The Way of Life: DEFINITIVE EDITION

A narrative based walking simulator with some puzzles and minigames thrown in and a lot of moralizing. You play as three different characters, a young boy, an adult, and an old man and play through different experiences in their life. Sometimes you're given choices, usually are you going to be a decent human being or are you going to be a complete piece of a ♥♥♥♥, that will color the ending you get. The gameplay was pretty even, and I thought the choices were a bit silly, for example once of the choices is [spoiler]"Do you go with your wife, a refugee from a war torn country who endured horrific things before meeting you and now you have a child together, to see her dying father in her home country, or do you stay home because you have a work meeting?" Leading up to that choice was a long series of events showing the hardships your wife endured and how hard her life was, and the work meeting is not even mentioned until the moment you have to make the choice. lol.[/spoiler] But it also had some well-written moments and I enjoyed it enough to play the whole thing through.

Игра явно не стоит своих денег. Судя по игре, работал только геймдизайнер, моделлер и музыкант. Сюжет каждой истории унылый, кое где недоработанный. Те моменты, на которых можно было поднять остросоциальные вопросы, слиты.

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По началу игра кажется довольно оригинальной и интересной, предлагая интересные моральные выборы. Но спустя час (или 2-3 уровня) задумываешься о том, что сюжет каждого уровня выглядит приторным, неестественным и просто потому что нужно вставить выбор. Чтобы сделать симулятор ходьбы интересным - надо разбавить игру хотя бы какими-то интересными фишками, мыслями, музыкой или интересными историями. Но на деле мы имеем просто какую-то однообразную песочницу из амбициозных идей. Жаль, задумка выглядела интересной :/

Ich find das spiel ganz Ok, finde das es aber unterschätzt ist. Hab ein paar probleme mit dem Spiel wie zum beispiel einige Level und deren Schwierigkeitsgrad, aber ansonsten solides spiel.

Игра для тех кто задумывается о жизни, о смерти, о расставаниях. Игра рассуждение с приятным визуалом и музыкой. Проходил в тяжелый период своей жизни, игра запала в душу и произвела впечатление. Крутые значки и лёгкие ачивки. [Мой рекомендосьён!]

In the game, you accompany a "Kid", "Adult", and "Old Man" (three generations of the same family) as they approach different topics in life, like romance, war, competition, arguments, etc. You start out in an atrium (referred to in-game as the "Hub"), where you select levels by proceeding through a marked door and selecting which of the three characters you'd like to play as. The situation plays out to some resolution and you're sent back to the Hub to select again. Each level with each character has 2-3 outcomes that you can get through playing the level in a different way. Once you complete each level once with each character, you unlock a final recap where you see a recollection of your choices (note that only the first instance is used for each character in each scenario). It's a nice little resolution to the game. The story itself is simple, yet compelling, and it has a general message of altruism and helping others which was nice to see. Similarly, the models, set design, and animations are all quite simple, but still provide an interesting little game. Notably, the music is great at setting the mood, and while it's simplistic, maintains the ambiance and artsy style. The game overall is quite relaxing and enjoyable to play not for the difficulty, but for the experience. There are three main cons to the game in my eyes. First, some controls are periodically restricted (ie the Old Man generally can't run) which can make the game tedious at a few points due to the amount of time spent walking to a destination. Second, at times the objective can be a bit unclear for some of the more obscure outcomes (and the in-game "hint" function that's encouraged often isn't very helpful), but only ~5 of the ~40 total outcomes are difficult to obtain without a guide or meandering around for long periods of time. The achievements do alleviate this a bit, as after playing through each scenario once, the achievements become relatively clear as to how they should be unlocked save for ~3. Third, invisible walls are rampant in this game. It's more of an annoyance than anything else, but it does get quite annoying at times. My only other complaint about the game is that the Adult character generally appears as white in-game, but they appear as a POC in the dialogue window. I'd be happy either way, but the split is a bit immersion-breaking for me. Just know that the game is short. Running through each scenario once takes a couple hours, and finishing all the scenarios takes a few more. You can get some extra time out of the achievements, and the rarest two can take up to an hour each if you're avoiding a guide, but it doesn't prolong the game enough in my opinion. tl;dr it's a fun little game from an indie studio that's nice and relaxing. It has some quirks and issues, but overall it's a positive experience. Would I pay $15 for it, absolutely not. Would I buy it on sale for $5, probably. 6/10

Я давал этой игре шанс раза 3. А в ответ получал лишь скуку. Игра должна говорить о высоких темах, поднимать неудобные вопросы, давать сложный выбор... А в итоге - пук в лужу. Скучный симулятор ходьбы с элементарными "мини-играми". Никакущая подача, режиссура и убогий геймдизайн. Вот что это за игра.