The Uncertain: Light At The End

[h2]A decent story repeatedly interrupted by its own design choices.[/h2] I have not finished [i]The Uncertain: Light At The End[/i] yet, but I am far enough in to suspect the game is unlikely to suddenly transform into the Second Coming of interactive fiction during the final stretch. What it is, broadly, is a low-budget story-driven sci-fi adventure with enough atmosphere and narrative intent to keep me going, even while it keeps stopping to make life harder for itself in thoroughly unnecessary ways. This gets a very narrow thumbs up from me - not because it is particularly polished, but because there is still a solid bit of storytelling here for not much money. The intro sets expectations with almost admirable honesty: “we do not have the budget for big visuals, so here is a black screen with white text while someone reads it aloud.” Fine. Except the spoken version sometimes adds things, changes things, or drifts away from what is actually written on screen, which is surprisingly maddening. It feels like one of those tests where your brain is forced to process two competing inputs at once, only less scientific and more annoying. And the game keeps doing it. By the fifth round, I was no longer intrigued - I was mildly offended. The dialogue skip “fast forward” effect also looks rather stylish the first few times, then becomes the sort of flourish one wishes to switch off and quietly bury in the garden. Visually, this is not a masterpiece. It is functional, occasionally decent, and sometimes unintentionally comic. I did at one point witness something I can only describe as “Olga and the Free Floating Baby,” which sounds like a charming children’s book but is, in fact, an animation problem. Still, I can forgive modest graphics if the story carries the weight. Less forgivable are untranslated Cyrillic bits that appear after replaying audio messages, because that is not atmosphere - that is housekeeping left unfinished. The sound design is similarly serviceable: there is no bombastic action score, which is both good and bad. Good because it avoids cheap emotional bullying, bad because some scenes end up feeling like a silent film that has misplaced its pianist. Voice acting is fine - no disasters, no miracles. Gameplay is where the identity crisis becomes impossible to ignore. Third-person perspective and I are not always the best of friends, especially once shooting is involved, and the inability to zoom further out does not help situational awareness at all. Interaction is also wildly inconsistent: sometimes “look” gives useful commentary, sometimes your character silently stares at an object as if awaiting divine guidance, sometimes you pick something up and then have to put it back with Escape like you have accidentally borrowed it from a museum. The puzzles often feel parachuted in from another game entirely, and the sudden quick time events with very short reaction windows - sometimes without a checkpoint beforehand - are just rude. Fail one, and the game cheerfully sends you back to replay whole scenes like a Victorian headmaster teaching resilience with a cane. Oddly enough, the dialogue choice interface with mouse clicks and four options is one of the few things that works rather well. So yes, this game does seem unsure what exactly it wants to be - walking simulator, Telltale audition tape, puzzle box, or quick time ambush generator. But despite all that, I am landing on a [b]very slight positive[/b]. Not a glowing recommendation, not a “drop everything and buy this,” and certainly not AAA territory - more like ambitious CCC with a decent story and several bad habits. If you can tolerate clunky UX, odd tonal detours, and the occasional design decision that feels like it was approved by a committee of startled pigeons, there is enough here to justify the modest price. Just manage expectations accordingly. Note: there is a gameplay breaking bug in the sewers. Search for "Puck" and "Rebar" on the Internet to avoid it.

For everything that goes wrong for it I will admit that there is a lot of promise in The Uncertain: Light At The End if it actually worked right. The frustrations between the game-breaking mechanics and inconsistent saves make it borderline unplayable. But if that could be fixed and optimized, the story might feel more compelling. Especially if they added better facial work into the characters. I will say that the beautiful pixelated backdrops and set pieces are the best things about this game, and with a couple of big improvements, the whole experience might feel salvageable too.

