Overboard!
I never expected getting away with murder would be this fun! I thought Overboard would be a straightforward piece of interactive fiction, a few different routes to a few different endings, a great story along the way. Instead what I found was a deceptively simple game with a ton of moving parts. Everyone you share the ship with has their own routines, agendas and information, all of which are stacked against you. When you start this game, you will almost certainly fail. It’s through multiple (very quick!) playthroughs that you’ll begin to piece together what’s going on, what everyone’s hiding and what gaps in their knowledge you can exploit.
– Real player with 6.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Interactive Fiction Puzzle Games.
In the past few years, Inkle has really won me over as a fan by putting out interesting and inventive narrative games like Heaven’s Vault and Pendragon, giving interesting an informative talks on game design at narrative-focused game conventions, and maintaining their popular trademark design tool, Ink, which is available for anyone to use. Overboard, their newest title, is a surprise release, completely unannounced prior to dropping on the storefront yesterday.
In Overboard, we meet an attractive young femme fatale who, in the opening scene, impulsively seizes an opportunity to get rid of her crappy husband by pushing him off of the deck of an ocean liner. The next morning, we step into her shoes, and have one in-game day to help her cover up the crime before the resident Poirot-like detective connects the dots and sends her to jail. To succeed, you will have to lie convincingly and keep your lies consistent. You must search the ship to locate and dispose of evidence without drawing suspicion onto yourself. Meanwhile, find out what your fellow passengers know about the crime and bribe, blackmail, drug, or seduce them into silence. If that doesn’t work, find a more violent way of getting rid of any witnesses. If you are really skilled, you might be able to pin the crime on someone else to collect that sweet, sweet life insurance money.
– Real player with 5.8 hrs in game
Rainswept
Rainswept provides an overall enjoyable experience but suffers from a lack of consistency in what is otherwise a mostly-polished piece of interactive fiction.
You need to go into this with the mindset that you’re about to watch a movie, not necessarily something that’s groundbreaking or will blow you away, but at least delivers on the genre by giving you all the things you expect at it from face value.
Yes, you will be required to show Detective Stone around a small town and click on various interactables as the investigation of an apparent murder-suicide plays out before you, but the developers make it clear from the start that they have a story to tell you, and a specific order of events in which they want to tell it in.
– Real player with 8.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Interactive Fiction Mystery Games.
*This review is for v1.1.5a
Playing status: 100% achievement, ~3x playthroughs
Grindy Achievement(s): No.
Optional Achievement(s): Yes (11 achievements).
Difficult Achievement(s): No.
Intro
Rainswept is a text-heavy adventure game where you have to investigate a murder that is happening in a small town.
Pros:
-
2 endings with minor story branching
-
Freedom to explore the area in any order that you want
Cons:
- No fast forward for most dialogues
– Real player with 7.1 hrs in game
A Taste of the Past
“How am I supposed to be whole without you?"
Meet Mei, a shy, Chinese-American high school student dealing with the sudden passing of her mother. After losing all of her mother’s recipes, Mei embarks on a train…only to realize her ancestors have boarded as well. She must uncover her mother’s recipe for traditional noodles while learning about self-love, grief, and healing.
Experience a story of growth through reliving precious moments with family and cooking. A Taste of the Past is a relatable and touching journey about holding those you love close.
-
Complete cute cooking minigames. Gather ingredients from your ancestors to chop vegetables, fry noodles, and wrap soup dumplings.
-
Experience a cozy, heartwarming tale. Write poetry, talk about boy troubles, and re-discover why you started painting.
-
Stylized hand-drawn art.
-
Original voice acting, writing, art, and music
Read More: Best Interactive Fiction Life Sim Games.
Acolyte
Acolyte: Prologue is the first act in a dynamic narrative detective/puzzle game that gives you your own Acolyte; a digital assistant you can talk to freely without pre-defined dialogue options. Just like a real conversation.
Become an employee of Nanomax, a well-funded tech start-up looking to change the face of consumer AI with its upcoming Acolyte application. As a remote-worker for the company, you’ll interact with its employees and absorb its culture. But unexplained firings, missing employees and a strange, highly-classified bug in the Acolyte code-base point to something being very wrong.
