Herald: An Interactive Period Drama - Book I & II

Go play any of the Monkey Island titles for a way better time.

Unfinished and obviously never going to be finished (the only "recent" news was from 2 years ago....for a game released 7 years ago). For a story game, this is unacceptable. Don't waste your money. EDIT: The game dev wound up releasing the game years later than when I had played it. My negative review still stands, because you took so long that I no longer remember the plot enough to continue. A waste of my time and money, truly.

O jogo é simples e ele te coloca como: um faz tudo, num navio do século 19. Você é da base pobre e lida com problemas dos pobres e ricos a bordo. Você interage e ouve tudo sobre todos no navio, e com essas informação leva itens e ajuda os problemas dos personagens. É todo em inglês e isso deixa o jogo com ritmo lento para quem desconhece o básico do inglês. Acaba não sendo tão divertido pelo fato das missões rolar muita repetição e nosso personagem não ter tanta relevância. Da umas 3 horas para zerar os dois livros disponíveis, e o segundo é um pouco melhor. Para quem gosta de jogos de textos e interações, ira gostar.. mais de resto ele é bem parado e pode não agradar muito. Ele é nichado para essa pequena parcela que ta acostumada com este tipo de game. Paguei R$7,00 = Acho que por essa média de preço compensa, arte legal e bem detalhadamente tudo do navio.

It's been 84 years, but we're finally getting the complete edition, in two days!! I couldn't be more excited. Brilliant storytelling, gorgeous art and voice acting. I can tell it's made by theatre kids <3

Herald: An Interactive Period Drama - Book I & II is an older LGBTQ+ friendly Nintendo Switch/Console game from 2017. It's a venerable 7 years old at the time of this review. It's only half of a complete game, and given that it's 2024 now and this console game came out in 2017, well, a game of such low ambition as this shouldn't take 7 years to finish. But we can also raise the ethical questions around selling only half a game for cash money, and then deciding later if they want to finish it or not. And then, presumably, charge gamers even more money for the other half of the game they already paid for. Steam Direct... what a time to be alive. Anyway, this game was going to be a point and click adventure game exploring LGBTQ+ issues from a historical perspective. I assume, since they never finished it, it's hard to say too much else about it. From a technical perspective, this 50% of a game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard. Despite not being in Steam Early Access (where this arguably belongs), the game is missing features and is apparently incomplete. Due to the lack of meaningful progress from the developer, it's unlikely the game will be completed at all, yet the developers reprehensively have their hand out for money for an incomplete game. This is a good reason for gamers to avoid this. The game features somewhat low-polygon "retro" assets (or are they just bad quality? Retro or bad... hmm... either way, don't buy games that look bad), making this look like a barely functional 3D game from the mid 2000s. It's unclear why the developers weren't able to arrange high quality, high polygon count contemporary assets for the game, and also irrelevant... what matters is that this looks bad as a result of their decisions, a compromise PC gamers shouldn't have to put up with. Half a game, half done graphics. At least there is symmetry. The controls can't be customised, which will be an annoyance for many, but it can also render the game unplayable for differently-abled gamers, left handed gamers or gamers using AZERTY or other international keyboard layouts. Because this is designed for handheld/portable gaming appliances, it carries a number of deliberate design deficiencies. Compromises were made to cater to the low power handheld gaming appliances that the game was designed for. These are unfortunate compromises and limitations that PC gamers shouldn't be forced to accept, but it's evident that PC was a second thought for the mobile game developers. The game is deficient as a result of these choices, and would have been so much better without the handicaps that designing games for low power handhelds forces upon a game. While this might run well on a Steam Deck, we must remember the vast majority of gamers here are gaming on PC. These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game. Reviewing SteamDB to check how popular this game was with players reveals a surprise... there's a modest spike in player counts for the game (actually, only 13 players... ouch). But this only happened once, around the same time that trading cards were applied to the game... so this is just card idlers getting their cards and moving on. A closer look at the numbers shows the game just has a couple of players every week running up the game and idling it for cards, then deleting it. We must ask how it benefits gamers for there to be so many games like this, with no merit as a serious game, that only generate sales from people idling and selling the trading cards. So, should you buy this half game? Is this one of the best of the 100,000+ games on Steam? Herald: An Interactive Period Drama - Book I & II has the laughable price of $10 USD, for which you could easily get any number of older AAA games. Given the defects and quality issues with the game, coupled with the unrealistic price, this is impossible to recommend. For comparison, the $10 asking price for this game could get you actually finished before they were published games like "Disco Elysium", "Metro Exodus" or "Grand Theft Auto V". Quality, professionally made games like those are frequently on sale cheaper than this.

