The Casting of Frank Stone™

This was a pretty mediocre game overall, which means it is pretty okay for a supermassive games game. The standard issues for this studio are present here. If you don't know what those issues are, it's poor character writing for half of the characters(they love their stereotypes) and poor management of difficulty for important actions(some games it can be significantly difficult to do such things as aim a weapon that you need to shoot to survive, and in games like this it is way too easy to avoid messing up). Another issue I can see with this game is I assume the story would be a lot harder to follow if you are unfamiliar with the story of DBD. You will have to listen to someone else on that opinion though, as I cannot confirm if that is true. Though I think this game shines a lot with how the butterfly effect can actually affect options in choices. I think they have improved in how choices can change the game and experience in comparison to prior titles. The ability to actually choose more specific points in the story you want to travel back to is also a step in the correct direction, though I would suggest taking it a step further by allowing players to change their actions in the past to ones previously discovered to make it easier to see the alternative choices without having to sink unnecessary hours into the game. In terms of character writing in this game it is a mixed bag. I think Sam, Linda, Robert, and Jaime are pretty good. Chris, Augustine, and Tom are not the best but the good parts about their writing shine more than the bad parts. And Madison, Bonnie, and especially Stan are poorly written characters that are either confusing or plainly agitating depending on the scene. I get that Stan is supposed to be an unlikable character in general, but he just feels so unrealistic. I get that he is a rich person so obviously he is an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ but there is literally nothing redeeming about his character. There is no reason [spoiler]for us to care about his unavoidable death when it happens. It very much feels like the developers wanted to unavoidably kill someone but didn't want the backlash online about the unsavable nature of the character. I think there are many ways to handle this situation though that don't result in harming the story. I really don't see why it would be a big issue to add in a choice that would save people in the correct situations. Like if Chris could have taken the firecrackers somehow in order to allow someone to be completely saved from Frank Stone coming out of the projector that would have been great. They could 100% introduce more situations where a character becomes severely injured instead of dying and force them to find a way to treat their wounds or die. I can see a million ways these deaths can be avoidable while also keeping the choices in the games brutal and unforgiving. If they are so desperate to unavoidably kill someone, add in side characters to kill or even have the main characters interact with someone they find as a body later or something. I just really don't like the approach they took, because it is not fun to have to deal with an intentionally annoying character throughout most of the game. Ruined some of the tension and cool moments with his annoying ass dialogue.[/spoiler] I also believe that they handled the QTEs in this game very poorly. The 3 types of QTEs in this game are standard DBD skill checks, spam clicking, and aiming and clicking in order to hit. There are so many cooler things they could have done with the DBD skill checks but they just didn't. Great skill checks are genuinely worthless, the only thing they ever really do is make generator progress faster which is not necessary or rewarding really. I wish great skill checks make actions better, safer, and overall more rewarding. There could have been chase situations where a great skill check lets you take a shortcut or get away sooner, a good skill check keeps you safe but you have to continue the chase or don't gain ground, and failing gets you injured/killed. If you do something bold/risky(such as using the firecrackers to save someone) a great skill check would result in success without consequence, a good skill check would result in success with an injury or other downside, and a fail would result in death or a severe downside. I just see so many ways they could have taken advantage of the skill check system in a cool way but they just didn't. If they were worried about it being too difficult to hit great skill checks, make the difficulty setting affect the size of the zone. Even if that was still too much they could have used the different various skill checks that exist in DBD. They could have used something similar to DS skill checks where the entire thing is just a success but smaller than a normal skill check. I am also very annoyed with the fact that they seemed so scared that people would be bad at the skill checks that they literally gave most skill check related deaths 2 chances (and sometimes even 3) to pass them. Like, what is the point of a QTE in that case if you are going to give me a second chance? The second most common QTE is the spam clicking QTE which I just find very inequitable. Spam QTEs in general are very unfriendly towards people with disabilities/medical conditions that affect hand mobility. I know multiple people that would either be completely unable to spam the button or it would put them in pain. I know there is an accessibility option that allows you to just hold down the button, which I am glad exists, but I don't understand why they even chose to have them when they are such an issue for so many people. It is also just, not really a fun QTE mechanic even for those who are capable of doing it. They could have replaced basically every single mash QTE with just a DBD QTE and it would have been better. The last QTE type is the aim and click type. I don't have much of an issue with this QTE, it seems pretty well managed. It forces you to make a quick decision with little thought which the result can reasonably be blamed on they player. My only issue is the sensitivity for these is too low imo. I am unsure if the sensitivity setting also affects that, but even if it does there's no real way to test out the sensitivity for that until you are already in the situation. Some way to test out all the QTEs in the settings and the related settings for them would be awesome but that isn't in this game here. And there isn't much to say about the DBD knowledge issue, I just think this game's story would likely be difficult to grasp as a newcomer to the lore to DBD. It assumes you have a lot of knowledge already which likely isn't communicated super well in this game. I can't say for sure though as I came in with the prior knowledge so you will likely have to look for someone else's opinion on the matter. In terms of them improving with choices I do really think that. I have played The Quarry and seen plenty with Until Dawn to know that they are doing better with the actual butterfly effect part of their games. Especially since this is a shorter title, I do think they did pretty well in that regard. The cutting room floor is a great addition to their story games, allowing the player to more easily explore other options without having to replay massive sections. There is still a need to replay to a degree though, as you cannot change the choices before the point that you are choosing. I think this feature would be perfect if you could just click what major choices that are already discovered that you would like to have made instead of needing to go back to do that. I understand that it would be too difficult to allow similar things with the dialogue options but with everything else that would be lifechanging. Overall though, I would recommend playing it if you are a DBD fan. If you are not though, I wouldn't blame you if you skipped it.