The Red Strings Club

I thought RSC would be right up my alley - a retro-styled cyberpunk adventure game, with a moody bar too boot. But it turns out it's basically just a visual novel with a different aesthetic - pretty much all you do in this game is click through endless text windows, which comprise some 95% of the "gameplay" (I'm using the term as loosely as it gets). Even tutorials seem to go on forever, and the only thing that breaks up the monotony are two minigames that are quite useless and have pretty bad controls too. Only at the tail end does RSC begin to resemble an actual adventure game, but it's far too little, much too late. Perhaps all that wouldn't be so bad if the story was engaging, but it's not - it's just your bog-standard cyberpunk fare of an evil supercorporation doing evil supercorporation stuff and good guys (hackers, who else) having to stop it. At least the art style is nice and the music doesn't distract or annoy, but that alone is not worth the price. I cannot in good conscience recommend RSC to anyone, there are other games that do cyberpunk adventure much, much better.

The premise and style seem on point but something left me disappointed. Perhaps longer bar tending portions would ticked that itch (very VA-11 HALL-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action) or a more involved pottery portion which lets us faff about with folk more? There are plenty of game play gimmicks to build a full game around but I do not know, by the end I did not feel the need to replay the story at all though and if I was quicker might even wanted a refund. Some have pointed out there is a certain agenda to the writing but that is fine, it is not as jarring as I found it was in 2064: Read Only Memories or Analogue: A Hate Story but is there at times. Overall good game for a once over but only when under £10. Otherwise buy something to drink and listen to some tunes instead.

Its basically a visual novel game with some mini-games and puzzles scattered in. The story isn't groundbreaking by any means, I don't think I'd enjoy reading it as a book for example, but its absolutely engaging and by the end I was super attached to most of the very well written and characerized cast. It also asked some difficult philisophical questions that I had to think pretty hard about my view on. I've seen some complaining about a political agenda and while I agree that it's clumsy when it does do it's pretty much only really present in a single question you're asked, so I really don't think its as big of a deal as people are making out personally. If anything my only real problem with the story is that I want more! It's very short, and while your choices can lead to different outcomes for some sequences in subsequent playthroughs for the most part you're on rails and don't get to explore the world much yourself. I really hope this game gets a sequel or game set in the same world because I'd love to see more! In terms of the minigames you'll mostly be mixing drinks to induce certain moods in your customers which will make them more or less receptive to certain questions. It's super fun trying to work out what you think will make them give the most information based on their personality and the situation they're in and while I think the mechanics of mixing and pouring drinks can be a little clunky you have as much time as you need to mix the correct drink so its a nice way to break up the walls of text. I adore the pixel art, its super fluid and just looks beautiful imo. I understand pixel art isn't for everyone but I can't see many getting turned off by the look of this game. The music is also nice, it really helps to set the mood. Although I don't really find the music all that memorable personally. Overall I'd absolutely recommend this to people looking for a good narative experience! Although because of its short length maybe wait for a sale.

This game has definitely earned all its 5-star ratings. Paradoxically, it has probably earned all the lower ones just as well. On its face and in its most literal interpretation, it's a pixelated railroad of minigames with just three branching lines. However, once you spend even one hour with it, it's very likely that you will become hooked on the story. No spoilers but, the end of the story is essentially revealed at the beginning of the game in a sort of "act 0" foreshadowing. Still, thanks to brilliant writing, you won't be able to guess how you make it from act 1 to the end. You'll be blindsided by important revelations that turn out not to change the plot but only underscore it, and seemingly inconsequential decisions which alter the final outcome noticeably. The gameplay is very narrative -- lots of reading, and no voice acting and plenty of abstract drink mixing and cyber-pottery -- but this detracts nothing and, if possible, adds some charm and arguably another layer of surreality. The soundtrack (by Fingerspit, I think) is superb and modern, although I repeatedly had flashbacks to the Blade Runner soundtrack as well as to the excellent soundtrack of the original SNES Shadowrun game. Great! The writing, which forms the true core of the game, is superb. I was confronted on multiple occasions with extremely heavy philosophical questions and, while NOT forced into hackneyed "gray area" choices, was instead asked to select, among many sensible outcomes, which would be the most sensible. Awesome!! This is exactly what all serious games should be making us do. We, on being confronted with a false reality, are forced to reflect on our own true reality, but can enact our decisions within the comparatively safe framework of the game. If you need to shoot some nazi-zombie-shark-aliens, look elsewhere for now and come back later, but If you're in the mood for something cerebral, good-hearted, but pulling no punches, this is it!

I want to like this game more, but it's really not for me. I've playd about 2 hours and got fed up with the minigames (well the sculpting mostly). The setting and writing seemed really interesting but I'm not willing to put up with the sculpting to figure it out.