Scorch

Good story but short.

♥♥♥♥♥♥ with my head....in a good way

[b]Scorch has all the elements of a solid exploratory mystery/point and click game, and I enjoyed it right up until the time came to solve the crime. If it weren't for problems with the mechanics and a misstep in the final reveal, I would be recommending this title.[/b] Scorch is an impressive free-to-play game. It looks pretty, the atmospheric sounds and background music are lovely, and the voice acting is decent. I went into it knowing it was a very short game, and that was all I was looking for: something fun for a quick half-hour with a hopefully solid narrative. It fit the bill, as the clues are revealed as you explore the environment, and the player does have to put in at least a little bit of thought in terms of putting it all together. Moving around areas was a fairly smooth operation, with my only issue being that the cursor didn't reliably change to indicate you had moused over a clue unless you were at the right distance or angle. Still, not a big deal, as it was fairly easy to figure out what objects should or shouldn't be interactive and then adjust to trigger the cursor prompt. I liked that the game provides not only an inventory and notes you can go back to so you can review the evidence, but you can drag your clues around in your file in order to visually make connections between the disparate parts. This is great for organising your thoughts before you solve the crime. [b]The problem, however, and the reason I can't recommend this game is because of that final phase.[/b] The game requires you to pair clues together to answer questions and ultimately solve the crime. There is no feedback for whether or not you are making correct connections, and no chance to adjust those answers once submitted. Ultimately, I failed my first playthrough because the items I chose -- whether they made sense to me or not -- were not the right ones to pass each question and solve the crime. Again, that'd be fine, as I could always go back and play through again, except...Scorch decides to (nearly) eliminate any replayability. There are very few suspects to begin with, but whether you solve the crime or not, Scorch includes an end cut scene that reveals the criminal and their method. Basically, you can answer whatever you want whenever you want when solving the crime, and the only thing that will change is the fate of the player-character at the end. (You also get your score at the end, but no real metric by which to make sense of it. On my first playthrough, I got 1/5 questions right, and found 17 clues. Which question did I get right? No idea! Is 17 the maximum number of clues? Again, no idea.) Despite knowing the solution, I went back and tried again to see if I could manage the end game phase better. It was easy to plow through to get to that part very quickly (although apparently I missed a clue this time? once again, no idea which one), and armed with my end cut scene knowledge, I put together what I thought were the right answers to each question. There was virtually no change in the end of the game, other than the fate of my character, and the game indicating that I got 3/5 questions right. I could not guess which ones. I have no idea what combination of clues are the right ones. And unfortunately, no desire to go back and try again. (I held out hope that there might even be a randomization metric at work, so the crime and criminal changed between plays, but that was not the case. Same crime, same criminal.) [b]Conclusion:[/b] [i]Scorch is a wonderful experience for 2/3rds of its playtime, and far exceeds what one might expect from a free-to-play game. The last sequence is a misstep, however, and one I would hope might be corrected by the developers in new projects going forward.[/i]