Tags: Adventure - WC - Walk Clicker
Additional Tags: Delete Local Content & Remove from Library
TLDR: Left abandonned and unfinished. Takes patience to finish. Cinematically presented VN style walk clicker with a cartoon aesthetic.
If you try to stay away from the loaded and ultimately meaningless term "potential" this game has a lore and plot of its own, which it builds too slowly for its own good.
The game itself shows that your garden variety visual novel really is an underexecuted piece of shovelware and that you would be better off reading a proper work of literature of any stripe rather than stoop so low as invest of your time playing them.
On the other hand the fact that it was never finished casts a doubt on the sustainability of making anything remotely ambitious under that format.
The game features the illusion of a branching dialogue, with multiple options and often a rationale by the character on why you would want to pick that option. The choice and consequence aspect is nowhere near deep implementation however so set your expectations accordingly. Additionally the game features an inventory system and free-form exploration across small environments. This, unfortunately, is done through a walk-clicker type interface which is both dated, and feels stiff and often leaves you stuck, pixel hunting, or generally pads the gametime for no observable benefit.
This is especially disappointing given that the general quality of the art for the backgrounds can vary from fairly detailed to boring shots of a room's corner with nary a thing to look at. Many of the comic strips even seemed sketched in a hurry with little variety to display emotions or action.
Given that the game was made in Unity Engine, one could have conceivably wanted to have a proper cell-shaded first person environment to navigate in using standard first person walking simulator standards instead.
You can get an early pulse that the general shape of the plot has you as an amnesiac that is awakes in a pod. There is not much of a distinction between human and robot except for the propensity for robots to mention their job and serial numbers and leave the questionning about the nature of your environment for the humans to talk to you about. As such they often are simply plot devices to help with inventory management or guide you around the environment.
This game just does not really hold up in terms of entertainment value, it is an interesting angle to approach a certain genre from, and you can walk away from the experience without being left completely empty handed. However there is no point immersing yourself in a 20th century cyberpunkish universe, and slowly build up suspense about the real lore and meaning behind the world building only to leave you on a cliffhanger. Especially given that you have to suffer the walk clicker, and aimless dialogue to get the few little nuggets of interest. Additionally much of the lore pertains to the characters themselves rather than really give insight into the world at large. Hard Pass. Removing permanently for declutter.
Conclusion: If you are okay with being stuck between a small apartment, one street, and a tiny amount of extra one screen areas and being constantly teased about your amnesia and whom you are and how you fit in for a few hours, and want to see how this slots in compared to the rest of the games you might have in the genre, it might hold your attention for a short while. On the overall it is to be avoided.
