NeuroNet: Mendax Proxy

NeuroNet: Mendax Proxy

You are a newly created A.I. designed to manage the city of Catena. As you tackle the demands of the populace you will be challenged to balance their needs against your own moral compass. How will you decide who to help when the effect of every choice you make ripples out across the city? Choose wisely, your decisions impact the outcome of the story and the future of Catena.

As your influence spreads across the city you will encounter new characters in need of your help. As you learn who they are, their motivations and beliefs, you will have to decide which direction to guide them in. Your choices have the power to alter the course of their lives, for better or for worse.

View the impact of your actions with city-wide reports that detail not only the choices you’ve taken, but how the city evolves based on your decisions. The city’s inhabitants will change their views towards you: will you make a difference to their lives, or bring it all crumbling down?

The line between right and wrong will blur as you make decisions that are tested against a torrent of demands. Can you win over those who see you as a threat, or will you choose to fight them? Who are you truly serving: the citizens that depend on you, or the people that built you? Shape the story with your decisions and uncover the truth.

  • Branching Narrative: A ‘Reigns’ inspired branching narrative where player choice directly impacts the story, with some outcomes benefiting the citizens of Catena and others benefitting someone else…

  • Quick Decisions: Characters pose problems that offer quick-fire decisions, but they are deceptively simple and have far-reaching repercussions. Good instincts are required to make the right choice at the right time.

  • Choices That Matter: See the impact of every choice you make as your influence spreads across the city. Analyse reports and read the social media feeds of the population to observe the effects. Throughout the overarching story, your decisions will change the path and decide the outcome.

  • Diverse Cast: Meet and build relationships with 23 diverse and fully voiced characters. Guide each one on their journey as they face the tough challenges life in Catena presents.

  • Compelling Events: Over 5000 story events to experience, each offering choices that affect the characters you meet.

  • Rich Lore: Explore the world of Catena through an expansive digital Codex packed with deep lore, engaging characters, and stunning cyberpunk environments.


Read More: Best Choices Matter Multiple Endings Games.


NeuroNet: Mendax Proxy on Steam

Affectus

Affectus

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1478710

Affectus is a cyberpunk stealth-action RPG set in a decadent and sick megalopolis after a pandemic has deprived humans of the ability to feel positive emotions. In this world, the only way to feel good is a drug called Affectus.

You are waking up with no memory in a dark alley at the bottom of a multi-layered mega-city called Tribus. You can customize your gender, cyberware, skillset and explore a city where the choices you make will shape the story and the world around you.

  • Exploration & quests: Choose to follow the main story or do side quests to learn more about the world. Explore freely, loot some goods, and find secrets.

  • Multiple choice dialogues: Choose your personality. Some choices you make will impact the story. Will you be kind?

  • Fights and Stealth: Choose to engage in gun-fights with enemies or avoid them to achieve your goal. Will you spare them?

  • Hack: Open locked doors, disable security measures or hack into computers.

Enjoy an immersive exclusive soundtrack by Kevin “Kounine” Colombin inspired by the best cyberpunk and sci-fi movies. Dynamic Sync switches the music smoothly to match the action and help you focus on your objectives.

Discover how you lost your memory through a world where happiness, hope, and love have vanished. What kind of person were you before?

Will you stand out?


Read More: Best Choices Matter Sci-fi Games.


Affectus on Steam

Citizen Sleeper

Citizen Sleeper

From the developer of In Other Waters, and featuring the stunning character art of Guillaume Singelin, Citizen Sleeper is a narrative RPG set on Erlin’s Eye, a ruined space station that is home to thousands of people trying to survive on the edges of an interstellar capitalist society.

You are a sleeper, a digitised human consciousness in an artificial body, owned by a corporation that wants you back. Thrust amongst the unfamiliar and colourful inhabitants of the Eye, you need to build friendships, earn your keep, and navigate the factions of this strange metropolis, if you hope to survive to see the next cycle.

An abandoned station on the edge of a system in crisis. Run down, chaotic, unruly, and alive—it was founded by idealists in the shadow of a corporate collapse. Now it is held together by anarchic alliances, ramshackle factions and a shared desire to be free from the gravity of corporate control.

