Unfinished - An Artist's Lament

This is a difficult game for me to review. Unfinished is an interesting short game. You play as an unfinished drawing who wants to be complete. The game serves as an effective metaphor for the creative process in general: everyone who has tried to create something, be it art, writing, a game, or whatever, can recognise the story this game tries to tell. The art style is great. All hand-drawn, and it stays this throughout. The art is accompanied by soothing music. The narrative is told through voice over -- sadly no subtitles -- that is clear, if at a little low volume compared to the music. Gameplay wise, you walk through white, empty environments to find body parts (different legs, different bodies, different heads), all of which give you enhanced abilities. As you progress the levels become more... drawn. Unfortunately Unfinished is hard to get in to. I was stuck at the first real puzzle for far too long, since the game didn't make it clear at all that I could swap abilities in mid-air, and I only found this by chance. It is also short. Too short perhaps for Steam refunds. If I hadn't gotten stuck at the beginning I could've finished it within 30 minutes. While a bit rough the game is mechanically sound and the story resonates with me, as a fellow (want to be?) creator. As for the price point, €5 is perhaps steep for such a short game, and (disclaimer) I didn't buy it for that price: I had a 50% off coupon. At that price level (€2,50 or less) I can recommend it to everyone. [strike]Just don't be a ♥♥♥♥ and refund it after you've finished your speed run, okay?[/strike]

[b]A short preface:[/b] I had received a free copy of the game for submitting my artwork in for the game before release, but that does not affect my overall opinion of the game. [h1]Summary (TL;DR)[/h1] I was very impressed with this games message, and how well it conveyed the story of a character you never see. You play as one of the narrators unfinished sketches who becomes self aware and goes on a journey to figure himself out. Along the way, you gain powerups that help you finish the levels and make the travel easier. While this game was short, I enjoyed my time playing this. You can view a gallery of all the entries here: http://www.fromdustscratch.com/2015/08/unfinished-an-artists-lament-unfinished-sketches-from-other-artists/ [h1]Pros[/h1] [list] [*]Great narration [*]Decent graphics [*]Great Story [*]Has Steam Trading Cards [*]Great music [*]Features artwork from 25 unknown artists (including myself) [/list] [h1]Neutral Points[/h1] [list] [*]One of my pieces was featured and credited in this game. [*]Came out of Steam Greenlight [/list] [h1]Cons[/h1] [list] [*]Very short story [*]Short soundtrack [*]A few minor physic errors [*]Game crashed once before the ending, making me have to redo level 5 [*]Few minor graphical errors on level 4. [*]Narration can get repetitive if you do not finish levels fast [*]Controls take a little bit to get used to. [/list] [h1]Rating[/h1] 6/10

You're an unfinished sketch and must try to reach the pencil of your creator to finally know who you were meant to be: to do this you'll gather a few powers (such as helicopter cap, running or jumping shoes etc) and use them to traverse the few levels that make up the game. While a surely interesting concept Unfinished sadly offers a very bland and short gameplay experience, one that not even its few memorable moments can save. [b]PROS:[/b] -simple but effective art style -one level (pictured in the screenshot) is truly gorgeout to look at, original in its design and serves as the game's most enjoyable point [b]NEUTRAL:[/b] -story is a bit of a mixed bag as a few genuinely interesting ideas are brought down by an equal amount of dull exposition [b]CONS:[/b] -platforming sections are generally dull, some can get quite frustrating aswell -movement and camera controls feel awkward -most levels feel a bit too barren as they lack any kind of detail -at times it can be hard to understand where you're supposed to go -standard movement speed is fairly slow -just as its Store pages say it's quite short (I'd say 45 minutes) http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=572725244 I took a few days off before finally reviewing this game as I had conflicting feelings about it...I see it's been created as a work of love and the theme is plainly dear to the dev, some of the art is also truly nice. Sadly as an actual game Unfinished really falls flat as the bland levels and barebones gameplay take their toll on the player: I just didn't have much fun using the awkward controls to switch powers at the right time or to try and aim my jumps correctly to move through a few platforms. The gameplay simply isn't refined enough to be engaging and there's not enough to do to make up for its problems: most levels look and feel the same and the new powers you'll unlock don't do much to mix things up, you'll just be moving forward, jump and/or float a bit until you reach a new zone, rinse and repeat. It's a real shame as the game can be quite enjoyable when it drops the dull platforming and leaves you to explore a bit while giving some narration, the fact it does so while introducing some vibrant colours into a mostly black and white world also helps tremendously in making these moments shine. Sadly this happens basically only once and it simply isn't enough to make up for the rest of the game.

