Shady Brook - A Dark Mystery Text Adventure

A story driven text-based interactive adventure. The story starts with the main character Jake Torrent, an author who arrives in Shady Brook alongside his father who recently lost his wife. Deciding to take care of his blind father, Jake purchased a new house in a small country town- assuming it will be a quiet and peaceful one but the author's adventure starts the moment he set his foot in the new land as he discovered the man who previously been living in the house he purchased committed suicide. There are many characters in the games and many names you can't keep up with at first, but as you progress in the game you'll be more familiar with them. At first, I did not like the map of the game as there is no fast traveling to jump to the location you need, instead, you'll keep going back and forth all the time in order to reach the desired place, by that time you'll memorize the whole town. The story started slow, but it built up into a very dark and creepy atmosphere with unexpected twists. It kept me on the edge of my seat as I'm reading and unfolding the secrets of the town. The ending made me speechless, it is a very well written story which worth a shot. The story length more than 8 hours, however, it took me 12 hours to finish it with full achievements. I had to use a guide though in some of the areas as the puzzles were quite challenging. Besides that, the main character was working on his newest novel named 'The sweater' I enjoyed reading it.. [spoiler]I wished he finished it[/spoiler] http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1286124975 The artwork was OK, dated but fits the atmosphere of the game and interface, but I didn't like the wavy effect on some of them. I enjoyed the music, unfortunately, there is no choice to download them from the 'Extra' section, but they did a good job with the music. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1286090658 Choices matters in this game, there are also timed choices which you have to choose quickly. I'm not sure if there are multiple endings depends on the choices, but there is a final score depends on your exploration. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1287890183 Pros: +OK artwork didn't like the wavy effect on it though. +Interesting dark and creepy story. +Good music. +Verywell-written story. +OK map. +Gamebook style. +Detective them. +Choices matters. +Interesting characters. +Points system. +Good puzzles. +Steam achievements. Cons: -No option for voice-overs. -Lots of backtracking. -Sometimes the objectives are not clear. At the beginning of the game, you had the choice of censoring some of the dark themes in case you can't tolerate them. The game definitely not for everyone. I recommend the game to people who like to read and explore, this is not the kind of game you just click and skip for achievements. [i]Other Reviews: [url=https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198071375554/recommended/527820]Lifestream Review[/url] [url=https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198071375554/recommended/597120]The Filmmaker Review[/url] [url=https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198071375554/recommended/833990/]Stonewall Penitentiary Review[/url] [url=https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198071375554/recommended/1092800?snr=1_5_9__402]Summit of the Wolf[/url] [/i] [quote]𝐹𝑜𝑟 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑒𝑤𝑠 𝑐𝘩𝑒𝑐𝑘 𝑚𝑦 𝑐𝑢𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑜𝑟 𝑝𝑎𝑔𝑒 [url=http://store.steampowered.com/curator/32399565/]𝐹𝑒𝑒𝑛𝑎'𝑠 𝐶𝘩𝑜𝑖𝑐𝑒[/url][/quote]

Well, all i can say about this game: I definitely enjoyed it. It`s pretty similar to its previous game, Lifestream. Both games have no story connection though. That means boh games can be played independently. Shady Brook is a simplistic puzzle game and features many point & click adventure elements. You`ll have to click to move between the screens and change the location. The pictures are all fine, the interface is great and fits the setting perfectly. The story is also... weirdly... good. Sure reccommend this for point & click adventure fans who want to experience a nice relaxing story with some puzzles. Achievements are all pretty easy to get. Wish you fun then ^^

I originally played this game in 2016 with an early copy and reviewed it for Just Adventure. I recently noticed that Steam Achievements had been added so I replayed it. Unimatrix created the Storycentric engine for constructing illustrated text adventures. With a streamlined interface with maps, inventory, objectives, it is very intuitive. It eliminates all the icons (look, take, use, etc.) and makes for a pleasant way to enjoy a text adventure. Shady Brook is built with this engine, as are two other adventures - Life Stream and The Filmmaker. I enjoyed replaying the game. It has a solid story, puzzles, dark secrets to uncover, and (of course) a hero and a woman in distress. The story is well written and there is enough to do and explore that it feels like you are a part of the experience. It is not a passive game where you just click and read. If you are a fan of text adventures with still illustrations, I'd highly recommend this game (as well as the other titles by Unimatrix).

It's my third game from this developer but this title is definitely the most disturbing by far! It should have been labelled horror or psychological horror. You play as a writer moving into a small mountain town with your aging father. The game starts slow, but as the story progresses, it gets creepier and creepier, and I mean really creepy... (There is a possibility at the start of the game to censor some of the game content). I don't know if the devs also write thrillers or horror books, but if they don't, they should, because they are really good at storytelling. As the other titles from this developer, Shady Brook (which is in fact a remake of the original game that came out in 2005) is a mix of text and point and click adventure. The writing and suspense is very well done. To progress in the game, you have to inspect everything, talk to everyone many times. There are also a few puzzles to solve that are not too difficult if you carefully inspect everything and pay attention to what you read. This is not a game for everyone, but if you enjoy reading and like horror stories, you might try it out.

