Far from Noise
“Far from Noise” urges the player to be slow, contemplative, and introspective. The art, sound, and gameplay all nudge you this way. The game consists entirely of dialog choices as the protagonist is trapped on a lovingly rendered and animated seaside cliff, balanced between life and death. She experiences wind and rain, sunsets and star-filled night skies, and muses on life, death, nature, loneliness, and purpose. The dialog choices are slow, in what seems like an attempt to use the player’s possible impatience to empathize with the character and her own stuggles.
– Real player with 3.3 hrs in game
8.5/10
About 2/3 of the way through the game I messaged a friend, and told him that the game I’m currently playing is likely the funniest game I’ve ever played.
Judging by the game description in the store, this seems unlikely, but the game’s existentialist and postmodern themes and quips resonated not just with my humor but with personal philosophies I hold dear, such as Victor Frankl’s Logotherapist view of the world (the core drive of human beings is to create meaning out of experience). In a game, you create meaning out of a piece of art, and in many ways, this game itself is about creating meaning. The dialogue is incredibly well-written, and during the entire experience I had this enormous smile plastered across my face, laughing often and out loud.
– Real player with 2.9 hrs in game
Vessels
Wow. Was going through my steam discovery queue and saw this odd title that didn’t have a lot of players but had 100% positive reviews. I had to try it and boy oh boy I do not regret it. I couldn’t put it down until I did everything I could thing of to get a different ending. This game is so unique with the way you get to play as the antagonist while the antagonist itself is a separate being from you. This entity gifts you with abilities that I don’t want to spoil but I think I can say that you will be able to influence what people on the ship are thinking and talking about in a way that selfishly benefits you. It’s a bit of a puzzle that involves starting with no memory of your past and trying to piece together information in a way that allows you to at least convincingly pretend to be the crew member who everybody remembers/suspects. Otherwise, you’ll get ejected out of the airlock!
– Real player with 5.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Conversation Atmospheric Games.
Quick:
5/5. What an amazing game. Vessels is one of those games that comes along every now-and-then, and just knocks it out of the park. I played the game through from beginning to end in one run. Admittedly, it is a short game. You can complete a play-through of this in roughly three to four hours. I was completely engaged from beginning to end, and I would have stuck with it for another four hours. The choices in the game gave me the impression that there are different endings and scenarios to experience, but I do not know this for sure.
– Real player with 5.3 hrs in game
Forgotten Fields
Forgotten Fields
Forgotten Fields drags you into the story with its cinematic and interactive approach. I was captivated from start to finish.
Brought to you by the same developer who made Rainswept, Forgotten Fields is an atmospheric, narrative driven, cinematic experience, chronicling the events of one Summer in a quiet town. The inspiration gained from the developer’s own home town near Goa, India.
– Real player with 10.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best Conversation Story Rich Games.
I loved Rainswept so I had high hopes for Forgotten Fields. For me, it fell short in a few areas. You control Sid - a 20-something guy with a deadline and a case of writer’s block. His mother is selling the family home and he is at that cusp in life where each of us recognizes that we are going to have to be a grown up. Much of the story and dialog is between a set of friends who are about to step out into ‘real life,’ each in their own direction.
In parallel, Sid is writing a story about a princess in a fantasy world. About half the game is controlling the princess within her own adventures. There are definite tie-ins between the choices facing the princess and the choices facing Sid.
– Real player with 10.5 hrs in game
Nyaa-kuza!!
The UI, level hub, and main menu art assets are absolutely gorgeous, and it seems like there’s a lot of content to play through. There are a ton of different characters in the dialogue sequences but I don’t think it gets to the point of being overwhelming. I also really enjoy certain aspects of the combat, like choosing between different kinds of weapons (including a catzooka??!), and the falling clothesline; I hope there’s more interactive environments like that. It’s so obvious that hours and hours of love went into the making of this game.
– Real player with 1.4 hrs in game
I love the art style of the menu and character portraits as well as the music, however the sprites for the fight section just don’t really match everything else. In fight segments, I found you can easily just push against enemies and swing your katana at them which prevents them from attacking back. The boss fights however gave a better fight.
Personally, I think it would work better with a non pixel-like look for the fight segments and change the fights to just boss fights, each with their own moveset as even on Hard, the regular enemies were no threat at all.
