Tales of the Neon Sea
Tales of The Neon Sea-Exciting domestic Chinese style cyberpunk game.
Leave a comment on my favorite game is my tribute to this game.
In the thought of many people, cyberpunk-style games should have several characteristics: a huge world view, a huge map, and a thought-provoking ending. And this game changed my opinion.
The ethereal worldview casts an invisible shadow on the cyberpunk style. Although there are many background books and texts in the game, they focus on introducing the background of the main task of the game itself, and avoid discussing the background of cyberpunk. In my opinion, this is really the finishing touch of this game. The game brings players who are on the main storyline into a real cyberpunk and Chinese-style atmosphere through a good drawing style, which not only allows players to see the punk style of the future city in the rich plot, but also allows the tragedy mainline process Of players get a touch of comfort and a sense of belonging.
– Real player with 31.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Cyberpunk Story Rich Games.
In A Nutshell
🔵 Pros
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Excellent, modern pixel-art graphical style, with great amount of detail and care in the realization of environments.
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Overall good variety of puzzle types throughout the game, keeping it interesting and not redundant.
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Original, interesting setting, ensuring information about world lore and characters do not sound as something “already seen”.
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Many additional lore elements, secret collectibles to gather for the more attentive players.
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Tons of smart references to pop, anime, movie and video-game culture elements and characters.
– Real player with 13.2 hrs in game
VirtuaVerse
Virtuaverse
A beautiful retro aesthetic is all this game has to offer for modern adventurers. If you’re happy with a bland story and no character development but enjoy that bygone feel then this might interest you.
First Impressions🤔
Virtuaverse visually impresses and it is apparent that a lot of work has gone into making this game look and feel as retro as possible. Characters, environments and objects are rendered superbly and it always amazes me how beautiful a pixel world can look if it is done right.
– Real player with 20.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Cyberpunk Dystopian Games.
VirtuaVerse is clearly a love letter to point & click adventure games of the 90’s, not only in its engine, animations, and interface, but also in some of its puzzle design. The pixel art is a masterpiece, the soundtrack is memorable, and the adventure is captivating. However, the price of fidelity brings with it some of the elements that made old games frustrating, such as lazy direction, useless inventory items, pixel hunts, and baffling riddles that are sure to prevent completion in one session. Thus, it’s difficult to accurately appraise VirtuaVerse as a yes/no recommendation, because it largely depends on your threshold for games that don’t lead you by the hand.
– Real player with 17.1 hrs in game
Born Punk
A former combat hacker, a corporate CEO and a malfunctioning android get possessed by mysterious, otherworldly entities and must band together to save themselves and uncover the entities' origins. Talk, puzzle and explore your way through this (often humorous) cyberpunk thriller.
Bornholm. Today, a quaint island in the Baltic Sea. In 2155, a sprawling metropolis able to compete with major world powers. Thanks to the Space Elevator, a technological marvel built by Bornholm’s corporate consortium, The Conglomerate, few nations on the planet are more influential both in industrial matters and space exploration.
In Born Punk, the player slips into the role of three people (well, two people, depending on your stance on artificial lifeforms) living on the island: Eevi, a corporate combat hacker turned bartender down on her luck; Mariposa, the CEO of Bornholm’s biggest corporation; and a malfunctioning android who calls himself Grandmaster Flashdrive.
The three characters have one thing in common: they all, one after another, get possessed by strange entities of unknown origin and even less known intentions. They must work together - and sometimes against each other - to find out of the nature of those beings, what they want, and why they seem to think that their ‘mission’ is of vital importance for the future of humanity.
Key features:
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A classic point-and-click adventure experience: we’re very proud to feature our own distinct style, but we are also definitely influenced by games like Monkey Island or Beneath a Steel Sky and try to please both veteran afficionados of the genre and newcomers alike with a traditional pixel-art appearance and a streamlined, modern approach to game design
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Movement everywhere: you won’t feel like you’re walking through a still life painting; Born Punk’s world is alive and full of animation, soundscapes and small details to discover
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Choices and consequences: often, it’s possible to approach dialogues and puzzles from different angles. As a result, interactions and dialogues with other characters, the difficulty to overcome certain obstacles, and the results of many actions will vary greatly depending on what the player chooses to do
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Full voice-overs: every character in Born Punk and every line is voiced by professional voice actors. Yes, that includes the cat.
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Bombastic music: the main theme and various other tracks are composed by Jeff Kurtenacker, composer of Wildstar and choral arranger of World of Warcraft. Jeff is joined by a merry band of synthwave musicians to create a genuine and emotional cyberpunk/sci-fi soundtrack with a Nordic twist
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Let’s be serious, it’s funny: Born Punk is science-fiction with heavy cyberpunk influences; but we’re also boasting a hopeful, often humorous undertone. Point & click adventures without at least a bit of humour are unthinkable to us!
