Sunset

I'm only two hours in.,.. I don't know where the game ends but so far after a dozen or more apartment visits it feels like a whole lot of nothing going on. The character ruminates on events happening outside of her control, but I don't know if there is a challenge or fail state. It just keeps moving forward, even without completing all the apartment work. So I'm not getting much out of this right now. You do only two things: Look around and "Click 'x' to sympathize", to borrow from Call of Duty Advanced Warfare. And the looking around is excruciating because for a game with little environmental scenery this game moves like a sloth. Even on lowest graphic settings it has the same frame rate drops as the highest setting. It's clear that this game needs graphical performance tuning. (ADDENDUM, June 22): It turns out that I'm missing half of the ideas in the game just by doing the chores alone. Angela expresses her thoughts in a the form of a diary and the way to see that is to sit down in the one lounge chair with a sheet over it. There are a lot of striking ideas being expressed in this moment that it is a shame if you miss it... And it's easy to miss because if you're out of time then you won't sit. (FINAL UPDATE, JUNE 24): Finished the game. There is an intellectualism in the writing, but the game is boring and frustrating. I enjoyed playing the vinyl records because they broke up the otherwise dire soundscape. Moving around was always a problem and on more than one occasion I found a chore item impossible to do: Thoroughly scoured the apartment but didn't find the objective. I appreciate the idea of trying new things in gaming, and there is one crucial diary entry that illuminated why this game exists, but otherwise the game was thematically all over the place and full of mood swings. It felt more like a gaming transposition of someone's blog than an actual story. In that regard I felt as though I had been tricked into someone else's indulgence.

This isn't a good game, even when you come at it with an open mind. As a hidden object Gone Home-like, it fails on many parts due to its poor communication/UI and limited, shallow level. As a narrative experience, I'm finding myself constantly confused by the flip-flopping protagonist and the seemingly random thoughts that don't have much of a link to what's happening outside the window. Coupled with some very long and grating diary entries and a LOT of filler content to artificially increase its length, this isn't going to get recommended. At its full retail price it's insanely overpriced, even on a 50% sale it was overpriced. The quality is just not good enough. As a side note, when you look at the developer's dev diary and subsequent Twitter reactions to comments about it, I just can't support Tale of Tales no matter how much they've apparently 'given' to the indie scene with their pioneering art games. They disrespect an entire medium and audience because their game flopped. It flopped because it's a poor quality game and the marketing was abysmal (a significant amount of comments say they didn't know it was out).

Perhaps you heard of Sunset, even backed it on Kickstarter, and imagined life as a houseworker in a hot climate with fierce political tensions. You'd work for this man, cleaning his house, making many choices and experiencing a riveting narrative throughout. You will be disappointed. Creators always have to think of the best medium for any creation, be it music, art, games, fiction. In this respect, Sunset's a token videogame. It should have been a web app or mobile game. You walk through a 3D environment and click your buttons just like a videogame, but the connection is so minimal that it's clear you're here for the story: which is just only passable. You're expected to search the apartment for clues as to what's going on, but the process of doing so just isn't enjoyable. I set my walk speed to high so I could breeze through the chores. This renders Angela as a high-speed automaton responding binarily (two choices) to each action -- and this wasn't even communicated well. Where you'd expect to hover over an object and hit Y or N, (yes or no for positive/negative? sure!) you apparently have to move your cursor north and south of the object? Anyway, it took me a good few minutes to figure out how to water the plants one Day. I'd prefer to just tick an optional setting of, "highlight all important objects" so we can do away with the illusion that the game should be immersive. The 1970's filter over the screen held charm for about 30 seconds. It's annoying in the day. At night, the apartment can become hard to see, and damn if I'm going to waste my precious (and pointlessly timed) minutes turning on each light so I can see. Another optional toggle for the filter would be appreciated, and I have a suspicion that it's cause of a few performance issues people have. On that note, it is presently a little jittery in regards to performance. War games employ explosions, many NPCs everywhere, intense calculations, reflections, etc. and they still run better than Sunset, which takes place in a single apartment. I will await a patch for further play. But no patch will avert the reality: they could have dedicated significantly more time to writing more options for these notes and other choices in the game, if only Sunset weren't a videogame. It plays like a web app could.

