Project RyME

If you like There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension, Daniel Mullins games, or the TOME RPG, (to the 2 people who know what that is) you will probably enjoy Project RyME. In a game that spans multiple genres, there's a risk of some feeling underdeveloped and janky or not being your cup of tea. While there are some gamemodes that feel like a bit of a waste of time or too slow, generally I really enjoyed the changes of pace and the integration of the games into the narrative, and there were a few really good standouts! Chapter 3 in particular is excellent overall. The characters are really where the game shines. I think it will be extremely realistic to anybody in a small but intimate group chat. The characters span a wide range of young adulthood, each with different levels of maturity and chatting styles. (I feel like everybody knows a DarkVelvet. At least, I do) With the distinctly Gen-Z characters and dialogue the narrative could have easily felt irony poisoned, but the story is very heartfelt and serious when it needs to be. It may lean towards the cliche at times, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. It's a very generous length for the price too considering this is a mostly solo project. There was a point where I was positive it was about to end, then it kept going for another 3-4 hours. Length will vary based on how much you get stuck the puzzles, but I want to say it took me about 14-15 hours total. I might be a little slow at solving puzzles, though.

To the developers: A progression-blocking bug in Day 4 prevents me from progressing the game, further details are provided in the Steam discussion thread I posted. Until this is resolved, this review will remain negative. [b]Update:[/b] Bug seems to have been resolved in a patch in May 11th, 2024, but it is far too long from the day I requested help (March 28th, 2024) and I have not received direct feedback from the developers until now (August 19th, 2024). Obviously, I have forgotten everything about the game, and I don't think I will verify and/or continue playing, nor will I replay this from the beginning. I really don't want to discredit the develop's effort by leaving a negative review, but I also don't want to recommend a game if I'm not sure, and the issues I have with this game extends beyond progression bugs, as detailed in the review. So in the end, I think I will leave this review as is. 目前，一个进度Bug导致我无法正常通关这个游戏，这是我目前给出[b]不推荐[/b]的根本原因。不过就算通关了，我对本作的看法也不是完全正面，所以我索性先把我想到的写下来。 [b]更新：[/b]在2024.5.11更新的一个补丁好像提到修复了这个问题，但是距离我在2024.3.28提出问题以来，这个解决时间也太久了，开发者也并没有告知我问题已修复，现在已经2024.8.19了，我已经完全忘记了整个游戏的所有内容，因此我不会自己去验证这个问题究竟解没解决，也不会重新玩一遍这个游戏了。综合考虑之后，我在之前评测里写下的理由也足以让我给出“不推荐”的评价，因此最终我还是打算将这篇评测原样保留。 《Project RyME》这款游戏有两个特点。首先，作为一款以“调查”（Investigation）为核心的“冒险解谜游戏”，它所有的调查都发生在一台旧电脑上。这台电脑和现实中的电脑相似，有自己的操作系统和各种软件，还可以通过浏览器连接互联网，或通过命令行终端连接远程服务器，而玩家需要慢慢熟练使用软件、终端等工具来完成调查，甚至利用由真实的网络安全漏洞启发的一些方式来“黑入”服务器，获取自己需要的信息。我对这个设定挺感兴趣，这是我买下本作的一个原因。 其次，本作仅有的两篇评测中的一篇还提到了几个我很喜欢的作品：《这里没有游戏》（There Is No Game）和《六角疑云》（The Hex）。该评测中提到本作和这两款作品一样“跨越了多个游戏品类”（spans multiple genres），所以我也很好奇本作会怎么实现一款这样的作品。 我玩到了应该算是游戏中的第4个章节，目前我对这个游戏的看法只能说是好坏参半。 先说好的方面吧，好的方面就是在第一个特点，也就是基于计算机的调查解谜。目前市面上的“黑客”游戏，如《Hacknet》等，就算是受到了现实的启发，但最终还是选择将“黑入”这个过程弄成一个不可知的“黑盒”，玩家不需要也不可能理解其中的原理（因为设计师也没想那么多），只需要会按按键或者输入指令即可。而本作则至少尝试解释了一下它用到的各种脱胎于现实的黑入方式，其中甚至还有不少需要玩家进行实际操作。 比如，在某个阶段，玩家需要获取一个服务器的管理员权限，一般的黑客主题游戏可能就会把管理员密码藏在某个犄角旮旯让玩家找，这就算“解谜”了，但本作中，你可能会找到密码，但发现它还被上了一层加密，还需要使用游戏内置的“搜索引擎”来寻找解密的办法或工具。略微一查，发现游戏还只提供了工具和用法示例，但是真的要让工具起到特定的作用，你不仅需要理解工具的运作方式，还要结合在各种地方找到的信息来进行合理的联想和推断。我觉得这是本作一个挺有意思的地方。 然而，本作的第二个特点，就是“类型大杂烩”，在我看来就很难站得住脚了。我认为本作可以说是生动地体现出了，为什么有些游戏可以做大杂烩，而有些却不行。其实是很简单的道理，像之前说到的那篇评测里提到的两个游戏，它们做大杂烩之所以能成功，不是因为它们做了大杂烩，而是因为大杂烩中每个部分中都包含了创新，或者各个部分合起来能产生“1+1>2”的化学反应。《这里没有游戏》可以说是前者，它将各种各样游戏类型的“刻板印象”化用成指向点击解谜，颇为有趣，而《六角疑云》则可以说是包含了两者，它既通过Meta要素给每个子游戏在自己玩法的基础上带来了创新，并且用巧妙的叙事手法将这些游戏连接了起来。 而本作这个大杂烩......它真的就只是做了一堆没有什么关联的小游戏。它们和剧情的关系只能说有一点，但不多，它们和核心的调查解谜玩法之间也少有联系。为了推进剧情，玩家不得不通关这些不仅自己没啥创意，而且还实现得不怎么好（比如手感普遍拉胯）的小游戏，甚至还有的“小”游戏实在有点太拖了，影响了整个游戏的观感。比如到了本作第3章，游戏的主要玩法从调查解谜变成了回合制RPG+古早文字冒险，可以看出开发者应该是真的非常舍不得自己开发的这些系统就出现一两次，以至于这一章的长度直接比前两章加起来还长，而只是在形式上（在终端中进行操作）和原来的核心玩法沾边。里面居然还有一个纯粹要做几个非常无聊的“支线任务”才能推进的环节，我真的看不出来有什么意义。到了第4章，游戏玩法终于重新回到调查解谜，我才如释重负。 其实说真的，就算是这样，我也是可以为了本作的那些个亮点给出至少是可以推荐的评价的，即使说到底，本作谜题设计的逻辑本身也说不上出彩，只是在形式上比较有创意。然而我发现，我在第1章就遇到了某种Bug，跳过了好几个谜题和线索，而在第4章更是遇到了另一个卡住进度的Bug，这我实在是有点绷不住了。所以在开发组回应之前，我只能给出[b]不推荐[/b]的评价。

