The Empty Desk

So a review from someone who doesn't play horror games, but loves detective games. The game was interesting, some parts were annoying, the most annoying was the level to take pictures of employee files. The story was interesting enough. Gameplay wasn't to bad. Game gives you a choice for jumpscares, but they seem few and far between. I am not sure about the use of AI images. They are used quite a bit from what I can tell, certainly used more than we liked. AI voices...my friend and I honestly laughed more relating to them than anything. They are...alright, emotionless, which made us laugh, but at least sounded like the right gender. I am fine with them there, not everyone wants to read. They are disabled by default if I recall. Overall, assuming you don't mind the AI images and somewhat repetitive gameplay, it's not bad and was an enjoyable 3 hours or so.

Completed the game with 10/12 achievements and free ghost in the end. A magical realistic horror game with cyberpunk detective vibes, where a ghostly girl haunts you. Very funny interesting story and narrative, super fun gameplay and played it while drunk and high on weed. Absolutely cool game :D

You take on the role of Detective Bennet, who's just been assigned a new case. A prominent businessman has died in his skyscraper and corporate headquarters. To make matters worse, his daughter has also gone missing. Bennet doesn’t want to take on a case so close to retirement, but his boss leaves him no choice. The core gameplay revolves around first-person exploration, and if you've played similar games before, you'll feel right at home. The controls are kept simple—besides basic movement, you also have a handy run to move around faster and a crouch that’s mainly used to get closer to items on the floor. Thankfully, there's no stamina meter to hold you back, so you can sprint freely. Interacting with the world is done using the left mouse button. This requires you to thoroughly investigate your surroundings and pay attention to the magnifying glass icon that appears when you hover the center dot over something of interest. The actions are context-sensitive and depend on the item, but most often you’ll just get a comment. Most hotspots are there for world-building, offering generic remarks that don’t impact the investigation. Each item provides only a single piece of information, though new items may become available after learning about them. For example, you can’t pick up a key under a bench until you find a note about its existence. There’s also plenty of written material scattered around, offering deeper insight into the mystery. To keep things from getting too easy, a camera mechanic is introduced in the third chapter. When equipped, the camera highlights certain objects. Zooming in and waiting for the progress circle to fill lets you either dismiss the object or note that it might be important. Your objective in these sections is to capture photographs of crucial clues. Once you’ve taken enough valid shots, you can proceed. The twist is that you're limited to six photos, so you’ll need to return to a hallway where your pictures are projected. Correct clues receive a checkmark, but you don’t need to find them all at once. Going forward loops you back to the main area and refills the camera, allowing you to keep looking. Detective work here is streamlined. There are only a few codes to find, and the game mostly guides you through its environments. However, the building itself isn’t exactly normal—odd things start happening as soon as you enter the elevator. If you’re not a fan of jump scares, you can disable them. They aren’t very effective anyway, so you won’t miss much. It’s a bit of a shame there are no voiceovers. That said, the story is still well-delivered through text boxes. A nice feature is that you can click the mouse to speed up dialogue, which is great for fast readers. Character portraits are present, though unfortunately they appear AI-generated. The same goes for some paintings, but other visual elements don’t suffer from this. The experience spans nine chapters. Locations are richly detailed and offer a good variety of assets. Everything runs smoothly, thanks to solid optimization with no graphical issues or frame drops. However, a major criticism is the repeated use of environments. While some changes occur, you’ll mostly be exploring the same floor across chapters, with only different rooms unlocking. As a result, the game is quite short—about two hours in total. Despite many generic items, the game encourages exploration through collectible coins. These are typically easy to spot due to their bright gold color, though some are cleverly hidden behind furniture or in hard-to-spot areas. Oddly, this glow effect doesn’t work for some coins. Coins unlock character entries in the main menu, and you can replay chapters to find any you missed. The system is user-friendly—it shows how many coins are in each chapter, so there’s no guesswork involved. Thankfully, collecting all of them isn't necessary for unlocking achievements.

Note: I don't really do horror, so that probably biases me against this game That said, I enjoyed the concept. I definitely appreciated the non-jumpscare mode. What's leaving me to leave a negative review is that, despite the description, this didn't feel like a "detective" game. There was no thinking involved. You wander around and photograph relevant (or irrelevant) things, and when you haven't found enough relevant things, you wander through the same scene to do it again. There's no way to take notes, so even if/when you figure out what you have to find, you can't note it down in-game. You can't see what relevant thing(s) you've already found, to avoid photographing them again. You can't flag things as you inspect them, to remind yourself on the next loop through that you've already checked this item, or this item is the next one you need to photograph. Some basic QOL changes to sort these things out would make the game 100% better IMO. I gave up at 2 hours because I'd run through the same scene 3x and couldn't take it again. If I could have flagged items as I inspected them, so that I could quickly run either to or past them on the next loop, I probably wouldn't have quit. (Maybe that's the point, though, and the detective loses his memory each time through? But that seemed opposite to what the story was saying.) For a detective who's presumably had decades of experience (as he's retiring in a week), the main character felt extremely useless - this didn't feel at all like a think-y or detection-y sort of game.

