Need to Know

Forces you to both help out the agency and the resistance. No reasonable (in-universe) explanation given either. The whole choices matter part is a lie, game doesnt let you make a single choice, its either play one linear path or loose and retry. If you want the same concept done better, try Mainlining.

Well, I certainly have some thoughts about this game after beating it. Let’s get through them starting with the positives. - The soundtrack is great! It adds to the intensity and urgency during some missions and very much fits with the whole mass surveillance theme. - Some missions were very good and fun. Definitely some memorable ones especially when you got better clearance levels. (As long as they weren’t crossmatch missions which I’ll get to in a bit) And that’s about it with the positives :/ on to the negatives which overall, lead me to not recommend this game especially if you respect your time. - Bad tutorials. One of the biggest problems with the game. The guide talks pretty fast and the dialogue during its explanations keeps going rather than clicking to proceed which can make you easily miss information on what to do. Often times I felt like I was thrown into a pool expecting to know how to swim. This was especially the case with what I think is the worst mission type in the game, crossmatch. I was just lost with these missions and just rushed through them. I saw in a couple of cases I could just approve everyone very quickly and my performance would still be good. - Money is useless. All you can do with your hard earned cash is spending it on items for your house that serve no purpose other than just sitting there. [spoiler] (Near the end of the game, you go to prison and are on the run after escaping which further adds to the uselessness of money and items from the shop.)[/spoiler] You never have to pay rent other than one point in the game but you can easily do something to not pay. Other similar games like Not Tonight, papers please etc had much better economies and it would’ve been nice to have some upgrades for work that you could buy. - The game overstays it’s welcome. I think this game is way too long and drags on especially with the home missions where you have to find data to sell. At first they were alright but it got really tedious once you had to balance between 3 sellers. I didn’t do the home missions for money, more so I did them to keep the relationship between the sellers high and not get a game over. I think what would’ve been better is to have the main story be shorter and make an endless mode for those who want more. - Unfulfilled promises. I certainly think this is one of the biggest disappointments. Once I learned this game was made possible by kickstarter, I went to its page and saw that the only stretch goals implemented were a series of missions like taking down a cult, finding stolen artifacts, rigging an election etc. The ones that would’ve been really nice like better customization, clearance level 0 and arcade mode were never implemented despite being reached. I also saw comments from the dev saying they are working on a spin-off for this game but that was back in 2020 and their social media hasn’t had a post since then which leads me to believe they’ve abandoned plans altogether which is a big shame.

Backed this one on Kickstarter and I'm still mad.

This game is like Papers, Please where you examine documents according to daily rules,. However, this interface-heavy game fail in both UI & UX fronts. The UI elements is buggy and in the way almost every day. Animations are slow, and you wish it would go faster. I don't even know if there's a time limit because no UI explicitly tell you that (maybe they tell you that in the manual, but good UI doesn't need manual). The "Live" information display only show one line, and often hide information. UI elements obscure subjects in corners of the map (like Alaska, Australia). UX is bad because you cannot open multiple suspects at once, while some mission objective ask you to compare information across several suspects. Large part of the UI are unusable space. There's some story that might be interesting, with eleemnts from real world. But it's full of filler missions that make the game move 10x slower than Papers, Please or Orwell. And even though many games in this genre do have different routes for your decision, this game force you into choices. Characters will add themselves to your contacts even if you refuse (by giving you "an offer you cannot refuse") and threaten you with game over if relationship is not maintained. Some story choice is an illusion that either do nothing or resulting in game over.

Overall I did like playing the game but I feel it could be way better. I backed the game on Kickstarter and finally took the time to play through it. I mostly liked the game the game mechanics but it was too long for me with about 25-30h to complete. I felt some clearance levels were stretching for way too long and a shorter experience would have been more enjoyable. The story is completely linear and you only have an illusion of choice with the dialogue. The only variation possible from the story is to lose. I made the choice to not interact with anyone with the dating app but the story forces you to be in couple with your hometown friend. I never leaked data to Denys but it still ends up backfiring at you. Same thing goes with Tripwire, you have no other way to handle them. During the game, I never felt there was much at stake. I would have liked to have some dilemma when making a decision for suspects. The only times I wasn't 100% in compliance was because I made slight mistakes, never because I was compelled to protect people or serve some personnal interest. So most of the time I had no interest to know how much % of compliance I gained, nor my ranking changed. The part I most enjoyed was the end where the rythm was different, even if it was still linear, I liked the sense of story progression and the interrogation gameplay. I would love to see a sequel, maybe shorter with a non linear story and more stakes.

