It's the morning after. You've woken up, and you know you will be going soon. But there is some time for a quick chat with the girl you spent night for. The one character you meet directly is quite relatable mix of shallow and complex. There definitely is something to learn. The story is simple, plain and indeed short one, but with all 12 endings the game offers reasonable amount of content. I wouldn't recommend sitting through all choices in one go - you'd quickly get bored and start smashing choices for the sole purpose of getting all endings. Visual style is pleasant and is the main way the game differs itself from the heap of low-quality renpy stories. Too bad there is no voice acting. Soundtrack fits well into the setting, but is definitely on the ambient end, and while being nice, it's not really memorable. If you want to try interactive stories, this one isn't bad choice - if you find yourself disliking the genre, you won't lose too much time nor money. On the other hand, chances are you won't be hooked for interactive stories either, and the best outcome will likely be "I guess I could try some others".
The game is basically a loose chain of puzzles. What's worse, inconsistent chain. Okay, I understand that the idea of the game is combining real world investigation with the game environment, and that requires cutting some edges. It just doesn't work well. You can't have "guess the password" puzzle if you declare that the admins are obsessed with security to the point some computers are not connected to a network. Hey - I definitely don't work for a safety-critical company and we have better physical security. And, like, an alarm if anyone tries to enter the building after working hours. The game offers no reward other than solving the puzzles themselves. Sometimes, the puzzles are quite straightforward. Sometimes, the solution is not obvious even in retrospect. I didn't find the game really "atmospheric" as advertised - you won't meet any other characters in-game, you won't explore the world, there is no narration, only sound effects and ambient music. Sound is not bad, but won't create atmosphere on it's own. Graphics are decent and pleasant, but most of the locations present are dead-end parts of the puzzle of "where to go next?". Be advised that the game requires you to do stuff outside of the program itself. You will need to look up information from the real world, and that's quite bold requirement from a game that can only run fullscreen. What's worse, you'll need to access game's web and send e-mails to game's address. The game doesn't advertise this before purchasing, and it doesn't offer any privacy policy on e-mail addresses potentially harvested from players.
Okay, I'm really, REALLY enjoying this one, but I'll focus on "buyers beware", as the present reviews so far rightfully praise the game for what it is - let me give you few ideas about what this game is not. This game is not Transport Tycoon. Full automation - as it seems to me so far - is beyond scope of RR. You will be interacting with the map often. You will get some tools to get rid of some clicking, but you will need to stay present while playing. This game is not Gordikon either. RR is not a pure simulator. You will be managing stuff beyond the scope of what real dispatcher can influence. The game starts in extremely manual mode (you, the player, aligning switches), and later lets you influence the schedule, track layout... Lots of stuff, really. And this game is not Mini Metro. It's not a run against the gauntlet, you can stop at any point and make incremental changes. RR is your-own-speed logistics puzzle. The story mode/tutorial is... eeeh... ugh... umm... not great. I'd actually prefer less story, less acting AND LESS BAD BAD DAD (sic) JOKES. The interface is so pure, the aim of the game is so obvious, and the story is so out of place to me. I'm assuming the decision to include a story was based on "people like story games, eh? let's slap some story on this one just as others do". From awkward annoyances to illogical conclusions, the story is really all over the place :/ So, the Good? I like Gordikon, and Transport Tycoon, and Mini Metro. RR is in the same vague area of train management: it's familiar enough, and still new and different enough. While the interface has some bits that - to me - behave unexpectedly, it is intuitive enough to just get rolling with some trial and error. And for a train game, there is a lot of content. Maps are large enough to require some hours to dig through them, and while I'm not fan of the challenges - they are pretty much optional, so I'm not going to complain.
Okay, comparison to FTL is somewhat in order. Ship and crew, upgrades, permadeath... While FTL forces you to run the gauntlet, and has very explicit ending, Abandon Ship carries a story that takes a long time. You can - and will - make mistakes stemming from not knowing the mechanics, but the game very effectively punishes you for exploring the mechanics. You need to invest heavy amount of time to progress the story, but all your effort can be gone in a fingersnap. All while you keep caring about your ship and your crew. The mix of story and permadeath is very strange to me. Like, you want me to sail through the story, or you want me to run it again and again? FTL is definitely on the long end of permadeath-gameplay I can tolerate, and Abandon Ship is well beyond the limit. When I die, and I'll die, the game is going straight out of my PC, never to be touched again. And given the story, setting and various management mechanics, it's really a shame. You have limited ability to create manual saves at will, though you need to find a special in-game item for that. From the in-game description, diving for the save item can be quite risky, and I have no idea if attempt to get the save item can in fact _hurt_ your progress. I have seen devs take strong stance explaining that fear of losing progress is what they wanted to create - and I can only admire them for their firm belief. Well, not only that, I can also hate their guts for the same. What am I supposed to do? Snapshot a VM to get functional game saves? Some games where one dies often use the respawning to advance your gameplay - you earn a bonus to this and that, and after a while, you can move past the obstacle. Some games give you the choice of living or dying while noting important hangs on the outcome. Others save your progress, so you need to pass each obstacle only once. This game does neither. This game is built as if it hates the player.
