel artwork - Excellent voice acting - Cool cyberpunk theme. lots of world building and lore. - Decent scifi story with good pacing. Eventually opens up to several areas to explore in non linearish fashion. - Solid controls, mostly playable with mouse, you do need to press ESC to save and exit. - Built in show all hot-spots, click to skip dialog, ESC to skip scene. Cons - Although the voice acting was great, there were times when characters were hard to hear. It seems like they tried to be immersive and intentionally muffled characters according to the scene but this just made it extremely hard to hear especially since for a lot of scenes the background music contains loud police chatter. - The game unfortunately implements the point and click trope of where some actions/combinations/item-pick-ups etc are not possible immediately but instead have to wait for the characters to realize what is needed. Basically you will know what is needed before the character does. It means a lot of retrying things that were previously unsuccessful. I think eventually you get wise to the system but It can be frustrating regardless. - Although the story was good, the ending was disappointing. I'm not going to give too much away but it was a cliffhanger and there is no guarantee of a sequel. Overall its a decent game. If you like cyberpunk themes and point and click adventure games then its a no brainer. Its very similar to games either developed or published by WadjetEye and other AGS titles

Born Punk hat ein cooles Setting und eine spannende Story. Diese wird leider kaum befriedigend aufgelöst, da scheint ein zweiter Teil in Entwicklung zu sein. Dennoch hatte ich Spass in Bornholm. Die Charaktere sind interessant und die Welt stimmig. Leider hat das Rätseldesgin ziemliche Macken. Zum Teil war das schon etwas konfus und für Anfänger ist das Teil sicher nicht geeignet. Dazu kommen doofe Trial-and-Error Rätsel mit Musik und Labyrinth. Dennoch kann ich Born Punk Point and Click Freunden mit einem Faible für Cyberpunk durchaus empfehlen. 3.5 / 5

Great Game! Old school Cyberpunk setting, with some challenging but fair puzzles and likeable characters. Pixel graphics are really nice, good ambient sound design and descent voiceovers of characters.  It's on par with the Wadjet Eye classics.

Na pierwszy rzut oka ta gra miała wszystko, czego tylko potrzebuję od dobrej przygodówki. Nieźle zrobiony [i]pixelart[/i], całkiem porządny świat przedstawiony, a na dodatek Dave Gilbert nie miał okazji maczać swoich palców przy jej powstawaniu! Niestety pomimo tego bardzo pozytywnego wstępnego odbioru, ten tytuł szybko pokazuje swoje prawdziwe oblicze… Które jest po prostu nudne i irytujące. Zaczynając od denerwującej i silącej się na śmieszność protagonistki, przez nieciekawą i niewciągającą fabułę, po porozrzucane wątki, które po paru godzinach gry okazują się zaledwie wstępem. Do czego? Trudno powiedzieć; chociaż zalążki narracji przedstawiane są nam non stop, to nie chwytają – zatopione w morzu nieudolnego humoru, nawiązań i niskich lotów żarcików. Czyli czegoś, czym niby chwalą się autorzy! Nie mogę odmówić tego, że gra jest porządnie udźwiękowiona (włącznie z głosami aktorów) i dość przyzwoicie zaanimowana. Trudno mi się odnieść do konsekwencji wyborów, które też podobnie jak humor są kartą przetargową tej gry według autorów – nie ukończyłem rozgrywki. Co samo w sobie niekoniecznie dobrze świadczy o [i]Born Punk[/i], skoro utrzymaniem zaangażowania gracza gry stać powinny. Wybory w grze są – przynajmniej w teorii – ale w praktyce są to raczej niewiele znaczące decyzje podejmowane w oparciu o chwilowe widzimisię, niż kwestia prawdziwej immersji i wyczucia potrzeb postaci czy danego momentu. Obok tego wszystkiego towarzyszy nam odrębne menu z wieloma informacjami na temat świata gry. Widać, że deweloperzy przyłożyli rękę do tego elementu, ale… trudno znaleźć uzasadnienie do tego. I mówię to jako osoba zwykle doceniającą, czy wręcz poszukująca takich aspektów w medium, jakim są gry komputerowe. Takie dodatki muszą samoistnie wynikać z tego, co dzieje się w grze – musimy ich poszukiwać, wręcz pragnąć! Tymczasem w tym przypadku są raczej służą jako niezbyt kreatywny tzw. [i]lore dump[/i]…, w trakcie którego ktoś próbuje nam wcisnąć do gardła wiedzę o uniwersum, które w żaden sposób nas nie pociąga. Historia tego, co stanowi osnowę gry, powinno mieć uzasadnienie i sens. Powód artystyczny inny niż zwyczajna nuda twórcy. Niestety zagadki również nie należą do najmocniejszych cech [i]Born Punka[/i]. Nie są satysfakcjonujące, gdyż albo są prostackie, albo niemożliwie nielogiczne. Niestety w tym wszystkim widać pewne napracowanie autorów, zamysł i chęć – widać dobre elementy, ale niestety wzięte do kupy okazują się… niczym więcej jak kupą nieprzystających do siebie elementów. Nie mogę przy tym przegapić moralizatorskiego tonu, jaki towarzyszy mi w przypadku oceny gier, które na siłę próbują udowadniać mi, że alkohol(izm) jest czymś zabawnym. Niestety, nie jest. Alkohol jest częścią naszego świata i nie przeszkadza mi przedstawianie go w medium artystycznym – podobnie jak innych ohydnych, niewygodnych czy nieetycznych wątków. Taka jest siła artyzmu! Ale jeśli jedynym walorem jest wykorzystywanie czegoś do robienia sobie infantylnych żartów, z jednoczesną normalizacją zachowań patologicznych – to po prostu jest niedobre.

Game stopping bug that still hasn't been fixed in three years. Mediocre too.