Dead Secret Circle

Dead Secret Circle is the sequel to just Dead Secret, a first person horror/thriller adventure made primarily for VR, but also playable with mouse and keyboard. Like before, I played this one without VR. This time, the game has full free movement, though you can tell it's designed for VR by how slow and gliding the movement is. You again assume the role of reporter Patricia, who is on the edge of a breakdown after her previous adventure, investigating a series of murders surrounding a dilapidated apartment building. There are people around to interview, and again many documents to find in order to find out the killer's identity. It's a spooky game without getting too scary, with a few small pop scares. The voice acting and puzzles are more refined than the first game. I did think the conclusion was very abrupt and not very satisfying. I should also note that the game is quite buggy, which I think might be a result of first making the game for VR and then retroactively putting in free movement. There's objects popping in and out of existence, textures turning into black squares, I got stuck between a wall and door at one point, and at several moments the game would either stick on a black screen or just not proceed to load the next part. Thankfully, the game autosaves your progress and location pretty accurately, so exiting out of the game and going back in lets you proceed without loss of progress.

A good sequel to "Dead Secret". Dead Secret should be played first to get the most out of this game.

I have to say, I enjoyed this one. I loved the references to Sherlock Holmes, Alfred Hitchcock, Resident Evil and I think there was a sneaky Lovecraft reference in one of the magazines. I completed all the magazines I only missed 1 of each of the book collections so I didn't get 100% achievements unfortunately on the first playthrough, I liked it so much I think I'll just play on my own time to 100% complete the game. Nice twist at the end, I really got into this story more than the first. The walking was a little wonky sometimes where I got caught up on some things in the environment but I did like freely walking as opposed to point and click movements in Dead Secret. A little confused about the relationship between the main character and the one person she actually knew from the first game. Nice twist at the end.

Haunting. It's a good follow-up to the original game. I love this universe so damn much. (And yes, I did finish this game in 7 hours, if that's a factor for you. I didn't 100% it but I came close. Still worth the price, if you ask me, especially if you liked the first one.) It runs a little janky and I had to force quit a couple of times when it didn't load correctly, but nothing permanently game ruining.

If you wait a bit until they patch bugs, it'll be a great game. I've played what feels like about half the game, maybe less, and I've encountered 2 game-breaking bugs I hope they patch. The first was fixable by reloading my game. The second involved loading a vial into a serum gun after making serum. I did it in the wrong order apparently (I can't take the empty vial out of the Gun With No Vial), so I can't proceed without getting another vial, which is impossible. Reloading my game showed that it had saved everything I'd done, meaning that to proceed i'd have to totally restart the game since it doesn't even have a chapter select. I was even in an intense situation and just waited around to fail, but apparently it's an illusion and you cannot fail, so that option's gone, too. I can't recommend this otherwise good game until they fix all the bugs like this. Very unfortunate and frustrating to have a good experience (and my evening) totally ruined by a lack of basic item combination testing. In fact, there are a bunch of tiny little gripes (like weird and clunky inventory controls) that normally I'd let slide, but now that the game is totally broken for me, all those other little things are now added to the pile that shows this game needs a QA pass. It sucks because otherwise it'd be great. UPDATE: I thought this was a new game, but apparently it's been out for TWO YEARS, which means these bugs are probably NOT getting patched. I paused the game for about 2 hours while playing to do other stuff, so now I'm outside the refund window. Awesome. UPDATE 2020-10-18 On a whim I loaded my save, and the bug preventing me from progressing, was either fixed, or I missed something before. Now that area was properly "reset" and I was able to complete that challenge and complete the whole game. The ending was really abrupt, which makes me think I could get a better one if I explored more? but I can't reload to before the end credits, and there's no chapter select, so i can't go back, and to do "better" by collecting more notes, etc. I think I'd have to restart the whole game. There's still weird bugs that require restarting on occasion, but it's completable. So the ending is abrupt and seems unfinished (possibly unless you are thorough and collect EVERYTHING beforehand) but other than that it's a cool experience. I hope they make more of these games. Next time with a chapter select.

Bewertung 6/10.

another great game from this crue-here to the wait for the third title

Its a decent game, unfortunately it is impossible to complete on the HTC Vive. There are 2 primary problems when played on the vive. 1. The mask doesn't work - at all. Not once. You put it and and it reveals nothing, ever. This makes one or two puzzles annoying, but you can trial and error them of look up a youtube guide to pass them. Not a deal breaker imo. 2. There is a segment where you return to your apartment and events there lead you to picking up a pack of matches which you take with you on your next investigation. You absolutely need these to light something on a future puzzle. When played on the vive, the segment where you return and get the matches NEVER HAPPENS! It literally just skips the end of the day and starts you off on the next investigation without them. I had to restart on the 2d version, get back to where I was WITH the matches, and then switch off back to my vive. Honestly the game isn't that special, but VR has a lack of story-driven games, so I still recommend this. If you want to play in vr, you WILL have to switch off to the 2d version for 1 or 2 parts or the game will soft lock you. I suggest keeping backups of save files after each mission completion. At least that way you won't have to restart from the very beginning.

So much fun playing this game. I thought the controls were better in the sequel than in the first. I played the first in VR and the second on PC. The characters, the story, and the fear! I think I may have just been so into what I was doing in the game the occasional sounds or running into other characters just scared the crap out of me. It even had "mini games" scattered around the game, word or number puzzles. Play the first one and then the second one, I would absolutely love to see a third game to this series. Great job!!!!! Here is the first video to my play through of it: https://youtu.be/XVJtPvJBIis

I liked how it was a sequel to the first game but felt like this one had more bugs and problems. The bugs were easy to find sometimes when I didn't know where to go, especially when being chased by anything.