This game is ok - but just ok. It has a great concept for those who like political/dystopian/investigative games, like myself. Nonetheless, the game falls rather short considering there really are no choices you can make (technically, there are, but these choices just mean the game is over before its real ending). I value choices in these types of games more than anything, however the developers really had just one type of character in mind; you can't be completely devoted to the Department, and you can't be a rebel either. Also, although day-to-day duties are interesting at first, later they become really boring, except for few meaningful investigations, so the developers could have made the game shorter without sacrificing anything, really. Still recommended for people who like these types of games, just don't expect too much.

Presents itself as a game with choices but railroads you, doesn't allow you to choose your stance in the story and ultimately doesnt give you real freedom.

---{ Graphics }--- ☐ You forget what reality is ☐ Beautiful ☐ Good ☑ Decent ☐ Bad ☐ Don‘t look too long at it ☐ MS-DOS ---{ Gameplay }--- ☐ Very good ☐ Good ☑ It's just gameplay ☐ Mehh ☐ Watch paint dry instead ☐ Just don't ---{ Audio }--- ☐ Eargasm ☐ Very good ☐ Good ☑ Not too bad ☐ Bad ☐ I'm now deaf ---{ Audience }--- ☐ Kids ☑ Teens ☑ Adults ☐ Grandma ---{ PC Requirements }--- ☐ Check if you can run paint ☑ Potato ☐ Decent ☐ Fast ☐ Rich boi ☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer ---{ Game Size }--- ☐ Floppy Disk ☐ Old Fashioned ☑ Workable ☐ Big ☐ Will eat 10% of your 1TB hard drive ☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it ☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data ---{ Difficulty }--- ☐ Just press 'W' ☑ Easy ☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master ☐ Significant brain usage ☐ Difficult ☐ Dark Souls ---{ Grind }--- ☑ Nothing to grind ☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks ☐ Isn't necessary to progress ☐ Average grind level ☐ Too much grind ☐ You'll need a second life for grinding ---{ Story }--- ☐ No Story ☐ Some lore ☑ Average ☐ Good ☐ Lovely ☐ It'll replace your life ---{ Game Time }--- ☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee ☐ Short ☐ Average ☑ Long ☐ To infinity and beyond ---{ Price }--- ☐ It's free! ☐ Worth the price ☑ If it's on sale ☐ If u have some spare money left ☐ Not recommended ☐ You could also just burn your money ---{ Bugs }--- ☐ Never heard of ☐ Minor bugs ☑ Can get annoying ☐ ARK: Survival Evolved ☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs ---{ ? / 10 }--- ☐ 1 ☐ 2 ☐ 3 ☐ 4 ☑ 5 ☐ 6 ☐ 7 ☐ 8 ☐ 9 ☐ 10

It was alright. If just alright is good enough for you, and you enjoy these kind of investigative sim games, I might suggest getting it on sale. It's nothing to write home about though, and I don't think I'd encourage a friend to get it. I was severely dissatisfied with how railroaded the story was. [spoiler] When given a chance to help the DoL or anti-government agencies, you're forced to help both or you lose the game. There are several mechanics that seem pointless to the game itself. There is a dating app you use eventually, and you can use the information from your database to have a hand-up in conversations with suitors. This doesn't matter at all. The app serves no value besides I guess extra practice? The roleplaying element from it I guess is alright but there's no reward to doing well in the dating app. Another thing is buying furniture and things for your house. It served no purpose besides wasting your money. I was hoping once I got farther in the game would feel like there was more at stake, but the conclusion felt rushed and I just wanted to finish it so I could be done by the end. I think the game is supposed to make you feel like your MC is nuanced in some way too, with different instances of you looking at your own data, but I felt no investment in the MC since I had no power over who she was. [/spoiler]

At around a 3 hour mark I wrote a review Thinking I was too harsh on the game I gave it another chance, but after almost 10 hours of playtime and reaching [spoiler] clearance level 7 [/spoiler] I do not like this game unfortunately What I like: -Similarity to Orwell, basically text based, info gathering game where you have to read and make assumptions What I do not like: -Lots and lots of ui bugs -[spoiler] After reaching clearance level 8 the game tries to introduce you to a new type of mission, tells you choices matter but it it does not [/spoiler] -[spoiler] You are basically forced to play the data selling minigame [/spoiler] -[spoiler] The writing on the higher ups is so annoying, they look like they do not even know what are they doing [/spoiler]