Head AS Code

An inferior Zero Escape, but one that retains all of that franchise's problems. The writing is… not good. Everyone takes five times as long as they need to make their points, and the protagonist is the least likable character in the game, regularly engaging in some truly juvenile humour and utterly baffling thought processes. It also has the same problem Zero Hour had of characters just out of nowhere vomiting information about some obscure thing that the author wants you to know about so that their awful pseudoscience ending can come about. I didn’t care about a single person in this game by the end, because they’re never really developed as people, just means to arbitrary endings and info dumps. Right at the start the characters so wildly, and obviously, misinterpret the rules that they’re given that I assumed this was going to lead to some grand twist. It never does. The entire game within the game is so close to irrelevance, disconnected as it is from the plot, that it could have been literally anything. The puzzle rooms feel like something that ending up being cut for time or money, absent as they are puzzles. There are only about two real puzzles in the entire game, with the protagonist narrating both the puzzle and solution in every other room, leading to you doing nothing but engaging in some time wasting clicking on icons. There’s really nothing to recommend about this game unless you’re just that desperate for a poor man's Zero Escape experience.

TL;DR - This game is a very ambitious first release that feels like an homage to Zero Escape in all of the right ways. It has a lot of problems with it, but if you're someone who has played Zero Escape that is yearning for that feeling you got when each of the games' plots unraveled around you and you saw what was going on in 4k for the first time, definitely play this game. It captures that feeling for sure. If you haven't played Zero Escape, well, play those games first. ------ This game wears its Zero Escape influences on it's sleeve. Its concept and plot are very reminiscent of the Zero Escape series, and will definitely resonate with ZE players in a similar fashion. Let's break down specifics. ------ Pros: - The scenario, once all the cards are on the table, is very cool and its twists and meta moments definitely live up to the Zero Escape name. - The CGs and backgrounds look fantastic. - The music is quite good. Nothing incredible here, but you could have played me any of the songs from this game before I'd played it through, and reasonably convinced me they were from a Zero Escape game. However, that sometimes is a bit on the nose. One song in particular sounds very much like a mixture of Blue Bird Lamentation and Morphogenetic Sorrow, in a way that doesn't leave a good taste in my mouth. Huh. Now that I'm writing it out, there are less of those than I had first thought. Anyway, moving on to the negatives. ------ Cons: - The sprites are strange looking at best, and downright ugly at worst. The character designs themselves are alright -- I quite liked E's design -- but every character has one sprite where they look very inhuman and/or bizarre, and with several characters, namely Ray and Jasmine, this is true for *most* of their sprites. Marco's design I dislike, but in a way that I'm not sure how to put into words. - The are exactly 2 real puzzles in the game. "What? But it's a game centered around escape rooms!" you might say. Yes, it is. However, with only two exceptions, every single puzzle (when there even are puzzles, most of the escape rooms are incredibly linear, and some are as simple as clicking a door for times in a row) is solved by the protagonist, Simon, through narration. This wouldn't be as bad if there weren't really escape rooms, but the fact that the game centers around escape rooms yet the player is completely shielded from all of the puzzles except 2 absolutely *astounds* me. There were several instances where I read the setup for a puzzle, got excited thinking I knew what the answer was and was gearing up to give it a shot, when Simon completely stole the show through the narration. Similarly, any codes come across, like a rot13 cipher in one of the escape rooms, are solved for the player. Except, bizarrely, an obvious anagram that winds up being plot relevant, which was made exceedingly obvious by the fact that it was called out as an obvious anagram yet Simon, this one time, inexplicably says "oh, well!" and continues on about his day. It feels very random to me which rooms even have puzzles, which have puzzles the player can solve, and which have puzzles that Simon narrates through (in fact, one of the puzzles that you actually do get to solve gets narrated through on another route lmao). - The dialogue is hit or miss. It's fine most of the time, but some lines are *really, really* bad. Almost all of the jokes fall very flat, which means that Marco, whose dialogue is 90% jokes, gets his screen time turned mostly into "god please stop making sex jokes and get back to the puzzle". Honestly, a lot of the problems I ran into here really could be explained by English not being the author's first language, and if that's the case, I totally get it, and replace my criticism of the dialogue with a friendly suggestion to have a few rounds of proofreading with native English speakers. - Building on that last point, most of the characters are more plot devices than actual characters. The only character I actually cared about by the end of the game was E -- most of the others were jerks, hard to listen to due to dialogue, or completely 1-dimensional. - A very large portion of the game feels like it could have been cut. A hallmark of the Zero Escape series is that each of the endings you had to reach before the true ending gave you more information that you could use to piece together the plot or that tantalized you on the twists coming. This game...doesn't do that. It has 19 endings, only 7 of which are required to unlock the true ending, for a total of 8 routes that actually matter. In fact, there's even an achievement for seeing the True Ending with the minimal number of routes complete. The fact that this achievement exists at all should raise an eyebrow. The other 11 routes add next to nothing to the story. Most of them are just as long as the endings that actually matter, dragging on for sometimes entire escape rooms (Yes, there are entire escape rooms that are missable!) only to be given no helpful information and sometimes not even a cliffhanger. In several of these bad endings, Simon is killed with no fanfare and learns absolutely nothing about the identity of his killer, which was interesting once, but when it happens 4 or 5 times, it crosses from boring into downright frustrating. Several of these extra 11 routes, if not all of them, could have been completely cut from the game, subbed in for a quick game over screen, and nothing of value would have been lost. Now, don't get me wrong, some of them had fun dialogue, and a much better solution would just be to shuffle things around so that even if they aren't required, they provide more to the story than just some extra dialogue, or a shallow character moment. - Even though the scenario is super cool, there are quite a few questions left unanswered. Perhaps these will be answered in the second game, which I have yet to play, but as it stands, there are quite a few questions I have about the plot that the game seemingly has not answered. And yes, I have 100%'d the game and seen every dialogue option. ------ Now, if you've just read all of that, you must be wondering how I could possibly be recommending this game. I could have been much more critical. This game frustrated me at times. However, *it was worth it*. The twists were surprisingly really, really good, and there are several moments where things that have been staring you in the face the entire time jump out at you and give you that jaw dropping feeling. I'm posting this review not being I disliked this game, but *because* I liked it. This author/developer is obviously very talented, the scenario they wrote is actually quite good, and I wish to see more of what they can do. I've tried to stick to constructive criticism and tried to both provide prospective players with a detailed look at what they're getting into, but also something that the developer could hopefully read and see a fan's opinions on what worked and what didn't.

