Date Warp
**It’s astounding
Time is fleeting
Madness takes its toll…***
Date Warp is the oldest of Hanako games here on Steam, as a cute VN with science fiction and dating elements. Even though it may be the weakest of all Hanako titles so far, it definitely is interesting and entertaining enough to present you 6-7 hours of playtime.
Janet Bhaskar is a freshman in Brooke College, Memphis. She is an introverted young woman who never dated before, and agrees to go on a date with young jock Bradley Dalton to appease her roommate, Vanessa. They go on a pretty much text book date without much attraction and got hit by a furious storm in the middle of the night while they were trying to go back. Bradley’s car gets busted in the middle of nowhere and phones do not pick any signal, yet luckily Janet manages to spot the lights of a mansion nearby. They decide to ask for help, and spend the night there if necessary. Unbeknownst to them, they may never leave…
– Real player with 11.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Female Protagonist Mystery Games.
“Date Warp” is an otome game that’s perfect for those just starting to check out the genre. That being said, it’s just as obvious this is an early visual novel work. This isn’t to say it’s bad – everyone starts out somewhere! The story is extremely intriguing as it seems you are to figure out how Janet disappears. But for me, the way it was done disappointed me. Because of the synopsis of the game, I figured there would be a way to work somehow “backward” and figure out the ‘true’ story from Bradley’s point of view (for example) but this is fine.
– Real player with 10.9 hrs in game
The Turing Test
The Turing Test is a first person puzzle game. There are 7 chapters, each with 10 puzzles per level. In each chapter, there is also a bonus challenge puzzle. When a new room is entered, a snippet of dialogue will feed the player story in small increments. When the end of a chapter is reached, a non-puzzle room can be explored to get more of the game’s story. Puzzles will scale up in difficulty as the game progresses, and each new chapter will introduce a new mechanic. The character we control is a woman named Ava Turing. With the aide of an AI named T.O.M, we progress through the game and try to find our missing crew members.
– Real player with 14.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Female Protagonist First-Person Games.
When I first heard of this game, knowing of the concept of The Turing Test, and having an interest in psychology I was really looking forward to where this game could lead. Reluctantly I have to say that I think this game was hyped up too much when it first came out, and when I played it a little while ago now, found it underwhelming. It’s a great game, but the hype created a high expectation. If you want to play this game, don’t expect too much and I feel like you will enjoy it more.
If you read the description for this game before you play, it creates intrigue, and already puts ideas in your head. It gets you thinking and conspiring even before you start the game.
– Real player with 10.3 hrs in game
Apastron
From a casual standpoint this game is great. For the price it has so much content. You can play through the game several times and the massive amount of random weapons keeps the game fresh. There are cool hidden places to explore that you will find on subsequent runs that yield different weapons. Some weapons don’t feel great but the dev patches so often and guns are constantly being made smoother. My big complaint with combat is that I cannot see my reticle easily. I don’t know if this is a resolution scaling issue because I play on 2k or not. MOST IMPORTANTLY OF ALL the game is getting so much free content. New weapons, abilities, and areas have been patched in since I first started playing. A WHOLE NEW EXPANSION will be FREE at the end of the month that nearly doubles the games length. Now for those of you wondering how I have so many hours in this game, I speedrun it and boy is it amazing for that. The modern movement in a classic style shooter plus the perfect amount of breakable stuff makes it the most fun speedrun I’ve ever done. This game has something for everyone. If you struggle with the tutorialisation please don’t just quit, give it an effort. The tutorial is much improved. It’s $6 just try it gamers. NOTE: I was given a copy for free about a month early to help with some QA since I expressed interest, but I promise this does not vastly change my opinion nor was I paid for anything.
– Real player with 49.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Female Protagonist Retro Games.
The effort made and put into Apastron (especially from a one man developer) is pretty admirable. Here you have what amounts to the first episode (about 2 to 2-1/2 hours of game) of a unique world peopled by an oppressive corporation and the resistance that would oppose them.
While the game has its ‘open’ moments, the structure is indeed Episode 1: Level 1 in structure and it does proceed normally, that is to say, completely linearly. There is a bit of down time between missions but that is mostly used exploring the small hub town and speaking to the denizens about their day-to-day and their individual goings-on and to collect some currency and spend it at the weapon-shop.