Sunset is one of the games I most wanted to love this year, but somehow am finding it impossible to. It's revolutionary in many ways, exploring what a game can be, and I love that about it. But nearly everything else about it is frustrating. The user interface is one of the worst I've used. Your character has some kind of neck issue which prevents her from looking more than about 30 degrees off the horizontal, and as such, if you want to look at something that's on the floor or on a low table, you have to back way up and look at it from about 10 feet away. There's a zoom function, but it doesn't help much, and it's still completely counter-intuitive. You'll spend a lot of time walking up to things then slowly backing away until you can see it, then backing away a little more until your character considers doing something with it. The elevator button controls aren't always intuitive, and I found myself sometimes giving my employer the big middle finger by accidentally just skipping an entire day's work when I didn't intend to. The faded retro vintage visual filter is MADDENING. It's supposed to set a certain tone, but the majority of what it does is make it impossible to see anything. Turning on lights usually makes it worse rather than better. There are copious adjustment settings, but most of them make the situation worse, and there's no way to return to the default settings short of having written them all down before you messed with them and then putting them all back to the original settings based on your notes. Also, the visual options panel covers the screen, so there's no way to see what effect your adjustments are really having other than guessing from the tiny strip that remains visible and then jumping out, seeing if it helps, and then going back in, which is a really tedious process. The game's soundtrack is really touted, but as far as I'd played so far there isn't any music at all, other than if you go find the stereo and start it playing every time. Your workload varies by day, but so does the amount of the house that's accessible, so on light workload days you don't get to spend the slack time by exploring the house, because most of it will be closed to you. You also can't take care of tasks that need doing that you never have time for, because often the ways to trigger those tasks are closed off. Which takes me to one of the worst parts of the game: The bewildering job of performing tasks! You'll get a task like, "Wash the windows," and then it's pixel hunting on the grandest of scales to figure out what specific thing will give you the window washing option. Standing in front of the windows? No. Going to the broom closet and standing in front of the bucket that has cleaning supplies, a squeegee, etc.? No. No, you have to find a lone bucket with no tools sitting half covered by a newspaper. Wow, thanks. I only wasted like five minutes of my hour trying to figure out what would give me a related option. Also, the beginning of the game tells you that sitting down will prompt your character to ruminate or write in her journal, and I gather that this is where a lot of your character's development is supposed to happen. However, it never worked for me. Any time I sat in any chair all that happens is my character just sits. I haven't finished the game yet, and I'm interested to see how it pans out by the end and whether the story is so compelling as to erase these irritations. Maybe I"ll update my review at that time.

The positive: Really interesting premise, setting and art style. I was invested in the story despite its unusual presentation. I appreciated that it wasn't about aliens or zombies or hitmen. When the game started and I realized I would be doing chores I was skeptical, but it won me over pretty quickly. The negative: I'm really forgiving when it comes to clunkiness, especially in indie titles, but this one just wore me down fast. After a while I just couldn't ignore the flakey controls and poor optimization, and I opted to watch a lets play instead of actually playing it (Hence the extremely low # of hours played). If this were an Early Access game and I could expect these issues to improve I'd say absolutely give it a look, but as a finished title it's just shy of worth it. I've got to give it a thumbs down unless you're specifically into unusual game design. I'm actually looking forward to the next game from these developers. They've convinced me that they can craft a fun experience out of unique elements. I'm hoping it's something in a similar style, just a more polished technically. (Side note - Not really a plus or minus, just something to keep in mind if you're sensitive to motion sickness - this is the only FPS I've ever played that has made me feel nauseated. My wife couldn't watch more than a few minutes before almost throwing up. Pretty weird.) [Edit: After writing this I checked out the developer to see what else they were up to. Turns out they've shut down. That's a damn shame.]

The worst part about this game is the price, that was the real killer. If it was around $5.00 or so, then I could see investing a little time in it. The game is exactly what it says it is, a walking simulator. That can work in some cases if the story is intresting enough or the interactions in the world around you are unique. Sunset, however, lacks both. It takes far too long to get invested in any actual story/drama, The interface is choppy and annoying, there is no real goal set up (that is to say, no end in sight), and to top it all off its grossly overpriced. Don't buy this game, or at least wait for it to go on sale.

