ENCODYA

I really enjoyed Encodya as a whole! It has great quality of art. The story is also fun and enjoyable, with the right mix of 'inside' jokes. The puzzles can be solved without the hints without any frustration.

Encodya is a point-and-click game featuring the same main characters in the short movie "Robot Will Protect You" by Nicola Piovesan who also helped made this game. Unusual for its genre, you play as 2 characters at the same time, the little girl Tina and her guardian robot SAM-53. They have different reactions and interactions with items and characters, like some things can only be done with one of them but not the other. Together, they follow a mysterious message left by Tina's dad while being chased by Neo Berlin's corrupt mayor. Gameplay seems to be harder than the usual, modern Pn'C games, more similar to the old-school ones. Like for example, the solution isn't always obvious, the characters will not make any remark (unless you ask SAM for hints) and you must figure it out yourself, which sometimes requires a weird combination of usage of items that might seem kinda nonsensical. Sometimes the interaction point is also a bit hidden, a term known as pixel-hunting. And there's a lot of backtracking, obviously. Sure, walkthroughs do exist to help with the puzzles, but honestly it makes the experience feel, for lack of better word, unnatural? During my run, I used it quite a lot of times. I love the cyberpunk aesthetics as well as a contrasting, more nature-themed virtual world, it would be better if the puzzles were easier. And oh, there's a speedrun achievement... which is very annoying to get and unnecessary for these kind of games.

I bought the Save the world edition on gog, because I really wanted to support the devs and I love that they donate 10% of the revenues of this edition to the children's charity "Plan International". Great game, great story, sometimes I stand there a bit lost and do not know what to do and the hint system is not at all that helpfull. The game is a point and click adventure in which you solve a mystery around Tina a nine year old girl and her guardian robot SAM-53. The puzzles are not too hard and the art style is amazingly done. If you like charming dark cyberpunk worlds this is a game for you.

A game made with love. Love for the classic point&Click adventure, love for the cyberpunk genre, love for Blade Runner style, love for anime, love for puns and jokes. The cartoonish art is very cute, the dialogues are full of jokes but also very deep at times, the puzzles are challenging but not impossible, the voiceovers are top quality. Really a recommended game for everyone who like the genre or enjoys such special atmospheres.

barely working basic quality of life stuck behind 'easy mode' is just bad game design. the hotspot indicator (only with space, nothing to click) is completely useless, only shows very few things, there's still plenty of dreaded pixel-hunting to do. hints, even repeated ones, are also counted, just to make sure players are properly shamed while those with no self-control can play on 'hard mode' without access to either optional function they could simply choose not to use. insufferable characters (not just the ridiculous villain) and horrible voice acting (except the little girl and the robot). constant loading screens with long loading times. the game doesn't pause when alt+tabbed. the big-ass robot is always in the way, covering important things. movement is slow unless you double-click every time. need 2 clicks to select an item from the inventory instead of lmb to pick up, rmb to inspect, and have to do it before every single attempt at combining or using something. beyond tedious, especially with all the clutter in the backpack until the next chapter. there are audio issues as well, voiceovers not playing half the time, mentioned in the manual, so they knew about them but never bothered to fix them. the only somewhat positives are manual saving anytime (but only over a measly 3 slots without an overwrite confirmation), autosaves (without any indication), fast travel, some hotkeys (non-rebindable) and settings (separate volumes, resolutions, windowed mode, languages, subtitles, v-sync, etc.), but being lazy and/or incompetent and failing at basic p&c stuff with decades of good and bad examples to learn from is not something to applaud or recommend.