– Real player with 5.9 hrs in game
Culpa Innata
I was disappointed by this game due to the way the story was laid out. There was a surface mystery to solve, which happens mainly through interviewing people. It was a basic, straightforward murder mystery which the game spends 95% of the time on.
[I’m sorry if the following is a spoiler, but I wish someone in the reviews had put something about this in them. I would not have played it if I knew. }
But more intriguing is a deeper mystery which hints at a whole unknown world outside of the totalitarian world the character is a part of. The game barely opens up that world to you and that is it. The murder mystery is suddenly solved and the game is over. You never find out what the true nature of the Union is.
– Real player with 31.6 hrs in game
This is a great first part of what should have been a series.
Culpa Innata is set in the near future in a society that most of us would find very alien. The main character is an officer given the task of investigating a murder which is an event so rare in this world that everyone doen’t really know how to start.
The best thing about this game is the detail of the setting. ‘The World Union’ where the main character lives and works is a society different to any of our own. In the game you not only carry out your investigation but interact with friends and colleagues to get a proper feel of what being in such a society might be like. There’s also a lot of reference to the countries not absorbed by this society and how things are different. The writers have done an excellent job of giving a richly detailed picture of this world.
– Real player with 29.7 hrs in game
Dreamfall: The Longest Journey
Do you remember watching the Back To The Future film series? Great start with a disappointing middle before recovering to end in a pleasing fashion? Well, I haven’t installed Chapters as yet, but at time of writing, Dreamfall: The Longest Journey is that awkward second instalment.
It certainly has its merits. The story is almost as good as its predecessor, and it is this that will most likely carry the player through to the end in spite of the drawbacks; and the author also sensibly cut back on the length of the conversations. Despite its undoubted strength in depth, many character discussions in the original TLJ simply went on too long.
– Real player with 25.7 hrs in game
Dreamfall: TLJ is a 3-d third-person point and click adventure game. The game is a sequel to a classic adventure game released in 1998 called The Longest Journey. It is not necessary to play the original TLJ to play Dreamfall, but it helps a lot, since the game universe and many characters are the same. The game is very heavy on story, dialogue, and cinematics, and light on puzzles and gameplay.
Story: the story is both the best and the worst I have ever seen in an adventure game. In the last two years I have completed 12 adventure games including old classics and modern indies. Dreamfall has a very complex and compelling story involving several interesting characters, political movements, and the complex game universe. It includes elements of comedy, drama, and tragedy. The story really gathers steam toward the end, resolving one storyline while introducing several more. Then, in the middle of the gathering drama and revelations, the game suddenly ends with no resolution to the fate of a dozen major characters and a dozen major plotlines. This is perhaps the most unsatisfying ending I have ever seen in a game, movie, book etc. Even if they did plan on a sequel, this was just plain terrible. I know a lot of people hated The Empire Strikes Back because of the unresolved plot lines. This is 100x worse.
– Real player with 17.8 hrs in game
Escape From Planet Aelea
Astronaut Dr. Jennifer Sousa wakes up one day in her quarters on planet Aelea outpost 3 to find that the systems are down and she has to figure out what happened.
Play as lone astronaut Jennifer Sousa and follow the directions of a mysterious voice on the radio, Crain, who has the knowledge to help you get off planet Aelea!
Avoid Deadly Robots - Use stealth to sneak around deadly robots that gone rogue and will kill humans on sight!
Solve Puzzles - Solve puzzles to get through the bases and get to mission control!
Collect Access Keys - Collect all the emergency access keys from all the other bases and activate the emergency rocket to escape!
Do you have what it takes to survive planet Aelea?
June
Accompany June on her journey to rescue her kidnapped father and explore the abandoned city of the ancestors. Follow the clues to find the entrance to an ancient underground facility and discover its dark secrets. Find your way through dark, atmospheric hallways and solve complex logic puzzles to progress further. Use all the movement tools in your arsenal to traverse the levels, but be careful: Nobody who dared to enter the city ever returned alive …
Without any weapons, your only option is to remain undetected. Should you be seen, you will have to use your mobility and wits to get away.