Résumé : je suis très satisfait par Herald et j'ai passé un très bon moment même si les deux premiers chapitres sont courts. Avec quelques corrections techniques, un bon développement de l'intrigue (plus de deux autres chapitres ?) et (peut-être) des ajouts aux chapitres existants Herald pourrait devenir un hit. ------------- Points positifs Très beau jeu empreint de réalisme quotidien mais où surgit l'inattendu. On peut vivre une aventure sans sauter à pied joint dans l'extravagance. Les graphismes, la bande sonore et les dialogues sont sublimes et leur enchaînement est si délicat qu'on se laisse captiver rapidement. C'est réjouissant de voir un tel niveau d'esthétique et de raffinement. Deux autres chapitres doivent suivre mais les chapitres existants pourraient en eux-mêmes être développés. La scène finale du deuxième chapitre semble ne pas permettre de prolonger les événements introductifs sur le bateau alors que la scène introductive du premier chapitre donne un sentiment tout contraire. J'attends avec impatience la suite. J'ai apprécié pour une fois que l'histoire soit sérieuse (désolé, pas d'humour dans Herald) et réaliste (pas cyberpunk, d'enquête criminelle ou et de fin du monde, hein). Les interactions avec l'environnement sont faciles et clairs. Les PNJ inutiles à l'avancement de l'histoire pendant un sous-chapitre ne sont pas loquaces : une phrase aléatoire et pas de dialogue. Impossible de tenir une discussion avec eux. On peut trouver cela un peu court mais j'ai aimé ne pas avoir à faire avec des personnages secondaires aux dialogues baclés ou qui répètent comme des perroquets. C'était bien plus réalistes. Il y a possibilité d'ajouté des développements avec tous ces autres personnages à portée de main. Des emplacements deviennent inaccessibles temporairement si l'intrigue implique de se focaliser sur une tâche. Mais il y a tout de même encore une liberté d'exploration dans les lieux accessibles. Encore une fois c'est une contrainte élégante et tellement réaliste ! On ne peut pas faire n'importe quoi n'importe quand dans ce jeu. Cela donne un cheminement efficace où on est rarement ou même pas du tout laissé dans le doute mais on peut satisfaire sa curiosité tout de même. Un équilibre proprement génial. Le temps lui aussi est bien scandé : nuit, jour, lumière, repas, météo. Pas de mauvais mélange de genre. Dans Herald il n'y a pas de puzzle. Point négatifs D'autres personnes ont soulignés les défaillances du système de sauvegarde. Après les avoir lu je n'ai pas éteint le jeu avant de l'avoir fini pour ne pas avoir de problème. Pour ma part je dirai je les deux premiers chapitres furent si court que je n'aurait pas eut besoin de sauvegarder et je ne peut pas dire si le système est défaillant. Il est vrai qu'à chaque transition scénaristique il serait agréable de voir un message indiquant d'une sauvegarde automatique a été effectuée et mentionner quelque part sur le menu d'accueil comment le jeu gère les sauvegardes pour que le joueur n'ai pas peur de perdre sa partie. Les déplacements sont peu aisés. Quand l'icône des "pas" apparaît, cliquer ne déplace pas toujours le personnage. Dans ce type de jeu les scènes figées et les déplacements scénarisés sont plus fonctionnels à mon goût. Pour un moteur 3D je trouve tout de même que les déplacements contraints de Herald sont bien meilleurs que d'autres plus libres comme par exemple ceux de Syberia 3. Il y a une contrepartie de la bonne gestion des contraintes des dialogues, des temps et des lieux. L'intrigue progresse très vite et on se retrouve un peu sur sa faim. Une traversée en mer c'est long habituellement. J'ai trouvé les deux premiers chapitres trop courts. Je vais les refaire avec d'autres choix mais je doute que cela donne plus de profondeur. Ce sera juste une alternative. Deux chapitres de plus semblent insuffisants.

Que jogo bom!!!! Principalmente o segundo capítulo chorei na ultima cinemetic no porão do navio. Só quem é brasileiro sente na pele quanto a nossa história é horrível e desumana.

This was a pretty interesting game, although the "Let's make this interactive" bits involve a lot of fetch quests and tedious tasks. The actual gameplay could be spruced up a little, but the story carries it pretty well, and it's still worthwhile. It does end on a cliffhanger (and a very interesting one), so be aware that that's the case. I'm looking forward to the remaining part(s)!

Great game. Very absorbing story, reminds of the Broken Sword series.

[quote] You can find the full review [url=https://youtu.be/Y_HCXVdpwVU?t=57]here[/url], [url=https://youtu.be/IAqM7yBsVXQ?t=61]here[/url] and [url=https://youtu.be/iOSHihH2CRE?t=692]here[/url] you can follow our curator page [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/35757962/]here[/url][/quote] I would say this game lean more towards a visual novel than a point and click game, but there are definitely small aspects of P&C. It does start off quite slowly, but the pay off is pretty good. I can't wait till the next books are ready, the story is compelling and the characters fascinating. Disappointed with the lack of save options though, sometimes you do only want shorter sessions of play, but you have to play through an entire chapter before there is an auto save. There was also a bug that locked the game for me, so i had to play through the chapter again. Still would recommend it, but maybe wait until the next books are out.