Honestly, this feels like somebody submitted their secondary education student project to GOG. Plot? Ranging form trivial and unimaginative to flat nonexistent. Locations - uninteresting, if nice looking. You get to look around, but you cannot walk. There are many useless locations, which I imagine were added to hide the fact there is not really that much content in-game. Sound? Weather effects, footsteps, door noises, that kind of stuff. Characters? What characters? Psychology disclaimer? Useless. So far, from "adventure", "point-and-click" and "horror", you do point and click around a lot. Puzzles are mostly based on you searching for missed locations and items. From adventures point of view, you do have an inventory and you do combine items. There should be more to adventures, though. I didn't feel hooked in by the setting of the story, I didn't relate to any of the one character, You will probably be able to combine enough stuff to advance through the game, but the logic of your actions is... isn't. Honestly - I gave up playing and finished this piece via youtube walkthrough on double speed. Horror - yea, some elements of the ... locations are gory, wooden houses make wooden noises, but I didn't feel scared or ... or really anything else than frustration. Size of 2.2 gigs and loading times (even off ssd) hitting dozen seconds are way beyond what I'd find acceptable As a student project, I'd have tons of remarks and then I'd let it slide - it's not bad as a technical demo, but for a GOG game? One star is one star too much. Rating of ?/5 or n/a would suit better.
This is a very weird one. I see positive reviews here, praising the look and feel of the game, and I can see why. I also see some negative reviews, complaining about the game's "style" and characters, and again, I can see why. Sailing the story with emotion-based choices was at first very interesting experiment. I like being showed problems and being asked questions, especially if I wouldn't think of that myself. But choosing emotions instead of "proper" responses make your character's re/action very obscured, and lots of times outright surprising. As in "I didn't want THAT to happen!". Luckily (with or without irony), your choices don't really matter. The story is a train on tracks, the tracks are laid out, and you can either ride along, or get off. Among the choices the game remembers is "do you drink your tea with sugar?", for crying out loud. I don't, and court-martial me for it. Your choices don't even influence the dialogue following them. I hit a spot in the game where Clara responds to two very different calls from Peter with the exact same response in the same tone and everything. One of the calls fits with the response well, the other doesn't. And that's just lazy. Talking about Peter and Clara, and well - every character I met - I didn't really build any connection to any of them. Not that I disliked them, but especially the main heroes were really colour-less taste-less odour-less blobs of pixels. Being products of their era, seen and judged by standards of today... I don't really want to be around them. I loved the voices, however. Too bad they are attached to... (gestures wildly) that. I don't know if the art style is deliberate choice, or a choice out necessity, and I don't mind the style per se, but- yea, I was impressed that Peter leaves footprints in snow, however I was equally let down when characters stand ankles-deep in rock or float knee-high above their shadow. Not good.
Copy of my Gold ed. review, since, well, it applies verbatim. Okay, the story is 110% see through, the faces are horribly plastic, acting is not really brilliant. Who cares? SGW3 fixed most of my issues with the series, that being (without any particular order): * Not being able to find your own way to the level. Fixed by making the world open that offers some obstacles, some opportunities and some new mechanics. * Silly FPS parts. Fixed by introducing _some_ close combat action, though most of the time you can limit such to the minimum. * "You and what army?". Being alone is no fun, working in pair with your spotter works better. Fixed by: you have a drone that works as your spotter. Open world brings in some design choices unknown to follow-the-line games. I wasn't fond of having to pay for my weapons and ammo, but I hadn't run into serious troubles with resources and money, so this one is a "feel" rather than a "fact". But you have bigger freedom with choosing your arms, so there are advantages. Oh, and your stuff needs maintenance and fixing too, even on mission. There is a lot more content in the game - freeing prisoners, exploring places, climbing challenges, drone navigation... but saving your progress is not possible from like the menu, but is connected only to some game actions - such as ending a mission. And if you die, you get resurrected on a pre-compiled save location, with not much state being carried on. I am not a fan of this, but... you can just not die, eh? There are new mechanics: enemy being alerted, mortars, hiding in trash cans, cameras and "hacking", interrogation - and three skill trees for a sniper, ghost or warrior, so there is even replay value for the (open quotes) story (close quotes) if you're into that sort of things. If you know what you're getting into, even full price is not really that expensive (somewhere between 1-2€/hour in game), and if you're still unsure, buying at sale price of 4€ will make feel you like a thief later.