There is no skill tree, no experience system. Whether you succeed or fail depends only on your skills as a player.
Reality Incognita
I like the idea for the game and it’s a fun idea. However, the game is really really glitchy and I basically have to use the devs' walkthrough to make sure I am doing things in the right order not to crash or glitch out the game. The last inventory item sometimes doesn’t show up until you pick up another item. One time I got 5 blood packs instead of 3. Going into a vent too early creates a white screen lock up, etc. Too many bugs to recommend this game in its current state. Playing with a walkthrough and replaying from past saves repeatedly to change the order of how I did things is getting tiresome
– Real player with 10.2 hrs in game
Its a fun little click and point adventure ;D
Was pretty decent ;D
– Real player with 4.3 hrs in game
Remember Me
The year is 2084. The location is in Neo-Paris, France in a cyberpunk world. You can see the Eiffel Tower and other landmarks in the distance, but you can interact with them or enter them. This is the setting for Remember Me, an original game that illustrates how technological advances can harm people.
You play Nilin, a memory hunter with amnesia. You are sent by a revolutionary group to take down a corporation, Memorize, that can sell, trade, or erase memories. In this dystopian world you get a Euro feel when walking by open-air cafés and when distinctly colored robots are standing near you. You are trying to recover whatever memories Nilin has lost from one episode to the next. The world looks beautiful, but there is strong evidence of significant poverty and the oppressor having significant power over the oppressed.
– Real player with 59.0 hrs in game
I do recommend this game, but not for everybody, and perhaps not even for most people. Read further through the review to see if you might find it worthwhile or not.
First, the story and enviornment, since this is really the interesting part of the game.
Part of the dystopian premise here is standard fare: environmental problems push a vast portion of the world’s population into squalor, with the instability spreading to the first world, leading to civil unrest, war, and eventually a civil war that fractures Europe. The interesting science-fiction twist is a technology that allows people to extract, move and share memories. The game doesn’t look in to this in the kind of depth a good science fiction novel would, but rather uses this mainly as a structure to support the plot. While the writing and acting has quite a few awkward moments, the overall story certainly avoids being a straight “good vs. evil” tale, instead being considerably more interesting. As Nilin, part of a plot to bring down an ostensibly evil corporation taking over the world, you’ll find that things swiftly become uncomfortably unclear. Your very first memory remix involves bringing someone over to your side by convincing her that the corporation killed her husband, which I doubt anybody with a conscience could feel comfortable with if they take the story even moderately seriously. As you proceed, you’ll find yourself wondering on a regular basis who the good guys really are, or even if there are any. While there are a few characters who fit into the “evil villain” mold, all the rest have plausible reasons for what they do, and nobody comes out purely good or bad. This gives the story a pleasing depth that most games don’t have, and does a lot to make up for failings in the gaming elements.
– Real player with 28.8 hrs in game
Science Girls
I found this to be a great rpg. The combat system was interesting, all of the characters and monsters and unique attacks and abilities. There was a lot of strategy involved.
I beat this game on hard although it is not showing in my achievements :(, because the internet went down during the last battle so I might have to go back and replay the last battle again sometime just for the achievements.
I had this in my library for a while because not all of the reviews for this game have been glowing. Although, after having gone through this game, I can confidently say that many of the criticisms were baseless. All of the girls do have unique personalities that show in the dialogue. their reactions to circumstances, and their attacks and abilities.
– Real player with 20.2 hrs in game
I came into this game with an open mind and I ended up with mixed feelings with the game. I enjoyed the corky storyline and goofy characters in this game, however I found the battling system to be very frustrating at times. Often I ended up hitting the wrong button because of how close together the list of options was and I don’t think there was a way to change the option you picked…or at least I couldn’t find it. I also feel like the enemy to player damaged/defense ratio to be unfair. The characters did not really do a whole lot of damage despite me putting skill points into almost everything and the characters didn’t dodge quite as much as the enemies did which made me rage quit a few times and it also drew the battles out too long. However I did still enjoy this game over all even though I found it frustrating. I wouldn’t recommend this for everyone, but for those who are looking for a short rpg and for those who are willing to work around some wonkyness you should try it out just don’t expect something amazing because this game is very far from amazing.
– Real player with 12.7 hrs in game