Sarawak

I love almost everything about this game, but it seems to me that they're charging full price for something that isn't finished. The story just kind of stops. It's more like a proof of concept than a game.

[url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/7520163/]You can find hundreds of other reviews through our Curator page[/url] [h1]"A Literary Itinerary"[/h1] No one’s going to confuse Sarawak as a rolling epic; instead, it’s a self-contained little tale that you should see to completion in about 90 minutes or so. It describes itself as a literary mystery game, which is fitting enough that I’m going to steal it and use it like my own. It’s the tale of Mia, who finds herself mixed up in the murder of an Oxford professor. Her initial investigation is begrudging, but each new discovery makes the ordeal more personal, until she’s finally forced to go all in. There’s a fair bit of story crammed into less than two hours of running time, so it’s to Sarawak’s credit that it never feels especially rushed. A text-based adventure at heart, progression is mainly highlighted by scrolling down the page, as if you were reading an interactive word document. This is used to the game’s advantage in several inventive ways. Sometimes you need to scroll back up because something has changed in a previous image after a bit of amateur sleuthing. Sometimes, scrolling down brings up new images in unexpected ways. For the most part, you’re scroll-locked at various points until you’re able to nudge the story along. This usually either involves solving a simplistic puzzle or by abusing various conversational prompts. The puzzles are unobtrusive and embrace the simplistic nature of the game, giving you the option to skip some of the more challenging ones and scoring huge merits in my book for not containing a single sliding tile puzzle. Several important conversations can branch out, offering you several replies you can select to advance the topic in a way of your choosing. Mia can often be straight up with people, or play it coy, trying to work better angles. Or try to work from a false sense of naivety. It keeps her busy, taking tours through the oldest parts of Oxford academia, or jetting off to Borneo to visit the titular location itself. Her journey is divided into small chapters, making it easy to go back and see how a conversation would have gone had she adopted a different tact, or if a puzzle can be bypassed a different way. And then, it’s over. In contrast to the main body of the game, the ending is the first time Sarawak feels like it has rushed a slice of the narrative, but the tale is neatly concluded nonetheless. It’s not going to keep you enthralled for several evenings on end, and there’s not a lot of reason to revisit it once you’re done, but it contains enough solid writing and creative puzzles to keep you invested throughout. Strong conclusions are overrated, anyway. [url=https://www.honestgamers.com/14945/pc/sarawak/review.html]// Full Review[/url]

Spoiler Warning! Total Rating 6/10 The execution could have been better. It has gripping storyline but greatly underutilized; redundant character identity for example the MC occupation was not utilized for any specific scenes. Each of the puzzle are redundant and some are repetitive . They provide you with the illusion of choice with no apparent penalty for making the wrong choice in other words the storyline are linear. Love the music tho. Authentic Dayak Music 10/10

Had lots of fun with the puzzles and the graphics were beautiful! It was fun to collect the achievements as well and the story was fairly interesting. Would recommend this game during a rainy day to fill in an hour or two with a cup of coffee in hand.

If you’re looking for a story-driven mystery with plenty of intrigue and fun, give this one a go.

A short but sweet puzzle/mystery game that is set in England and Malaysia. It is a very short story but I found it entertaining. Dialogue was enjoyable as was the music. I do wish that there was more depth to the characters - it felt very rushed. Overall, for the price I am pleased.

This was pretty cute. I liked the style of the game, the art, the dialogue choices, and I enjoyed the options available to me. I would say that there are a few tiny things I don't like about it, but those aren't enough to impact my review of a game. Small nitpicky things that shouldn't stop someone from giving this a look! I will make a note for streamers--this game does not allow you to stream in windowed mode. Use that knowledge and set up your stream accordingly! <3

Very straightforward game - there's already a story set to be told and your choices will, at most, only divert the narration a little so you go around the topic instead of getting straight to the point. The art is lovely and very much my taste - I unashamedly admit it was my biggest incentive to buy the game - and while you don't get a constant stream of BGM, there's still the occasional scene where music does play its part in setting the mood; quite realistic in that sense. I also enjoy the subtle cultural references and writing (NOTES!) Having said all that, I find it comparatively short for its price - it can be completed in an hour, tops, even while completing achievements (CHEESE & APAM LOL). Gameplay is minimal and puzzles are simple; you can tell the focus is on the unsurprising but neatly-told plot. Not much replayability either. In short, it's a decent attempt for what seems to be this publisher's debut game, so I'd recommend it - but only at a discount.

I loved playing through this interactive novel. While the story is immediately intriguing and the puzzles fun, the artwork is stunningly gorgeous and the game merits a playthrough just for that alone. Recommended.