Полное прохождение: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4u9NZhkNSc The Empty Desk - детективный триллер с интересным сюжетом. Наша задача - внимательно исследовать определённые помещения делового небоскрёба в поисках улик. Для этого мы будем использовать фотоаппарат. Выглядит и звучит игра неплохо, хотя некоторые изображения, сгенерированные ИИ, не очень качественные (я не против ИИ, но генерация должна быть качественной). Игра довольно короткая, так что надоесть не успеет, а сюжет довольно интригующий, поэтому я получил удовольствие от игры. Рекомендую.

Gioco molto carino, non un GOTY, ma si difende bene. Grafica accattivante, meccaniche di gioco semplici ma funzionali, trama abbastanza intrigante quanto basta. Per il prezzo intero suggerisco aspettare gli sconti e prenderlo almeno al 50%. I jumpscare non funzionano come dovrebbe, non spaventano per niente. Consigliato per gli amanti di Polizieschi.

[h1]一场略微平淡且无趣的冒险 [/h1] [h2] 推荐指数：★★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆ [/h2] [quote]买肯定是要买的，玩肯定是不玩的 快来关注[url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/38222893/] G胖受害者鉴赏家[/url] 让选择游戏变得更加简单[/quote] 我们将要扮演一名叫做内贝特的侦探，调查商业巨头，阿瑟·布莱克索恩的死。他的女儿失踪，未婚夫从楼顶上跳下。整个案子看起来一团糟。而迎接着贝内特的也并非是一场简单的谋杀案，有一个神秘的黑暗力量正在试着让他无法脱身。 本以为等待着我的会是一场难忘的案件以惊悚至极的案件，实际体验下来反而令我大失所望。游戏的玩法我本以为会是以侦探的角度出发来调查死者到底经历了什么，又或者像是《验尸模拟器》或《太平间助手》那般通过接触尸体等一系列玩法弄明白究竟是怎么一回事。 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3488662212 但整个游戏的玩法无非就是让玩家在一个又一个相同的房间内寻找所谓的"罪证"之类的道具，找到了后就可以用相机拍照来做记录，全部集齐之后就可以进入下一关，如果有错误的话会在交付答案的房间提示玩家还剩下多少没有拍照。 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3488660615 按道理来说本就贫瘠的玩法下故事会成为玩家之后的驱动力，但遗憾的是本作的故事表现也不是很好，虽然是机翻但依然能明白这个故事究竟是在说什么，可是案件背后的逻辑经不起推敲，让整个故事像是一本廉价的悬疑小说令人感到遗憾。当然不排除是因为机翻的缘故我没能懂。 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3488660716 [h3]总结： [/h3] 空桌这游戏要我找词来形容的话，它就像是一本空有噱头的推理小说。书腰侧的推荐语把它形容的闪闪发光，而实际翻开之后里面的内容却令人感到索然无味，枯燥的玩法与空洞经不起推敲的故事令人失望。但这仅是贝内特探长的第一部作品，算是给了个现如今少有的灵异x侦探这类题材的一针不算是很有力的强心剂。它可能不太好玩，但却会让人在结束之后不禁期待之后的贝内特又会遭遇怎样的灵异故事。 [quote][h3]鉴赏员测评配置：[/h3] CPU：Intel Core i9-12900K GPU：NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER 加入[url=https://steamcommunity.com/groups/GgamePlayer] G胖受害者鉴赏组[/url] 和鉴赏员一起战斗！爽！ [/quote]