Disclaimers: I'm Czech, and I have grown up in the Sudetenland, though much, much, much later after the history described here. I also purchased this on a promise I made, not because of my interest in the era (this will become relevant). This program - I can't really think of this piece of software as "game" - aims at the same niche as Oregon Trail. It's primary objective is to teach you something, move you, make you think, make you feel. The base setting is in real, significant bit of history, and employs fictional characters to tell a fictional, but believable story. In a sense, it's a software-defined museum. Your tour around is driven by a choose-and-click series of interview-styled "chat with $PERSON". Interviewee will either reply with a video of them telling their memories, or with a comic, as if the events were happening. Occasionally, the comic lets you take over and tasks you with solving a situation. Wrong answers terminate the mini-game, correct answers award coins. You can use coins to replay interview where you made some sort of mistake, terminating the interview early. I don't feel good about this coin mechanic. Its aim is to make the software feel more gamey, but I think it hurts the message of the program. It only allows you to sit through the interview again, and lets you choose different path through it. I don't think your choice "matters", as in "changes the story". Sitting through the interview once might be already enough. You talk with seniors, so their speech is like swimming in honey. Sweet, but you're not really getting anywhere. The young player character doesn't talk, so there is no real dialogue. It's all them talking interrupted by silence. This tedious to boring feeling resonates within comics as well, since you need to click though the "pages". Overall, I'd recommend buying it only with some interest in the era. You need to have inner motivation to power you through. The motivation from the program itself might not be enough.
Is it that short? Yes, if you stick to the minimum, you can be out in an evening. Compared to SGW1, there is improvement, but you still need to accept the game's mentality to get going. And if you can't, you will really feel horrible playing this. It's a tactical shooter, not FPS. And there exists The One correct way of doing things, and part of the puzzle is you finding it. If you can live with these premises, you're in for a cheap plastic looks, yet some "real" sniper RP adventure. (Yes, I'm aware I'm using literal 'real' in quotes. Trust me, it will make sense to you if you play.). During some parts of the game, you will probably feel micromanaged by your spotter, but remember that your job is to fire bullets, and his job is to know when and where. If you won't obey, you'll probably end up dead - the game is very much on the rails and your options are limited. It works internally, but on the 4th wall seems still kind of weird. With W11 and stuff I experienced some graphics issues, but I was able to resolve them on my own, and frankly 10 years later it's not much of a surprise. Music is unobtrusive, acting and voices are... far from perfect. Almost as if anything that would not help the game in being a better simulation is treated second class. So if you're prepared to accept that this game is as it is, you'll have fine, if a bit short, time.
Okay, the story is 110% see through, the faces are horribly plastic, acting is not really brilliant. Who cares? SGW3 fixed most of my issues with the series, that being (without any particular order): * Not being able to find your own way to the level. Fixed by making the world open that offers some obstacles, some opportunities and some new mechanics. * Silly FPS parts. Fixed by introducng _some_ close combat action, though most of the time you can limit such to the minimum. * "You and what army?". Being alone is no fun, working in pair with your spotter works better. Fixed by: you have a drone that works as your spotter. Open world brings in some design choices unknown to follow-the-line games. I wasn't fond of having to pay for my weapons and ammo, but I hadn't run into serious troubles with resources and money, so this one is a "feel" rather than a "fact". But you have bigger freedom with choosing your arms, so there are advantages. Oh, and your stuff needs maintenance and fixing too, even on mission. There is a lot more content in the game - freeing prisoners, exploring places, climbing challenges, drone navigation... but saving your progress is not possible from like the menu, but is connected only to some game actions - such as ending a mission. And if you die, you get resurrected on a pre-compiled save location, with not much state being carried on. I am not a fan of this, but... you can just not die, eh? There are new mechanics: enemy being alerted, mortars, hiding in trash cans, cameras and "hacking", interrogation - and three skill trees for a sniper, ghost or warrior, so there is even replay value for the (open quotes) story (close quotes) if you're into that sort of things. If you know what you're getting into, even full price is not really that expensive (somewhere between 1-2€ per hour in game), and if you're still unsure, buying at sale price of 4€ will make feel you like a thief later.