I want to support indie developers that are inspired by my favourite game series. I love the Zero Escape trilogy and Danganronpa and all the other big mystery VNs like Phoenix Wright. But it kills me that this game is so polished and defies expectations in so many ways but, the most crucial elements, the writing and the puzzles, just fall flat and have me frustrated with the game barely an hour in. The good parts, and why I think this is super polished: The UI is really cool and original looking. The art style, while a bit different from mainstream Anime aesthetic, is interesting, coherent, and works really well. The music, from what I heard so far, sounds really nice and suits the situations in which it plays. It's all way higher quality than what I would expect from an small developer and I think that's awesome! The bad part: The writing is seeeriously falling short in a lot of places. Now, I'm not an author – the peak of my writing career is when I get too invested in a video game and write a 1000 word Steam review. But I do read a lot and the writing in this game is painfully fanfic-y. It meanders around completely irrelevant points, it doesn't know what to focus on, it's completely out of touch with the situation. Like, it's fine to meander if you wanna explore a thought, or even if you just want to give the reader some insight into how the main character thinks. But it's mainly giving me the insight that the protagonist is really annoying. A lot of matter-of-fact descriptions end in the protag adding his own opinion or some jokes in a way that's, more often than not, not only corny but honestly just make me wanna skip the dialogue until an actual new plot point comes along. It's really difficult to summarize all the ways in which the writing feels very amateurish and sloppy, and I think the best thing would be to try and get this proofread by someone who understands writing better than I do. Obviously I haven't finished the game and don't know how the story itself holds up in the end, but if the story is fine, then this is _the_ main thing holding this game back. I'm probably a bit of a snob, for sure, but this writing just takes me out of it and I find it hard to even think about continuing. The last glaring problem: The puzzles are no puzzles. You click dialogue boxes until progress happens. You just can't do that in something that obviously wants the Zero Escape audience. At that point, why have the puzzles at all? I wonder if there's been improvements to the writing in later parts. If so, I would love to pick them up. But as it stands, this is tough to recommend. In the end, this is a visual novel, and a novel is to be read, and if the reading's not fun, why bother?

