Quarantine Circular

this is a fun game! i played it a while ago and recently revisited it with a few friends. the characters are fun and the story is gripping. simple decisions can feel weighty, characters feel consistent and well written, and the stakes escalate to ensure interesting tensions and conflicts.

I wish I could recommend this game but I cannot. After my second playthrough, it immediately become clear that this game has too many poor points despite an otherwise okay initial visual novel experience. * The UI is stylish but has very poor feedback. On my first playthrough I missed several moments to ask questions because topics to talk about that you unlock are kept separate from actual dialogue options and are only usable in certain moments, indicated by them lighting up slightly. Furthermore, a particular character has dark grey dialogue options, which just ends up looking like the buttons are disabled. * While the general writing is okay, too many dialogue options amount to be polite or be cruel while pretending there's moral or political nuance to these choices. This is made worse by the fact you are often given the option to take a 180 turn on your current stance in the worst way, which doesn't really feel like player agency so much as a bizarre self-destruct button. * As mentioned, the game doesn't hold up well with multiple playthroughs. Mostly the game just doesn't feel like it has much to offer despite its seemingly large amount of choices to make. The reason I played the game twice was because the first felt like a "bad" ending, and after I corrected my one mistake for a "good" ending. Past that, I didn't feel like I missed anything special or hidden. I certainly don't find the game entertaining enough to scour for secret routes. * A particularly frustrating part of the game is code puzzles. For some reason at a couple (at least maybe there is more) of points in the game you are expected to look at your character notes (which is fine its just more reading which is what the game is comprised of) and then solve a puzzle. The very first puzzle you get is literally just reading the answer in the notes and that's fine, but depending on your choices later you have to solve some odd ones that destroyed all the flow I had with the story. Both of the puzzles require knowledge that the game doesn't provide you, or the use of an internet search. There is a "hint" system which is also extremely unhelpful, since it literally just tells you to read the notes. * Some of the character interactions feel a bit strange and unbelievable, and sometimes it feels like characters have just forgotten things that were already covered, though this is somewhat forgivable.

A nice short 3d visual novel in a sci/fi setting with multiple endings and good character development. Recommended for the price.

Uno de los mejores juegos filosóficos que he jugado. Muchísimas gracias a Bithell por escribir tremenda cosa hermosa. Espero jugarlo después para ver las demás rutas, pese a que me de tristeza tratar mal Gabriel.

Less singular than its spiritual predecessor, Quarantine Circular offers a similar text based science fiction adventure, this time offering the chance to play from multiple perspectives. Rather than a detective game, it veers more towards traditional narrative dilemmas and their consequences. While the writing was still superb and the atmosphere captivating, I felt that some of the characters (one in particular) was unrealistically stereotypical. I understand that this was necessary for narrative reasons, but it could have been done a bit more subtly. Still, I has a lot of fun playing through this high stakes philosophical thriller, and I was surprised by the various ending choices, one branch in particular ([spoiler]the one concerning AI[/spoiler]) coming in very unexpected. For me it is a tiny step down from Subsurface Circular, because I felt that had a tighter and more focused plot. Still, if you're a fan of narrative games, this is a very interesting addition in that genre, with the typically enjoyable Mike Bithell writing to back it up.

Review from 2018: Another Mike Bithell joint that is loosely connected to the previous games, choices create far more branches, the story was fantastic and the music was really on point as well

So - This is very much like Subsurface Circular - a short narrative choice driven game, with a very interesting premise. It's not so much a mystery as its predecessor, but a story that requires you to navigate moral quandaries while switching perspectives between characters in the story. It feels like a natural expansion on the systems that Subsurface was based on ( and based in the same world too!) but for some reason, the narrative itself feels flat and I can't help but feel like it falls short of the tightly written story of the first game. It's not a bad game tho - the writing is weaker, but worth playing through... though I really have major gripes with the way one of the characters in the story was written. They stick out like a sore thumb, like a poorly implemented trope instead of a real person in the game's world like the others.

Enjoyed it a lot, probably more than Subsurface circular. Not long to finish but has different endings I believe. Has some interesting choices and the story is rather good for something so short. Only thing I found annoying was the constant screen wobble, no option to turn it off and nothing online to find a fix or change this setting. Otherwise, not a bad short story.

Fun, good, ~90 minute game. I was pro-alien from the get-go. The mystery wasn't as engaging or complex as in their previous game, [i]Subsurface Circular[/i], but it would spoil it if I say why. I got the good ending ([spoiler]Teng gets beat up[/spoiler]) on my second try.

The game from 2018 with the main themes of plague and AI. They predict it all :)