As you work with your new Acolyte, who seems to be intrinsically caught up in the company’s problems, you’ll find yourself at the very heart of the conspiracy.
//FEATURES
-
//NATURAL LANGUAGE INPUT - interact freely with your Acolyte, using your own words to advance a non-linear narrative.
-
//BECOME A PART OF THE STORY - the worlds of the game and your own will blur, with ARG elements that contribute to a sprawling real-world narrative.
-
//INNOVATIVE PUZZLES - use your Acolyte to help solve puzzles that require out-of-the-box-thinking, as you dig deep into its programming.
-
//CUSTOMISE YOUR ACOLYTE - personalise how your Acolyte looks and interacts, as you tailor your assistant to your preferences.
-
//UNRAVEL THE CONSPIRACY - uncover a dark truth as you dig into the past of your employer.
//ABOUT SPIRIT AI
Acolyte is powered by the Spirit AI Character Engine, allowing for natural language interaction with the game. Spirit AI uses artificial intelligence and natural language processing to both understand conversations and create digital personalities.
Aran’s Bike Trip
cool little experience about a man trapped inside a body of a bike, ending with the man drinking a potion that made him go back to his body… i think.
i was focused grabbing those hidden bike drawings.
– Real player with 0.8 hrs in game
Charming little game based on 360º photos. It’s quite short, but full of nice little jokes along the way (especially the cow horse game). In addition, the game contains hidden object scenes where you have to search for small bicycles. The game gives nice glimpses of the landscape around Utrecht and in Gelderland, and I would recommend it to gamers who miss 360º degree point & click games and appreciate a little trip into nature.
– Real player with 0.6 hrs in game
Back Then
Back Then is a yet unseen take in the videogame industry about an elderly poet diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease, dealing not only with how our elders and their families change and learn to adapt to this newfound unavoidable and inevitable loss of memory and identity, but also show players that there is more to these situations than simple forgetfulness as we age.
Thomas Eilian is an elderly poet and writer diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Bound to only move around in a wheelchair, he finds himself alone for what seems like years roaming an empty house. “The clock is ticking, the hours are going by. The past increases, the future recedes. Possibilities decreasing, regrets mounting.”
-
In-depth narrative and storytelling experience.
-
Creative gameplay mechanics related to Alzheimer’s and forgetfulness, where the character starts to remember (and forget) his past and present.
-
Inspired by real events and stories of people with Alzheimer’s and neurodegenerative diseases, told by family members and loved ones.
-
Focus on interactivity, grab, interact with everything and learn as much as possible.
-
Scientific breakdown via collectibles about Alzheimer’s.
This is a story about Time, Death, and Soul. It is a story about the mind, from the mind. It is a story about ignorance and forgetfulness.
Through this story we hope to make as many people as we can uncomfortable, but aware to the reality of millions.
Church of Stratum
The end of times is upon us, we must cast aside this land and embrace the land of past times if we are to one day walk in god’s new world.
So goes the speech the Church of Stratum cult repeated every day, until they all suddenly vanished over 40 years ago.
But now by accident you have just discovered their now abandoned underground bunker, make your way through the dilapidated hallways and discover the mystery of what caused the death of the entire bunker.
A story driven puzzle adventure game with a spooky atmosphere that does not have monsters or threats to the player.
CHURCH OF STRATUM IS NOT A HORROR GAME. DO NOT EXPECT TO FIND MONSTERS OR JUMPSCARES
-
FIRST-PERSON EXPLORATION
Explore a large section of the bunker and learn about those who called this place home.
-
PUZZLES
Solve puzzles to journy deeper into the bunker and uncover its secrets.
-
INVENTORY SYSTEM
Collect items used to solve puzzles. Find collectables hidden in the bunker.
-
PHYSICS INTERACTION
Open doors using a physics based pull and push system.
Pick up objects, inspect them and then throw them around.
-
TIME TRAVEL
The bunker was not always dilapidated, see what it looked like long ago before it fell.
