Breacher Story
An engaging story, even if it is outside my experience. Well written, good sound track. Like good sci-fi it contains some kernals of truth (maybe, one never knows). Scary.
– Real player with 3.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Indie Story Rich Games.
ENG
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Gameplay:
It doesn’t offer much things. You’re choosing one of the two answers during the conversations that (possibly) affects on the plot. I thought it’s more of a hacking simulator but it’s absolutely not. Anyway story was about 2 hours long play that’s quite good for a small game. And the story itself feels mostly completed and nice written.
– Real player with 2.5 hrs in game
PataNoir
Really interesting interactive fiction. It does away with a lot of the frustrations of the parser genre– pretty much no reason to hunt for verbs, the game is in good faith and plays with you instead of against you– and introduces fun areas and items thanks to the text’s reliance on wordplay.
– Real player with 5.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Indie Adventure Games.
Patanoir is a text-based adventure where you make use of the similes in your surroundings to find the missing daughter of a baron. The tutorial was straightforward in explaining the system of the game as it covered text interactions, the use of similes, and navigation. The similes are easy to find as the sentences contain the word “like” for the most part. Using them is a different story. Progressing through the game can be described as requiring to think out of box or to make use of obscure item interactions. This aspect of the game is what players would most likely find frustrating. There are two options implemented that can help guide you through the game. One is your trusty servant which you meet at the start of the game (a hint system) and the second is a walkthrough which can be accessed in the main menu. The game is fairly linear though you can make use of different solutions in some instances.
– Real player with 4.8 hrs in game
Return NULL - Episode 1
Calling this a point and click adventure is stretching it a little bit. It is more like a choose your own adventure book. Theres very little interaction, your character is just drawn as part of the background. The writing is fan-fiction quality, maybe its better in german. The “gameplay” consists of clicking on 3-5 items in each room, which are drawn as part of the background, and choosing whether to look at them (which gives a 1 line description of the object), pick them up (or move to another room), or use an item. Theres no options menu, which is annoying because the game is insanely loud and only runs in fullscreen borderless, and there are no resolution options either.
– Real player with 16.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best Indie Great Soundtrack Games.
Quick review:
This is a low budget but nicely envisaged BEGINNING to a story set in a dystopian future. The art is of a comic book style and reasonably well drawn. There is no animation and no voice acting (I don’t find this a big problem) but the plot so far makes me hope that this could turn into an engaging and enjoyable story. The puzzles are traditional point and click style inventory puzzles that are sensible but too easy. You’ll get through the chapter in around an hour. I don’t feel chapter 1 was worth paying for on its own purely because it is so incredibly short.
– Real player with 9.8 hrs in game
20something
A very well written text-based dating sim, in which the protagonist tries to find love and happiness while suffering from his mental state. Highly recommend.
– Real player with 7.1 hrs in game
20something is an interactive novel about a young man’s relational and menta problems. The story is short. There are a few choices during the gameplay but not so much. There are also a few perfect drawings. Personally I really like them. The most negative part of my experience is the save button. There is no save button. You must play the whole game in one session. I’ve purchased it in a bundle but would I buy it for a full price? Don’t think so. My opinion is negative-just-below-the-threshold but if there’d be a neutral button I’d select it.
– Real player with 1.1 hrs in game
A Sketchbook About Her Sun
Essentially it’s an animated music album with some simple sketches for every song. I assume the visuals were created for the music and not the other way around, but the game still has a narrative as we follow the same individual that goes through melancholy, heartbreak, and possibly depression. You can also just pick the songs from the main menu, but I am not sure if I unlocked the feature at the end. I believe the 11 songs make the full album, so it’s kind of like buying a soundtrack. I am not sure if there is any purpose to the choices that you can make during the songs, I assume those are for the 2 optional achievements. I guess it depends on how much you like the music, for myself, I liked more than half of the songs, and even for the songs that I didn’t love, I still enjoyed the lyrics. Don’t take this as a criticism because I honestly don’t care if the singer has a perfect voice, but I enjoyed her voice more within a lower range. Also, I noticed some guitar clipping which I feel should be cleaned up in the processing. Aside from those small nitpicks, I enjoyed the album overall and I will be playing it when I draw for months ;). I know not many people like paying for music on Steam, but I am all for it personally, especially this cheap. I always like to list my favorites, and that would be the ‘Planet X’, ‘Document’ and ‘Human Copy’ (I only wish you reused the part in the end of HC once in the middle, too).
– Real player with 24.1 hrs in game
A Sketchbook About Her Sun is an enjoyable experience with incredible artwork and an amazing soundtrack. The gameplay warrants itself well to replaying and is definitely worth your attention
– Real player with 1.3 hrs in game
Alt-Frequencies
I’d give it 10 of 10 - but it deals with some difficult topics, people disappear, are shot without any remorse by police - pretty tough on the youngest generation of players. Excellent spelling and voice quality.
