This is a tough one. To make a game is no small feat, especially when it's a passion project.
[h1]No budget dream[/h1]
This is a game, built on a shoe-string budget of five zlotys and a box of pierogis. I admire the effort, but it hurts the storytelling too much. This is a visual novel (with some adventure game elements thrown in, but it really is more or less a linearly told short story). It wants to tell a story, but you jump around without any transitions. Your character puts a baby boy to sleep, mentiones medicine, and the next click just throws you at a door, with other children, greeting an ominous stranger - no knocking, no sound, no nothing. You just go screen to screen, and it is painfully evident that there just wasn't enough time and money. It is unfortunate, because just a bit more polish would make the game a lot more palatable.
[h1]More visual, less novel[/h1]
One thing that will draw people in are the beautiful visuals. Along that, you get some nice background sounds/atmosphere, which is sadly a bit butchered by audio engineering, which is anything but nice. The game is almost entirely void of any sounds, other than the background noises. It's tone deaf, because the story very much needed sounds, instead of watching a silent theater - you don't need to have voice acting, but even simple grunts and sounds can go a long way.
However, visuals alone cannot carry a visual novel. Sadly, the story telling, dialogue and characters are barely worth mentioning. Yes, there is some slavic lore, but again, it's interesting in more of an encyclopedic matter, that you are curious about the creatures, but they barely contribute anything to the story. I am not asking for some masterpiece of literature. I was simply missing any sense of journey. I felt like a tourist, with no connection to the protagonist, or anything the game made me go through. The story is poorly concieved, and even though it tries to provide couple of powerful moments, they fall short of the intended impact, because the narrative is just so cheap. Also, you get two choices towards the end. Both disappointing. One of them is to let one of your "companions" live, but you never see them again afterwards, so it's a pointless choice, there is barely any sendoff. And at the very end, you get to decide... something. The result are like 4 sentences and a single ending screen. Tone deaf. The game just ends.
Game's somber tone stays from the beginning to the end. This game is dark, and even depressing at times, but it's achieved only through audio and video, not through storytelling, which remains uninspired to the end. It's a very short game, you can finish it under two hours easily, which wouldn't necessarily be a problem, if everything was really impactful, or it created a desire to play it again. Well, it hasn't created that desire for me.
[h1]The show must chug on[/h1]
Visual novels usually run on "who knows what", but you would think there isn't much to solve, due the simplistic nature of the game. Well, have you ever seen a visual novel, where simple dialogue options get locked in, the UI breaks, and the only way to continue the dialogue is to press ESC to bring the main "menu"? It feels like a one-person project, and that the artist, who is no doubt very talented, also had to do the programming. The game runs at 22 FPS, everything feels clunky and a bit unresponsive. Not a big deal, since this game doesn't require any fast reactions from you, but it's noticeable.
What's also noticeable are some "puzzles", which are scattered through the game and become more common towards the end, are with the exception of one completely primitive, and I can't imagine anyone struggling with them. However, there is one, single puzzle that can be considered a puzzle, and it feels random and broken - one of those "activate the entire board" types, where you guess the proper order of a sequence. But have you ever seen one, where parts of the sequence can get different results, depending on the order you choose? It just threw me off. There are just some things you shouldn't do. Thank god for that one guide that exists on youtube, because otherwise, I would've given up on the game right before it ends.
[h1]Ultimately, a cautious recommendation. I really wish I could just blindly support the devs, even for a low price, but they just don't make it easy. It's something different. But that doesn't make it great. If you're intrigued, go ahead. [/h1]
PS. If you ever mispell a word in your game, make sure it's not cook => co*ck. It really couldn't happen with a worse word.
