The Kraken Wakes

As a tech demo it's sorta cool, but it lacks polish and doesn't live up to the potential that it promises. There are only few situations when the talking mechanic is used and it never really impacts the characters responses. I didn't go in expecting the story to change a lot based on what I was saying, but I did expect to be able to play around with the NPCs a lot more than what you can currently do in the first hour or so of gameplay.

Loved the first few hours but the final chapters were very weak and the game ended abruptly. The AI voices were not natural though its understandable. It could certainly have been much better had the animations been smoother as well. The game also crashed many times mostly just before the loading screen for a new chapter. I had to redo a few chapters just because of that. There was also an issue of the game completely freezing 2 times because of losing connection even though everything else seemed connected to the internet. Overall it was an okay experience. I certainly haven't played anything like this and for the first few hours alone i would recommend this game. If not for the AI conversation i don't think the game would've had enough charisma in it to entertain me all the way through till its mediocre ending.

Pros: - Nice story and characters - When AI correctly understands you and gets back at you with a joke, can be hilarious - All the voices are generated on the fly, they may be stilted but it's really cool to have the NPCs actually say your name for once. It makes you think about how good the voices will become in the near future. - Makes you imagine how cool games will be when we finally have that text-to-speech system plugged on to GPT so we can finally spend the hours not doing the quests but chatting with our favourite NPCs like we always dreamed. Cons: - Snail simulator - Sup-par animations and graphics, it looks like it was hastily put together. - AI doesn't always understand what you say - Everything's slow, not just because there's a necessary lag on the text-to-speech - Did I say snail simulator Go for it for the concept. In 2040, when kids play immersive RPGs with NPCs chatting with them in natural language, you'll be able to say you were there at the very beginning, when it was only just starting and still buggy as hell. And they'll tell you to shut up. Try this game especially if you're not a native speaker of English. Helps you learn. Don't expect a pretty game or a normal-paced walking sim though.

I dug into The Kraken Wakes because I'm a sucker for a narrative focus (I've played a ton of Tell Tale games for example). Although I wasn't anticipating Kraken Wakes to give me excruciating life or death choices, it did keep me hooked in other ways. The way you engage with the game, narrative and characters was certainly different to anything else I've experienced on the screen. It encourages you to explore your dialogue choices and bring the results to bear in a creative way. Chances to collaborate with the characters to advance the plot was also an interesting mechanism that feeds into this and gives you a different way to experience the story. Overall, I'd say it's the start of a new way of experiencing game narrative, and I'm excited to see more!

The game has an engaging quality but it is not really a game. You are simply a passenger as the story plays out around you. You are able to talk to the characters but they ignore anything that is not right for the very tight narrative. So, basically, it is like watching a video and the much advertised AI seems to be missing. As a game it rates 1 out of 5.

Actually a good game with potential. I loved the game and had fun with it! But i must say some things were not polished. -First of all, I was expecting more with talking to the characters. Sometimes it works but most of the time even though you say something differently they keep saying the same thing. And this happens for like %90 time! -Game has some bugs and crashes. My game crashed like 7 times on chapter 5. And i needed to play it again and again and lost minutes. -Some Characters accent's are kinda bad. It needs to change. I am not so triggered about it but it can be annoying after some time :d

Wow - this game is bad. The speech to text isn't good (or doesn't like my accent) and if you stop speaking for a second, it thinks that you are restarting the line. The AI seems to not really be used, as I have seen more diverse replies in traditional adventure games. The story is fragmented, and there isn't that many things to do beyond "talking" with people, and when things are finally happening, it is all off screen - the closest thing to action you see is *spoiler* when you get to push a child corpse off a boat *spoiler* It's open ended, which means there is no pay-off or ending to the story, nor do we ever find out if the theories presented to us are true or not. That could have worked if the story presented to us or game play was satisfying, but that is not the case. The controls are clunky, the game is a little buggy and I saw the 'connection error' sign flash on my screen numerous times, and the underwater intermissions were slow, annoying and pointless. I get what they tried to do, and if the AI had been used more and they had allowed the game to stray from the source material a little, it could have been a good game, but as it is, it feels like it would have been better as a classic adventure game with a number of dialogue options and responses, and cut scenes showing us some of the things that happened, instead of this semi-broken game, that always tell but never shows, and where you sometimes are given the option to speak and it seems there is only two acceptable lines you can give it and it won't even try to respond to any other input. I bought my copy on a different site, and while that was cheaper than what it costs on Steam, this should be regarded as a budget title.

A very novel game that shows just how advanced NPCs and divergent storytelling can be. Charisma AI seems to be a fascinating tool for developing games and I would love to see more applications of it in the future! The story of the game and your role within it also invites you to ponder a great many issues as you consider your actions. What is the role of press, politics and military in society? If you want to initiate change, how do you go about it? Whilst the graphics are somewhat basic, the core jewel of this game is the personalised story you can develop for yourself in a game where every NPC can be conversed with and relationships can be developed.