Your’re forced to think. The conspiracy theories by goverment officials denying everything? Young adults can understand the game with some adult guidance.
The game is like an audiobook; with 6 chapters. It’s made in a similar way to visual novels; permitting one of two paths, with pretty good voice actors and music. The achievements 23 vary in difficulty, and yes, can be pretty frustrating at times, simply because you’re forced to actually think a little.
– Real player with 7.0 hrs in game
2021 Update: I just wanted to say that after gaining a job in retail and being forced to listen to a radio I think about this game almost every day, which is no small feat for a tiny french indie game. I didn’t understand not only how realistic this game is, but just how bone chilling listening to the radio can be in the world of today. The VA do a brilliant job at capturing the voices on every station. If you’re a nightshift worker or someone who has to listen to the radio a lot. Give this game a shot. It’s got fantasy elements and it’s made me more introspective about my own time spent listening to the radio at work.
– Real player with 4.0 hrs in game
DON’T WAKE THE NIGHT
I don’t know, maybe I just didn’t “get” this game, but I couldn’t figure out what was going on or what my actions actually accomplished. The gameplay was a bit annoying because the text in the text boxes loads very slowly, and you can’t skip previously read text. The mouse movement to move the camera view is also extremely slow, and for some reason during dialogue the camera kind of bobs around.
Aside from that the game looks beautiful, and I’m glad to have bought it to support indie developers, but it’s hard to recommend.
– Real player with 0.9 hrs in game
strange little thing. more of a short play than a game, truth be told. an interesting little setting. good to support small time artists
– Real player with 0.7 hrs in game
GAG
I love this game, probably the best store of all time. No other game and match up to this game. I love gag. short and will bring you on a journey as you play as a sexually abused co host for a sit com. Paul is the best character in the game.
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– Real player with 2.3 hrs in game
I would recommend playing this game blind… because not knowing what will happen is one of the most terrifying things I’ve experienced in a game.
This game was genuinely interesting and unsettling… I’m not sure how well the topic mattered. It could’ve been about choosing the flavor of ice-cream and it would just be as gross and horrific. If you just let yourself become immersed in these short experiences, there’s a real sense of danger and unease between all of these ‘games’. I would say if Gag was a ‘short story’, I would make the other ‘games’ out to be poems. They’re excellent experiences, definitely worth it for me.
– Real player with 1.1 hrs in game
Hadean Lands
First off - I very much enjoyed this game, and thought it was well worth the money. If you like interactive fiction, you should definitely buy it and play it.
Pros:
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Very well written - evocative descriptions.
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Zero instances of ‘guess the verb’. No puzzle succeeded/failed on obscure words.
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An extraordinarly helpful parser, which remembers item locations for you(once encountered), as well as how to perform various chains of actions(if you must repeat them), removing the tediousness of having to type long sequences of commands again and again (including ‘go to location ‘, if location was previously discovered) /location
– Real player with 189.4 hrs in game
This is an exemplary model for what interactive fiction should be. I gladly paid for the DLC (which does nothing) to support the author.
I don’t want to give away anything, but I will say the core mechanic is alchemy, and the game is largely about experimenting to modify alchemical recipes in novel ways to overcome obstacles. It’s a very flexible text adventure, and it rewards clever forethought rather than random guessing. This is the sort of game that works best when you decide to put it down for a while and think about the puzzles to brainstorm ideas before returning. It’s a game you play even more when you aren’t playing it, in other words.
– Real player with 69.0 hrs in game
Lifeline
I’m very pleasantly surprised with this fantastic little piece of interactive fiction. Sure, the sci-fi premise had me interested from the start, but Lifeline turned out to be a LOT more entertaining than I expected. The writing and plot is top notch with an incredibly likeable protagonist in Taylor. I didn’t think the story would have kept me so engaged considering it’s set on a desolate moon in the furthest reaches of the galaxy, but the rapport you build with the stranded science student keeps you concerned for his well being as much as you’re interested in discovering just what the deal is with the creepy moon he’s crash-landed on. Heck, towards the end when things go nuts I was absolutely hooked, even having dreams about it after I’d finished!
– Real player with 115.8 hrs in game
TL;DR Lifeline is a well written choose your own adventure style game that is played in real time.
I am changing my review from a negative to a positive after learning more about this game and giving it another try. Having tried it again I found that I enjoyed Lifeline for what it is and hope to see more of these games on Steam, It looks like there are 5 other games in this series.
My main problem with the game originally was that it would keep pausing in the story and just give you a message that “Taylor is busy”, and some of these pauses would take hours before the story would continue. I have since been told that this game was originally designed as a mobile game, and was meant to be played in “real time” as Taylor was messaging you. I bought this game from the Google store and it turned out to be a game concept that works great on your phone. I then retried it on Steam and found it to be enjoyable to play through once I knew what to expect.
– Real player with 67.1 hrs in game