Maskerade: The Deadpan Cry

Hello all! As an avid supporter of small studios and indie devs, I like to try out new releases that seem to have potential. Today I tried this game for a while. To start, I will say that I really enjoy the artwork and the overall aesthetic of the game. While some of the movements could be more fluid, less cartoon/stutter like, they are far better than many titles I've tried. The premise of the game, the story arc, and aspects such as the behavior of The Clients, these are all pretty bonus to me, and I wish it was easier to claim that I would recommend the game. So why would I hesitate to recommend? Well, the game hard crashed quite early on my first and second attempts to play. Despite having hit a save point on my second attempt, the game did not preserve that file even though it had it listed with multiple saves upon relaunch. I had to start from the very beginning 3 separate times, but at least the 3rd attempt remained stable with only glimmers of a threat to lose the session. Unfortunately, this also meant I had to repeatedly collect the collectable items. Stuff happens and I get that indie titles can be rough at the start, but it was definitely not clear as to why this was happening, and my playtime on record reflects this repetition (obviously). While the setting and the characters of Larissa, Priya, etc. are nicely designed and move relatively well, the enemies are far less developed and pretty generic in their appearance, movements and behaviors. Even when being attacked or captured by the enemies or The Clients, the moment of capture is very bland and has no real terror vibe. Once you are in the basement, the game assets are no longer set. It is clearly an unfinished game. At first, I thought the boxes/cardboard look was intentional, but it became clear that they simply hadn't... they hadn't even put in temporary artwork. This made the basement maze and escape run especially difficult to navigate, very frustrating and disappointing. I gave up when the game initiated its second chase sequence of the game, where you're being chased in the maze. The generic boxes made it essentially impossible to navigate with any confidence. Even still, being "captured" by the guy chasing you was just like a pat on the shoulder. Literally. Other aspects that I found frustrating... no options to re-keybind or even review the functions of the keys. No guidance on what the double hand interaction guide icon meant or how to move forward with said interaction. Even though you're using a pretty standard keyboard and mouse setup, opening the journal requires a cross-keyboard keypress and the journal cannot be closed by hitting escape or anything. It was not clear why they chose J instead of tab or what have you. Navigating the info logged there gave minimal information about collected items, didn't show you any of the photos or letters you find, and it is not evident how to see your inventory of items... None of the entries gave much of a hint for how to use things or what to do in the event the player was lost. So while I did enjoy it on a certain level, I couldn't recommend it to others just because it is so clearly unfinished. I get that some EA games can be like that, but without any indication that it was intentionally published without being finished, it is a bit of a stretch to recommend at this time... Even though I know many who would LOVE the artwork and vibe.