What if Zero Escape was indie and bad.

"I clenched my teeth. Why did everything make sense? I wished it didn´t" Welp, I´ve been a Steam user since its very launch (2013) and yet, I had never written a review for a game. This should already be telling of what an impact this game left on me. Was it a good impact, tho?..... I really wish I could say it was, but my expectations weren´t totally met. I found this game through a Reddit post discussing games similar to Zero Escape, as I´m sure any other players have found out about HaC too. Looking at the game´s Steam page, I got excited watching the trailer and reading the info. Escape rooms, Visual novel elements, even the music sounds just like it came out from a ZE game. I was instantly sold and bought it on a sale that conviniently happened just a few days after i wishlisted the game. Now, as for the review itself.... I´ll get straight to my point. This "visual novel game" seems to have (unfortunately) left aside the "game" part. I´ll save you the time and share what many other reviews have already pointed out.... there is no real gameplay here. This is only a visual novel. You as a God..... uhum... you as player only click on objects and read the characters´ comments on them and on the events happening. This includes the "puzzles", which were a vital and enjoyable part of the ZE games. Yes. There are NO actual, real escape rooms or puzzles for the player.... Gameplay is limited to dialogue choices and that´s it. Well... to be fair there was ONE puzzle which was clever, but the existance of this single one puzzle, unfortunately, felt too out of place and it made me hope there would have more, and not only that, but it also made me think the devs had the knowledge, potential and planning to incorporate more puzzles. HOWEVER, THIS BEING SAID.... removing the "game" aspect, Head AS Code works very well as a visual novel. The story is interesting and creative, both as a love letter to the ZE games and as a story of its own. From a narrative point of view, HaC incorporates many sci-fi and pseudocience elements from the ZE games and uses them in new ways. Personally, I really, REALLY, liked their take on Schroedinger´s cat. The anagram from ZE are also here, and once a very particualr one´s meaning was revealed by the end, it made me go "oooohhhh, that actually makes sense". Actually, THE ending as a whole made me feel that way (yes, THE ending with capital letters, as there are 18 endings, which someone already made a very insightful opinion about in another review...). I´m not going to lie, I played for 2 hours on my first session and didn´t touch the game for a whole after that. I wasn´t really enjoying the game but I managed to pick it up a second time and, oh my, the story did manage to get me and I´m glad I gave it a second chance. (A BIT OF A SPOILER AHEAD). As I was reading the last/true ending, I was constantly thinking thigs like "oh so that´s why this happened" or "okay so that is why this other thing was like that" but I still wished there had been a more engaging way for us players to know about this, like, learning about it THROUGH escape rooms/puzzles. Suddenly, Simon, the character you as player control, as if he read my mind (talk about noemantics lmao) uttered these very exact words: "I clenched my teeth. Why did everything make sense? I wished it didn´t, because if it didn´t make sense, then it could have been a nightmare I could´ve woke up from" (END OF SPOILERS). Yes. I admit it. Part of me (a very prideful one) wasn´t ready to accept that a ZE inspired VN could work without the puzzles and by making players read through ungodly large amounts of text. i was glad all of that text eventually came together to make a good story, again, in the same roots of the ZE games. Also regarding the story.... Personally, I managed to see two of the biggest plot twists (about the nature of the Dating Game and the identity of Smiley/the Mastermind) from the very start... I mention this more as a recommendation for the devs to ploy these plot points in a more mysterious way for future entries. On that note, and as others have pointed out, there could have certainly been improvements on other writting aspects, such as grammar and more personality for certain characters (I know I must have written a hundred writting mistakes in this review so I´m not one to speak, but still...). As for characters, some were interesting, but saddly, I only managed to actually LIKE one of th(e)m. This is far from jsut a matter of personal liking, as the game pushes you to interact with some characters way more than others. For example, you barely have any interactions with Ray or the twins, who the game tells you virtually nothing about. Again, there is an explanation for this at the end (and quite a touching and creative one at that), but it only made me think.... why bother having 8 people? Yes, there is a reason why everyone is in this death game... expect not reallly. Even the mastermind tells you one of them got thrown in because..... well, they were nearby so why not.... Where I´m getting at is, some characters where interesting but underdeveloped, or just plain out not interesting or relevant at all.... OVERALL. Total score: 8.5/10 as a visual novel....... 3/10 as a videogame. I´d give it a sideways finger if there was an option. As another reviewer mentioned, if this were a book, it would have been very good. But a videogame, it laked the game part, but if you read the Lexicon entries, its evident the devs had plans to make more but for one reason or another they couldn´t fully incorporate all their ideas, which I think is a big shame. After having finished the game, I can say that Head as Code is more of a blueprint/proposal of a game that saddly couldn´t see its invisioned plan fully developed. I was left intrigued enough to wishlist the second game of the series. Once the full story came to its end, the the true ending did managed to peek my curiosity enough to look forward to play the rest of the entries. I wish the best to the studio, who I´m sure has lots of talent and love for the ZE and their own series, so I hope they manage to get enough resources to perfec their craft and so that they can make the games they make in the way they really want them too. One last comment.... the character designs were good and interesting, but the artstyle could have been better... AND THERE GOES MY FIRST STEAM REVIEW AFTER OVER A DECADE BEING HERE. FIUF. IT SURE WAS A LONG ONE.