– Real player with 0.7 hrs in game
Thing-in-Itself
I was absolutely, completely certain that I had already written a review about this game..
Every review talks about Kant, but I don’t even know who he is, so let’s get to the other aspects.. ahah
The game itself sells at 2,50€, at least in the Euro zone, and actually it’s quite a high price for such a short game. It can be long and a little bit frustrating if you want to achieve every ending and explore every dialogue, but nothing more than two hours overall.. from my achievements' page you can see that it took my around 80-90 minutes to get all the 10 achievements, which aren’t that easy to get actually.. and as before, I was 100% sure that I followed a Steam guide to get the last two achievements but there are no guides as of today O.o Anyways you can figure everything out and look for some threads in the forum or on the Internet :)
– Real player with 6.4 hrs in game
Party for Introverts developed this visual journey (they say before it starts that this is not a game experience but an ‘informative short story’) based upon the German Philosopher Immanuel Kant’s concept known as ‘Thing-in-Itself’.
What is the ‘Thing-in-Itself’? Kant theorised that material objects don’t exist in the way we see them, instead we use our own viewpoint to shape our perspective of the object.
The ‘journey’ starts off sharing this idea during a bedtime chat between Molly & Ted where Molly uses the theory to explain why they disliked the music at a party yet everyone else enjoyed it. What follows afterwards is shown from Ted’s perspectives.
– Real player with 6.2 hrs in game
Linda & Joan
Linda & Joan is a forthcoming narrative game about a British family. You play as Russell, Linda, and Joan — son, mother, and grandmother — switching between them to help the family cope with a series of traumatic events. Based on a true story.
The main game is scheduled for release in 2022. It will be part two of the Linda & Joan story. Part one is Prologue: “Four Months Earlier” which is available now.
Players experience the events from the perspectives of Russell, Linda, and Joan through exploration, conversation, and tasks designed to give emotional insight into the themes of caregiving, dying, bereavement, and homeland.
What sets Linda & Joan apart from other branching-narrative experiences is that while the player has many choices to make, nothing can change the core events that follow — there is only one ending.
However, actions, dialogue choices, and task completion, do affect the characters’ perception of events. By spending time with happier memories, taking care of themselves, and choosing the right things to say to each other, the characters — and therefore the player — will find themselves able to deal with the impossible.
The characters’ emotional states will be graphically represented in the game. The player will have to carefully balance the needs of the characters to progress, sometimes requiring difficult zero-sum tradeoffs.
These mechanisms attempt to mirror the real-life feeling of being powerless in the face of looming trauma, when you realize that no decision can affect the outcome, but you can affect how you and others feel about it.
Even when life’s story feels like it’s on rails, we still have some power over our own realities. There is still room for dignity, compassion, honesty. For fear and for love. There is a time for self-care. There is a time for duty. The choices we make will define the memories we hold for the rest of our lives.
Loading Story
The short story that stopped abruptly, when it ended, I was still expecting something, laughing and crying. The content of the dialogue is easy to understand, the mini-games are simple and interesting, the characters are also very cute, and the gangsters who can fight and trade in a fair and just way are really unsatisfactory. When I looked at the name of the game, it made me smile again.
– Real player with 0.8 hrs in game
A little nice simple game, nothing more to say. I think a continue with more lore would be aprreciated but not necessary.
I wanted to report a bug tho:
If you fast forward the dialogues the text clouds will disappear and you may remain stuck in a dialogue forever because of not seeing the option to close it.
Thats because i tried to speedrun it to see if it had more ending, but no. So don’t waste your time trying to find it-
– Real player with 0.5 hrs in game
Detective Di: The Silk Rose Murders
Recommended, with some reservations
The case for
Detective Di: The Silk Rose Murders is a murder mystery game, so the first, most important question should be: is the mystery engaging? And it is, which is why it earns my thumbs up. The plot is intriguing and the pace is generally good all throughout the game. It tells several short stories, with an overarching plot connecting all of them and ending on a satisfying conclusion.
The case against
When compared with other murder mystery games, like the Gabriel Knight, Sherlock Holmes or Laura Bow series, in Detective Di there’s surprisingly little detectiving to do. There’s a clue board that fills up as you uncover relevant information, but you don’t have to actually figure out what clues are relevant or how they connect, as the game does all of this automatically, and once you reach the end of the chapter and the board is full Magistrate Di will make all the connections himself and explain his conclusions to you. All the actual detective work in the game is done automatically.
