Rendezvous: Shadows of the Past

received via #keymailer the Prologue is a great way to introduce the game mechanics. I did like the design and graphics, however as a controller user sometimes the action moves got stuck in where certain moves that should be available could not be performed no matter what. I would still recommend to anyone to play before the main story.

While Rendezvous: Shadows of the Past boasts a cool cyberpunk premise and an appealing pixel art style that benefits from its unique Indonesian setting, it is unfortunately marred by a cascade of technical and design flaws that make it difficult to recommend. The core experience is hampered by clunky, awkward gameplay that poorly integrates shooting and stealth, a frustrating lack of mouse support, and a high propensity for game-breaking bugs and soft-locks that can ruin progress. Furthermore, the presentation is poorly optimized for PC, with oversized pixels on large screens, unskippable slow text, and deeply inconsistent controller support, creating a laborious experience that obscures its interesting story. It's a shame, as there is clear potential, but in its current state, the jank and bugs are too significant to overlook.

I don't like to give a bad review to an indie game, especially not a free one, but Rendezvous: Shadows of the Past is just too bugged to find the fun. The first thing you'll notice is that the mouse doesn't work, so navigating through the menus is a very laborious WASD-fest. Then if you shift-tab to open the Steam overlay, the game will hang. When you get back in, while loading the next scene, might crash again anyway. There's no manual saves, so when you come back in for the third time, you might be lucky and the game autosaved at the right point, or you might not. Or - even weirder - you might be saved in the right location, but a puzzle you already completed has reset, so you need to go through and unlock your own front door again that you already unlocked, even though you have the items you picked up outside already, except then they disappear as soon as you go back into the unlocking the front door loop. Fine, whatever, it's an indie game, roll with the jank. But then later you are crawling through the vents and even though you found the path to the right one, you decide to jump out the wrong one just to see what will happen. Let me tell you what will happen. You will soft lock the game, because now you can't get back in the vents any more, because the game is expecting you to use an item to get into the vents that you no longer have in your inventory... because it was already used to get into the vents. ╯° °）╯︵ ┻━┻ It was at that point I decided I wasn't going to bother completing this prequel, and I won't be buying the full version either. The graphics are quite nice. I like that the characters are Indonesian, which gives it a different flavor to the usual cyberpunk style. But point and click adventure games are built on letting the player explore and experiment and not soft-lock themselves and this game failed on that several times in the first hour. I don't have the patience to play a game this bugged. Should also be noted that this game features arcade-y elements like shooting, stealth and dodging, using fixed keyboard binds that are fairly awkward (and - again - no mouse), so it's not really a relaxing point and click anyway. I hope the devs keep polishing their craft because I'd like to play something less bugged from them in the future, but not this.

i played it with my wireless controller and i can control the game with my controller, when i change my controller to D input i can use the analog stick to move the character but i cannot use the other button except x button to open inventory, but x button supposed to make the character roll, and after i change my controller back to X input all the button work fine except y button cannot open inventory, and the game keep saying "controller unplug" when i used X input. R1 or RB button for sprint only can be use when controller in D input, when in X input it can not be used, i think the control for sprint and open inventory only can be use in D input, and the other function in X input. i hope it can be fixed.

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Has potential. Please fix the English translation. Nice coffee talk refference.