First, let me say that I did enjoy Subversive Memories. I think all around it was very nice and the story/lore was fun to witness. I love these older styled games and I think you nailed it. HOWEVER, this game did not come without its… frustrations.
[h2]For Those Interested In the Subversive Memories:[/h2]
If you like mild horror, with only the occasional threat to life. If you enjoy puzzles made with hidden meanings, vague clues, and some math. If you love stories and lore that takes dark turns. If you like flashing them baddies to death with the SUN. Then I say give the game a try. Despite my rage at one specific puzzle, I still enjoyed this game. I even went back to get every little detail of the story. It has its ups and downs, but I think it also gives it its own charm. I could tell the team put a lot of love into the game. Also, it’s their first game (as a studio at least). So expect hiccups. They happen. I think this was a great learning experience for them and a fun spooky time for me where the tiniest of noises made me smash my keyboard. God I HATE the dark and that one freaking silent room! Time in The Void is fun, but uh… not with these invisible demons! Hehehe!
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[h1]MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD![/h1]
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The Goods:
The first half of the game was great! I enjoyed the darkness at the start and how eerie the environment was. Pretty spooked when enemies began to appear in the game. I knew enemies would be invisible, but it scared me good trying to pin point them since you only see their shadows. I loved the mechanic and it was a nice refresh from using a gun. I especially loved how the flashlight worked. [spoiler]From getting darker as you used it to going out when you used all the battery. The panic of waiting for it to charge up just enough to use again was cool! I knew I could reload a new battery, but it was fun challenging myself to savor my limited resource.[/spoiler] [spoiler]And OMG I love hate you for that absolutely silent room on the 2nd floor with the cabinets. I wanted to nope out of the game so fast! I hated it, but in a good way![/spoiler] I loved the story the game told [spoiler]mostly through the eyes of the spirits we were helping.[/spoiler] It all came to a nice end too.
NOW… Please know I say this with the most respect and kindness I have. I point this out to help better any future projects you work on to make them more accessible to an average person’s knowledge.
To the Bads:
When I reached the halfway point of the game, an issue arose. Now, it may have been on me. I am not the smartest in the world, but I do think I am pretty good at puzzles type games. Ones that really make you think. But, I did not do great with some of the puzzle solving here. I will explain it from my own perspective as someone playing it for the 1st time.
The [spoiler]Roman Numeral[/spoiler] Door in the Basement
This absolutely stumped me, and ended up being the most aggravating puzzle of all. Gameplay wise, it was the one door I needed to open to progress and complete other puzzles. I looked back, and nowhere in any notes, books, or files was this door mentioned. No hint on how to figure out the code in sight. I had to look up the answer from someone else’s playthrough because I literally could not find anything. I was trapped, looking for this code for 2 HOURS before I looked it up! Safe to say, I was royally peeved. 😅 Fun fact: I didn’t even know that it was a [spoiler]Roman Numeral[/spoiler] keypad. [spoiler]I thought it would spell something out like a code word. An hour after opening the door with the code, I HAD to find out how it was found. I saw someone in the discussions mentioning the roman numbers and looked up the code as that… To my surprise and shock, it was indeed roman numerals. [/spoiler][spoiler]I’ll tell ya this. I know I, X, V. I do NOT KNOW M, C, and L. I also believe that many other people would say the same.[/spoiler]
[b] MORE SPOILERS[/b]
To the devs,
[spoiler]If you use something that is no longer common knowledge, like roman numerals, you NEED to add a poster or file with a numbers key guide. Example 1 is i / 2 is ii / 10 is X and so on. Which would then have included M is 1000 (and C, L #). I want to find everything I need in the game. I don’t want to break my immersion by going on google to look it up. If you think someone would ask “What is 100, 50, 1000 in roman numeral terms? Or what numbers do M, C, and L represent?” for your roman numeral puzzle, then you have to add in that key. At least if a key was in the game, say in the mini office or the security office, I would have realized that the code had to be a number written in roman numerals. I know this sounds aggressive, but please please know it’s not. I can laugh about it all now I’m over it. This is just something to keep in mind for any future projects. (Sorry for this length, this was the worst of the issues) Now, if I gotta math, then yeah, I’ll break immersion to get my calculator, but that’s a ME problem not a game problem.[/spoiler]
The Briefcase Puzzle
Not much on this one. [spoiler]The Red case I think is one I had a struggle with.[/spoiler] I honestly just think I was so upset by that door puzzle that I completely forgot info that would have helped solve it. [spoiler]I forgot about the newspapers.[/spoiler]
To add. I would say instead of a safe room archive, that you just make the archive accessible from the inventory. It was a real real pain to have to go back and forth just to reread stuff. I just started to screenshot everything so I didn’t have to run back to a room to look up one single thing.
The Sounds:
Just a minor issue, my sound settings kept resetting at random times. I’d turn down music and SFX and enter the next room, open my map, or inventory and it would be right back to max. I just had to tough it out because I was just playing chicken with it. Lol
Language:
Definitely agree with some others that language should have been in the options. It’s nice the first time you open the game to just immediately select the language, but to do so every time I open the game is just a lil strange. Not bad! Just strange. Plus, if someone wants to change mid game, you have to back out of the whole game to change it. Again, not bad, I just think it might be annoying to others who may play with multiple language changes.
HOWEVER, one issue I had while in the game with language was the Cards. They were in Portuguese? I am not sure. I only know English and even I still get it wrong. I looked up translations, but again it broke my immersion having to google what {animal name here} was in Portuguese. I don’t know if it was a bug or if it was a game thing. They are still not English with a new save or reloading.
