The Vanishing of Ethan Carter

Pretty graphics, but the lack of an effective save game system makes the game unplayable. I really don't want to lose an hour's progress because I'm called away from the PC and I can't save. According to the devs, this is because they can only implement an autosave - in which case it should save every 10 mins.

I played this game without knowing anything about it at all. I just saw a recommendation reading the reviews of "The Park", which I played before. The atmosphere of the game is wonderful and you can immerse very fast if you are open to exploring without knowing what you are after. The graphics and design are what I would call absolutely perfect. If your PC is capable, you should definitely play this on the highest possible settings. The story unfolds at a slow pace and has a Lovecraftian touch, that surprised me in a very positive way. The time you can spend in the game is about 4 to 5 hours, if you like exploring. And here start the little downsides of the game. You are traveling through a world, that seems to be enormous and full of secrets, while in reality there is nothing to explore besides the events and clues, that are absolutely necessary to drive the story forward. Like "The Park" this game could be so much more. The world is big enough and ready to hide tons of secrets, information and events, even some that are not directly addressing the main story. I got the feeling, that the developers are afraid of reusing locations or they simply didn't have enough time to establish a more "living" world. Other small cons: - You are able to run, which is absolutely necessary to travel the rather long distances without falling asleep. Unfortunately, this breaks the immersion, which is kind of sad. - The game is saving at certain points. If you don't have time to finish a scene at once, you will have to replay the whole scene. That means: if you picked up an item and leave the game, you will have to pick up the item again, when you come back. That confused me at first, because I couldn't take an action where I needed an item, that I had picked up in a previous game action.

The game is good if you only want to do mild exploring and some mild puzzle solving. There is only one place that requires that you avoid a bad guy, otherwise you can solve the "puzzles" at your leisure. The big issues that I have is that the three main draws for this type of game are the world, the plot, and the puzzles, and they fail at all three. WORLD: pretty, but is extremely linear. Although you could miss puzzles, you can't really "explore" as any slight unexpected path is quickly blocked. PLOT: people have said that they find this moving, but I find it unrealistic and melodramatic. Just because it's about a child doesn't make it deep. I won't say more to spoil it, but don't expect deep thoughts or insightful reflection. PUZZLES: there aren't any real puzzles. They tell you "not going to hold your hand", but as soon as you see something, they tell you what to think about it. If you need to find an item, they tell you exactly what direction to go and where it is. To make matters worse, to progress you have to replace items to their original locations, which is the last thing I would do to a "crime" scene if I was trying to figure out what happened. It's ridiculous. So in summary, it's real pretty, but it's real dumb.

Super atmospheric, and looks fantastic even for a six-year-old game. The puzzles are interesting, not frustrating, and reward investigation and observation. However, not knowing the main mechanic means that you'll probably miss the first puzzle and get pretty far into the game before you realize you have to backtrack. Somewhat annoying, but if you begin knowing that each area is a discrete puzzle and fully self-contained, you can progress naturally.

This is a game about a detective coming in an small town looking for a missing kid. The gameplay is simple. You walk and click when there is a point of interest showing. But he doesn't shine by is basic gameplay but by is storytelling. The voice of you detective is really deep, calm, and each time he talk you stop to listen. Same process in the game "What remain of edith finch". You will progress in a beautiful landscape, finding strange puzzle to solve. Doing so, you will understand more what is goint on in this town.I'm not telling more, don't want to spoil you the plot. The music is beautiful, same for the graphics. It's a short game, 3 to 4 hours to complete if you take your time. But i's enough ! Some blackspot : you can't save yourself (only autosave), so it's a bit frustrating to have to quit the game for some reason knowing your progress will not be save. I recommand to do it in one session. Also because there is no indication sometimes you don't know if you're missing a key element. If you liked narrative driven game, with a simple gameplay, a lot of walking and contemplation, go for it.