The First Friend

I know that the Steam community can be critical but these reviews are a bit harsh. This is a beautiful walking simulator and I do like the story. PS: Get your tissues out friends!

It's okish. The narrator isn't great but there is some beauty in this game.

"The First friend" ist ein sehr emotionales Spiel. Es ist ganz offensichtlich, dass der Designer hier autobiographisch inspiriert eine Geschichte erzählen möchte. Diese dreht sich um einen Jungen und seinen Hund, der dessen bester Freund ist. Die Story ist ok. Sehr persönlich, aber eben für einen neutralen Spieler nichts herausragendes und letztlich eben auch ziemlich zusammenhangslos erzählt. Das wäre nicht völlig tragisch, wenn denn der Rest des Spiels funktionieren würde. Und das tut es leider überhaupt nicht. Die Storyfetzen werden grösstenteils dadurch ausgelöst, dass man in den Arealen auf die dazu passenden Orte stösst. Das passt zwar zur Story, ist aber spielerisch eine völlige Katastrophe. Denn diese Orte zu finden ist extrem mühsam und schwierig. Meist ist es unmöglich, die Orte von weitem zu entdecken und so muss man entweder hoffen, per Zufall darüberzustolpern oder mühsam die Areale im Zickzack ablaufen. Und selbst dann, kann man noch Punkte übersehen. Was für eine stupide Mechanik! Warum kann man diese Punkte nicht deutlicher sichtbar machen in den viel zu grossen Arealen? Das Ganze wird noch verschärft durch das unglaublich laaaangsame Tempo der Figur. Zum Glück habe ich per Zufall herausgefunden (das Spiel erklärt einem das nirgendswo, obwohl man es an einem Punkt in der Geschichte sogar dringend benötigt, um an einen Pflichtfundort zu kommen), dass man mit Shift etwas schneller laufen kann. Mit Betonung auf etwas. Es bleibt sehr lahm und mühsam. Zudem schmerzt nach einer Stunde Dauer-Shifttaste-Drücken der Finger. Was ebenfalls nicht hilft ist die Grafik. Die ist grösstenteils ziemlich hässlich. Ja, einige Perspektiven können durchaus mal hübsch anzusehen sein, aber spätestens wenn man sich bewegt, ist es nicht mehr hübsch anzusehen. Vor allem, weil die Renderdistanz katastrophal ist und man so forzu irgendwelche Bäume, Büsche und Gräser aufploppen sieht. Selbstredend hilft das bei der Suche nach den Objektfundorten überhaupt nicht. Umso grösser der Witz, dass man einen recht modernen PC benötigt, um das Spiel zumindest flüssig laufen zu lassen. Bei mir wurde das Spiel erst seit dem letzten grossen Grafikkartenupgrade überhaupt spielbar, was völlig unverhältnismässig ist. Bleibt noch ein letzter Kritikpunkt: Die Musik. Die ist zwar eigentlich angenehm und passend, aber immer gleich in Endlosschlaufe. Und nach gut 2 Stunden, die ich für die Absolvierung des Spiels benötigte, hätte ich dieses Geklimper am liebsten auf den Mond geschossen. Fazit: Für den Entwickler, der sicher viel Herzblut in dieses sehr intime Projekt gesteckt hat, tut es mir Leid, aber "the first friend" ist einfach kein gutes Spiel. Selbst für absolute Walking Simulator-Fans würde ich von diesem Spiel abraten.

This game is straight walking simulator to the next memory of the narrator. The ending I didn't see and had me in tears... While I had some moments of blindly wandering and everything looking the EXACT same, it wasn't terrible. I would recommend on sale and maybe a walk through as there is no direction to be given. Some of the maps were not needed to be as big or maybe different assets could of been added to break it up. Overall, not a bad game.

I'm into these games made by one developer. Somehow they always end up strong even if the game is simple or more graphic based. I got this on sale to try it out. This game is a short (~2 hours) walking simulator with a touching story about his man searching for his friend. Calm soundtrack and popping colour schemes. Easy to get 100% achievements done in one gameplay so that's a bonus for us who likes that. Negative point is that the game is made in that game engine (not a pro lol but enough experience from playing these games) that makes you run faster if you shift-strafe forward then just pressing shift+forward. This makes me move around the map like a spastic wich kinda destroyed the feel to the game.

After seeing this game was free, and the colorful landscape and touching title having caught my attention, I decided to download this game. The game centers around a man who searches for his dog, Zack, after he has wondered off. As you traverse the land, you will discover things from your lifetime that revokes memories of the man's life. The game is aesthetically pleasing to the eye, the environment becomes more surreal as you progress further and It starts to make more sense, the narrator is not to shabby in his voice acting, except for a few lines when he's more frantic. The gameplay can be relaxing to go trough, nothing trilling or heart pounding, just slow paced narration when you hit certain points that explains the protagonist's life story and his relationship with his dog and parents. It can feel a little dragged out as this is a walking simulator. The ending of the of the game will be a sad one, especially for those who've had dogs. I give this a 9/10 This game requires a large amount of memory space for the large landscape you have to traverse. Expect to play this game for around 1-3 hours.

