The Silent Swan

¡Primero que nada, gracias a Praenaris por invitarme a probar su juego entregándome esta copia! The Silent Swan sí que fue una sorpresa, generalmente los juegos independientes que me llegan no son de tan buena calidad visual y este definitivamente tiene lo suyo, la historia ha sido un todo viaje onírico y la banda sonora acompaño bastante bien, estoy expectante a los nuevos proyectos que se pueden venir. ¡Sigan adelante!

I can't really recommend this game. The premise is good. The monolithic, gothic-style architecture is impressive. The music is OK. But the longer I played it the more the cracks began to show. I'd get stuck on stairs. Parts of buildings would clip through the elevators. I fell through the floor. Those big buildings are mostly empty shells. Travelling anywhere (either by foot or by bicycle) is very slow and tedious. The distances are huge and the backtracking is annoying. I often didn't know where to go. I had to rely on YouTube videos to locate my next destination. Give this one a miss.

the silent swan?? should be titled THE UNFINISHED GAME!! avoid this one.. DO NOT waste your money.. :(

Its tough to recommend this game. It is very impressive to walk through this giant world filled with these behemoth of buildings, but sadly.. its very sloppily put together. There are gaps everywhere, and in rare cases, floors are missing and there was even a building that was just missing its collision, I could walk right through it. There are tons of props that are just floating in the air, and there were multiple times where I got stuck, and at one point I fell through the floor and had no choice but to alt F4 as I fell into the abyss and there is no death or anything in this game that makes you stop falling. And everywhere you go there is just a lot of empty.. its hard to actually believe, the cities are cities.. there are no shops to see, and the buildings that are open to explore are just completly empty. Which creates a massive disconnect between the character you are playing as, as they are describing something you cant imagine actually happening. Sadly there is no reason to explore, and I dont understand why the developers made this a "open world" game. There is a lot, and I repeat, a lot of pointless walking and I think the game would have been better off with a more linear approach, like other walking sims. The story is difficult to understand, I think this isnt a native english speaking studio, and it kinda showed. I'm almost certain that I missed a few lore bits, but that is because early on, I learned that it doesnt pay to explore in this game. And I think the developers frustratingly enough tried to make a story where its open to interpretation of what is happening. I guess its cool, but im kind of over it, it seems every game now a days just puts a vague story in their game and just tell you, you figure it out. I described what story was told to me, in the forums. Thats a lot of negative Jabroni, so why are you recommending it? Because I love how this game looks and how it made me feel. Its hard to explain, if you ever played dark souls 1 and 3 and walked through Anor Londo, if you are like me, you were constantly hit by the awe of the architecture. And thats kind of what makes me like this game. And the mystery had me really hooked, even if the ending left me frustrated. I do think the price tag is quite high for the value that you get in return. Its just too mediocre for more than that. I think I completed this game in 3 hours. I only got 4 hours of playtime because after the ending, I reloaded my game and tried to look around for more lore bits to see if I missed anything. I really hope this game sold well enough for them to continue existing as a company. And I hope they learned a lot from this game, I believe they got what it takes to make really cool looking games, but they need to work on their polishing and story telling.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=dpmAY059TTY&pp=ygUWZXN0cmFuZ2VkIGd1bnMgbiByb3Nlcw%3D%3D

The Silent Swan clearly pulls significant inspiration from games like those from the Chinese Room, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, and What Remains of Edith Finch - A story-driven walking simulator. Now, what made those titles work was excellent writing, music, voice acting, and craftsmanship all of which The Silent Swan lacks. Well, that's a problem, right, because it doesn't have any real gameplay? Yes. It's a big problem. In The Silent Swan you will walk around buggy, poorly crafted, confusing, nonsensical, messy environments with poor graphics but enchanting art direction - I bought the game based on the haunting atmosphere in the images, after all. There is no voice acting, so the only audio is highly repetitive footsteps and generic 'sad piano' music and you're constantly pulled out of the experience to read lines and lines of, frankly, complete gibberish dialogue. The game also has no respect for your time as it has large, open ended environments with no directions given, but doesn't reward exploration whatsoever. There is no point to look off the beaten path and doing so is a big waste of your time - you will find nothing anywhere, then have to walk back. If you arrive at a big tower full of elevators that you can interact with but aren't operational and there is no other obvious path forward you think 'Oh, I need to explore this area to figure out how to activate these elevators.' You're wrong! Just wander around until you find a way to wander around some more to take you to a path to wander around and the game will 'progress.' Sadly, good artstyle cannot save a rushed mess like this.

I've enjoyed the time spent with this game. There indeed a lot of walking and cycle riding. I was perplexed at why they omitted the voice overs that were evident in the demo version. Theres are tons of peeps who would provide voices for cheap/free. That would bring this world to life more. Sometimes it can be tough focusing on takin' the scenery in while worryin' about reading as well. The story focuses on our character wantin' to find his way back home after a seemingly 17 year nap to find his woman. Overall, I think it's a solid effort. Lookin' forward to seein' how it all ends. Gameplay impressions: https://youtu.be/gs5YsCRFLRk

It's weird, sometimes buggy (which can be a problem, when it's the light bugging out and you don't get visual clues), it's eerily empty, the traversing is slow and tedious, and yet... and yet this is a game that captivated me. it lingers on my mind, my thoughts keep coming back to it. I can't quite let it go, even two months later. can I recommend it? should you play it? I certainly do not regret the almost 9hrs I spent in this weird, empty, melancholic place, like a sad dream with beautiful music.

[h3]Нажимаем "W" и не отпускаем 3~4 часа.[/h3] Это скорее концепт, чем законченный продукт. Атмосфера сделана, а вот по игровой части плохо. Бо́льшая часть времени уходит на перемещение между локациями. В самих локациях нужно что-то потыкать, можно это сделать быстро, а можно повтыкать вокруг на масштабные, но пустые (в прямом смысле) здания. Последнему мешают: шальное освещение (обрезание света, резкая смена яркости или её мерцание) и шальные текстуры (спотыкание о пролёты лестниц, наложение моделей друг в друга, появление предметов в воздухе). Есть что-то [b]наподобие[/b] сюжета. Но к появлению 4-х строчных реплик, абстрактного текста, забиваешь на это всё болт.

A lot of walking with a couple of simple puzzles. The music and the environment/architecture are the main draws of the game. I really liked them in the beginning, but they started being a bit repetitive at the end. The environments look good from a distance, but on closer inspection you'll notice a lot of floating objects and structures that don't make much sense. You'll be looking at the repeating architecture a lot. The game is pretty buggy as well. On a widescreen resolution the dialogue UI doesn't fit on the screen. Loading my save somewhere around the middle of the game showed the wrong, old objective, making me run back for nothing. Changing some settings caused the screen to go black and forcing me to Alt-F4 out of the game. For some reason I didn't find this walking simulator that interesting, even when it worked. I have played better ones and unfortunately cannot recommend this one.