[url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/44181848/] 【更多适合Steam Deck的好游戏推荐，请关注GPD掌机鉴赏家！】[/url] 一场叩击心灵的暗黑叙事冒险​ 沉浸与不安交织的叙事体验​​ 游戏以资深刑警贝内特退休前的最后一案为核心，将玩家带入Blackthorn保险公司扭曲的办公楼。这里不仅是案件现场，更是一个象征职场倦怠与人性异化的“精神迷宫”。随着调查深入，现实与幻觉的边界逐渐模糊，办公室的走廊、会议室甚至文件柜都成为隐喻——它们既承载着商业巨头Arthur Blackthorn的死亡谜团，也映射着贝内特职业生涯的压抑与虚无。 ​​亮点剖析​​： ​​氛围营造大师级​​ 游戏通过动态光影、低频环境音效和空间错位设计（如无限延伸的走廊、突然闭合的门窗），将压抑感渗透到每个角落。3D建模的办公室场景虽看似平常，却在细节中暗藏诡异符号（如重复出现的钟表、扭曲的合影），完美呼应“被困在时间循环中”的主题。 ​​双轨叙事结构​​ 表面是追查Blackthorn父女失踪案的刑侦线，暗线则是贝内特对自我价值的诘问。当玩家翻找案件卷宗时，同步解锁的贝内特记忆碎片（如褪色的家庭照片、药瓶标签）悄然编织出另一条关于职业耗竭的私人叙事。 ​​人性化机制与创新设计​​ ​​恐惧自主权​​ 开发团队贴心地提供​​惊吓效果开关​​，既满足硬核恐怖爱好者的肾上腺素需求，又让剧情派玩家专注解谜。实测关闭惊吓后，环境音效与视觉畸变仍能维持紧张感，证明叙事本身已足够有力。 ​​直觉导向调查​​ 摒弃传统点击解谜的繁琐，采用“相机扫描证据”机制（长按右键触发）。当镜头对准关键物品时，画面会呈现胶片颗粒特效，配合贝内特的实时语音推理，既增强代入感又避免卡关。 ​​隐喻化交互设计​​ 文件柜需要按特定节奏开合才能解锁、电脑密码隐藏在屏保动画的帧序列中——这些谜题不仅是玩法，更是对“办公室机械化日常”的戏谑解构。 ​​社会议题的深刻叩问​​ 游戏标题《空桌》具有三重隐喻： ​​物理空置​​：Emily失踪后的办公位 ​​精神空洞​​：Blackthorn被资本异化的人格 ​​存在虚无​​：贝内特用案件填充的人生 通过贝内特与Blackthorn的镜像关系，游戏犀利探讨了​​职场PUA​​（如邮件中暗示的绩效压迫）、​​情感疏离​​（角色间永远隔着一层毛玻璃对话）和​​药物依赖​​（随处可见的空药瓶）等现代病。当最终揭露“时间循环”真相时，玩家将意识到：困住角色的不仅是超自然力量，更是资本主义机器对个体的吞噬。 ​​遗憾与期待​​ ​​短板提醒​​： 部分场景加载时的视角切换稍显生硬，且3小时流程对追求自由探索的玩家略显局促。不过紧凑节奏反而强化了“窒息感”的主题表达。 ​​系列潜力​​： 作为系列首作，本作埋下多个伏笔（如贝内特女儿的旧案、神秘药物供应商线索），令人期待后续章节能否突破单一场景限制，构建更宏大的心理惊悚宇宙。 ​​总评：9/10​​ “这不是传统意义上的恐怖游戏，而是一场需要用心聆听的黑暗寓言。它用办公室的荧光灯照见了我们每个人内心的暗角。”——如果你追求《P.T.》式的环境压迫感、《Her Story》的叙事巧思，以及《Severance》的社会批判，《The Empty Desk》将是2025年不可错过的思想性佳作。

The Empty Desk is a fun detective game with seeming supernatural elements. It is impressive that one developer lead the development, with several artists overall. An interesting mystery exists, with an interesting Goal in mind. A billionaire is dead, and his daughter is dead too, and the detective has to find out the reason for it. Each level and chapter feel like, they are done well with the clues and information just enough for me to figure out. It is somewhat simple but complex enough that I had to put in some serious thought. I like the camera mechanic where I can use it to determine whether something is useful for a clue. As for the AI art, there are paintings that are generated by AI. No big deal since it is not really distracting. The price tag feels a big high for the amount of content and its simplicity, but I guess that can be ascribed to a lot of games. Still, it is a good game overall. Game was also ported to consoles, which I comment greatly. It is a godly amount of work to get ported and I respect the developer for it. I found the game via Steam Next Fest in February 2025, and I bought it upon launch. Instead, I played other games due to backlog and life commitments. Overall, I rate the game a 7/10. Recommendation: yes. If you do like the detective stuff, I do hope you do give it a try as well. It is a well done combination of horror and detective genre. Can be done in a single weekend.

Very nice job done for one solo developer! 3 hours of nice story and atmosphere. Mechanics are kind of simple as well as the jump scares are not really scary except 1 or 2 that catch you off guard. I just finished my greek livestream on my channel and I really enjoyed it! Congrats to CheesecakeGames studio and I look forward to the next chapters of Detective Bennett's cases! If you want to check my gameplay, here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/live/0ix15hkjEyA?si=IogWegY39sNqp-hT