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A comprehensive universe: there’s a slew of background info to read and experience, all of which becomes available in your PDA as you interact with the game world. Sometimes, in-game lore will also serve as an optional gameplay mechanic.
Read More: Best Cyberpunk Adventure Games.
ENCODYA
ENCODYA is a point-and-click adventure game from first-time developer Nicola Piovesan, who has previously been successful an accomplished filmmaker and director. The story is loosely based on his 2019 short film, Robot Will Protect You.
Set 40 years in the future, in the cyberpunk dystopia Neo-Berlin, an increasing number of cyberspace junkies wander around like zombies with their cumbersome headsets, wasting away. Tina, a homeless 9-year-old orphan, lost her mother to this cyberspace illness, and has been scraping out a living on the streets with her unfailingly loyal government-issue nanny bot, Sam. One day, Sam suddenly becomes the target of a citywide manhunt, and the pair soon learns that Sam contains secret data left behind by the father that Tina never knew she had. Tina embarks on her father’s mission to locate the secret cyberworld of ENCODYA as government goons follow her every step of the way.
– Real player with 12.3 hrs in game
Solid cyberpunk Point & Click with modern age graphics. A breeze of fresh air, and a recommend for most P&C lovers!
Tina & SAM
Tina is an almost ten years old orphan living on a rooftop in Neo-Berlin, together with her guardian robot SAM-53 (2053 is the year Tina is born). Her father disappeared a long time ago, and that led to her mother getting addicted to the VR cyberspace that hooks the mass of the population. This eventually killed her, leaving Tina alone in this grim world. Luckily she still has her betrusted SAM, because many orphans that live on the street lost their guardian.
– Real player with 11.4 hrs in game
Escape2088
Decent escape room. controls were easy, zooms were appropriate, and puzzles were pretty hard.
Very high graphics, which make for large download size and long initial start up time, yet no animations for the ending (which I did not understand at all just from a black screen and sounds) or even just a garage door opening.
Each room has a half hour timer, so expect to spend about an hour total if you are good at these games (some of my play time was paused for dinner - which DOES NOT stop the timer) but if the timer runs out, you still get to keep playing, so it is really just an achievement timer. There is a timer achievement and another achievement in each room.
– Real player with 2.8 hrs in game
Really excited about OnSkull’s new game.
Puzzles are on point, not too hard or too easy.
I also really like what they did with the lightning in this game, starting with the neon sign in the beginning, it creates a nice moody atmosphere.
One recommendation I would make is the addition of a “Give hint” button in case someone gets stuck at some point in the game.
Overally a very nice installment, would definitely recommend.
– Real player with 2.8 hrs in game
Technobabylon
‘Once you trust a self-driving car with your life, you pretty much will trust Artificial Intelligence with anything.’ - Dave Waters
Technobabylon is a gaming experience that, like most Cyberpunk themes, offers up the ideal escapist environment where you can swim deeply in the waves of futuristic possibilities yet never once feel the illusion dissolve into rational disbelief. I was able to be carried along by the plot’s varying themes of: an AI-controlled society complete with hackers striving to break down the barriers, a world of terrorism, an environment where virtual escapism into the Trance is an essential way of living all intermixed with scientific research aimed at breaking beyond the next evolving stages.
– Real player with 20.1 hrs in game
– Real player with 14.7 hrs in game
Alternativa
You’re classic point&click adventure game with a 2.5D aspect.
As a whole, the story is good, but not great. It felt more like a prototype concept game than a complete game. Some puzzles can be a little challenging if you happen to miss something in particular.
The game and story starts out to be intriguing and feels like there is a lot of content and story to explore.
As the game gradually progress, the scripts shows signs of weakness. Even the narration goes off beat and weak like if the voice actors lost interest or didn’t care anymore. It feels like the writer was rushed or didn’t know where to go with the story.
– Real player with 16.9 hrs in game
I don’t know what to rate this, honestly. The story is contrived in areas and no one really acts like a real human being but the atmosphere is interesting. They obviously push the story forward by skipping really ‘gaining’ trust to be guided by characters. Regardless, I like it for what it is so far BUT you can technically interact with items before the game deems you allowed and you will receive a false flag like there’s nothing to do there with a comment completely different than when you’ve taken the ‘right’ steps to interact finally. There’s no real way to know you’re looking at something too early, either. On top of this I experienced MULTIPLE crashes per game play. In fact, I took time out from my game crash now to write this. I have to skip the constant train ride cut scenes (that play every time you travel to a new area) just to keep it from crashing and it wouldn’t even start up the first 10 or so times I tried to run the game. It’s a frustrating experience at times and you need to be prepared to deal with that.
– Real player with 11.8 hrs in game
Gemini Rue
Gemini Rue is a sci-fi detective-noir style point & click adventure game. It’s retro in appearance, using pixel art graphics reminiscent of early to mid-90’s Sierra and Lucas Arts games. Its story, however, is more modern and gritty.
