Obscura

It did not take long for my frustration level to spike with this game. For all I know, the story and the might be super engaging, and I was hopeful. When I was exploring the details and deciding to try it or not, I was compelled by the genre and the artwork. What was not clear was that this was developed in French, and while this would typically not be an issue, the detail is important for why I was super frustrated after attempting to play for around 20m. The reason is that the game is oriented to non-English keyboards, definitely not set for a standard QWERTY, and has no ability to reset the keybindings. I have played European games with this issue before, but they always have had the ability to set at least the basic movement commands, presumably under the assumption that players may need to do exactly that... But this game only offers one "option" and it's to change the video quality... a choice I find strange because the game is listed with minimum requirements that are kinda high, minimums that should easily handle the relative simplicity of the environment and the interactions. I guess it should be said though that the minimum requirements as listed are not accurate because, for example, the "minimum" required OS is listed as Windows 11 and that certainly wasn't a stopping point for me. I suspect that the minimum and the recommended tech lists are incorrectly entered, considering the recommended tech listed in the store is simply a 64-bit system. But the keybindings are awful on an English QWERTY. Want to go forward? You have to figure out just which movement key is accurate because we are NOT working with ASWD standards. The forward key is actually Z. Going left? that's Q. The keys A and W do not have any function... but of course, in this day and age, we expect appropriate localization for the regions the game is released in, or at least having the option to adjust the details for your typical regional setups. AWSD movement keys are a long-standing gaming standard for movement... and yet, you either have to re-orient your keyboard use in a way that doesn't make sense (it is actually fairly difficult, at least for me, to simply swap my "forward" key to one that feel oriented for backward, and likewise trying to go left but having to use a key oriented to forward). It wouldn't have been so bad if they had at least TOLD us that this was the case... But I found myself attempting to adjust to using the arrow keys instead, because those worked correctly for the directions. Somehow I still managed to complete a ritual or fill in the first circle of the final ritual... I have zero idea if I did things correctly or what I'm supposed to do going forward in the game. I looked at many objects and the game says you're looking for clues to perform these actions, but there's no guide, no instructions, and the journal you're carrying gives a prompt for "the ritual" but only references one of the emotions... Perhaps the idea is that by engaging with the place, you find enough information to figure out which emotions you should emulate, but performing the ritual was also not exactly intuitive either. It honestly feels like there are a lot of gaps and a lack of thought put into making sure it is set up for the regions. Localization and language translations are really important for the player to feel capable and invested. I don't want to have to troubleshoot things to figure out how to play the game; even a simply keymapping info list without adjustment options would be great... But I don't want to say that this is the only issue, because it is not. I would be willing to try again if more time was invested into localization and optimization. As it stands, I don't think I can reasonably engage with the mechanics enough to even build confidence organically. Good luck to the developers as you consider and potentially work on adjusting the content to be more flexible and informative for the player. Good luck to fellow players, I hope that if you give it a try, my pointing out the keybinding disconnect can save you the several minutes it took me to suss it out. Much love, TeslaQoil aka Mama Lynn