I put thumb up just because I would thank the author to submit his game to my curator page. I appreciate young developers trying to create something alternative, introspective, contemplative, meaningful, peaceful, not violent, without fightings and shootings or usual puzzles. Nevertheless the result is disappointing and boring. This is really a walking sim in the reductive derogatory meaning of the term. You walk walk walk and walk and again walk and nothing else happens. From time to time the discovery of weird items triggers a few monologues about memories from the past of the developer. This mechanic reminds me of The First Tree, another walking sim, better than this one. Maybe the author has something meaningful to express but he doesn't succeed. If you want to develop games like Dear Esther (2012) you need charming aesthetics, fascinating landscape. You cannot do it in 2020 with ugly textures and graphics form PS1 era. Environment has to reflect inner thoughts and emotions, it has to change and transform following the complexity of the inconsciuos, from deep caves to high mountains. You need artistic visions, glimpses, symbols, ghosts, shadows, sounds, visual metaphors, light effects, elegant shapes, vibrant scenarios, etc. The game world has to be alive and immersive, to respond to your inputs. Real and surreal have to mix together, mystic and magic have to emerge. There is no mood, no atmosphere here. You cannot feel the joy to explore or contemplate like in Dear Esther. It's a flat boring experience. I cannot complete it because I cannot save my progress; you are meant to play it all at once. Mission impossible, too boring; you walk, walk walk and walk and again walk in such ugly dead environment, accompanied by monotonous piano music, and nothing meaningful happens, except few not well acted monologues. Sorry, too hard to go on. That's not the right way to do something alternative and meaningful. Art is missing here. I hope developer can do better by following my advices. Good luck.

Tried to give this game a chance. I don't mind walking simulators, slow paced games or even amateur-ish games. However, there's just too many issues with this game. No menu, no save option, no map, no skip button for the intro. And the game crashes over and over. I tried playing for about 20 minutes and it crashed on me five times. And since you cannot save, you have to start all over again. I lowered the game's resolution in an attempt to get it to crash less but it didn't make a difference. Get an achievement? Crash. Autosave happens? Crash. Trigger an in game event? Crash. Run and then jump? Crash. I still wanted to soldier on and see if I could finish the game, so I went into the discussion boards to see if there was any word from the developer on the issue or an incoming patch. Nothing. Developer is no longer replying to people on Steam about how the game doesn't work. Some user posted a message the developer published on some other site of theirs saying they don't know how to code nor do they have any interesting in learning how to code, telling customers to google possible fixes to issues themselves instead. I gave up. This is the first time I've ever filed for a refund. From what little I got to play of the game, it's below average at best. You're basically getting an audiobook because you literally cannot do anything in game other than walk forward to trigger monologues. And the voice acting is not good. I had trouble understanding what was being said and there were very strange pauses in between a same sentence. That's from 20 minutes of trying to play this thing. Buy the game at your own risk.

Super enjoyed my experience with The First Friend! A quick little narrative stroll through some beautiful imagery and music that really nails down the tone the developer was trying to portray. The story is endearing and heart felt, you can tell it is important to the developer. Well exceeded my expectations for a first time developer, and if you enjoy non-gameplay focused narratives give this a go! minor complaints is that a felt like the movement speed changed on a few levels, i think 3 was the most noteable, which kinda distracted me for a bit, and also the story maybe loses focus for a moment but ties back together nicely and ends well. Cheers!

[url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/38888018-United-Critics/] Please follow [b]United Critics[/b] for quality reviews[/url] [h1]Good things:[/h1] I wanted to like this game. I love dogs and had 3 in my life so far. The author voice is good and the story is ok. I like the mechanic of finding items to recall memories. Music in this game is great and probably the best part of the game. The first 2 levels were ok and didn’t have too many bugs. [h1]Bad things:[/h1] From the start the game shows that it was build in unity using only assets. First 2 levels were created in a way to not have too many bugs only some tree shadows floating in the air or on the mountain side. What bugs me in each level is that most of the world tries to be 3D while all the grass types are just 2D assets and it just distracts me from enjoining the game. Also from level 3 the game has many bugs and graphical problems. Shadows disappear and appear, the lighting makes many object flicker or change color depending on the distance from objects. Also level 3 is so open you see many trees disappearing or half of the tree under the water than the water and half of the tree above the water. Also in level 3 I found a spot with invisible wall missing so I fell in the ocean and down below the game world and had to restart. Walking and running speed is super slow in first 2 levels and from level 3 you run much faster and I think that together with the yellow grass in level 3 and white grass in level 4 cause a glitch. Yellow grass and white grass have a few pixels not connected to the rest of the grass above them and when you run past them it looks like the whole world is glitching out. There is also a massive FPS drop when you find house party memory and first half of level 4. I also found many missing textures and because of that I saw a few floating rocks or bush in mid air or sometimes the textures were there but the rock does not exist so when I try to jump on it I fall inside the rock and also some big rocks have missing bottom textures. It felt like the developer of the game spend 80% of his time creating the first 2 levels and then making the rest of the game as quickly as possible just to be done with it. Playing this game I felt more like a beta tester than reviewer. Also while story was ok the ending [spoiler] is bad/stupid/story breaking. At the start of story we are led to believe that we are looking for our dog Zack but after the level about us drowning and Zack rescuing us it was obvious that the dog died saving our life and we are lying to ourselves as our parents didn’t want to answer our question what happened with the dog and we say that he is by our bed but we can’t see him. We are led to believe that the dog rescued us when we were just kids and we lived our whole live and retired at age 68. Then we are told we could never forgive ourselves that the dog died rescuing us and finally we made peace with that information and were able to forgive ourselves. So it took us 50+ years to forgive ourselves. And after that the ending hits us and we see the grave of Zack where it states that he was alive in years 1998-2004 AND that breaks the whole immersion and suspension of belief as that would mean that in 2004 we were just kids but right now when the game comes out in 2020 we are 70? 80? years old. There is 60 or more years missing. It is hard to think about the feelings and the story in the game when the ending just destroys the whole immersion the story in the game was building. [/spoiler] [h1]Conclusion[/h1] Don’t buy this because of all the bugs and assets. The story presented would be a much better youtube video than it is a game. Overall score 3/10