– Real player with 9.6 hrs in game
Detective Di: The Silk Rose Murders
The best point and click adventure game I have played in a long while. A really gripping story full of twists and turns that will keep you entertained to the end.
Pros:
👍
👍Gripping Story
👍 Wonderful music
👍Great atmosphere
👍 Achievements and Trading Cards
Cons:
👎
👎Sometimes the scene music felt repetitive and annoying
Overview
Detective Di: The Silk Rose Murders is a point and click adventure game set in ancient China.
– Real player with 9.3 hrs in game
Ghosts and Bureaucracy
Explore the ruins of the long-lost government building of Kataigida and request a treasure from the ghostly employs still hovering around there. Chase after the next request form and solve riddles about broken computers, corridors blocked by earth and roots, documents stuck in the tube mail system and broken heaters.
Convince your opponent in Undertale-style battles which alternately require your skill and empathy, solve mini-games and face the morally difficult questions that are plaguing the ghosts.
Interact with almost any objects or persons you can find. Collect items in your inventory as well as social skills that can be used in persuasion battles or as an elementary effect on objects. Like this, your burning motivation can give others new hope or light stuff on fire - depending on your needs!
Features:
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Use your social skills to charm the printer, intimidate the doors and play it cool with the fountain
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Escape falling rocks, navigate a dog through bones and thistles and test your empathy in persuasion battles
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Explore a building full of ghosts and broken machinery
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Collect and read the books and letters of strangers
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Support the creators through your purchase (we are hungry students)
The Last Taxi
When a fatally wounded member of an anti-technology cult leaves you with what appears to be an undocumented infant, you’re thrust into a dark network of secrets – unravelling a conspiracy that could shake Progress Point to its core.
The Last Taxi is a narrative-driven adventure game set in Progress Point, a politically and economically-divided sprawling metropolis that has fully embraced automation and human modification, creating a satirical and somberly-surreal vision of the future.
As the last human driver, you’ll meet a diverse cast of passengers, each with their own tailored conversations. Be drawn into morally challenging decisions that lead you into the heart of a dying society.
Narrative Gameplay:
As a taxi driver, your job is to keep passengers comfortable, happy and generous.
Or not?
How you interact with passengers is up to you! With varied dialogue choices and multiple endings, you can choose to keep the tips rolling in or spend all your time insulting them.
But keep in mind, gaining their trust and listening to their problems is a lucrative side business. As per Progress Point’s governmental regulations, all taxis are fitted with sleek, handy, and mandatory listening devices – for uhh… quality assurance.
If your passenger expresses something that isn’t quite above board, you can quietly report it to the authorities for some side cash. Choosing to let some shady business go unnoticed does have its perks, though. And with over 80 diverse characters to chat with, you’ll see all kinds traveling the city.
The World:
In the future, you got what you asked for – Flying cars! Unlimited time for hobbies! And the ultimate hybridization of human and machine! Or was it just flying cars you wanted…
Regardless, life in Progress Point is going pretty great. As the only standing city, we survived environmental and economic collapse because no one from the past changed their small, but destructive habits.
Status quo reigned and we’re the societal afterbirth, filled with various factions that believe in one kooky thing or another, like free will.
Oh, but that makes it sound so bleak. Really, there is a bright side.
No one needs to work anymore! The brunt of the workforce has been given to automatons …Well, unless you personally didn’t harbor a vault of cash before the collapse. If you’re one of the unlucky ones, you’ll still need to find some way to make an income, pay the bills, and find your niche in a world run by automation. As a human, you’ll just have to be creative and think outside the processor.
Features:
• Earn tips by navigating through 80 treacherous, quirky, and haunting choice-driven passenger conversations.
• Aid and abet criminal passengers, help them reconsider their actions, or report them to the authorities.
• Upgrade your taxi with new tools allowing for hijacking cargo, hacking toll booths, enhanced customer experience and more!
• Maximize fares by managing malfunctioning equipment, avoiding environmental hazards, and keeping your passengers comfortable.
• Experience a rich and detailed world of technological headquarters, mountaintop temples, sunken metropolises and pirate-infested underworlds.
• 10 hours of gameplay with 20+ unique choice-driven endings.