jumping straight in from the next fest demo, the game is still wonderful. the mystery is engaging, the puzzles are novel, the character writing and easter eggs are hilarious. my biggest nitpick is that switching which window is in focus brings multiple windows in front, which is especially notable with the era-accurate screen size, but it's manageable

Just wrapped this up today, and it deserves to be more seen! Feels like a bite sized daniel mullins experience, which is just what I needed. Had a great time plumbing terminals, and the built in walkthrough feature is fantastic for someone like me who occasionally has trouble with their typing and needs to double check themselves. Thank you for the fantastic experience!

Project RyME is a game I can only kind of recommend, mostly because for every thing it does right, there are several things it does wrong. The basic premise involves using a 90s-era PC with a magic hacking tool to solve puzzles - most of these are pretty straightforward. The problem is that the game has some really bad pacing issues and is kind of annoying to read. All of the character dialog is done through a Discord clone, including information necessary to solve several of the puzzles. While it only advances when you advance it, the messages are sent in a kind of "psuedo-realtime" where there's a delay between them, and if you happen to see a critical piece of information somewhere in there, you have to wait for the entire text scroll to finish because it does that thing Discord does where it'll auto-scroll when new messages are added, making it difficult to stay on an older message. There are lots of typos that seem unintentional, and in general the writing isn't particularly good: the idea is that the Discord is full of people the main character's father knew, but all of them are 19 year old transgender ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Then there's the game's real stumbling block, which is the minigames. A few hours in, you get put in a generic space shooter that controls like Asteroids only worse. The entire point of the Asteroids game is that it's actually a hacking tool where you have to enter a bunch of numbers.. by shooting them with the ship you use in the game. It's irritating at best and even though I knew the answer pretty quickly took me forever because I wasn't entirely sure what format the game wanted it in. Then there's the real pacing killer, which is an RPG Maker game you're forced into almost immediately after the Asteroids game that goes on approximately forever. The game's default resolution isn't big enough to fit all the text from the RPG on screen at once, and it has a couple sections that feel more tedious than anything else - at one point you have to follow a path through a screen by running a hack that spawns an orb which shows you the path but moves so quickly that you'll almost certainly have to run it multiple times. You'd think in a game about hacking you'd, I dunno, just hack that entire part out of the game. If you can put up with its BS, Project RyME isn't too bad I guess.

One of the best PC sim detective games out there - but one caveat - it becomes veryyy difficult. I got to "day 5" and just had to put it down (this was after maybe 20 hours of gameplay though). My brain was firing on all cylinders and I just couldn't keep up anymore. It has a good hint system though. Up til then though, I loved it. Really clever puzzles, just great gameplay and really rewarding when you figure things out. It keeps you on your toes for sure.

Went in expecting terminal-based hacking adventure, got that and a bunch of other cool stuff too. Fun, lots of variety, fair amount of bugs but that's kind of to be expected with the breadth of systems and a single dev.

one of the most engaging and enjoyable console based game experiences ive had :D theres a reason i keep coming back to it after playing the beta on itch years ago :3 i cant lie some of the typos got me ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up doe

I've still barely made it past the tutorial, but it's making me dust off my old command line and scripting skills so definitely promising.

great addition to the hacker sim genre, likable characters, an excellent tutorial/hint system, and a collection of minigames with so much effort and love put into them that they might better be described as genre hops or subgames. definitely worth the price! it's good!