-
DEVELOPER COMMENTARY
Lisen to behind the scenes info from the developer on aspects of the game and its development.
CLOCKWORLD – Aroll’s Legacy
CLOCKWORLD - Aroll’s Legacy is an adventure game that focuses on narration, interactions with unique characters and explores themes of self-determination and finding meaning in a torn world.
First he was driven off his island, now he has to deal with a dead body and a strange voice in his head - Aro seems to be having more than just a bad day.
Venture to the mystical island of Ura and guide him through impactful moral choices, help the enigmatic locals, and discover your own truth as you save the world - or not. It’s all up to you!
In this fantastical adventure, your decisions will pave the way - what kind of story will you experience together?
The clock Is ticking…
Key Features:
-
A powerful, personal and nuanced story that aims to stay with the player after the credits have rolled
-
Starring Lin Gothoni (Life is Strange: True Colors), Seumas F. Sargent (Spy City, aus Tom of Finland) and Cyrus Nemati (Hades, Pyre)
-
Experience a world shattered into pieces with flying, fragmented islands - everything artfully hand drawn!
-
An innovative dialog system that creates an unprecedented immersive experience
-
Decide whether or not to mess around in the lives of the characters you encounter
-
Encounter a civilization of different cultures, with different social systems and political beliefs
-
Uncover the rich and mysterious history behind CLOCKWORLD
-
Perfect for first-time gamers looking for a suspenseful adventure game
CLOSED HANDS
Overall a very well written interactive story that follows the lives of six characters in relation to an event that affects the whole community they are a part of. The format allows you to follow each of the character’s story in whatever order you want and if you want to explore other paths, you don’t have to restart the game (which I think is a very nice feature).
Follow the tragic story of a working class white man in his fight against corporate woke-ism and cancel culture in a world that does not care if he is left behind, the adventure of a mixed race boss girl who is not afraid to tell old people that their proven ways of working are bad, a young man who is radicalized by an Antifa-esque organization, a reported who has to choose between click baits and the truth and a parent who has lost control of their child and does not know/care what he is up to.
– Real player with 12.9 hrs in game
Very interesting story. I initially thought the game would be like Orwell but this is entirely different. Only the initial plot is the same : there was a bombing. We are skimming through a script offered through various means (text like in a book, chat, emails, conversations,…) each split into timelines.
We go through several branches of the story as we like to pursue the details and get to the end of the scenario, viewed from 5 different characters. Each story is unique by the way it is delivered and very true at the same time. We can picture the scenes easily while reading the fragments of stories. The writing is particularly polished, so polished it like this would have been a great drama tv series for instance.
– Real player with 9.0 hrs in game
Cryptozookeeper
This game is pretty excellent. It’s basically an old-school text adventure just like Infocom used to make them, except with weird pictures and cool music (so maybe a bit more like Level 9, Legend or Magnetic Scrolls used to make them), a ton of jokes, some violence and a strange & somewhat grindy RPG-lite cryptid-fighting minigame. I don’t think I’d recommend this to complete newcomers – it’s got some rough edges and tricky puzzles, so you should probably be somewhat comfortable with the genre before trying it.
– Real player with 18.9 hrs in game
[Review-copy was provided by the developer for the purpose of review.]
Cryptozoology is one of those dark delights in life that I probably have an unhealthy obsession from scrutinizing the “science” similar to James Randi debunking pseudoscience. Perhaps the desire comes from reading one too many Lovecraftian stories as a teenager or the innate fascination with mysteries of any kind. However, there is something to be learned not only from confirmation biases to unexplainable events but also what fringe characters get allured into conspiracies, creatures told from hearsay and an obsession with the unknowable. Those types of weirdos are at the core of Robb Sherwin’s Cryptozookeeper (CZK), an amalgamation of a text-adventure with some barebones JRPG elements to make something as surreal as its cast. The best description of the narrative is what Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy did for science-fiction, CZK handles the world of Cryptids as an absurdist comedy featuring a group of outcasts that despise one another (so essentially the same, except these loonies are all native to Earth.)
– Real player with 8.0 hrs in game