TR-49

This review is especially made for those who like to get all the achievements in games. Minor spoilers ahead. TR-49 is another great detective game by inkle that takes place inside a special computer and your goal is to find a secret entry, jumping from book to book, cross referencing journals and other publications, until you can associate the entry code with the publication’s title. The computer’s input is just a pair of two letters for the author and two numbers for the year of publication, but soon you’ll find out that the numbers can also mean something else. I won’t spoil the story because even after reaching the endings some facts are still left for interpretation and I find it fascinating. The visual style of the computer itself is very retro and seems to be based on Alan Turing prototypes that were used to break German ciphers. The screen itself is also very strange, resembling more colored vinyl than a CRT or LCD monitor. Besides this, you’ll only look at files and the basement where the game takes place. To complete the game and discover everything you will need to read a lot and pay attention to the details referencing years, encounters and family relationships, but you can also brute-force the discovery of new entries by guessing the publication dates. Often I’d do this besides paying attention to what was written but eventually I got everything. If you want to save time, here are a few hints:[spoiler] Most authors have an index with all the books they published, the code is their two name and surname letters and the last two digits of the year they were born, but the second letter code will change after the female authors get married and widowed or divorced. The entries with a red dot in your list mean there are links still left to discover[/spoiler]. The achievements are all story related and are awarded for discovering all entries and getting all the endings. The hardest ones will be getting two of the endings [spoiler]that aren’t in the list you get after discovering everything, so here are some clues: one of the endings requires erasing the earliest theoretical concept the machine is based upon, the other requires erasing the technical knowledge of how it works[/spoiler]. [b]Achievements:[/b] [b]How many:[/b] 21 Achievements. [b]How much time:[/b] Around 8 hours, on my own, without a guide. [b]Game difficulty:[/b] Medium, without a guide, but very easy with one. [b]Achievements’ Difficulty:[/b] Medium, no missable achievements. The trickiest ones are related to the different endings you can get, [spoiler]4 + 1 in total[/spoiler]. [b]Overall opinion:[/b] TR-49 is another great game by inkle with a compelling and complex story but with a darker tone than previous games. It requires persistence and a lot of trial and error to discover everything on your own, but you can use a guide for clues and the solutions [b]Join and follow my group [u][url=store.steampowered.com/curator/42556190-Ribbon-Hunters/] Ribbon Hunters[/url][/u] for more suggestions and reviews of easy indie games to get all the achievements.[/b]