[b]oniria crimes[/b] is an isometric voxel-based adventure, so it ticked multiple boxes for me right from the get-go. and it immediately started ticking me off with [b]annoying text display sounds[/b]...
the intro is a huge info dump, but here's the gist: we're in 2060, cities underwater, people communicate through dreams. they even created an oneiric city with many guilds for all their woolgathering needs, essentially [b]second life[/b] but with less porn (or more, there's some in the library). elections are coming up and there's tension between the governing guild and the kabu (natives), not to mention all the crime. and this is where you get into the picture: as agents working for an unaffiliated organization to keep things under control and find out who and what and why, re: crimes.
there are [b]6 cases[/b] in different locations with different mechanics, and of course the overarching narrative gluing things together. despite all the seriousness on the surface, serial killer, politics, all that, [b]it's a lighthearted and funny adventure, not something gritty[/b]. I found some of the writing cringey though.
crime scene investigations are done in holographically recreated locations, and since dead bodies dematerialize quickly, unlike in awakeland, [b]you gotta talk to objects because everything's alive and connected in oniria[/b]. relevant findings are collected in files, but you can click things over and over to remind yourself (if they have nothing more to offer, they get a different silhouette). the game even lets you skip the whole follow-up dialog the second time.
it's not all clickety-clicks and reading, [b]some items present a puzzle[/b]. hacking a computer is done via a randomized 3d minesweeper, for instance, then there's a puzzle box, some deciphering, and so on, and a [b]hint button[/b] is usually available. [b]dialog preceding a puzzle can't be skipped with a single click[/b], so you can't easily get back to a puzzle later. cases aren't too long, but some of the puzzles are tricky. the emblems in case 3 and the constellations in case 6 come to mind, and I looked up the final 2 digits in the library. didn't feel like messing around with an actual qr code, as neat as the idea is (and as broken the game will be when the website eventually goes down).
when you're done snooping around, [b]you have to decide who's guilty and innocent[/b] by choosing two statements from the notes. I love deductive stuff, but sometimes the choices weren't that obvious, for me anyway. no need to perfect everything, good enough is good enough to progress, but there's a restart button if you're not satisfied. not sure what happens if you get none of the deductions right in a case, but there are [b]alternate endings[/b] if you screw up things in the last one. it drops you back to the menu after and you can try again.
[b]controls are very simple:[/b] left click to select stuff, advance dialog and make text appear instantly, right click for other functionality based on the current situation. esc skips things, space advances text as well, which is shown with [b]annoying text display sounds that can't be turned off[/b], but at least it's not gibberish and it's 'only' for dialog, whatever the items have to say comes up instantly and quietly.
there's a [b]text speed setting[/b] (wouldn't mind the fastest being instant and silent), [b]separate but buggy volume sliders[/b] (they ignore cutscenes and don't even get saved between levels, let alone when you quit) and language options, also while playing. [b]there are remnants of spanish text in the english version and it gets worse as you progress[/b], plus resolutions and windowed mode are only accessible through the unity launcher on startup, lazy.
progress is just as lazily stored in the registry and [b]the game saves constantly and when you quit[/b], but the intro and cutscenes have to be skipped every time, which is also annoying. I had issues with cutscenes playing really slowly or not at all, especially the final few, but that's probably my old pc being old. clicking 'continue' in the main menu lets you restart the current case, otherwise [b]individual cases can't be replayed, not even after finishing the whole game[/b].
[b]in the final area quitting midway didn't save everything properly.[/b] my notes were kept but I had to re-examine most things and even re-do the constellation puzzle with the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ owl interrupting all the time. turns out, it was unnecessary, as they were already marked found in the save, but I still ended up with a few misses, probably because daytime stuff didn't get saved and was unavailable during nighttime when I quit. and I still got a perfect, just like in the library after missing a dozen of the nearly 800 books, while in case 5 overlooking a single item was already too much.
all in all, it's [b]pretty good but really buggy[/b]. the original price got halved permanently less than a year after release, so if it was more polished and bug-free, it would probably be worth it for 10 bucks for some, but since it's not, [b]definitely wait for a sale[b], and until then you can [b]try the demo[/b].
