Substitute Priest

Ein sehr schräges aber schönes Spiel.

Fun point and click

Hello to all point and click gamers, horror fans and lovers of great games. Just yesterday I've seen a short video about this game on Tiktok, today I finished my first run. I have lots of things to praise, but if you just wanna know if it's worth playing, the answer is yes. I'm big into old indie and point & click games. I also love horror and interesting art styles. My interest was peaked the second I saw this game, especially because it reminded me (and many others) of the Edna and Harvey games. I do wanna say that I didn't want to spoil myself too much and went in pretty much blind, other than a few seconds of that tiktok I've seen. And it was worth it. Not really what I've expected but somehow even better than I ever could have imagined. The rest of this review will contain some spoilers, so read with caution! You play as a, as the game says, substitute priest. First arriving in this small and kinda weird village. Everything seems fairly normal at first. The people are nice, the church looks STUNNING and you're just walking around a bit, looking at everything. You meet the current priest, who leaves you a note explaining what you have to do at the church. And the keys to the church. The priest seems a bit weird, but not so weird that you'd be concerned. Yet. You start your first day after going to sleep. Listening to people confessing their sins, reading the daily news paper and so on. I really like the journalist you can talk to! And the builder who will join you on Tuesday. Things get really odd really fast. And really creepy. People are cold blooded murderers and honestly just weirdos in this town. (Like cmon bro, don't eat hair, that's pretty gross!) And you've got to talk to them in the confessionary, as a good priest does. Oh and don't forget the kind demon who talks to you, the player, at night! That's as far as I wanna go with describing the plot. And tbh I loved every second of my gameplay!!! I am big into churches/the bible and angles specifically are my special interest. So seeing the statue WHICH CHANGES OVER TIME was sooo cool to me omg. 10/10 I absoulutely love the artstyle. I love the wall in the church that has the pretty windows on it. Gives it a spacey feeling. The character designs are top tier as well. I love them!! Very German, in the good (Dirndl Madls) and in the bad (uhmm no idea if I am allowed to say that word on Steam) way. The voice acting is great as well, one of the voice actors straight up sounds like CDawgVA???? I played the game in english but will replay in German as well (I am German, hello). I also love the rotting "Jesus" on the cross. When I first saw it I went "Is that a actual corpse??? That would be such a twist!" And then EVERYTHING in this game was a twist. Oh and the fourth wall break?? YOU CAN TELL THE MC THAT YOU ARE GOD??? I didn't do that, I explained that this is a game hehe. God, this is definetly my new obsession. I want more. I NEED more!! I really liked the short moments in which you played other characters as well! Also seeing the corpse in the bushes but your character not being able to see it and getting an achievement for seeing something the MC can't? SO FRICKING COOL!!! AHHHH Uhm yes, need more of this. Please make a whole game series idk, or a new game. I will devour any content of this. Big big recommend. Play it nooooow!!!!

Really good game. Quite dark, with good twists. I really liked the voice acting and overall feel of the game. No puzzles, so it's easy to finish, but it won't be easy to forget.

I just reached one of the endings and I have to say I really enjoyed the game. I look forward to the other endings and hope you make more games in the future. I would highly recommend the game to other players.

Recht kurz, aber sehr atmosphärisch und interessant. Hat auch einige Horrorelemente. Contra: - Relativ kurz. Meine Spielzeit hat gereicht, um 100 % der Errungenschaften zu holen. Aber der Preis ist fair. - Im Gegensatz zum ersten Spiel des Entwicklers keine deutsche Vertonung - Man nicht viel außer von A nach B zu laufen. Pro: - Interessante Handlung - Gute Atmosphäre - Interessante Auswahlmöglichkeiten bei der Geschichte

Weird and stupid game, played for about two hours and not worth going through it again to see other endings or chase the remaining trophies. P.S. the voice acting sucks ♥♥♥♥. 4/10

[b] Gameplay [b] Gameplay-wise, this game is a pretty standard affair as far as classic Point-and-Click-adventures are concerned. You have an inventory with items you collected previously from the environment that are used in various ways throughout the game, although in this particular game character interaction is the most common way to advance the plot, as opposed to object-based puzzles, of which there are few. Besides, the puzzles present in the game aren't really anything to write home about and maybe even a little bit frustrating. Noteworthy in this regard is the pleasant absence of pixel-hunting for the most part. The gameplay is a run of the mill affair, so players familiar with genre standards will have no problems getting through the game. [b] Graphics [b] The hand-drawn graphics are good for what they are and get across the atmosphere for the most part. Genereally, they make for a enjoyable visual experience during gameplay at large. Besides this, character and environmental designs where at least interesting enough to grab my attention. [b] Sound & Music [b] Talking of interactions, another part of the game that needs to be examined is the voice acting. Luckily, while mostly not professional by any standards, the actors manage to make serviceable appearances across the board. Any worse acting would be back breaking for the game, considering the many confession booth sequences in the game in which nothing is shown except the booth itself while dialogue plays between the priest and the confessor. The sound effects besides the voice acting were ok; not much of it has claimed a longer lasting place within my memory. The music on the other hand was well chosen and crafted but all in all forgettable. The song playing throughout the credits is interesting, with lyrics changing according to your playthrough. [b] Story & Writing (1) [b] While I won't be dissecting the plot in detail I still want to explain my impressions from playing through the game and basically all endings known to me. The premise of a village riddled with mysterious ongoings and the fact that the player controls the substitute priest, an outsider just as the player themselves, creates a solid narrative standpoint from which the events unfolding can be experienced in tandem with the main character but without creating any dissonance due to differences in knowledge between player and played. [b] Story & Writing (2) [b] Overall, I found the confession booth scenes to be enjoyable enough to keep me going through the game, although the writing was sometimes a bit clumsy. The story itself had a nice climax but left many questions unanswered; it is up to the reader of this review if this is a plus or not; I myself found this to be quite fitting towards the general themes of the game. Though, to conclude this topic with some criticism, I feel like the whole story progression as it is realised in the game would've benefitted from a more stretched out plot composition that'd give the events unfolding more room to breathe. On the other hand, such shortcomings are to be expected of a game of this scope. [b] Conclusion [b] In the end, I'd give a recommendation with some more or less big caveats, as explained above.

I enjoyed the game and the artstyle, cought me off guard quite a bit in a good way.

Pros - fantastic art-style, - Story is surreal and meta but certaintly never boring. - Interesting characters - decent voice acting - Entirely playable with mouse - multiple endings. Cons -Game-play is super basic, its mostly just talk to characters, pickup some items, complete some daily tasks, very light on puzzles. -Very short