I really enjoyed most of the game. The individual stories in each chapter are great. My biggest complaint is that I wish the game was more of an anthology. I did not care for the main plot at all. The final chapter would have been a fine ending to the game without the extra stuff at the end. Most of the puzzles were logical. I felt like one had too many red herrings, which made it difficult to tell what the actual objective was. I was worried the puzzles were going to be too simple at the start, but it does increase the difficulty.
First off the game has amazing visuals, but unfortunately that isn't enough to save it from being a mediocre experience. There is so little gameplay aside from fetch quests and really simple minigames. The sidequests don't add much and just slows down the pacing of the game. The characters are fun, but they overstay their welcome. The game had the potential to be really great, but it needs some cutting down, and some actual gameplay to justify being a game instead of just being a claymation movie.
The game is relatively short, but I don't see that as a negative. It doesn't drag things out with pointless filler. The game is mostly logical. there is one section of the game where its not completely clear about what to do next even if you have figured out exactly what is going on and know what you should be doing next. Its only a minor issue though. I enjoyed the story, and it does a pretty good job of building atmosphere. I wish it would lean a bit more into the supernatural elements. If you are doing a Lovecraft Sherlock Holmes story, you might as well go all in especially with a Sinking City 2 coming out being unlikely. I guess that might cause issues because it seems to be canon with Chapter One. Overall, I enjoyed the game, and I look forward to what Frogwares does next. I will happily back another kickstarter, especially considering the situation in Ukraine.
The games have great visuals for the time (although the second game sometimes has a hilariously cheap looking game over screen). The story is servicable. The puzzles themselves are fine, but there is way too much hotspot hunting in the games. I can't imagine how much of a pain playing the game without a guide would be. The game even actively hides stuff. I had to be constantly moving my mouse across the entire screen, and I'd still miss stuff. The second game has multiple game breaking bugs. Also, the default shortcut points to the wrong exe, it should be pointing to game.exe. The third games cutscenes don't work for my game, and might even pose a health hazard to people with photo-senstive epilepsy because I just get rapidly flashing images when the cutscenes play. You should not buy this pack until GOG at least fixes the third game.
