Whispers of a Machine

I played the Android version which was on sale for about 3 € and for that price, it's a cool little game. As a full PC game for the regular price... Well only if you're rich and have to have every PnC game in existence. In any case, the story is pretty solid and the setting very unusual and charming, sadly it all feels like the least interesting middle part of a trilogy (or an episode pr 2 of a series). I'd rather like to see a prequel or a sequel rather than another murder mystery PnC, but it is what it is. The mechanics are cool, but mostly underutilized so it's easy to forget about them and get stuck. I'm not an experienced PnC player so I had to resort to a walkthrough, even though the solutions are MOSTLY logical. So bottom line it's certainly solid and intriguing but overall not that exceptional and also very short for the regular PC price.

Has a firefly, Cowboy bebop vibe. It's set in the future, there are still places left in the world that feel relatively untouched by technology. There are tribes on Earth that have no outside contact whatsoever. Amish counties and areas that are relatively "backwards"... There's a sort of complimentary duality in these kind of stories..Which is how far we've come evolving away from our primitive roots as hunter and gathers, and then our seemingly inescapable nature itself. For instance Star Trek, is all about human progress, evolution but it also always goes back to our very nature, the struggle to be more than we are no matter how far we progress technologically or socially. This is a complimentary duality. We never really escape the question of what it means to be human, and how far beyond human do we ever truly come? In none of these franchies does technology really surpass our humanity, even in the face of technological singularity. It always goes back to our humanity, serenity really focuses on that. Getting rid of imperfection is boring story telling and may very well be against nature. Franchises like blade runner makes us wonder what it means to be human reminding us of our imperfection, pollution, violence, over population. in none of these franchises does technology solve all these problems. In this game, you are in a town that feels some what secluded. This strikes up the same balance as those other franchises. You play a city cop that has technological argumentation but is very human in character design. You are in a town where seemingly murder is uncommon. This makes the atmosphere seem very real. You get to react your own way, building your personality as you go as well as effecting the story path your character will take. This makes for a even more human experience, giving the player a chance to react their own way. The puzzles are well designed and you won't need a walk through. It's smart and has great atmosphere. She has great hair...

The game has a great flow, puzzles are well made and fairly logical, the intrigue advances well. The overall feel is very good and the UI is really well made. However, the main character has absolutely no charisma and i felt absolutely nothing for her, nor her dead companion. The whole town felt lifeless and cold. Overall, a good game that is let down by the writing and how characters act.

So I've played this for an hour and restarted from the beginning three times. This game makes it very clear that it autosaves constantly - there is no saving and reloading, no trying something differently, no recovering from an oversight or mistake. You didn't think to turn on your lie detector before walking into a building? Congratulations - you're immediately pushed into a conversation and can't turn it on. Followed by another conversation, where you still can't turn it on. Don't like that? Restart the game from the very beginning! It might just be me and my personal psychology, but this, alongside the clear emphasis on doing everything precisely right in a specific way to play down one of three obviously-set-before-you paths (with it emphasized that if you don't play _purely_ on that path it'll sabotage your path and possibly bork your playthrough) this game comes off as hostile and antagonistic to me as a player. Suppose I want to respond to each event and conversation option in a natural manner? Forget it; that won't be path-pure and I'll probably screw myself. I say 'probably' because I've only played far enough to see seven screens - and the last one I quit after ten seconds in the hopes of beating the autosave and go a different way. Nope, too late - slap me in the face and start me over from scratch. Suppose you want to try different things just to see the full extent of the game? You will literally be restarting from the beginning to do so. Yeah. Time to uninstall, I think. If you don't have a problem with the game slapping you around like this, then go for it; it seems well-made enough (at least the first two screens do). If you want to be able to play an adventure game like you can experiment with it and explore your environment rather than try to stay on unclear rails, though, this might not be the game for you.

Average game, nothing special, neither bad nor great.