Dyscourse

[h1]AT A GLANCE[/h1] (Full review follows below) [list] [*] [b]Game Name:[/b] Dyscourse [*] [b]Original Release:[/b] 2015 [*] [b]Genre Tags:[/b] Choose-Your-Adventure; Casual; Simulation; Quirky [*] [b]My Overall Grade:[/b] B+ [*] [b]Estimated Playtime (Campaign):[/b] 4-12 hours [*] [b]Multiplayer Aspect:[/b] None [*] [b]Recommended To:[/b] Established fans of the genre; Casual gamers [/list] [quote]I received an activation key of this game from a press kit for the purposes of writing a review. This did not affect my opinion; I will only recommend games that I like. If I do not like a game, I will not recommend it. Period. [url=http://steamcommunity.com/groups/murphyslawyercuration][b]View my mission statement.[/b][/url][/quote] [h1]REVIEW[/h1] [b]Dyscourse[/b] is a choose-your-adventure style story told through the medium of a video game (as opposed to the traditional method of a book). And that is exactly how it plays. The story is good, but not great; the true identity of the game centers around its quirky nature. Technically: it is an “adventure game.” But it doesn’t really have the typical features of an adventure game. There is no inventory, and there are really no puzzles or minigames to be solved. The game truly boils down to a quirky narrative, where you make choices via dialogue that then have consequences on the ultimate path of the story. The depth of gameplay consists of exploring different choices and seeing how they pan out; doing so will allow you unlock all the “stamps,” (read: in-game achievements). There are various branching-points to the narrative that can be explored; but ultimately nothing drastically different really happens. The game has a “day-rewind” feature which can be used to rewind the story to certain points and then explore different choices— without having to start the game over entirely. Nevertheless, you will probably need to restart the story entirely a few times if you want to really see all the different paths and unlock all the achievements. The feature works well with the quirky nature of the game. Having said that, I still personally would have rather seen a handful of save slots where you can make your own “rewind” points, rather than being at the mercy of the game’s; but the “day-rewind” feature does help contribute to the overall identity of [b]Dyscourse[/b]. The peculiar art style, the catchy music, the mumble-language voice acting, the silly dialogue, and the eccentric characters all mesh together and contribute to the quirkiness at the heart of the game. It is these qualities that make the game enjoyable. The actual story is pretty bland and played out; but that potential sour point is definitely bailed out by the entertaining style in which it is told. The idiosyncratic characters and their interesting backstories also contribute positively to the overall experience. I would say [b]Dyscourse[/b] would mostly appeal to someone who enjoys choose-your-adventure narratives and who will enjoy a quirky experience centered almost entirely around storytelling. There aren’t really any puzzles to solve, and there isn’t really any thinking required. If that sounds like your kind of thing: check out [b]Dyscourse[/b]. [i][url=http://steamcommunity.com/groups/murphyslawyercuration#curation]Follow my curation page to see more of my recommendations![/url][/i]

[b] Target Audience: [/b] [I] Those who love choose your own adventure books[/i] [b] Summary: [/b] For CYOA lovers who loved reading every possibility. The games graphical style and aesthic is its strongest asset, and there's some good elements of story telling here. But some of the CYOA elements don't work well with the main story, and character shifts will be off putting. Not a lot of gameplay, but that's not the game you would be buying if you picked it up. [b]Gameplay Footage and Video Review: http://youtu.be/clBv5I_e_kE[/b] [u] Lists: [/u] [b]Positives:[/b] [list] [*] Art style and different locations play off fabulously. [*] Branching paths, a lot of different story elements [*] The ability to rewind a day to try something new [*] Some likeable characters, and good dialgoue between the two. [/list] [b]Negatives:[/b] [list] [*] Inconsistencies with story telling, in particular, with character trials and reacting reasonably to a situation given what they've gone through [*] Rapid character changes at times don't make any sense. [*] A lot of guesswork, think Maniac Mansion/Sam and Max type of logic at time. [*] sLack of interaction, even for a CYOA there's little stuff you're actually doing. [/list] [b] If you want more reviews/information regarding games I've reviewed, visit my curator. [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/6861768/]Dragnix Curator [/url][/b]

