2064: Read Only Memories
Read Only Memories is very much a well crafted adventure game in every sense. You follow the developing plot in the role of a down on his luck journalist assisting your newly befriended self aware A.I. companion Turing. Deciding to set out on a quest together. In order to try and unravel the mysterious sudden disappearance of Turing’s creator. Set in Neo-San Francisco in late December of the year 2064.
You’re placed in a world where humans and implant enhanced hybrid humans share a shakey coexistence. Here you will encounter ominous, shady, corporate entities, a “pure human” activist group, along with a varied cast of other rough and tumble characters. Ranging from a young detective to some even younger street punks who can help aid you along. Helping to further fuel the intrigue and assisting Turing and yourself to piece together the puzzling situation as you progress.
– Real player with 46.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best Cyberpunk Visual Novel Games.
2064: Read only Memories is a sci-fi point and click game set in the same universe as the Bartending Visual Novel as Va-11 Hall-A. I wouldn’t lie. At first i was drawn towards this game because it share the same setting with Valhalla. As i played the game, i came to realize this game can absolutely stand on its own with its own compelling story to tell.
Story
2064: ROM is set few years Before Valhalla. Aside from few references and cameos, it is absolutely its own stand alone stories. fan of valhalla will appreciate the little details put in the world, from a major news corporations to drink names in bars. if you aren’t, this game is still worth it to play as it offer a great story on its own.
– Real player with 11.8 hrs in game
cyberpunkdreams
“The notion that nature can be calculated inevitably leads to the conclusion that humans too can be reduced to basic mechanical parts…”
So, we’re here now. This is a really neat game that’s flourished over the years.
I’m going to start this by saying I’m on the writing staff, but I’ve been testing the game much longer than I’ve had my hands in it and so far my contributions are somewhat limited. My work on this is a recent development so, yeah. Now, I’ve been testing one version or another of this game off and on since 2016 through its alpha, really knuckling down with its steam beta. But since we’re here now, lets get on with this and actually talk about the game.
– Real player with 4815.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Cyberpunk Story Rich Games.
The approach to how Action points are managed in universe is farsical.
Not only does it make no sense in the story or how the game world operates
There is certain actions that can be done for free but to reverse them costs action points
Action points you need to pay real money for or wait 10 minutes a pop for.
So say you put a goodie bag of Drugs together, 200 pills for 0 Action points, say you want to get some of those back, because you just got an event where you can give soemone 20 of those drugs for another dialogue option.
– Real player with 857.4 hrs in game
Neo Cab
Capra, sometimes a pax wants a human driver.
We finally have the two taxi games that were announced at last year’s E3. Night Call was the first to be released a couple months ago and now we finally have Neo Cab. Funnily enough, while Neo Cab was shown first it ended up releasing second. Let’s see how this one fares as we go into the future.
In Neo Cab, you play as Lina right before she arrives at Los Ojos with her few belongings and her trusty cab. While Lina would be more comfortable at Cactus Flats, the need to reconnect with her best friend, Savy, propels her forward. Why doesn’t Lina want to be at Los Ojos? Well, it turns out that it’s home to a tech company called Capra. Years ago, Lina worked with them as a cab driver, but as technology advanced, Capra switched out human drivers for self-driving cars. Not ready to stop driving people around, Lina went to get employed by Neo Cab. Now, Lina is one of the few human drivers left in Los Ojos as Capra tries to push their competition away.
– Real player with 13.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Cyberpunk Visual Novel Games.
Let’s get that out of the way first: I enjoyed the conversations with the passengers a lot. They’re sometimes funny, unexpected, deal with certain issues and represent a good spectrum of people. Obviously every single one has one issue or another and there’s no one that just lets you drive, but that’s what the game is about, so there’s no arguing that.
