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I enjoyed The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker so when Dark Nights: Poe and Munro was released onto Linux I snatched it up right away. It didn’t disappoint. To my surprise it wasn’t one story but each episode is it’s own self contained story. They do reference each other a bit but could be viewed on their own. The FMV quality was great and had no issues. The stories were engaging and overall good. The acting was above average overall save a couple people. The humour was top notch and my favourite part. One of my only gripes was that the choices you are presented with are often not obvious. Sometimes I had no idea what each of the choices meant or what decision they would render. It took an episode or more to get any kind of handle on things. For instance sometimes when you can pick Poe or Monroe it is because that’s whose perspective you will be following for the next few scenes but I only know that by experience not because the game explained it well. I think adding text to the choices would have made things clearer. I also found the ending to the final episode to be a bit rushed but maybe that was due to my choices. I played Dark Nights on Linux. It never crashed on me and I didn’t encounter any bugs. There were options for vsync; triple buffering; and a 25 FPS lock. There was only one save slot. There was no save option present but the game may have saved on exit. I played an episode through before exiting just to be safe. Alt-Tab didn’t work. You can pause the game at any time. Overall I enjoyed my time with the game. Each episode felt a little quick but was able to tell an interesting story anyway. If you enjoy FMV games or the developer’s previous work you should find some fun here. I finished all six episodes in two hours and thirty minutes. It felt a bit quick but nothing too bad. I paid $13.04 CAD for the game and felt that was fair. I could certainly enjoy these characters more if they appear in future games.
State of Mind has a very good story; good graphics; a great world and great characters. It’s puzzles are where it falls short. Luckily the majority of the puzzles aren’t bad or even difficult. It has 2 puzzles I disliked but they weren’t difficult so much as they were tedious. The story as mentioned was one of the strong points as you try to piece together your past in order to find your family. One thing I will say is few games have made me dislike the main character as much of State of Mind made me dislike Richard Nolan. I have played as characters that cut old ladies throats for a few coins and I found more I liked about them then I did Richard. I’m not sure if this was intentional or not, if it was then bravo I say. He was just a child like man who spends more time looking for his family then he asks why he is doing it or if he even deserves them. He treats his friends poorly; never accepts blame; is just an all around dbag. The only times he showed a little humility or kindness was the few times I was allowed to choose a dialogue choice that gave that to him. Again, if intentional then that is well done. The dialogue is well done and the choices at least give me the feeling of having decent control over most of the story. The characters were interesting and made me want to get to know them better. Lydia was not only my favourite but had a very memorable scene where you take control of her as a VR cam-girl for a scene. It was genuinely creepy like few other scenes in games. The graphics has a great style to them that was like a mishmash of cell shaded graphics and realism. The people and clothing were mainly cell shaded but the world detail was mainly in a realistic style and it made for an interesting blend. The world detail was very good as homes felt lived in and the city felt alive usually. The voice acting was also well done.
Eliza has a lot going for it. It tackles an issue that could very well become something real in the near future and in some ways one that has already started in dealing with the possible benefits and pitfalls of digital therapy options; it has a good cast of characters; it has great voice acting; and good art. I found the story to be a little linear for my tastes. You can make a major choice near the end of the game but aside from that it is mainly just choosing whether to be hostile or not to certain people but end up at the same spot. I chalk this up to Zachtronics not having much experience with the visual novel genre. It does a good job of laying out your potential options for later in the game though by making sure to drop hints of different paths you can take and you spend the bulk of the game considering what kind of career path you want to pursue. That being said the story is top notch regardless. I would have liked a bit more of an epilogue though as the ends I got to lacked detail. I also would have liked to get more background of why Evelyn left her job in the first place and what her friend was going through. I also wish I didn’t have to choose between which friend to hang out with near the end as I really enjoyed both Nora and Rae but such is life. They were both very well done characters that really felt like friends and had great dialogue exchanges with Evelyn. I would have also liked to have a path where Evelyn broke off on her own and started her own software company instead of the choices I did get. I played Eliza on Linux. It never crashed on me and I didn’t notice any spelling errors. Alt-Tab didn’t work. There is no manual save options. The game auto saves on each page you’re on so whenever you quit it goes back to exactly where you were. I’m not sure which game engine it uses but it uses OpenGL. AMD Ryzen 5 2600X | 16GB DDR4-3000 CL15 | MSI RX 5700 XT 8GB Gaming X | Mesa 20.0.4 | Manjaro 19.0.2 | Mate 1.24 | Kernel 5.6.5-1-MANJARO
I often times don’t enjoy point and click games because they fall into certain stereotypes that I dislike. In some ways BASS does do better but in others it falls into the same traps. The ways it fails are that, just like in point and click games, many of the puzzles revolve around trying to combine items regardless of whether they appear to go together. I prefer if they make logical sense. The game at least tries to justify it with their hacking game. Basically you can search for devices in the immediate area and swap parts of one with another in order to get a device to do what you want it to. It is at least unique in the genre although they got it to be annoying by making many hacks time based. Often times I understood what the game wanted from me but I felt annoyed at having to keep waiting on NPC navigation to line up in order to do what I knew needed to be done. Other times I didn’t know what the game wanted at first. For instance why would I have thought to use a toaster to interface with a satellite dish ? One thing I will give the game credit for is their hint system. It has possibly the best hint system I have ever seen. It doesn’t outright tell you at first but gives enough detail for you to figure things out. It also has a cool down so you have to try to work things out before asking for more hints. The only downside is some of the puzzles not following logic which makes it needed more often then I would like. I must sound like I disliked the game but overall I didn’t. Some puzzles I will give it praise for are the Linc Space puzzles which I enjoyed. The story was also great. I thought I had guessed where it would go, then thought I must be wrong and was confirmed right all along. There are a good set of characters and good progression although the beginning has a pretty slow pace. The voice acting was superb all around. The graphics were a nice art style with a good use of colour although the hair detail could have been better.
Monster Prom has one major positive going for it but it is hampered by one equally major negative. The humour is some of the best I have ever seen in a game. I loved the dialogue; the choices; and the events that happen in game. What I couldn’t stand was the randomness of the game. I have done two play throughs of the game and tried to romance a different character each time and each time got rejected even though many of my interactions with that character were positive leading up to prom and I had high stats in areas they liked. The game does a very poor job letting you know where you stand with potential dates. Most of what I know about where to find them or what they like had to be guessed based on what little info you’re given and even then didn’t make sense with some of the reactions you get. It all seemed so random each time I played and not in a fun way. The art was great. The music and sound effects were all right but nothing special. I played Monster Prom on Linux. It never crashed on me and I didn’t notice any spelling issues or bugs. There were no graphics options. Alt-Tab didn’t work. There was no save system at all. Each play through is pretty quick but this is still a terrible option for a game with as many choices as you make. Graphics Engine: Unity Input Used: Keyboard and Mouse Disk Space Used: 3.0 GB GPU Usage: 5-12 % VRAM Usage: 1008-1072 MB CPU Usage: 2-5 % RAM Usage: 2.3 GB Overall my love for what Monster Prom did right was nowhere near my hate for what I didn’t like about it. I paid $5.39 CAD for it and while that is a fine price for the amount of content and replayability it didn’t make the game more enjoyable. I finished my first play through in 29 minutes and my second in 26 minutes. My Score: 4.5/10 My System: AMD Ryzen 5 2600X | 16GB DDR4-3000 CL15 | MSI RX 580 8GB Gaming X | Mesa 21.0.3 | Samsung 970 Evo Plus 500GB | Manjaro 21.0.5 | Mate 1.24.1 | Kernel 5.12.2-1-MANJARO