Every cycle you get up and choose what to do with your time. Toil in the yards, or take a bar shift. Search the markets for rare components or grab some street food. Make or break alliances, uncover truths and escape those that hunt you. Learn to survive and ultimately thrive, one cycle at a time.

The station plays host to characters from all walks of life, trying to eke out an existence among the stars. Salvagers, engineers, hackers, bartenders, street-food vendors, each has a history which brought them here. You choose which of them you wish to help, and together you will shape your future.

Hack into the station’s cloud to access decades of digital data, uncover new areas and unlock secrets. This is your unique power, and with it you can change your future. Corporate secrets, rogue AIs and troves of lost data await those willing to dive into the depths of the station’s networks.

Essen-Arp: to them you are just property, one more asset in a portfolio that stretches across the stars. You are the product of an abusive system, in a universe where humanity’s expansion is marked by exploitation and extraction. Escape the makers of your decaying body, and chart your own path in a richly imagined, deeply relevant sci-fi world which explores ideas of precarity, personhood and freedom.

Each cycle you roll your dice. Assign them to vast range of actions available on the station. With every action, choose what, and who, matters to you, shaping the lives of those around you, and ultimately the future of the station.

Clocks track both your actions and the actions of others across the station. From becoming a local at the Overlook Bar to protecting a friend from Yatagan enforcers, clocks allow you to track your own progress and the influence you have on the world around you.

Follow drives not quests, allowing you to pick and choose the stories and activities that matter to you. As you do, you will shape your character’s five skills (Engineer, Interface, Endure, Intuit and Engage), unlocking perks and bonuses that reflect and change how you choose to live in this world.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1578650/Project_Sidereal


Read More: Best Choices Matter RPG Games.


Citizen Sleeper on Steam

Detroit: Become Human

Detroit: Become Human

Have you ever watched a TV series and thought to yourself, man, this character is dumb. Why would they go in there? Why would they do that? It is so stupid. For me, it happens more often than I would care to experience. But now, YOU can be in charge of your own TV series. That’s right, you can make the characters do dumb things and then know that you made them do it. Much more satisfying lol. So much power.

That is only half a joke, because that is what this game is. It is essentially a high budget TV production where you have some sprinkled ‘game-play’. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, I quite enjoyed the ride and if you don’t want to read past this point, just know that if you want to experience a fascinating setting with a compelling narrative then this game is for you.

Real player with 40.8 hrs in game

So, most of the reviews I see are pretty positive or negative, but not super descriptive? And it really doesn’t do it justice, because this game… Well, it has a lot to say but also nothing at all. I want to preface with that I actually really enjoyed the game. I liked most of the characters, I like that there are so many branching paths in every scene, I LOVED the graphics, and I did actually like the gameplay. Overall, I don’t think you’ll be wasting money if you decide to purchase. It has a high replayability as well, which is just a lot of value.

Real player with 40.0 hrs in game

Detroit: Become Human on Steam

Bionic Heart 2

Bionic Heart 2

Having somewhat fond remembrances of the first Bionic Heart game (played some time ago), when I came across this sequel on sale for $10, I decided to give it a go. Unfortunately, other than the name, there’s not a lot in common. The humor is mostly gone, the characters are very shallow, and the whole concept of “social boss fight” is very contrived. There is a lot of dialog amongst the various endings, but a lot of it is recycled. The art doesn’t really match up with the characters. And the endings just don’t give you much feeling of satisfaction.

Real player with 19.3 hrs in game

This is an nteresting visual novel which sacrifices the typical genre-obliged light-heartedness setting and “romance options” for a much more mature and grim drama, which is quite refreshing.

The games also features a very good soundtrack (which you can find somewhere in the game folder, along a few wallpapers with drawings not used in the game), and good art, far away from the standard VN anime style in most characters.

The game is sadly not perfect. The writing could be the mayor issue. It is much better than that of its predecessor, but still shows some inconsistencies, such as different versions of “reality” depending on the path (that may be needed for making room to the 24 endings, but I find that a bit cheaty and unimmersive), and some deus-ex-machinas hard to explain. In a few points, disconnects from the story of the first game, which I find a good decision. That should allow you to not feel obliged to play that game, which was worse than this one. Also, there are a few minor bugs here and there, nothing game-breaking or particularly annoying (but note that in Linux, the achievements don’t unlock, but if you kept savegames before the endings you can load the savegames in other platform and unlock the achievements by replaying them, I had to do that). All the endings can be achieved but the guides are hard to find and follow (I couldn’t find a comprehensive one). Getting all of them became a bit tedious (and frustrating because of the errors in the guides I used).

