Unwording

[code][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/33025671-Missi-the-Achievement-Huntress/] Please see my curator page for more games that are well worth your time[/url][/code] [b]Approximate amount of time to 100%:[/b] 1,5h without a guide [b]Estimated achievement difficulty:[/b] 1/10 [b]Minimum number of playthroughs needed:[/b] 1 [b]Is there a good guide available:[/b] I wrote [url=https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2960005107] this solution and achievement guide[/url] [b]Multiplayer achievements:[/b] No [b]Missable achievements:[/b] Yes, as far as I know, there are only missable achievements on day 3, you can play the other 2 days without worrying about the achievements [b]Grinding Achievements:[/b] No [b]DLC-Only achievements:[/b] No [b]Speedrun achievements:[/b] No [b]Time-gated achievements:[/b] No [b]RNG-achievements:[/b] Yes/No [b]Does difficulty affect achievements:[/b] No, you can play on easy and still unlock all the achievements [b]Unobtainable/glitched achievements:[/b] No I'll start this review with the same warning as I did start my guide with: [i]If you’re currently down and thinking about playing this, maybe wait till you have a better day. If you still would like to play it today, make sure you don’t stop after day 1, preferable just finish the game. As the beginning can make you feel even more down, but it will get better, just like your current mood… it is just hard to see right now.[/i] Unwording is a short puzzle game that will show you how much the thoughts in your head influence how you see the world around you. If you doubt yourself too much and you're down, you will see the world as less colorful and find all sorts of things that will confirm the thoughts you have about yourself. This game does a wonderful job showing you how the thoughts you have don't have to be the truth, just a perception of how you see things at that moment. it also shows a valuable lesson that this can change with time, that things look so dark one day doesn't mean it will always stay that way, whatever your mind tells you. I found the first day in the game very hard on an emotional level. This was because I recognize the thought pattern, but also I played this one a day I felt down. For a moment I hate the main character, especially after an action he does just before leaving for work... but it also displays how you can lash out on days you don't feel yourself without having bad intentions. The game starts out very blend and the character walks so slowly! That last thing really annoyed me, but later on, I learned that you can run by pushing the left shift key on your keyboard. With each day passing the main character gets a little bit less depressed and you can see that in the colors used in the game, but also that the game switches from a 2D perspective to a 2,5D perspective to a 3D perspective. It allows you to see more of the environment your characters live in with each passing day. The developer did such a powerful move with the start being so blend and a bit boring, but I can also see that this might be a risk. I hope not many people will quit the game just on day 1, as it will only get better. There were two things I didn't like as much. The first thing was the puzzle type of day 2. Gladly there are only a few puzzles, but that wasn't just my kind of puzzle. Nothing bad about the puzzles, just not something I enjoyed. The second thing was that I did encounter stutters during my gameplay. Only 1 or 2, but I was afraid the game would crash, but gladly that didn't happen. Achievement wise the game has mostly achievements that will unlock by just playing through the game. however, on day 3 there are a bunch of missable achievements. It might be worth it to check out your achievement list or maybe my guide, which I linked above, to see what you should do during this last day. This starts at work on the third day. If you missed out on something, when you know the solutions it only takes a short amount of time getting through the game to get back to day 3, but the game has unskippable cutscenes, which will take the most time on your second playthrough. I would like to finish this review with a message that would be nice to keep in mind in your daily life: Be kind to yourself! It is so easy to just ourselves so hard. We wouldn't have those requirements for our friends and family but somehow it is totally okay to be so harsh to yourself. Because as long as it stays in your mind it doesn't sound so horrible and it just becomes a normal thing. You might not even notice that thoughts go around in circles and you blamed yourself already for something when blaming yourself again just a bit later. Try to just keep going on hard days, as time will go by and maybe tomorrow will be a bit easier. And don't feel ashamed if you need to reach out for professional help, you're worth it!

I love the concept, and the rich use of metaphor. As the protagonist gradually learns to undermine his own negative thinking patterns and overcome his depression, his world literally attains new colors and dimensions. And the puzzles, fittingly, involve reorganizing thoughts and looking from new perspectives. As a work of art, it's moving. But in terms of game design, it's honestly pretty bad. The puzzles are counter-intuitive and weird, and rely heavily on gimmicky rules and trial-and-error to solve. The various actions you can take throughout the day are extremely limited, and it's often frustrating trying to figure out where you are supposed to go or what you are supposed to do next. (At one point I was apparently supposed to try---and fail---to open the fridge. Nothing said that this was the case, and I could not advance until I did so.) And in the final chapter, when you are trying to actually type the commands, it reminds you of why we don't use that kind of interface like Zork anymore: typing commands is a really frustrating mode of interaction. (Most of the people will accept "hi" or "hello", but not the baby! After several fruitless attempts, I finally figured out I'm supposed to use just "talk" on that one.) Even the negative thinking patterns exhibited just aren't that interesting or compelling. As someone who suffers from depression, I have direct experience with this. I've also studied some cognitive science, so I have some of that side of it as well. Some people might have [spoiler]"talking about me"[/spoiler] as an anxiety thought (though I don't really), but more likely would be "nobody likes me" or "I'm boring" or "they don't want to be around me". The fact that they are [spoiler]planning a party[/spoiler] wouldn't be comforting; it would simply lead to the thought "they won't invite me". The very first puzzle was [spoiler]"give up"[/spoiler] and that was pretty much the best. [spoiler]"I am poor"[/spoiler] and [spoiler]"I am alone"[/spoiler] were also pretty good. But there weren't enough negative thoughts in general---part of the issue with depression is they are [i]constant[/i]---and they weren't nearly personal enough. You wouldn't think [spoiler]"procrastinate"[/spoiler] as you sit down to work; you'd think "my job is pointless" or "I am bad at my job" or "my boss hates me" or "I'll never do anything with my life"---or, most likely, all of the above. And why does he never clean off his damn phone!? That's unsanitary!