This game is absolutely dreadful, and I really wanted to like it. I tried my hardest. I guess the best way to break down my distaste for it would be to list the Pros and Cons. Pro: Interesting art style: The game looks fairly nice. It won't blow you away with graphics, animations, or character designs... but the art style itself is a change of pace from what one would typically see. Soundtrack: Whatever else I may say about this game won't detract from the fact that it has a pretty stellar soundtrack. I always enjoyed what I was hearing in regards to that. Disky: There is one twist ending that made me kind of chuckle. I'll give that due props. Cons: Terrible Characters: I disliked every single character in this game, passionately. For a strictly story driven game like this, that is a cardinal sin. All of the characters were hyperbolic annoying familiars of one character stereotype or another. And since they all spend the entire campaign b--ching, whining, complaining, fighting with each other, and generally failing at whatever task you delegate to them (though there were some successes in that regard), I found it very hard to find any character that I could truly align myself with. Absence of Gameplay: Its pretty tough to call this game a game, there isn't really anything game-like involved with it. Most of the time you are crawling through dialog, and in those rare moments when you can control a character, you have an extremely limited range of movement within a restricted area, and your actions are only ever temporarily extended beyond doing nothing into picking up a couple of objects. Once you pick up those objects though, you're done "playing" anything game-like here. Its back to the story. Which would be fine and all, were it not for the above grievance combined with the below... Absence of Choices: The game bills itself as a Choose Your Own Adventure style game, and I dig that. But for a game whose focus is on story and choices, you don't seem to have a whole lot of decision points. You make a choice here and there and then spend the rest of the time watching everybody react to those choices. Sometimes, the distance between making a decision on something is so large that I forgot what kind of game I was playing for a bit. Its really like an elongated cutscene. When you get to the moments where you make decisions, most of the time they are pretty milquetoast (choose who finds the water, choose who gets to eat, etc). For a game with interest points far and few between, you'd think they would make all the decisions you would have to make be a bit more.... exciting. I went to look at other story driven mobile games just to compare, because I felt I wasn't being fair to Dyscourse with my expectations. I played a story driven game on iOS where every other sentence my character said was a decision point; I had the ability within the game to completely drive the conversation, and as such, the direction of the story. More to the point, even the minor choices I made felt like they carried more weight; they informed my character and allowed me to respond to situations the way I would respond. It may be unfair to compare to Dyscourse, but for a game devoid of any real gameplay and focusing on story and choices, I could have certainly used more. A lot more. Petty Storytelling: There were a number of times in the game where the storytelling just felt.... petty. For instance (Spoiler Alert, I guess...), there was a moment I encountered on a mountain where I had found 3 eggs in a nest off of the cliff. I was able to get two of them, but couldn't get the 3rd. With 3 of us in the party, I had to make a decision: who gets to eat these two eggs? Well, one of the dialog choices presented to you is "All 3 of us will share the eggs", which is an easy thing to do with eggs. But then you are told "No we can't do that, you must choose between 2 of the 3" for no real reason whatsoever. Its obviously a Sofie's Choice moment, choosing who will live and who will die. The petty part is, I had made great strides getting to this point in the game without any characters dying, and I was literally on the last night before rescue. There was NO reason for anyone to die other than the game just said "Nope someone's dying lol". What am I playing this for? This was only 1 of several examples within this game. Dull: All in all, the game is just dull. The story is horrendously generic (plane crash, desert island, etc), and none of the characters to a lick to improve on that. As stated earlier, they are all annoying characters. Add to that, they all speak Simlish. Not normally something I would say is a bad thing, but when you have annoying characters in a dull game talking about dull things (do I really care about George and Jolene's marriage?), the Charlie-Brown-teacher-wompwomp effect only helps to underscore the appropriate level of attention I end up paying to the whole thing. Wompwompwompwompwhatever lets move this along so I can get to the next decision point. Short: Maybe this should be a positive considering my feelings on this game, but for a 15 dollar "game" of nothing, being able to complete it in less than an hour seems... borderline criminal. That iOS game I mentioned earlier provided me a much more robust storytelling and decision making experience at the same length, for free (for the first episode, the 2nd costing about 2 bucks, which is still substantially cheaper than this). Why is this game so short? Its not at all worth 15 bucks for the litany of reasons listed above, but even ignoring all that, 15 bucks for less than an hour of playtime is a steep, steep price to pay. Is this an early access game? No no, that's not a good excuse. I've poured countless hours into Darkest Dungeon and other early access titles. I just don't get it. Maybe the lame, rote, predictable, cliched, boring story just doesn't lend itself to a long lifespan of playability. Whatever the case may be, its a quick burn, so be prepared for that. Ending: I don't really want to spoil the ending.... suffice to say that if you like looking at corkboards, you're in for a grand treat. OVERALL: I cannot NOT recommend this "game" enough. I am honestly completely baffled and dumbfounded by the positive reviews its been getting. I don't get it at all, not even a little bit. I can usually understand one way or another how popular games I don't like are at least popular with others. For Dyscourse? Its as much a mystery to me as the island itself.