Real player with 18.1 hrs in game

Bionic Heart 2 on Steam

Wizard Hunter 2348

Wizard Hunter 2348

Oh, my Emperor, this is a masterpiece

Real player with 8.3 hrs in game

Nice!

Real player with 3.0 hrs in game

Wizard Hunter 2348 on Steam

Silent Earth

Silent Earth

The situation, characters and call for action are all set up well for the beginning of a great story. There are lots of nice themes being built that could take this game in so many different directions. An ambitious adventure for the characters and ambitious plot for the writers. Although, I only came to one of the endings. I hope they all sound as interesting as the one I ended with.

I hope the developers aren’t finished yet. This free game doesn’t feel like a full game but rather a test or set-up for a future, more detailed game. I think the plot and characters are interesting enough to go all the way. Please continue the story! A Mass Effect-like world would be fun if you have the budget! :D A point n click would work too. And, again, if it remains text-based (cuz text-based is cool, too), need to bring the readers further into the world and make the user experience nicer. The black screen does have a feeling of reading in a void. And I turned off the music half way through. I thought that the progression of the game, as it is, already does the same things as a point n click game such as being able to hover over words/objects to get more detail. Just needs more development and encouragement to keep going.

Real player with 1.9 hrs in game

Silent Earth is a delightful and short text-based trip. The setting and overall tone felt novel to me, even in the generally overcrowded sci-fi space genre. The narrative is well-written in conveying each character’s motivations and connections with little reading necessary, while still allowing the characters to feel compelling in each interaction. In my first run, going at a slow pace to explore everywhere I could, it took me about 45 minutes to reach its conclusion. This game successfully left me thinking about it well after I had beaten it. Highly recommend.

Real player with 1.1 hrs in game

Silent Earth on Steam

Rectitude

Rectitude

Very interesting story, great art and fantastic music. I like that some of the choices can greatly impact the story. Look forward to playing more!

Real player with 2.6 hrs in game

Great game to play when bored. Has an amazing story line which keeps you entertained for long. Easy to navigate menu and good endings.

Real player with 2.4 hrs in game

Rectitude on Steam

Take As Needed

Take As Needed

Set in a dystopian world, “Take As Needed” has a “Papers, Please” vibe.

You are a chemical engineer developing new pharmaceuticals at Mazer.

At the end of the day, you’re graded by how well you perform in combining compounds to design formulas that meet three criteria:

Reach the minimum/maximum price, use a certain amount of a particular compound, all without going over the maximum volatility.

Different color strands, open or closed, play a part in raising and lowering the volatility for each formula.

Real player with 3.8 hrs in game

The molecule building mechanics and the procedural generation of molecule goals is awesome and makes for a really challenging and fun puzzle solving game.

Real player with 0.9 hrs in game

Take As Needed on Steam

Hextones

Hextones

Mentally stimulating yet relaxing game. It’s good! I was looking for a replacement for Ishido which I can no longer find for PC. Hextones retains the stone placing challenge that I love in Ishido but expands it. Each stone in Hextones has six instead of four sides. Learning new strategies after years of playing Ishido with only four sided stones is surprisingly fun. Hextones also has incremental challenges where you must get 6 sided, 5 sided, 4 sided, 3 sided and 2 sided correct placements to pass to the next tier. This is more difficult than just accumulating points. The music is hypnotically good. Well worth the price.

Real player with 146.5 hrs in game

Futuristic Puzzle for a Good Price! This is similar to previous square grid “tile placing” games we’ve played, but this time it’s hexagons, and the scoring is a little different.

The music and visuals seem relaxing, just don’t get worried as you’re running out of space to place tiles!

(It would be cool to have more various play modes, including one that lets you remove some tokens from the board so you can play longer! Also, it’s nice to have multiple backgrounds and tile sets available, if possible.)

Real player with 11.6 hrs in game

Hextones on Steam