This was a very bold game in it's exploration of the relationships people have with other people, art, war and larger society. I think the most beautiful thing about this game was it's tribute paid to classical art. The soundtrack is gorgeous and many times while playing the game I would just sit back and listen. But for that reason, it's not a good game to play if you're looking for something more fast-paced. There is no action inside of the apartment, you are in a safe environment onlooking the destruction of the city around you. I also didn't realise I could press Y or N (or click above or below the mouse) to perform actions positively or negatively until the very end of the game. Hilariously, I sent my boss rude messages without even noticing I could change them, wondering why my character was so mean-spirited. I'm looking forward to playing a second time and seeing how the gameplay changes with a positive relationship with my boss. All in all, I absolutely loved it because of it's explorations of art, philosophy and human relationships (also a POC, female protagonist!!) but was not impressed with it's tedious gameplay. I would suggest this for people who enjoyed games like Telltale games (Walking Dead, Game of Thrones etc), Gone Home, The Novelist, Papers Please, The Stanely Parable and Dear Esther.

Sunset is not for everyone. Not sure how to categorize it, but i'd rather call it an artsy exploration game than a walking simulator. You'll walk a lot, but most of all you'll be searching for the right items. Basically you're in the role of a housekeeper for a wealthy guy in the 1970s, and you do daily tasks like tidying up, sorting stuff, cleaning and ironing clothes. Here and there you'll have to furnish something, like placing carpets at the right place or hanging picture frames... While you work on your daily list of duties, you'll get to roam the owners' apartment, and while doing that you'll find books and personal items that tell you a bit more about his life and background. Not all areas of the apartment are always accessible, some doors are only open at certain days, so you'll have to keep an eye open not to miss anything. After doing the tasks for a day, you're going back to the elevator and click to continue to the next day, where you'll get a new list of chores. This can get tiring and many days feel almost the same without big changes going on. I guess it was intended to show a realistic (boring) daily job routine? After a while your boss starts leaving you notes, if you react to them, it will somewhat influence the story. What i really liked about the game were the really nice colour expressions and artsy design of the apartment, the music and the voice acting. It's a great game to relax and take screenshots. What i didn't like is, that on some days the chores are not exactly clear, so you basically have to roam around in the apartment and search for an item you can interact with to do the task. That can get boring and annoying, but yet again, maybe it was intended to show a realistic impression of a housekeepers' life. The story is transmitted in tiny bits every day and can be hard to follow, near the end i still wasn't exactly sure what's even going on. The game has a lot of achievements, and these give you a good overview of all the (story) items that you've seen or missed after one play through. It took me about 7 hours to complete the game once, but i've only collected 50% of the achievements, so i'll have to play it again someday. [h1]Overall, i liked for its unique experience, but yeah, before you consider buying it, you'll have to be aware that the game is extremely slow paced and probably really boring for the average player. It's artsy and relaxing, a little mysterious, but most of the story is rather subtle and needs to be uncovered. If you're up for it, i'd recommend getting it on sale for 4,99 or less.[/h1]

I'm so sorry to post a negative review, but I honestly have no idea what I did for 5 hours. The story wasn't deep enough to warrant such a slow pace, and I kept waiting for a big reveal somewhere. I enjoy similar games that have been dubbed walking simulators, but this just never pulled me in, and I was exhausted and relieved to have finally finished it.

I'm glad I got this on discount. This game was frustrating. Aside from creating horrible motion sickness if I played for more than 1 hour, the game treats you like garbage. More than once I found myself unable to complete an objective regardless of having done so on previous weeks simply because doors were closed or the items needed were not accessable. I can't decide if that was the entire point this game was trying to make at how utterly useless you are that you cannot 'set the table' using a table cloth found elsewhere in the flat. I was genuinely interested in seeing this play through as a story, but the game mechanics were so distracting due to how unpredictable they were. Maybe I couldn't achieve all of these things unless I went back and did things differently on prior days, but there is no way I will ever try replaying this game to find out. I think this is one example of a game that would have done much better off as a novel. Maybe then I both would have felt more invested in following the story and spend less time worrying over missing out symbolism, accidentally following red herrings, or missing key details of the story,