I don't usually write reviews (even though i should but i'm often lazy) but i needed to do one for this gem of a game. As other reviews have said it , if you like zero escape/danganronpa/AI somnium files, its a MUST buy, the inspiration (especially ZE) is all over the place and you will feel right at home . The artstyle was weird for me at first, but it quickly grew on me, characters are interesting and likable ( E basically feels useless though , you will know why when you play the game lol) speaking of, i didn't really like the whole initials nickname thing, especially because it really didn't do a whole lot in the game, i would have rather liked unique nicknames in general. The music was very much on point. It hits that ZE feels again, and i've had times where i was feeling uneased and a bit stressful because of it (which is a great thing! ) The writing was questionable at times, some sentences/characters thoughts didn't really make sense sometimes, but overall it was really good, with a lot of puns and good dialogue ; I really liked that it took inspiration from AI and made all chapters a wordplay with "AS" , very clever ! Puzzles were fine , there's barely any per-say because its mostly automatic, but it was cool to see characters help each other to escape (though again, you spend a lot of time with E that does almost nothing most of the time , i would have liked more character interactions during escapes) I don't know why, but i LOVE flowcharts in VN, and this one is the most enjoyable i've seen in a game with all the colors, choices and stuff , it's simple but really cool-looking, and the final view of it makes it really nice. Like i said, this game is a no-brainer if you like ZE , or similar type of games, the price is right (i feel like it could have been even more honestly) the story is very engaging, with a true end thats really gonna make you go "aah so thats why" for many of your questions during the game, i was honestly very surprised by how well thought out everything was , there IS still a few discrepancies, and some things kinda made me feel "thats a bit TOO convenient it works that way" Overall i really don't have much to complain about , please buy this game and the sequel (at the time of this review i haven't played it yet but i heard its much better!) to encourage the developer , he's also making a third game, and you should really help motivate him by buying his other games!