Disclosure: I was provided a review code for this game. My Quick Look on Unfinished - An Artist's Lament https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJdWrsjUnQo I beat this game in 30 minutes. It's *very short*, overbearing in its delivery, initially obtuse, yet there are a few moments when this game shines. Here is a gif of my favorite moment in the game: http://i.imgur.com/ot0R1js.gifv There is this moment and a few others where everything the game is trying to do succeeds. Other times, the purpose of explaining an Artist's anxieties can become overbearing. And I'm honestly not sure if I'm supposed to be critiquing that as a fault of the game or if that is the purpose of the game's design. I like the game. I like that it was attempted. There are parts that were inspiring and there were parts that were annoying. The very beginning of the game is the definition of obtuse. Is it obtuse on purpose? Is that frustration I'm feeling *supposed* to happen? If it was, well then job well done! If it wasn't, well then, that part could have been done better. Still, I like short games and Unfinished, with all of it's faults, still left a positive impression on me.

This game is short... about 30 minutes long, possibly pushed to an hour if you have a difficult time with the mechanics. It is not really even a game. It is a walking (and bouncing) simulator where you hear an artist complain that he is out of ideas and that people do not like his work, all while you try to wander over to a pencil. That's it. There is no story, there are no enemies, and there are just a couple of puzzles (if you count stacking blocks as puzzles). You do get a few power-ups, but they are difficult and clunky at best. I will say this though: I did enjoy the music.

What if your dreams, ideas, and creations all had a life of their own? One of man's most greatest abilities is to create, rather that be life, tools, or art. Sometimes though, creation isn't easy, sometimes things are left undone, inspiration is a valuable commodity that doesn't come easy. You will explore these concepts and more in this interesting and entertaining puzzle game. You play an unfinished doodle, who seeks identity in a world of art and chaos. The story is shared between Artist and Doodle as they both go through a journey of discovering themselves and purpose. While Unfinished - An Artist's Lament is a rather short game, what it does have to offer is extremely enjoyable aesthetically and gameplay follows suit. Finding unfinished drawings, you add abilities to your own drawing, such as spring boots, helicopter hat and other whimsical powers. The puzzles in Unfinsihed are rather simple, the game never draws focus away from what matters, the story. This leads the game to feeling like its full of good ideas but ends rather suddenly. While this was obviously intended, a part of me couldn't help but wonder what else could've been had the ideas and powers/levels been expanded upon. Nevertheless Unfinished - An Artist's Lament is a journey of self actualization that is fun, pleasant, and makes you ponder your own creations and goals that you never quite completed. This game is a fine example of Gamer Art and should be treated and enjoyed as such. I made a video review to show off some of the features and gameplay of this game! https://youtu.be/MPM95T3SuEc I hope you enjoy! Martyr

Before anything else, let me say that I wanted to like this game. I'm an artist myself and have studied both illustration and animation. I was honestly expecting to connect with this concept. Sadly, my artistic senses were offended more than anything. I feel bad for saying this about any other artist's work, but this is also one of the few Steam purchases I deeply regret. Like the title says, it's unfinished. Not even in any artsy way. The only lament I experienced from this game was that of my wasted money. Maybe the idea was good at some point, but the mechanics feel broken, and navigating the world is terrible, which really just killed the experience (hence my very short playtime on record). I went into this hoping for a short, thoughtful, story driven experience, but instead I was apalled by bad coding and environment design. Simplicity can be great; I knew what the game looked like from screenshots, and I was still expecting to like it. Instead, it felt uninviting and badly planned out. This is an example of an indie game where simplicity and idea doesn't win me over. The 2D animation and the video of the artist drawing are easily the best parts of this game, but I found myself mostly looking at the equivalent of Google SketchUp blocks without textures, meshing badly with the hand drawn art. Those who are finding deep artistic meaning in this probably have far more going on in their head than what's going on in this game. Bottom line is, I feel like the creator of this game had ideas that they couldn't properly convey in this format.

Simple but effective, and pretty much aimed at artists. If you're in the business of creating things, it's quite easy to relate to the story being told. There's a few "I know that feeling" moments, and that's really what the game is designed for I think. It's not going to blow your mind with indepth mechanics. Not a Hardcore platformer etc. But if you're having an artblock, feeling a little down on your skills or whatever? Yeah why not, it's cheap, give it a go.

Well, it sounded different, and I hoped I could look past some of the negative things some people had to say in reviews. Nope. The controls are bad bordering on awful, and while I made it as far as nearly finishing the third level (out of five I saw in the menu), I still hadn't found anything particularly interesting or thought-provoking by that point, or any gameplay that wasn't a chore.

An interesting concept executed poorly. Maybe the game's content would have fared better as a visual novel or an adventure game. I appreciate what the creators were hoping to depict, however having it be this extremely slow-paced platformer kills a lot of the immersion and momentum to bother getting into it.