TL;DR Please don't buy this game.
Even though it is initially entertaining for how endearingly poorly written and acted it is, it quickly becomes apparent this isn't some plucky team trying their best, but rather some low effort schlock put out by a team with the creative vision and follow-through of a pack of cats trapped under a tarp.
This wannabe Wiseau crap was almost cute in the demo, like a messy tantrum thrown by someone else's kid at the grocery store: fun to laugh at from afar as long as you're not the one paying for the damage. But, when that kid's [i]yours[/i] now, and you're stuck spending hours staring at the little ♥♥♥♥, you're not laughing anymore. You're wondering, [i]"When will it end?"[/i], and, [i]"Why does the game master have like 3 different people voicing him?"[/i]
I wish I'd refunded this game at around an hour in, as all the laughable but lovable acting flubs one could reasonably enjoy while retaining a semblance of sanity were ham-fistedly jammed into that short and retrospectively naïve period of time, though I, in my hubris, forced my way through to the bitter end, hoping against hope that the laughs would come back. Tragically, all that reared its head were more pointless you-have-to-do-both-anyways choices and inane, seemingly randomly inserted minigames with more often than not no tangible connection to the story, the worst of which bears a ghoulish semblance to an ill-conceived reimagining of the dalgona game from Squid Game, wherein scores of human necks are pitilessly electrocuted for their foolish inability to accurately place runny chocolate pudding within the shape of letters cut into plywood.
If I can take a tangent about this particular minigame's design, which I must praise for being singular amongst its peers as an 'original' game, all others being pale single-level resemblances of concepts from random unrelated genres such as:
[olist]
[*]sokoban
[*]unlicensed pac-man clone
[*]poorly-cut jigsaw puzzle of a clown rendered by a free AI model in 2023
[/olist]
and [b][i]graciously[/i][/b] leaving aside the [i]entirely asinine[/i] concept of filling in letter shapes with pudding...
They go out of their way to show those letters in the wood being K, Q, J, and A on the physical props in the FMV sequences, which is obviously a nod to playing cards (a [u]major theme[/u] in the game), but in the minigame itself, we inexplicably only fill a haphazardly hewn swirl resembling the number 6 with pudding. The devs did not even trust you enough to colour between the lines all on your own, so the minigame is reduced to keeping your mouse within a circle as it moves along the shape of, again, a 6 for some reason, and [i]not[/i] the shapes on the props which bear the selfless burden of connecting to the unexplained thematic obsession with playing cards. This particular game came up multiple times and was lightly altered visually for its final appearance, in what is probably a cruel joke by the developers to make you think it's a fun [i]new[/i] game for you to enjoy. Instead of pouring chocolate pudding into a piece of plywood, this time you're [spoiler]pouring hot wax onto the back of a shirtless male courtesan after "unknowingly" (read: obviously) inhaling hallucinogens[/spoiler] (spoiler tags in case you decide not to heed my warnings, as this moment and the ones in its context are a brief oasis in a bitter desert of regret).
Numerous times are voice lines misspoken and retaken without an edit. You'll often hear a portion of a line repeated twice by an actor, and that's if you even get to hear them at all, as many lines are cut off just a few words into the sentence, cut off at the start and begin abruptly mid-sentence, or are rendered [i]barely audible[/i] due to poor microphone technique at the time of recording. Actors also accidentally interject in the middle of each others lines, as though they haven't read the script beforehand. They alternate between interrupting each other in this way, and leaving huge inexplicable gaps between each others (and their own) lines, generously leaving the player ample time to bask in their vapid, vacuous, and circuitous writing.
The delivery of this stilted dialogue doesn't do it any favours, sadly. I found it nigh impossible to attempt to glean meaning via audio alone from mumbled and jumbled lines, delivered hastily, and with a reckless disregard for which word in the sentence is given emphasis. Luckily, included are hardcoded subs which automatically, and frequently, misinterpret the barely understandable voice lines, sometimes simply presenting unparseable word salad, containing soundalike words to the actual script, like a movie reshot with the distant cousins of the original actors. Hilariously, it will faithfully transcribe the mistakes and repeated lines delivered by the actors, which should help you keep up with the narrative as you begin to question whether maybe [i]you're[/i] wrong and their delivery is actually [i]good[/i] and [i]cool[/i], or what hellish reality would accommodate this abomination within its desecrated bounds. Considering how often we hear those aforementioned stumbles being retaken and not edited out, it should be statistically impossible that there would be a comparable number of lines which they should have [i]demanded[/i] be rerecorded, but which instead were let to lazily drift by, like a piece of paper caught in a gentle breeze, and someone had used the paper to write a series of dialogue wholly comprised of monologues delivered back to back in like half the scenes.
At one point toward the end, in a key moment of contention for the overarching plotline, an actor gets through an entire line with a minor stumble, then says, "no, let me take that line again from the top", and SAYS THE WHOLE LINE AGAIN, which has been left unedited in its entirety for our viewing pleasure. While I appreciate the glimpse into the process of filmmaking, I prefer to watch my bloopers as bonus content [i]after[/i] enjoying the pivotal ending scene my choices have led to. I am forced to conclude that whoever edited this hours-long debacle together was clearly not paid enough to care, and perish the thought they would watch through the key scene of a major narrative thread. Many scenes are intercut with random freezeframes on certain characters, or once or twice just an empty section of room, for seemingly no reason, apart from they didn't have enough footage to suit the length of a line.
They did, however, make up for those moments lost to visual dead air, such as when they choose to leave in such choice moments as the director yelling CUT at the end of a take; by far the funniest moment of the whole affair. Such a shame it happens mere minutes into the introduction to this heinous experience, seemingly placed there to distract you while it digs in its heels about the nonsensical story it insists upon, and prepares to vastly overstay its welcome. Enjoy the scene in the strip club entirely populated by (and written by) people who have never been within driving distance of a strip club, but be ready to leave after the almost humourous double-tap homicide of your initial love interest and the only human to whom your character has any apparent personal connection.
Take a passing look through the reviews, and you may agree with me that they have been astroturfed. [b]Their AI-use disclosure is not complete, as several cutscenes are AI generated in their entirety, as well as much dialogue in the second half (clearly due to rewrites for cut plotlines)[/b]. The story makes sense within this context, as the lack of internal continuity and entirely random game macguffins, which are repeatedly mentioned as though they are life-or-death, but which are simply never used or given any consequence, drips with shameless, lazy AI sleaze.
To paraphrase Ebert, this is the first game I have played that does not improve on the sight of a blank screen viewed for the same length of time.