A really interesting mystery visual novel heavily inspired by Zero Escape and some other mystery VN's. Some elements of the game feel a little amateurish, with jokes that don't really land and some awkward phrasing, as well as puzzles that basically solve themselves rather than being truly interactive. But the story is well planned out and I couldn't wait to see what crazy thing would happen next. It's a very low budget title, but the passion of the dev shines through, and i lost track of time playing- I'm excited to explore the next game in the series soon. I wasn't sure about the characters starting out, but they grew on me and there were plenty of fun twists and turns, and yes, fatalities. The game uses a flowchart system with many different routes, and as you'd imagine, you need clues from each of them to solve the whole mystery and finish the game. Everything is tracked very well so it's easy to see what you haven't yet completed, and it all autosaves, so you can never lose progress. Strong recommendation for anyone who enjoys Zero Escape, Danganronpa, and mystery visual novels in general.

If you have played the Zero Escape series, this is quite enjoyable, the structure is reminiscent of the earlier two entries, and the story is enjoyable enough for those who seek more of the "same exact" games. The escape rooms are some of the game's weaker parts, they aren't as engaging as the Zero Escape entries, but some of the puzzles show promise, if they were to actually require full text input, or proper "minigames".

I played this game's sequel, BMC, very early in the pandemic and it's always stuck in the back of my mind as a game I wanna replay once enough time has passed for me to get a good fresh second run. I also rushed to buy this game from itch.io (since it wasn't on steam at the time) and planned to play it until I heard that a steam release with major updates was on the horizon. So I sat on that for a while, got it on steam and installed in instantly but just didn't have the energy and time to deal with a mystery vn. and just recently i decided it was time to finally boot this game up. I beat the game in two sittings and was engrossed the whole time. Obviously there's only so much I can say without spoiling but I will agree with other reviews. There were multiple characters who you really don't learn much about and frankly never care for their fates. And if you want or expect puzzles in this game, you will be disappointed. It's a lot more point and click until you progress than a typical escape room style game. But what you are here for in a game like this is the story and the twists. And this game delivers on those for sure. It paces information drops to you well always leaving you wanting more, answering questions while raising twice as many in its place. And delivers through and through with a memorable ending. Playing this makes me excited to replay BMC with the information I learned here and the tidbits I remember from that. From what I do remember about BMC, obviously this is the first game in the (soon to be but not yet at time of writing) trilogy but, while BMC was clearly written to be possible to play first probably due to its nature of being released on steam earlier, I think this game deserves to be your entry point. Without spoilers for either game, you can easily have a good experience with either order and be appropriately shocked at the twists of both, but they are a series and the games do have a reason for their intended order besides just release date. tl;dr game good, the third game in the trilogy is a day one pickup for me and I suspect it would be for anyone else playing through this series.

Head AS Code is a genuinely well-written visual novel with a branching choice path and a satisfying narrative. Essentially a budget version of the Nonary Games, although this game doesn't actually contain many puzzles (though at some point in development did), so there's a bit of a narrative dissonance when a big popup shows up during the "puzzle room" segments where you actually just click on a bunch of stuff and the protagonist solves the puzzle for you. The characters seemed decently written, with a few odd exceptions, and one key issue I took with the game was its over-use of sexual innuendo, a lot of the time forced too. Some girl gets knocked unconscious and then there's a one-liner about "checking out her body, but not in that way". Just... unnecessary. It reeks of dialogue that was written by someone a bit younger, but luckily there's only a handful of these moments, and they're largely in the beginning of the story. Overall I found myself quite invested in the plot, and there's a good hook for the sequel in this which I'm looking forward to play. I do think it was worth the asking price although I grabbed it on sale. If you enjoy games that shoot for multiple endings that all cumulate into one "True End", you'll probably enjoy this game.