I like dystopian games about "quick" processing that focus on the storyline. That’s what made me want to play CorpoNation.
[h2]Main plot :[/h2]
In the future, humans have conquered space and a new structure came to life: the CorpoNation. Like the name implies, it's a corporation that evolved into a "nation-wide" structure.
You are a fellow citizen-worker of the CorpoNation, Ringo. You were assigned a job as a laboratorian. It consists of sorting genome samples into four categories - Alpha, Beta, Delta, Zetta - based on what your manager asks you.
The CorpoNation has prepared everything for you, even your social interactions by selecting the best candidates for you to speak with. It also provides you "State-approved" games to enjoy after a hard work day.
That’s your daily life. You wake up, you work, you receive money and you reinject this money into the Ringo economy by purchasing goods for your pod or for gaming.
Remember to "Work Hard" and that "Work is diligence".
But you are quickly contacted by a dissident group, Synthesis. These people try to corrupt your fellow citizen-workers—and you—to make you feel that Ringo is "evil" and that there is an "outside" better than this.
For me, that’s a typical "Papers, Please" scenario/gaming experience, with an "after job" part that "Papers, Please" doesn’t bring.
[h2]Gameplay :[/h2]
Well, there is not a lot to explain. You wake up, you go to work, you read the specifics of the day and you process the sorting.
Your performance for the day is calculated and you receive money.
After work, you can go on your computer before going to sleep.
There you have to "pay your bills", you can read the news or talk with your fellow citizen-workers, purchase goods to decorate your pod or play games.
Then you go to sleep and repeat.
At the end of the week (5 days), your main performances are calculated and you might receive a promotion.
Quickly, you are contacted by Synthesis and it brings you your main choice: follow Ringo or bring more chaos.
[h2]First impression (after ~2h) : [/h2]
At first, I liked the plot. A dystopian world in the future might bring elements like "Welcome to Gattaca", I was thinking—but I didn’t feel that.
Rather, I felt the same experience I have with other dystopian worlds: yeah, it’s a dystopian world. Yeah, there is an activist group. Yeah, there is "a police" and people that are "reassigned". It was fine, but it didn’t make me want to know the end of the story.
The gameplay is fine—not too hard but not too easy if you want to earn quite a lot of money. The possibility to do other things than your job is a good choice. The games are fine to play and there is some addictive aspect with quests and winning streaks.
It was a 6/10 game: fun to play but didn’t give me the urge to finish.
[h2]End impression :[/h2]
/!\ This section spoils element of the story lightly
[spoiler]I finished the game following Ringo’s orders and "finishing" the inside games for achievements.
Overall, the game doesn’t change a lot. If you follow Ringo, you have to do things one way; if you follow Synthesis, you have to do them another way. I can’t talk about the Nexus since I focused on the Ringo side but, knowing the end of the story, I’m not sure it makes a lot of difference.
I was pleased by the ending though. I didn’t think it was the final intent of the story and it was nice to have my first impression proven wrong. I should have focused more on the story rather than trying to get achievements, because it was frustrating to repeat the same things in the mini-games.[/spoiler]
[h2]👍👎 Strengths & Weaknesses[/h2]
[h3]👍 Strengths[/h3]
[list]
[*]Gameplay is simple to learn / hard to perform
[*]The "after job" part is refreshing and gives more context to the story
[*]The color scheme of Blue-Ringo and Red-Synthesis is a good choice
[*]The Ringo mascot is a raccoon 🦝❤️
[*]I liked the *small* references to "1984"
[/list]
[h3]👌 Middles[/h3]
[list]
[*]Story is "meh" but has a good ending
[*]Inside games are good but repetitive
[/list]
[h3]👎 Weaknesses[/h3]
[list]
[*]Achievement grinding makes the game very repetitive
[/list]
[h2]Conclusion[/h2]
CorpoNation was a good gaming experience for me.
The gameplay is fine—not too easy and not too hard—making it accessible for a lot of people.
The story is a good entry point for those who don’t know much about dystopian themes but falls quite short for those who love those stories.
It might be repetitive, but the completion time for the main game (~6h) is low enough that you don’t really feel it. It’s more annoying for those who want to 100% the game since you need to play the mini-games a lot.