The main story however is your run of the mill dystopia with a big evil megacorp, nothing to write home about. It’s good enough to keep you interested. I hated the Savy character, but that’s actually a plus. She’s written that way and after having all too recent experience with this kind of person it hit a bit close to home. Props to the devs to how it’s handled and that you even get to ditch her, even though that particular scene comes across like a (repetitive) minigame.
– Real player with 7.9 hrs in game
Read Only Memories: NEURODIVER
Read Only Memories: NEURODIVER, the next mystery adventure set in the world of MidBoss’ 2064: Read Only Memories. Return to the vibrant cyberpunk world of Neo-San Francisco from 2064: Read Only Memories, filled with friendly and familiar faces including Jess Meas, the gene-spliced, hybrid lawyer, TOMCAT, the notorious hacker, and Lexi Rivers, former police officer turned private eye.
The NEURODIVER
Use the Neurodiver to search the memories in which the rogue esper, Golden Butterfly hides. Read Only Memories: NEURODIVER’s Deep Dive mechanic enables ES88 to identify, manipulate, and repair fragments found in her subject’s memories.
Diverse characters
NEURODIVER will introduce new characters, locations, and mechanics, including the ability to dive into and repair other characters’ memories, as well as overhauled art and an unsolved case to crack with multiple endings.
You are a telepath
Take on the role of ES88, a telepath with the ability to delve into memories employed by MINERVA, a powerful organization specializing in neurotechnology and extrasensory projection phenomena. Tasked with tracking down the Golden Butterfly, a naturally gifted psychic on the loose and wreaking havoc through the subconscious minds of Neo-San Francisco.
Retro inspired soundtrack
Original retro-inspired FM music by Scarlet Moon artist, coda.
Gods of the Twilight
Gods of the Twilight is a multi-season episodic visual novel that places you in a dystopian near-future where old magic is reemerging in a world on the brink of Norse mythology’s apocalypse. Play as two protagonists—one male, one female. Explore government conspiracies and attempt to navigate your social and romantic lives while a decaying future world faces Ragnarök, and ancient truths about you and your companions start to resurface.
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Your choices determine the protagonists' relationships with their companions, and with each other.
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A range of possible endings, for your characters and for the world.
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Choose which romance(s) each protagonist will pursue, or choose none at all!
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An episodic story released over time, where choices carry over between volumes.
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At least 3 volumes, with over 95,000 words (10-15 hours of gameplay) currently planned for the first volume alone.
Both player characters have romance options of multiple genders, including each other! But the romance arcs are completely optional, and you can enjoy the game’s core story and all endings even if you opt to romance no one.
Althea Mishra - A scholarly but sheltered daughter of two high-achieving parents, she’s an intellectual who nonetheless loves dirty jokes.
Farkas Heklason - Under the hardened exterior of a guy who survived rough streets growing up, he’s a scarred introvert whose emotions run very deep.
Sara Grímsdóttir - Sensitivity and strength combined, this mostly soft-spoken girl is just as full of bravery as she is compassion for anyone she encounters.
Hector Koskinen - A shameless dork, he’s involuntarily wealthy thanks to his CEO father, but nonetheless straightforward and honest to a fault.
Lieutenant Cebisa Komani - A duty-driven Icelandic special forces police officer, she’s now an operative for the highly classified international operation dealing with recent supernatural occurrences.
Mikael Pulkkinen - Hector’s valet, who has become more like an older brother to him through the years they’ve spent together. Easily sees through bullshit and has zero tolerance for it.
And more as the story unfolds!
Love Shore
Welcome to Love Shore, a city that transforms at night. The futuristic metropolis just happens to also be populated with cyborgs, old gods hidden in the depths of a criminal underground, and humans eager to crawl their way to the top, no matter what the cost.
After a fertility crisis changed the landscape of the city for good, a single company stepped in to help the residents: Life S. Incorporated, a biotech firm that claimed to be able to build life out of raw DNA, creating a fully formed human with thoughts, feelings, and morality of their own.