[h1]Summary[/h1] Unwording is a short puzzle game where you follow the day to day life as Tom. The main character is seen to have depression, and you must do different types of puzzles to unscramble a hidden word. This is the basic premise of all the puzzles, although the execution is different. [h1]Pros[/h1] + Hand drawn artstyle + Decent puzzle variety for game length [h1]Cons[/h1] - Clunky gameplay - Tons of bugs - Horrible camera angles (the worst ive ever seen) - Lack of any decent story - Frustrating and unfun puzzles - & a lot more that I cannot be bothered to continue listing [h1]Conclusion[/h1] Unwording is a game that seemed promising, but then proceeded to fail in every way possible. There's no reason for you to play this game. It's not worth it's price tag, it's poorly developed, and it's absolutely a mess of a game. I somehow spent more time coming up with the only two positives I could find in this game than the time it took me to write the rest of this review. Absolutely not worth your time, and even less, your money. 1.5/10

Маленькая история без Оскара. Хорошему игровому проекту не нужно раскрываться от 10 до 100 часов. Хороший проект оставит у вас кучу эмоций и за час игры. Великолепная режиссура и сама по себе история. Жаль, что только на английском. 10/10

[h3]Rushed[/h3] Would have been a clever game, if not spoiled by many UI bugs. Basic ones, that are not game killers but make the game just annoying. [h3]Clever[/h3] As the game progresses you move from a flat line-drawn to a 2d space with colours, and finally to a fully 3d viewpoint. So the game kinda hides it's cards, and that builds the atmosphere in a way that is unexpected, everything becomes more interactive. However the mouse controls in 3D are terrible and you end up doing 360's or spinning about wildly. [h3]Simple, Intuitive[/h3] There are not a load of things you have to interact with, but some elements are non obvious and hard to even find, so when you walk around in 3D you can find yourself struggling to get out of corners. The game puzzles are easy enough and some of them are rather smart as well as intuitive. I mostly liked the 3D word sphere puzzle. If this game review helped you decid if this game is for you or not, do check out my list of similar but better ones https://store.steampowered.com/curator/41773079-EmpathyGames/list/91358/

This game really lifted my spirits on a dreary day. With its heartwarming story and cute art style. A little gem that was hidden in my library for too long.

Art style and music are great. Some funny and cute scenes. Some of the puzzles are a bit confusing and even when you figure them out the game doesn't really acknowledge them until they're done a certain way. Overall a cute little story :)

Unwording is a short exploration game revolving around negative thoughts and perceptions. The idea is that we accompany our main character along three days, and see as his thoughs and ideas change towards a more positive life. While this core idea could be a worthy one, it's quite poorly developed, pretty explicitly telling the player that "things will turn better just by looking at them from a different perspective". I mean, if this is the best advice you can give, then just don't give any. This "story" is told via "puzzles" which tell the very few and rather stereotypical thoughts of our main character. Sadly they don't make use of much mental effort, instead rely on rotating wooden blocks and typing in various words by brute force, until you find the correct combination. A nice touch is that the story spans across three days, and the puzzles are of different style for each day, but there are just too few of them, and they seem quite unconnected. The main issue however, is that Unwording simply fails as a computer game. The first day in the story is presented in a 2D side view, where controls work as expected. But for the 2nd and 3rd days, we emerge into 2.5D and then 3D, where controls end up being very clunky, the camera views move around unreasonably, and scenery objects start blocking the view and flickering around. This, when paired with some exceptionally poor optimization makes playing the game rather frustrating. You also don't have a proper save game system, which means that while you can save your progress, you cannot load it again. This makes it impossible to go back to a previous day in the story without starting FROM THE BEGINNING, so you pretty much have a single shot at trying to get the achievements. For a game focused on positive thoughts and mental health, this feels like an insult towards the players. The whole game takes about 1.5-2 hours to finish, which is quite short, even for the price tag. However, even that short playtime doesn't feel satisfying due to the poor controls, blocking objects, brute force "puzzles", and rather basic story. If this was a demo version for a game in its public beta stage, I'd probably say it's decent, but this is just not sufficient as a whole, finished game.

I liked the premise of the game, and what it was trying to do. But the puzzles just weren't that engaging and too cumbersome to enjoy.

got goosebumps the entire time. so beautiful.