The Away Team: Lost Exodus
Don’t be fooled by its simple, rétro appearance and pixel graphics: this is a real hidden gem, with very solid writing and an interesting plot that will keep you playing, solar system after solar system, gameplay minutes turning into hours, wondering what will happen next, both to you and to your crew members.
The game has a lot in common with choose-your-own-adventure gamebooks (when your humans explore planets, you’ll have to help them decide what they’ll do, pulling a lever, exploring a certain zone, being friendly or hostile, and different choices of course mean different consequences), but adds to it a simple but effective simulation part (you have to carefully manage your fuel and food reserves, and find more if you deplete one or the other) and a deeply interesting crew member personality system, which adds a ton of replayability: a strong farmer will act, speak and perform differently than a genial but disabled scientist.
– Real player with 40.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Conversation Choose Your Own Adventure Games.
The year is 2127. Earth has been destroyed, made uninhabitable by war, climate change and famine. You play as the AI on a ship containing the last known humans in the universe. Can you keep them alive as you search for a new home?
The Away Team is superbly written interactive fiction, a modern day ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ set in space. There are survival elements too, in that you have to scavenge planets for food fuel; otherwise you’ll end up starving, or stranded in space forever.
The graphics are basic, but for what’s essentially a sci-fi novel, they fit well enough. The music is atmospheric and calming, the sort of thing you can have a good afternoon nap to (I’m so rock and roll, I know).
– Real player with 13.5 hrs in game
Rubicon : a conspiracy of silence
Rubicon: a conspiracy of silence, is a game inspired by whistleblowers. In this narrative game, you play as Paula Cole, a food safety officer for a multinational corporation, who gradually takes on the role of whistleblower. Depending on your choices, you will be confronted with different situations inspired by real facts, the whole scenario being based on a journalistic work, coordinated with the online newspaper Mediapart.
As a player, you’ll discuss with multiple protagonists to investigate and find out your truth. From the first discoveries to the revelations to the press, you will make choices that will have an impact on what happens next.
Read More: Best Conversation Political Games.
Universe For Sale - Prologue
The prologue of this game is really interesting, I love the atmosphere and the settings are so peculiar and immersive.
The plot seems intriguing, I look forward to the complete game release which I’ll definitely play!
– Real player with 2.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Conversation Hand-drawn Games.
This is a prologue for the game Universe for Sale. A prologue is like a demo. You might be wondering what the difference is between a prologue and a demo. Not much. Both are ways of promoting interest in the full game. The main difference is that a prologue has its own store page and a demo is on the store page of the full game. A developer could theoretically release the same content as both a demo and a prologue.
This prologue gives an introduction to some of the characters in the full game. The full game might have potential, but the prologue is rather short. You talk to a few people and that’s about it. Thumbs up for the easy achievements though.
– Real player with 1.0 hrs in game
Burn Me Twice
This game was absolutely stunning. Some mention the “glitchy” graphics. That part did not bother me in the slightest. The story kept me interested the entire time, and when I wasn’t playing the game, my mind was turning about how I could get to the next milestone, in the game. The atmosphere of the game is stunning. The music was my favorite part. I would purchase a soundtrack, to this game, for sure! The sound effects were also impeccable. I did have to wait for a bug to get fixed: I was unable to complete the last part of the game; I won’t go into detail, but it was an issue with the “bone zone”.
– Real player with 5.3 hrs in game
Nice little game that left me wanting more.
It seems to be heavily inspired by the Phoenix Wright series, similarly splitting gameplay into investigation phase, where you hunt for clues and evidence, and trial phase where you present what you’ve found in court. The major difference is that the trials are rather simplistic in comparison - unlike PW, there’s no witness interrogation, and the evidence pool is much smaller. On the other hand, investigations seem more involved - it has Zelda-style gameplay (sans combat for the most part), where you explore an open world from a top-down perspective and solve puzzles. There are unfortunately only two cases to solve (plus the actiony final sequence), and the first serves as a sort of tutorial, so it’s easy and straightforward. The second one, however, is pretty good, with a few somewhat challenging puzzles to solve.
– Real player with 4.5 hrs in game
The Third Day
Very intriguing recital,waiting for the continuation.
– Real player with 12.6 hrs in game
ORIMON.1 - Bilfy & Krotroklon
A pacman with new elements with a little story.
– Real player with 2.2 hrs in game
Classic pac game reimagined with new elements, plus funny moments in the story dialogs
– Real player with 1.2 hrs in game
Choose for ME
Choose for ME belongs to the “Puzzle Drama” genre, in which the player will find himself at the center of an exciting story told as in a movie.
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Help Mads to shed light on his memory and reconstruct the moments that marked his life… and the development of his video game
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Live this emotional journey and discover the truth solving puzzles and riddles
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Get carried away by the psychological flow and explore Mads' mind
More. The Eternal Utopia
To tell the truth, this feels like a fan fiction someone plastered with supersaturated colors and one image of Thomas More. All the images seem extracted from somewhere in the internet and I can’t help but squint my eyes at the color overflow. The story is a bit random, starting in Thomas Mores' study room, but some incident throws him in the present world. There are some philosophical ideas hidden in the conversations, but I felt like being put on rails. Everything passed and after half an hour of reading dialogues and monologues, I reached an end.
– Real player with 0.3 hrs in game
What Comes After
What Comes After is a short and touching side-scrolling visual novel which succeeds in sending an impactful message through only a few words. It’s a reminder that the lives of each and every one of us matters, be that of a human, of an animal or of a plant. It gives a soft nudge towards understanding that we can make life better by being kind, compassionate and considerate towards each other, and that changing the world starts by changing yourself, by bettering yourself.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2283780132
– Real player with 2.1 hrs in game
I tried to play this game on stream for my community, but I admit that I was only able to get through about 20 minutes before deciding it was a game to play offline for myself. I’m glad that I decided to play it offline because I felt that it was an intimate, emotional journey that I need to go at my own pace.
I will stress that is an emotional journey, and could potentially be triggering depending on your head-space - the game deals with a lot of heavy topics such as mental health (depression, anxiety, etc.), deaths (or near death experiences), and the meaning of life. Conversations were difficult at time, but I think that it was worth pushing through to see the final message.
– Real player with 1.8 hrs in game
Winter’s Trumpet
A lovely addition to the series, and best read after completing the first game (Asher), to better understand the characters and setting. Great art, music, and atmosphere, as per usual. Was also very nice to see the character you’d least expect allow himself to be somewhat vulnerable.
– Real player with 2.1 hrs in game
Winter’s Trumpet is a charming and short point-and-click/visual novel hybrid with a retro design and a slightly creepy atmosphere. It takes place in the same world as Asher and Tell a Demon, and players who love these games have absolutely nothing to lose by giving it a go: in fact, the events of Winter’s Trumpet take place before those depicted in Asher, and the former gives us an interesting look at the motivations of several key characters of the series. For people who haven’t played the dev’s other games, beginning with Winter’s Trumpet isn’t the best way to go, in my opinion, since it’s short and the story is a bit vague if you’re not already aware of what the main plotlines are.
– Real player with 1.9 hrs in game