The Painscreek Killings

Incredibly tedious/grindy - I've never opened so many drawers/lockers before, or tried so many keys on so many locked doors! Everything you do is also pretty clunky/slow. Not to mention all the code locks you find! Locked safe in a room? Also find a calendar with 5 marked dates? Could it be any of those dates? April 5th 1994 - that could be 0504, or 0405, or 9504, or 9545, or 9554...better try all combinations for all the dates! But wait, it could also be that this particular code is found later on in the game, and you just wasted minutes of your life in the tedious GUI! This game feels more about grinding than actual puzzle solving - grinding, backtracking, trying to find your ways in inferior maps. Game is driving me crazy so I'll uninstall it now! Nice not hearing that extremely repetetive music anymore!

I was hoping for an atmospheric game that involved peaceful exploration and deductive reasoning. What I got was a tense and linear game with the primary mechanic of finding keys / passcodes to open locked things, and with an atmosphere that was constantly oppressive and occasionally dipped too far into horror game territory for me to enjoy.

I can find a lot of flaws in the game, but despite that, I thoroughly enjoyed it. The gameplay is mostly about meticulously combing through rooms to find documents and keys rather than logic puzzles (although there are a few). CONS: - requires suspension of disbelief beyond the usual: having diary fragments and keys scattered all over the place is already common in detective games, but here you're supposed to believe that people moving out of town just left those laying around for the 2+ years since the events took place. Hell, one of the guests at the inn hasn't ever checked out and his things are still there! It seems like an apocalypse happened, not a town being slowly abandoned. This really bothered me during the first half of the game, but I managed to get over it later. - you've never opened so many drawers in your life: i already mentioned the core mechanic of the game is combing through all the drawers and cabinets. It does make you feel like an investigator, but be warned it can also get irritating, especially when you'll inevitably miss something and have to go all over everything again. - writing: while I liked the overall story, the language used by the characters sometimes seems off, especially for children. It's not bad, but it's not book quality either. PROS: - both the start and the end of the game have a great vibe. The start, when you know nothing and are finding out all the connections between the characters. The end, when after all the legwork and all the drawers opened, the last locks fall one by one and you know you're finally getting there. - story: it's sad, maybe more so than the usual murder mystery, but also enjoyable to unravel. - kept me guessing till the end: while I found out the dirty past of the town rather quickly, I wasn't sure of who murdered who until the very end.

Firstly let me say so far I love this. I love feeling clever and putting together the story. I love running back and forth when I finally find that code or key I have been missing. This game really does a good job of letting you feel like you are a detective, or journalist I suppose. The graphics may be a little dated, but the game is pretty. I cant imagine they had a lot of members in their studio when they built this thing, and the idea of connecting all the notes and dates and things is kinda daunting. Overall I give it a solid 8.5/10 It does exactly what it sets out to do, and makes you feel so smart. I do think there is room for improvement, I would love a way to mark rooms and maps to show I have searched them, and a digital notebook in game would be nice, doubly if you could link notes to photos, but the game is fun and really grabs you and holds on for hours.

Very good :)