The game opens with a small cinematic of a character called Delta-Six, who is having his memory wiped, then switches to the first playable character, Azriel Odin, standing around waiting in the rain on an empty street. His short scene before playing informs you that you are looking for your brother, but not much else. It’s a little unclear what your role is or who you are in the greater story at this point, but that’s slowly revealed over time. Throughout the game, you’ll end up switching between playing as Delta-Six and Azriel Odin, discovering each of their narratives and how the seemingly unrelated stories intertwine. There are several elements to the overall story that seem like they’re meant to misdirect you as to your relationships with certain people and what your past actually is. This helps to keep you guessing in the game and eager to discover more about the characters. Unfortunately, this also leads to pacing issues that make parts of the game seem unnecessarily slow. The overall writing is decent and fits well for the tone of the game.
– Real player with 21.1 hrs in game
Need a quick help deciding whether to buy this game or not? Here, it’s an old school point and click adventure game with a sci-fi/cyberpunk/noir vibe to it, think about Beneath a Steel Sky. It also seems to be emulating all the flaws that classic adventure games used to suffer from. If that alone is enough to sell you, grab it, otherwise, skip it.
The game is using the classic adventure game control scheme in which you can do several things with each object in the game world. If you ever played something like Monkey Island, you know what I’m talking about. It’s the outdated control scheme that makes you wonder if you want to open a door, look at it, smell it, lick it or write a poem about it. Some people like this detailed style of interaction but personally I think it’s gone from most modern games for a good reason. It just makes you click more until you find the right way to interact with each and every object. Thankfully Gemini Rue has only four ways to interact with everything, but apart from maybe two objects in the entire game, there’s only one interaction that gets you anywhere for each object. Looking at stuff is useful, arguably, because it gives you flavour text and sometimes hints, but do you really need the option to shoot every fire hydrant and talk to every mailbox if you never have to in order to progress? It leads to absurd situations when you get stuck and try all the options on everything to find something you think you might have missed and you suddenly find yourself trying to kick graffiti or talking to a random piece of rubbish on a sidewalk.
– Real player with 12.9 hrs in game
BloodNet
Don’t mind the hours spent in the game. After refunding it, I ended up buying it on GOG to give it another try.
I first want to preface this review by saying I went in totally blind. I have no nostalgia attached to it, and I come from a background of loving point-and-clicks. I also seek out any game of the cyberpunk genre I can get my hands on.
That said, I wanted to like this game, but it felt impossible to. I saw it and I thought it was some kind of miracle I hadn’t played it already. Even its subtitle “The Cyberpunk Vampire Game” seemed perfect (as well as amazingly corny) to me. The screenshots made it look fantastic in that old time-y gritty moody kind of way. I felt like whatever its cons were, I wouldn’t let it keep me from enjoying a game that looked like I would love. But despite playing for long enough to get a handle on it, it still didn’t work for me.
– Real player with 22.1 hrs in game
I’ll start just by saying that it is my favourite adventure (although it is much more) game. Bloodnet mixes elements of adventure and rpg. Among solving puzzles you command your small squad of friends and mercenaries in fights. There’s a lot of character statistics influencing combat, decking (travelling through cyberspace), crafting etc… Bloodnet tells a story of Ransom Stark, who is trying to lift a curse of vampirism. It is dark, mature and really sucks in. Ransom will meet a lot of interesting and well written characters. While combat sequences are not of best quality, great atmosphere makes up for it. Important element of Bloodnet is decking. Improving cyberdeck will help to experience it. It is not a point and click game (you won’t make a helicopter combining shoelaces and washing machine). Puzzles are interesting and logical. It is more of unraveling the story. If you like cyberpunk it is a must have. If you like vampires it is a must have.
– Real player with 12.6 hrs in game
Minotaur
This is the first review that I’ve ever posted… If you knew how inherently lazy I am, that alone would be enough for you to buy this game.
And buy it you should, because it’s crafted with an insane amount of love and attention to detail. It’s kind of a hidden gem at the moment (something that I’m sure will change with time), and we as players should support games like these.
If you need more reasons to spend $15:
- Amazing story and characters. I’m a sucker for story-driven games, and Minotaur has been a delicious treat. Nothing is dumbed down, but everything is so utterly engrossing. You HAVE to get the “last” (=true) ending, this is what “subverting expectations” should be like. It will blow your mind and make you… rethink stuff.
– Real player with 25.8 hrs in game
I remember stumbling over Minotaur during my earliest days after becoming a Steam member:
I was instantly hooked on the concept and added it to my wishlist.
It´s still kinda weird to go through all the games I´d like to give a shot one day and not check whether Minotaur finally has a release date. I was anticipating this game so much that I did that all the time.
The wait is finally over and OH BOY did it pay off, even if it´s still in the “early access” stage.
Set in a cyberpunk/biopunk world called the “Universe of Seven” Minotaur has all the right ingredients to be a game I´d personally call damn near perfect (considering limits a point&click / VN hybrid has):
– Real player with 24.6 hrs in game