Stillwater

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I got to experience this for free? I enjoyed this story a lot. Some say it's a bit short but honestly I'm happy with it's length and the message it gives.

I remember playing Stillwater all the way back in 2022. It was like love at first sight, genuinely (one of the first visual novels I've ever played!) Now imagine how surprised and overjoyed I was when I noticed that this game got a small remake. Before I get to my review, I highly encourage you to experience this story by yourself (it might take around an hour or two to get all the endings). One more thing before I start… Big props to all the developers who did an amazing job on their project (especially since it’s 4 people who made this game)! (Further review might contain spoilers.) What I truly loved about Stillwater was the feeling of uneasiness you felt while playing the game. I'm a scaredy cat, and the possibility of any jumpscares appearing kept me on the edge of my seat all the time but that's what made experiencing the story even better in my opinion… About the characters- there aren't many but since the very beginning you're rooting for their success and happiness. What especially tugged on my heart was the relationship between Hugo and Noah. Just as Nina stated, “they’ve got chemistry”, and they’re JUST adorable. Especially when it comes to looking out for one another. The last “secret” ending made me go “awww…” out loud (right after giving me the symptoms of a heart attack). Nina is also a sweetheart! Despite the “curse” hanging over her family, she still refused to give up on her grandfather, and kept taking care of him. Everyone here is very likeable. The only thing dissatisfying me is the limited content of the characters (⁠╥⁠﹏⁠╥⁠). About the story itself… It's not very direct, not really. And that's what makes it good. The endings are up to the player’s interpretation, and some of those interpretations are really heartwarming (or just heart shattering). Once again, I wish the game was longer. I truly hope we'll get more from the developers! The art and character designs are so pleasing to look at… That's what got my attention in the first place back in 2022. The writing is also very well done, it doesn't sound corny or feel unnatural. Duh, the writers even managed to put some lighthearted jokes in serious situations, and it works just well! To sum up, there was nothing I could complain about in Stillwater (which says a lot, since there's always something to complain about for me). After achieving all the endings, the game just makes you crave for more. Writing positive reviews is way more difficult than ranting about bad games for me but really, give this game a try!

At first when I saw the game, it gave me "mystery/detective" vibes and I was right. Tho it was a bit short, it turned out to be way better then I thought. The game is quite mysterious, I especially love the ture ending, where it turned out that Hugo had a curse himself all along. The game gave me sometimes the chills which made it even more exciting to play. I also like the art and the art style, it's pretty yet mysterious which gives off the kind of "creppiness" that makes me excited. You can achieve all the endings whithin 2-3h, I hope there'll be more updates and new endings in the future.

"Stillwater" is not a game, it's an e-book that's been dumped on Steam masquerading as a game. As a visual/interactive novel, this doesn't feature any notable gameplay, it's just a lot of clicking through badly written dialogue that would never have been accepted or published in print, which poses the question, "How did something this badly written end up on Steam?". When someone hoping to become an author is unable to get published in print, they spend $100 and dump their high school fan-fiction onto Steam, under the guise of a game. This is a garbage tier detective e-book that wasn't even sincerely written, it was slapped together for a "game jam". So this was never intended for gamers (or e-book fans I guess). I suspect the author was thrown out of the game jam after submitting an e-book instead of game. Did they not know what game jams are for? Anyway, the writing in this cringe fan-fiction is garbage. This has no value as a PC game for PC gamers. This was slapped together with the godawful Ren'Py visual novel construction kit... enabling terrible authors to publish books as if they were games when otherwise we might have been spared the pollution. So, just like no professional writing took place here, no professional software development took place, either. Visual novels/e-books are tedious at best... imagine the best novel you ever read, be that Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy or 2001: A Space Odyssey or Twilight (if you have terrible taste in literature), but then translate that to a format where the words dribble out and you have to click your mouse every time you wanted to read the next sentence, instead of just turning the pages. You'd think it was garbage. Now imagine that experience, but with much worse writing (because if these guys could write professionally, they'd be published authors and this would be on shelves in bookstores, and they wouldn't have to pay Valve $100 to self-publish this on Steam), and you have your average Steam e-book. One of the chief problems with failed authors polluting Steam with non-game E-books is that E-books can easily just be presented in a web browser... there's no justification for charging money on Steam for what might as well be a webpage. We don't spend thousands on buying a gaming rig to spend money on Steam for something Chrome or Firefox could do. Despite having no up-front cost, this failed to appeal to the 130 million+ gamers on Steam. SteamDB showed the e-book peaked at only 5 concurrent readers... this is a dismal public reception. This was so bad they couldn't even give it away. The funny thing is, if you wanted to print this book, you'd only need to print 5 copies to satisfy the entire world's demand for it. While this E-book has no up-front cost, you can get better quality, professionally written books and comics for free online (from places like Project Gutenberg) or from public libraries. Steam isn't a comic book store, neither is it Netflix, it's for games. Your gaming rig is not a Kindle. It's impossible for me to recommend things to PC gamers that aren't really games.

kısa ve kesinlikle oynamaya değer. 1 saatte rahatça fullenebilir. vermek istediği mesaj ve hikaye güzel işlenmiş <3 (iyi sonu ikinci bir kez daha oynamayı unutmayın!)

Definitely one of the best visual novels I played. It was short but nonetheless I loved it and the message it had. The art, music and story was just perfection! Highly recommend if you enjoy mystery/detective.

Hasta el día de hoy una de mis novelas visuales favoritas. 10/10

This game had a good storyline, and it's quite short too. perfect for someone that wants decompression but dont have enough time for it lol