Nice to NO you

So far this game is absolutely amazing, I haven't beaten it yet but I am looking forward to that. Will update this review when I do.

The Entire Game in a Nutshell - Wait 5 seconds for the people to line up. - Read a 3-5 sentence reason for them being there. - Pick three to ask 3 questions. - Wait 5 seconds per character to walk off screen. - Wait five seconds per character to walk to the point you ask questions. - Ask three questions, or tell them to get lost. - Decide which one you want to wipe reading over the same information as when you first selected them. - Wait 5 seconds per character to walk off screen. - Wait 10 seconds for the person you picked to be wiped off screen. - Day 2 - Rinse and Repeat until the third week (End Game) Sound fun? Probably not, an interesting concept poorly designed.

Sure it got a few flaws here and there and the genre might not be something for everyone, but it's interesting enough to give it a go. And there are big updates on the horizon.

[i] My Experience [/i] After my first in-game day of choosing whose memory to wipe, I was annoyed. I didn't feel like the flow of the game made intuitive sense. Initially, you're choosing which three of the citizens to move forward to the next stage of the process. Then, at the next citizen line-up (after questioning each citizen you've sent forward), you're choosing which two of the citizens to dismiss. I feel like it would make more sense here if you chose a citizen to move forward - in the same fashion you did at the first line-up. You dismiss citizens from the second line-up by clicking on them and then clicking "Nice to NO you" in the upper right side of the information box. I had no idea what this phrase was supposed to mean - "nice to KNOW you(?)," like you won't remember this meeting because I'm about to wipe your memory, or "nice to NO you(!)," which I guess means that I'm taking pleasure in denying the citizen access to the procedure. It was the latter, but I didn't understand this initially, so I sent two citizens home whose memory I didn't want to wipe and left the one for whom this was not the case. Also, when you pick a citizen to have their memory wiped, why do the citizens that were not chosen at this stage never return? This doesn't make any sense. It would make sense that you initially choose the three citizens you deem most deserving of the procedure to further investigate. If any citizens wouldn't return, it would make sense for it to be the ones that were not chosen out of the initial line-up of five! With the way the game is designed, you'll want to pick the one citizen that you have the strongest preference for (in terms of wiping their memory), and then the two among the line-up that you feel are most undeserving of the procedure (since you know you'll never have the opportunity to perform the procedure on them afterwards). However, the experience wasn't all bad. I found that, perhaps because of challenging experiences I've had recently with clients with a trauma history (I work as a therapist in my day-to-day life), I was most interested in choosing citizens with a major traumatic event in their past. I think the game helped me become more aware of the frustration I was feeling and address my beliefs about how and whether clients can change. I think it would be interesting to query other players about why they chose the citizens that they did - for instance, if a player just went through a very difficult break-up, would they be more likely to choose a citizen who wanted to erase the memory of something similar? On my first playthrough, with the exception of day 1, I chose the citizens with the most grim traumas regardless of their "productivity score." Upon completing the game, I got "Normal Ending 1." The next time through I did the same thing, but without making the errors that I did on the first day (that I described at the beginning of the review). I got "Special Ending 20." On my third and final playthrough, I did nothing but wipe the memory of the highest productivity score that appeared each day, just to see how it might alter the ending. And...I got "Normal Ending 1" again. I'm really not sure how my choices corresponded to the ending. While I valued how [b]Nice to NO you[/b] made me reflect on my beliefs about how clients can change, I felt that I could likely get something similar from a quality consultation session with a colleague. The clumsy mechanics of making these choices, coupled with the vague connection between the choices and the game's endings, led me to be generally disappointed with the overall experience.