Dyscourse is a really different any intresting game, overall its a solid game but has some flaws. The pros: Its like if 'Lost' had choices that YOU choose (Similar to Life is Strange or The Walking Dead), the artwork and atomsphere is really well done. Every moment in the game I feel nervous and eerie and the amount of outcomes and choices are so hearttearing. The characters a realistic and have their pros and cons, there is no one character that is perfect or evil.. which I love because they're not cliche. For instance one guy is super nice but is always paranoid and it gets annoying, one lady is kind but doesnt make the right choice and it a bit of a critic. The timer when you make choices also adds to the tension and is great, after every choice you instantly feel like you made the wrong one which was perfectly done. The varity of deaths are also really cool and it has an amazing amount of reply value, I want to reply it to get every single outcome. The middle: There is some stuff to say in the middle, the beginning is pretty aburpt and i'm not sure how I feel about it.. it doesnt pull you in the first five minutes of playing and takes awhile. The puzzles are generally simple which is a con and a pro, there was only one puzzle I struggled with and it was unique which was good, so the puzzles are unique but simple. I'm also mixed on the soundtrack, it was good but I feel like if the devs went a little further on the soundtrack it could have improved the game. The cons: I actually dont have a lot of cons, I wish they did voice acting instead of mumbling and exploring your area can be fustrating sometimes because the controls can make it awkward to move around. Sometimes the choices confuse me though, for instance I gave food to one lady one day and didnt give her food another day and then she died from starving. Overall: Overall this game is solid, if you enjoy games about choices and point & clicks this is for you. I'd give it a solid 8/10.

Overall rating: 9/10 Description: a game that rely's heavily on story and player decision making where no two playthroughs are alike Expected completion time: to finish takes about 1 hour, but you will play through again and again For those who like: life is strange, the gods will be whatching, always sometimes monsters, the telltale series Replayability?: absolutly, you will play through this over and over, and that's what this game thrives uppon Value for money?: could be a little cheaper, but doesn't feel like you're getting ripped off Collectables?: no, but you will find something new every time you play this Things of note: the art style is beautiful, and things can get pretty crazy pretty quickly

Bouncing around among broad thin choices without much rationale for why I'd pick any of them doesn't feel like a very good use of my time. Dyscourse is basically Lost without any mystery or thrill meets South Park without any humor meets choice-and-consequence storytelling without any meaningful choices or consequences.