Real creepy GUI-driven text adventure, starts slow but decent value Positives: + Creepy story, far better than the puzzles + GUI-driven text adventure like the mid 90's (in game mapping and such) + About 8 hours of game play + Cost only a few bucks, less if on discount, so decent value for money + Some dialog choices seem to affect the storyline + Walkthrough available on devs website Negatives: - Takes over an hour to start getting into the plot (in the end this adds to the creepyness, but it still is slow) - You spend alot of time walking back and forth in the town, trying to find items or the next "trigger" for an event (for the middle part I ended up just going through the walktrough to get to the final act) - Some of the puzzles are frustrating to find the right combination to solve (see below) - No way to save your progress as a backup to go back and choose a different path (your saves are automatic as you progress) Neutrals: -/+ Like Lifestream, the GUI means that you can only chose from certain actions, unlike a true text adventure where you can type anything into the parser (this makes it less frustrating to play but you miss some of the fun) -/+ Decent artwork (each location has a still graphic and there are several cut-scene stills) -/+ A few timed choices (not sure if it affects the final outcome) -/+ Apparently a remake of a game from 2004 For an example of the puzzle frustration (very mild spoiler below), if you need to put batteries into a tape player, you should: [spoiler]1. Put the batteries into a flashlight 2. Equip the flashlight 3. Look at the tape player 4. Use the flashlight on the tape player [/spoiler] Really? Makes perfect sense... Most of the puzzles aren't this conflagarated, but there are a few.

Fantastic adaptation of a more traditionally-styled adventure game into a text-based experience. The story will keep you hooked until the end, just like the original!

Entertaining at first, but turned out that the game system mainly wants you to repeatedly walk around and just talk with everyone. Word to the devs. If you make an Adventure or a game, there has to be some interactivity and decision making. Not that the player just clicks through your story. Though this wasn't the worst case, this game needs more in order to be considered a game and in order to be sold on steam instead of being free. It is close enough, but not there. Story and music were otherwise nice, but the story was *lazy* - just a corridor

Shady Brook is a text adventure game where you take on the role of Jake Torrent, a fiction writer looking for a quite place to live and work with his elderly father. However, it becomes apparent that not everything is as it seems as Jake is soon caught in some kind of dark mystery. Pros: Very simple controls Puzzles to solve Puzzles range from easy to hard A mystery unfolds as you play Cons: Fairly linear The one and only ending was unsatisfactory Your choices don't really matter The story is fairly solid although I have to acknowledge, I did deduce what was about to happen. With that said, I wasn't too surprised when it came time for the big reveal. However, some of the details I did overlook, which led me to not trust someone when I should have trusted them. Nevertheless, your choices don't really matter. The story is going to unfold in a very narrow field. Since this is a text adventure game, there is no real graphics to talk about, all the same, there are some impressionist drawing to give the player an idea of what they are looking at which is nice. I did enjoy this game, but I have to say the ending was very disappointing. I sat in front of my computer, shaking my head and muttering to myself, “Well, that sucks”. At the time of this review, Shady Brook was selling for $2.99. It took me 12 hours to complete this game (including getting all of the achievements). 12 hours vs $2.99, this game is definitely worth it

Hardware: i5 3570, nVidia GTX 1070, Windows 10. Bought it because: I like old-school text adventures. A hybrid text-based adventure game with a graphical overlay, reminiscent of the old Legend games engine used to make games such as Xanth, Shannara and Death Gate. It has a simple inventory system, and is non-linear; your choices can affect the outcome. The writing is decent, and it has music to go along with stills of the various areas you visit. I'm enjoying it so far. I was a little put off by a startup option in which I had to select whether or not to see content involving extreme gore and sex (!); I chose to enable the content and will reserve judgment as to whether it was really necessary to include when I get to the parts in question. It is, after all, a town with a dark secret. This would also do well on iOS or Android (iOS first, as it has a larger American / English audience).

Lifestream, Shady Brook and The Filmmaker are the first three episodes (in this order) of a planned long series, whose fourth episode is Stonewall Penitentiary and the upcoming fifth one is Summit of the Wolf. These episodes are (seemingly) very loosely connected, so each of them can be played on their own, but it is easy to see the connections and the slowly emerging overarching themes. The first three episodes have a certain kind of choose-your-adventure-style interface, but the author still manages to integrate meaningful puzzles, which are mostly inventory-based. The main draw of these games however are the stories. All the stories are very different and their mood ranges from dark to extremely dark. :) But for lovers of good stories they are very much recommended.