[h1]Overview:[/h1]
'[i]Flaws in the People We Love[/i]' is a first person walking simulator that takes the player through a peculiar journey that I honestly couldn't really grasp myself. But I did have a few interpretations from the game despite it being quite random. To start off, I felt as though the entire game revolved around two individuals to which one of them left the other to pursue their own aspirations (in this case climbing a mountain) and completely disregards everything else. You actually [i]play[/i] as this individual and throughout your journey, you get berated, talked down to and essentially bullied by the narrator who I assume is the character's significant other. It's quirky and kind of silly in my opinion which is something I actually take genuine interest in but the actual programming and game mechanics aren't done very well. In fact, not much of anything in the game was done well even though the game is very short and I'll get to that bit.
[h1]Gameplay:[/h1]
You're greeted with an intriguing opening cutscene that would leave anyone wondering what the game's about but you're soon thrown into the actual game which looks rather underwhelming. You pretty much just walk through a random world while listening to a woman narrate what you do, talk about life, mistakes and pretty much anything she can think of. At this time, you are clueless as to what the game is actually about and are pretty much just wandering around an ugly map picking up money (some that can't even be picked up at all) and stuff that serve literally no purpose while this girl talks ♥♥♥♥ about you.
At one point she talks about how you left her and your daughter to climb a mountain and you soon realize that you're playing what the narrator is talking about, recreating the events that unfolded during this strange time of struggle. Regardless of this, you're still stuck listening to her while you pretty much reenact what you did unable to change your mind. At one point you're also given a gun that you can pick up (or not) but it serves just as much purpose as the money in the game. All it's really used for is to shoot a dog that if left alive, will bunt the player so hard they'll phase through solid objects. Other than that, there really isn't much purpose to anything within the game itself besides walking and listening.
Now talking technical aspects, the game doesn't have much if anything when it comes to polishing. There are little to no physics in the game as slopes do nothing to deter the player and you can literally jump [b]up[/b] a wall. Seriously, I jumped up a perfectly vertical wall so much that I found myself leave the map indefinitely and was forced to restart it from the beginning. There's no quality in the game whatsoever and it was quite obvious right from the get go that the game wasn't polished or tested at all. Even the cursor is stuck on the screen the entire time you're playing and the exit option, doesn't work.
[h1]Controls:[/h1]
Functional and only glitchy due to issues revolving around the world. The difference between sprinting and default speed is so minimal that I don't even think it doesn't anything. Jumping is inconsistent as you jump like you're on the moon in the first part of the game but it's way less exaggerated in later parts. Aside from that, you just walk around, that I can at least say works.
[h1]Graphics:[/h1]
Now this is where the big yikes arise. I know the game isn't meant to be taken seriously and there's more to games than just graphics but man were the graphics in this game atrocious. Even the screeshots on the store page don't look good but I don't even know where to start with the visuals in this game. There are [i]so[/i] many inconsistencies in the game, I can't keep track of all of them. Textures are stretched, pixelated and warped to the point that I honestly thought the developers had a time limit when they were developing the game. Mountains are just stretched upwards, leaving their sides looking very strained, the sky is quite literally a cube and is a cheap skybox.
Basically everything in the game had their own scale, some being so big that you could see every single one of their pixels. Lighting and shading were also very poorly done and some surfaces kept overlapping one another almost as if they were having a seizure. The entire game just doesn't look good at all and I could tell many of it were just [i]Unity[/i] assets all thrown into a blender with no consideration regarding the environments and setting.
[h1]Audio:[/h1]
Not the best either if I have to be honest. Although I can appreciate some of the music in the game as well as the voice acting, I also have to say they weren't great. Sound effects were just as bad as the graphics, the gun sound didn't even sound like a gun and jumping didn't even sound like jumping (yes, don't even ask). Music was alright and so was the voice acting but I feel like the voice acting could have used a considerable amount of work. For the most part it was fine? But many times the woman doing the voice over sounded so forced, like a bad actor really trying to play up their character to the point where it just sounded too artificial. There was also a point where she was expressing her anger so powerfully that the microphone she was channelling her anger into actually produced feedback. This is usually when the voice actor would move [i]away[/i] from the mic to balance the volume of their voice to the microphone, preventing such static and feedback. Overall, not the best part in the game but I give points to the voice actor for trying her best.
[h1]Conclusion/TL;DR:[/h1]
'[i]Flaws in the People We Love[/i]' is a very short first person walking simulator clocking off at around 10 minutes. The premise is confusing but does have [i]some[/i] form of a plot but consists of mostly walking and listening to narrative bits with one interactive bit. It doesn't play very well and it looks horrendous with the audio not doing much to balance it off. Essentially you walk through an ugly but random world while a woman talks down to you. I normally enjoy walking simulators but '[i]Flaws in the People We Love[/i]' wasn't necessarily one I liked. There are plenty of better walking simulators out there that are also free but if you're not picky and just want a few minutes of quirky weirdness, this one can provide just that.
