Much better than a $1 price would suggest, very unusual visual and narrative experience, It felt like it would be another generic existentialism story, but the game does something more interesting with the plot. Roughly 70 minutes for a playthrough, I managed to get 2 endings and a few optional interactions, not sure if there is more than that. For the most part it plays like a traditional point&click adventure game with some easy puzzles, I never found the game frustrating aside from a few small interaction issues.
The game is fully narrated which is great for a cheap adventure game, but it also backfired a little, at first I am like great, $1 game has full voice acting, but then I realize it actually has good story, and some of that voice acting maybe does not fit a few of the characters, or the tone of the dialogue. To be clear, I think it's a good thing that game is fully voice acted, I just felt that immersion slightly suffered because a few of the characters were a little over the top, even though the actual dialogue and the design of the scenes were good.
I guess you could say it's a psychological game in a way, you follow the character through her daily routine while she has episodes of memory loss, kinda has that "looping effect" that isn't too original of a concept, but the game does something with the plot that I personally didn't expect. Even though the game mostly takes place within the apartment, there are actually many art panels in the game as the character travels between reality and her dreams. Neat art style too, I have played one of your games before, but it kinda reminds me of some cartoons on adult swim, has that decaying feel to the character portraits and shapes.
[h1] Pros: [/h1]
(+) Interesting narrative that covered existentialism, psychological issues and supernatural topics. The voice acting was hit and miss which is fine for $1 game, but I still think the dialogue and the conversations felt genuine enough. I also like that you went somewhere unexpected with the ending.
(+) It's a cheap game but it actually has a decent variety of visuals and art panels, it takes place within an apartment but the character also travels into her dreams, and there are a bunch of story related panels as well. I like the unusual art direction, having that sluggish representation of decaying individuals.
(+) Had some optional interactions with a few endings.
[h1] Feedback: [/h1]
- I wish you at least had one art panel for each ending, just some text seems kinda unrewarding for the journey, even though I liked the story up to that point
- again, it's great that you added narration for a $1 game, but I do think a few characters missed a tone of the scene, so it undermined the vibes of the game, the writing is actually not bad, so unfortunately a few of the voice actors really stood out as not matching their character or the vibe of the dialogue. I am not penalizing the game for it, but I simply wanted to note there was a lot of room for better delivery there, the game would feel a lot better if some of that voice acting was not so over the top. Main character was decent though
- there was a missing line of dialogue somewhere in conversation with the coworker the first time you talk to him
- I could not tell if I was doing something wrong with the brushing interaction, also I thought the lid was a background prop because it looked so big
- not a fan of that inventory system, ideally have a stand alone menu that you don't have to scroll one by one
- I would recommend adding achievements for all optional interactions
[b]Overall Thoughts: 7/10[/b]
One of the better cheap adventure games that I played, many cool art panels and decent variety of visuals. I like that the game plays around with different mental topics so you not sure exactly where it's going, and actually having some interesting twist toward the end. I would say the writing was good with exception of some of the voice acting, but for $1, it's a really good experience still, just with some room for improvements.
[code]Niche, obscure and underrated games: http://store.steampowered.com/curator/31294838-Hidden-Gem-Discovery/ [/code]