[h1]Such a future will soon be ours.[/h1] [i]Once again, I am surprised at how high-quality a game turns out to be from an indie developer, rather than a AAA company.[/i] [h3][i]The story.[/i][/h3] This is the second part of the series. Here we will play as a girl named Emily, surviving in a post-apocalyptic world controlled by robots. With a group of friends, they devise a plan to escape the city to find a peaceful, quiet life in the wilderness. Will these old people and even a newborn baby be able to remain undetected? [h3][i]Gameplay.[/i][/h3] I want to say right away that in some places the action moves very slowly. But I really enjoyed it and savored the atmosphere, wandering through the locations looking for details. The puzzles here are really cool, moderately difficult and if you don't like them, you can just skip any. Plus, a bunch of hidden toys add mini-games to our tablet. By completing them we earn an achievement. [h3][i]Visuals.[/i][/h3] And here I was really shocked. The locations are so detailed, the textures are incredibly high-quality and the attention to detail is huge. And yet, the game doesn't lag at all. That's what I call top-notch optimization. [h3][i]Final verdict.[/i][/h3] I really liked the game. Yes, many people complain that the faces aren't realistic enough, but if you don't count that detail, the game becomes truly worthwhile. For $0.50, we get a short adventure that will evoke a ton of emotions, both joyful and touching. It's a shame the studio disbanded. We really hope that one day we'll see a continuation of this story. [code]If you read the review and liked it, don't forget to give it a thumbsup;)[h3][i]The further - The better♥️[/i][/h3][/code]

Отличная игра с хорошим сюжетом

Game came 4 years later than the previous one and somehow handles and looks like it was made 10 years before. A parallel story with the first game that answers 0 questions and does not push the narrative forward.

4.5/10

Zafascynowany częścią pierwszą (Last Quiet Day) zakupiłem tę grę w ciemno i niestety jestem rozczarowany. Fabuła jest mało ciekawa, nie wciąga, ciężko było się na niej skupić, a same zwroty akcji są przewidywalne, a czasami dziwnie wyrwane z kontekstu i nie mają żadnego podłoża we wcześniejszych wydarzeniach w grze. Świat oraz postacie zostały wykonane mocno średnio. Pomimo, że gra miała premierę w 2020 roku to grafika na to nie wskazuje ani razu. Puste lokacje, biednie wykonane modele postaci i przedmiotów w grze. Optymalizacja również jest na słabym poziomie gdyż maksymalnie mój zestaw wyciągał okolice 100-120 fps na maksymalnych ustawieniach graficznych, gdzie ogrywając inne, ładniejsze i bardziej wymagające tytuły osiągałem wartości 200+ fps. Okropnie zaimplementowano antyaliasing, który zamiast usuwać z obrazu wszelkie "schodkowania" to rozmywa cały obraz przez co staje się nieczytelny, a gra bez włączonego AA w FullHD wygląda jakby działała w 720p. Coś tu jest ewidentnie nie tak. Animacje w tej grze praktycznie nie istnieją. Główna postać porusza się jakby miała kija w dupie, a podczas rozmów potrafi rozmawiać przez zamknięte usta i mrugać średnio raz na pół godziny. Byłem bardzo zaciekawiony czy druga część The Uncertain również będzie tak samo interesująca jak część pierwsza, ale niestety mocno się zawiodłem, a deweloperzy pomimo 4 lat odstępu pomiędzy odsłona dokonali jedynie regresu. Jedyny plus tej gry to jej długość - 3 godziny, aby skończyć całą fabułę. W tym przypadku to akurat duży pozytyw, bo po prostu gra nie potrafi zatrzymać gracza przy sobie i nie oferuje niczego nowatorskiego. Szkoda, pokładałem spore nadzieje w tym tytule z racji na innowacyjną część pierwszą, ale się przeliczyłem.

Unfortunately for as great as Last Quiet Day was, Light at the End is just kinda meh. It doesn't really add anything to the overall story, several of the characters are just walking talking clichés, not really actually fleshed-out characters in their own right, the puzzles can either be obnoxiously easy, obnoxiously difficult, or obnoxiously bugged, and the graphics can end up horribly glitching out (the very last sequence had a nasty white sheen coating it). And of course there is the number one cardinal sin of being an incomplete story. It doesn't even sequel-bait, it does worse than that, it promises a continuation of the story. Guys, it took you 4 years just to get part two done! Actually, correction, 4 years to get the other half of part 1 done! This story is dead, and it sucks because it showed so much promise.

Годный квест от российских разработчиков. Игра является продолжением “The Uncertain: Last Quiet Day”, это второй эпизод. Жаль только, что финала всей истории мы так и не увидим, ведь планировалось продолжение, но увы не свершилось :(

Same as the 1st game, it's hard to say it's a good game, but i liked it. The story is good and they did a good job with the settings of the universe, now we need the rest of it, with a more profound and complete story. The whole game lacks polish and quality of life but it is stil playable. I hope The Uncertain 3 will come out and be more ambitious than 1 and 2.