Their minds, physical appearance, and personality would be drawn from their parents’ DNA, but the children would be ‘born’ using artificial bodies. This new generation would be called the S.Humans: a non-aging, tough form of new life.
Love Shore features two playable protagonists with four storylines and romanceable options, each with their own storylines. Sam and Farah are two completely different characters suffering from the same circumstances: they’re S.Humans, one of the 100 cyborgs created by Life.S. before the company vanished.
FEATURES
LOVE SHORE features 25+ possible endings, 8 different storylines, multiple complex weaving routes and an awesome soundtrack! The game’s UI fluctuates between day and night, depending on the time in Love Shore.
MECHANICS
LOVE SHORE has hidden rpg mechanics, including a stat system for three different abilities that you can develop based on the decisions you make. All companions have a hidden approval system as well, allowing you to develop your relationships to be challenging, platonic or romantic.
Love Shore has dating sim mechanics, including unlocking romantic scenes but can also be played entirely without any romantic interactions.
COMPANIONS
Sam and Farah’s lives are a web of messy relationships, contacts and enemies. Who will you help? Who will you lose?
Lacuna – A Sci-Fi Noir Adventure
Disclaimer: I know the developer personally, which is why this review can be considered biased.
Still, I honestly had a great time with Lacuna and recommend this to everyone who enjoys games with a focus on narrative and detective-work.
I played through the game once and will likely play it again, since your choices really seem to have an impact on the story.
The game combines pixel art with several effects such as dynamic lighting and fog. Together with the soundtrack and an overall great sound design, it creates a very captivating and moody atmosphere.
– Real player with 16.9 hrs in game
Lacuna doesn’t miss much as the game’s investigation leads you through unfilled spaces and into a deeply compelling sci-fi noir story.
Lacuna - an unfilled space or interval; a gap or missing part - a very intriguing title choice. Lacuna – A Sci-Fi Noir Adventure moves beyond visual novel yet doesn’t really play like a point-and-click game; however, the story and overall feel are sure to please fans of the Blackwell series and similar investigative adventure games.
– Real player with 9.4 hrs in game
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
Dark Threads
My initial experience was…. well I could not move from I spawn and I kept getting a little ways into the prologue before weird things would happen like I would fly out of the map or stop being able to move around.
I still don’t know if it was my computer or not but I reinstalled the game and played it again and things seem to work great with the exception of some objects causing me to walk backwards when I pick them up.
If you enjoy sci fi and/or walking simulators you will enjoy this game. It is clear a lot of time and care has gone into production values.
– Real player with 4.0 hrs in game
Its alright. Would give it a neutral review if I could. Positive just because I like that the Canadian government is helping fund VR experiences like this.
Short (roughly ~1.5 hours) sci-fi experience (aka “walking simulator”) with a very overt environmental message. Production values are alright but many of the textures are very low-res. Little interactivity beyond walking slowly and picking things up.
It wasn’t bad, but I have to say I was slightly underwhelmed at the end. It needed either better production values or a longer, more fleshed out story to be truly memorable.
– Real player with 2.4 hrs in game
Lacuna: Prologue
I can’t wait for this game to drop. I played the prologue through and was excited. the game play was varied, there are alot of interactivity between the character and the environment. I really like how you can move through the game as the character talks to himself, most games you have to either skip the monologue or not hear it to continue playing. I never thought I’d like a game with this type of graphics but I’ve been finding more and more games like this that I really like. I saved the date on my calendar for this game.
– Real player with 2.2 hrs in game
This is going to be a gem! The prologue mainly is a tutorial of the game mechanics but it doesn’t feel like one at all. It feels like you are experiencing a story and based on the previews of the full game, the choices you make have an impact!
Also, the world just fits my taste perfectly! This is some modern scy-fi stuff mixed with noir elements, considering you play a detective anyways. Filled with so many details, you can’t help but feel like you were in another world for an hour :)
I also love that the game challenges you to use your brain and not just follow the instructions.
– Real player with 1.4 hrs in game