[b]Story and gameplay[/b] The story starts off when a passenger of Dysast Air, Rita Locket, wakes up on a deserted island after a crash landing. She soon comes across the other remaining survivors, and together the group of six must find a way to survive; and hopefully make it off the island. Dyscourse is marketed as an interactive choose-your-own-adventure, and after spending some time with the game, it feels like a fitting description. The most prominent game mechanic is the many choices you're presented with, which you respond to by selecting one of two or more dialogue style options. Of these choices, the most basic ones are selecting a group of people to perform a specific task or choosing your next destination, but there are more and different variations on this concept. One is the action choices, which have a time limit and can be triggered by things like being attacked by wild animals or being trapped by fire. There are also other, less frequent types of choices and a few of them are very puzzle oriented. During the game you get some limited conversation opportunities with the other members of your group. I've talked to and started digging into the stories of some, but so far it feels like I've only scratched the surface. It's apparent that care has gone into fleshing out the backstories of the characters, and I'm curious to learn more about them. It's not straight-forward, as the timing isn't always right for a talk, and you might not even get another chance, as death is always imminent on the island. As you make choices, the game starts branching out. Often as a very direct and noticeable consequence of your choices, but the effects of an early choice can sometimes take a while to unfold and it's not always apparent what causes certain events to take place. During the first few days the main story branches won't branch out far, and you'll go through the same main events. Though when you get to a certain point in the game, there are three main paths you can choose between, which each take the story in very different directions. [b]Impressions[/b] Something I really like with the game is the day rewind feature. It is available from the menu when continuing a game and gives you a nice visual representation of the status of your survivors, including their injuries. Using it you can step back through all the days you've survived so far and start over from any of the previous days. Note that doing so will overwrite any progress after the point you choose, but if you feel like you've screwed up your current playthrough, you'll get a chance to attempt to improve the situation. I didn't touch this feature at all on my first run of the game, but I used it several times on my second playthrough and I found that some of the choices you make can have a pretty significant effect on which locations you'll see, how the story unfolds, and ultimately who survives. I have played through the game two times so far and I'm currently on my third playthrough. Getting to the end took me about an hour both times, and the playthroughs were surprisingly different. At the end of each playthrough you're presented with a bulletin board with various clippings related to the members of the group. These vary a bit depending on how the story unfolds, and they act as a nice wrap-up of your playthrough. The most prominent element on this bulletin board is the newspaper frontpage with a headline covering the incident, where you'll see character portraits for each member of the group, with a short text describing their fates. On the technical side, I haven't had any major issues while playing the Linux version of the game, except that on my first session with the game the desktop cursor remained visible in-game. The cursor was also locked to the center of the screen, something that still is an issue while Alt+Tab-ing out of the game. I haven't seen the cursor in-game on subsequent sessions and opening up the Steam overlay unfreezes the cursor on Alt+Tab, so for me these are minor issues. I have reported this as a bug through the handy in-game bug report form. [b]Conclusion[/b] All in all, I'm enjoying the game so far, and though there are some repeated conversations and events, I find that there are still many things to explore. I'm also curious to find a way to escape the island without anyone dying or getting seriously injured; something that has turned out to be pretty challenging so far. The game is not by any means as punishing as the somewhat similiar Gods Will Be Watching though, and should have a much bigger appeal to casual gamers. Note, this is a small rewrite of a review I wrote for GamingOnLinux.com: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/casual-survival-adventure-dyscourse-is-now-available-our-review-of-the-game.5157

A choose-your-own-adventure which strongly encourages multiple play-throughs. Some nice touches throughout as well as significantly different endings. I enjoyed trying to find all corners of the [i]Dyscourse[/i] world. [h3]Additional Details[/h3] [table] [tr] [td]Operating System[/td] [td]Ubuntu Linux 14.04 x64[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]CPU[/td] [td]AMD FX-8350[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]GPU[/td] [td]GTX 750[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Technical Notes[/td] [td]No problems[/td] [/tr] [/table]