Curious art direction using like a preschool art homework, or maybe just inspired by it. Reminds of when a teacher would make us draw our families, and everyone obviously draws oval turds with sticks attached to them, except that one kid that for some reason could draw realistic features at the age of 9 (and 30 years later he is still better than me, hate that guy) The game is about 70 minutes, I mildly had fun playing it, but I can't say it was anything more than that. I didn't mind the actual drawings, I care more about how the art is contextualized rather than its raw quality, although I do wish you had more locations or animations as the game mostly takes place in the few areas.
Not a very flashy story, thematically it's very down to earth, focusing on challenges of being a single parent raising a child, and various mental issues that come with it like loneliness and putting your personal goals on hold. I wouldn't say it's a dark narrative, but there is a lot of cursing and some depressing scenes, which is not something I expected from the trailer or the cheerful presentation of the game. However, in the end the game managed to have somewhat of a positive outlook on a situation, and showing that even if you find yourself in a mundane loop, you still have some agency and can choose to stay optimistic and embrace the people around you.
There isn't that much gameplay, some scenes allow you to combine items, and others are mostly there for the click-through narrative. The controls could have been a bit more intuitive, for example you can't walk just by clicking on the ground, you have to click on the relevant object instead which may confuse an experienced player. You also have to manually close the closets instead of having it on a mouse, small things like that could have improved the experience.
[h1] Pros: [/h1]
(+) I think the most entertaining parts of the game were the interactions with the coworker, there is always that one person in your work area that is happier than everyone else, so that part was the most relatable for me. Other than that, the dialogue was very brief, I guess you were going for those down to earth moments so in that context it was appropriate. To be fair there were some other sentimental moments like the character getting lonely and contemplating, but it's something that I see a lot in games.
(+) The achievements were somewhat playful, you can kinda do a few things your way, even though it probably does not make a huge impact in the end.
(+) I didn't mind the art direction, but I have seen it a few times over the years, and I just wish you had a bit more variety there, maybe animating every story for example. When you were doing those animated scenes like the playground, I was paying more attention.
[h1] Feedback: [/h1]
[u] Interactions [/u] - when you would combine items, sometimes you would make a new icon for the combined item, and sometimes it looked the same, but ideally they should look like what you combined them into. Do you always have to manually drag the mouse to close every window? Would have been nice to map it to a few more buttons. Point&click players might expect the character to move if you click on ground, instead you only have it on objects.
- Speech bubbles could have been a little bigger. Sometimes the cooking hints would be misleading because they would refer to something that was optional.
- I wish there was a bit more location/animation variety, like the cutscene at the end.
[b] Overall Thoughts: 6/10 [/b]
For $9 I feel the game is a little basic, I don't think the writing was bad, and if the intent was to go for just like a commentary on regular challenges that people face within themselves, I think it works, and personally I like the aesthetic of the game. I do wish you had more animations and the point&click gameplay could have been more streamlined if you polished those few things. I don't care what art looks like, I just want to see something happening visually like that last cutscene, so I do think there were moment where you could have been more creative and playful. As it stands I think the game was very okay, but there are so many games that are even more deserving of my time, so I think you need to push a little harder in some areas like having more interactive elements or location variety.
[code]Niche, obscure and underrated games: http://store.steampowered.com/curator/31294838-Hidden-Gem-Discovery/ [/code]
