For the Night
A Cold War story.
”There’s a job for you. I need you to go to Stockholm. One of our people there have gone missing."
For the Night is a spy thriller, taking place during one single night at Hotel Adler in downtown Stockholm.
The player takes on the role of veteran STASI agent Lene Ulbricht, who is sent to Stockholm to find out what happened to a fellow agent who has mysteriously disappeared.
Through social interaction, deduction and lies, Lene will get to the truth about everything. The truth about the disappearance, the hotel, the war, the enemy and herself.
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Espionage thriller story, set in the late days of the Cold War.
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Point & Click-gameplay with heavy focus on dialogue, dialogue choices and problem solving.
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Gorgeous 2D art.
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Choice and Consequence with nuanced and layered impact on the outcome of the story.
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Challenging problem solving through taking note of words in dialogue. The game won’t solve the case for you.
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Focus on finding out information and social interaction.
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In-game time that actually has an impact on the story. Spend one hour somewhere, and characters will have acted or moved elsewhere. The game and it’s characters do not sit around and wait for you to find them. They act on their own.
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Multiple endings and outcomes, allowing for multiple playthroughs, trying out different paths and strategies to solve the mystery.
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Original dark, jazzy soundtrack by saxophonist and composer Andreas Ferronato.
For the Night is developed by two-man studio Pusselbit Games (Erik Blåsjö and Leo Låby)
Music is composed and performed by Andreas Ferronato.
Read More: Best Cold War Indie Games.
The Prologue to a Dream of Home
One hundred years before the events of A Dream of Home, Dr. Seth Schumann’s reality simulation is nearly complete. With the birth of the Narcissus Project, Eridean scientists have discovered a means to project the soul as art. Who will finish Schumann’s unfinished masterpiece?
Read More: Best Cold War Experimental Games.
Orwell’s Animal Farm
This game explains nothing about its gameplay (after multiple playthroughs I’m still unsure of what the Animalism stat does) and appears to be a buggy mess of RNG. Dead animals can still comment on events occurring (Napoleon and Boxer appear to be the biggest culprits) or show up at the gravesite despite being dead (such as the Cabal of Pigs ending where Snowball and Napoleon have died, but Napoleon is at the grave). You can run into problems where you have plenty of supplies and want to repair the buildings but you can’t until the option presents itself, or similarly where you had the opportunity to harvest with multiple animals to fill the supplies to their maximum but suddenly only one animal can be chosen and you have far less than usual. Sometimes it skips letting you plant for next year which makes supplies much worse and no longer lets you plant on subsequent years, even if you have the supplies to do so.
– Real player with 12.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Cold War Political Games.
Introduction
George Orwell’s dystopian and satirist literary work undoubtedly influenced, and still influences, a lot of other creative people, who are inspired by his themes, and use them for their own work. However, having a full videogame adaptation of his work is something else, and now we finally got it with Orwell’s Animal Farm, which adapts the original allegorical novella. This text-based game tries to capture and expand the book’s themes and experience a bit by adding several story choices. There is not much more to this game, as you could say it is similar to a visual novel. Is it a good addition, though? Well, let us dive into the review to find it out!
– Real player with 6.6 hrs in game
One Spirit
One Spirit is a coming-of-age visual novel set in an alternate timeline where the Cold War drags on into the 21st century. Exploring various political, cultural and philosophical themes, the game presents an engaging, thought-provoking thriller through the eyes of a group of marginal teenagers, their doubts, struggles and hopes.
In 2003, the Iron Curtain stands tall. The superpowers of the new age wage a silent war through the means of information, economy, culture and proxy. As the Cold War slows to a crawl, the Sysican Republic, a pro-Western satellite state in Eastern Europe, finds itself on the verge of political death as radicalism, conspiracy and war loom overhead.
One Spirit follows Yuri Danilin, an 18-year-old young man disenchanted with life, as he returns to his modest hometown in Nevilyovsk, Eastern Sysica. Having failed in his studies at the capital, he reunites with his sister knowing their time apart has changed both permanently. When news of a known local activist disappearing spread through the town, Yuri soon finds himself at the center of a downward spiral of violence.
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Uncover a deep and engaging story, set in an original world where the Iron Curtain hasn’t fallen, inspired by real events and reflections on them: experience the bleak feel of a war too long fought.
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See the world through the eyes of an alienated youth — casual but complex personalities set in a path of self-discovery and self-affirmation in a world that has robbed them of a future.
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Delve into six different subplots branching from the main story.
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Every subplot has a unique dynamic you engage with by making choices, efforts and sacrifices. Subplots develop a wide variety of topics stemming from Yuri’s fatal years of 2003 and 2004, from the intimacies of friendship to the secrecies of Sysica’s ideological underground.
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Decide carefully how to spend your time in Nevilyovsk: days are a limited resource. Your priorities and preferences will increasingly mark your journey.
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Enjoy high choice responsiveness, as the game’s slightest details react to your smallest choices.
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Explore over 30 different environments to reveal new details, points of view and events.
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Take part in a philosophical journey about human history, society, struggle and life, with roots in contemporary critical theory, psychoanalysis and existentialism, among other similar and dissident traditions.
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Dive into this grey world through a high-quality art style that evokes the melancholic, nostalgic feel of post-socialist Sysica.
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Explore hours upon hours of worldbuilding detail: a unique Slavic theme, a constructed language, a simulated history and a culture imagined from the ground up.