The Black Watchmen
ALRIGHT, TIME TO CLEAR A FEW THINGS UP
[olist]
- This game is NOT subscription-based! Think of it more like The Walking Dead series, where you pay for a season whenever it comes out. You can play any seasons you own indefinitely.* This game WILL take over your life. Like the slogan in the old ARG Majestic from EA: “It plays YOU” Will clarify later.* The game on Steam is only 25% of the actual game. It takes place in real-life, on websites created specifically for the game, and on social media.
– Real player with 165.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Mystery Indie Games.
**** Full Disclosure: I’m a volunteer Moderator on the official forums; however I’m not paid in any way, shape or form. ****
EDIT: Since I posted this review, I have been hired by Alice & Smith as PR/Community Manager. Therefore, I will no longer update this review as long as I hold that position.
Also; to make room for this update, I removed the “Updated” list at the end of this review.
Content:
While the amount of content seems limited, it is worth making a huge note that the Content of any ARG is not found primarily in what you are presented with - in this case, what you see when you start the EXE file - it is the secrets you can find based on that initial presentation.
– Real player with 164.5 hrs in game
Lost Cosmonauts ARG
A short game that involves very basic web searches (most of the time I didn’t even need to read any info on the pages ) in order to answer what amounts to quiz questions. Interesting content but not really much of a game.
– Real player with 23.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Mystery Indie Games.
I’ll keep the review as short as the game:
There’s not much to this game. It’s a trivia game of sorts, with only 10 questions that don’t change. You’re presented with one riddle-like question at a time (which you must answer in order) where a lot of the challenge is to figure out what the authors are getting at in the first place. All of the questions focus on the Lost Cosmonauts conspiracy (if you’re not familiar with it, look it up). What’s unique is that it’s asking you to leave the game, do research online, and provide the answer based upon your findings. This might be interesting if the answers that the game seeks weren’t so rare, obtuse or redundant (e.g., looking for the name of a lake near some Gagarin tribute site? Well, this could be one of several lakes, depending upon the site…you’ll just have to type in each one until you get the right one).
– Real player with 1.3 hrs in game
The Council
“Mr. president, are you a killer?”
~Keir Simmons
For whatever reasons out there, “choose your own adventure” games, in which you make your way through the story by making certain choices, become more and more popular nowadays. I mean, we had quite a lot of those back in the days. Brilliant Digital Entertainment alone released tons of such games back in nineties, but somehow, even though they’ve made games based on such popular names as Superman, Popeye, Xena and even Ace Ventura, those games were never popular. Heck, most of the people nowadays don’t even know about the fact that 7th Level’s Ace Ventura game wasn’t the only one out there. Nowadays, on the other hand, we have all sorts of popular games of that kind. From Detroit: Become Human to Until Dawn / The Dark Pictures Anthology and Life is Strange. People love that stuff. So… yeah. Here comes another one of such games. Can’t call myself a big fan of the genre, though. Personally, I prefer proper Point-and-Click or puzzle experience, while “choose your own adventure” is something I prefer in the books, but… you know how it is. I don’t mind such games as long as the story is interesting, the choices are satisfying and they’re well-written. So… let’s have a look at The Council, shall we?
– Real player with 37.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Mystery RPG Games.
ORIGINAL POST = 08-08-2021 at 11:51 AM EST:
I’ve been playing The Council on the PC (over on Steam) lately. I certainly have some thoughts on it, as I’m currently on Episode 4 (out of 5).
So far, it has been ranging somewhere b/t really good to great. Namely, Episodes 1-3 were great; and Episode 4 at a certain point has taken a turn…and I’m not sure where it belongs yet, as it has hit a really shocking moment that sets quite bit of a change in both story elements & your skills; and I’m not sure how fleshed-out this will get, as it happens late in Episode 4 and the fact that there’s only one Episode left.
– Real player with 22.4 hrs in game
Color Souls
Incredibly amazing game. The movement of the character is a lot of fun and every boss and mechanics in the game are really surprising. The levels that you can jump on the monster’s head in sequence were very well thought out.
– Real player with 2.2 hrs in game
A pretty good platformer. I really like this unique aesthetic and gameplay concept where you can’t see the enviroment, so you have to move and jump to splash ink revealing the obstacles and platforms.
– Real player with 1.7 hrs in game
Fatal Twelve
This game kicked my heart in the d***. Every. Single. Time.
With that said, let’s break it down.
Visuals:
There’s a good amount of visuals here, given the number of characters in the game. Some stunning, some sad, but all are good.
Voice Acting:
They have a good pool of talent, I thought until they started crying. I’m not entirely convinced that most of the VAs know how to cry, but that’s the only bad thing I have to say about them. Well, that and pain. They’re not good at that either. Apart from that, they’re believable, and play their roles extremely well.
– Real player with 34.4 hrs in game
FATAL TWELVE is a Visual Novel lasting around 20 hours. You basically play as Shishimai Rinka, who gets its fate of being killed altered and lands in a battle between 12 people called “Divine Selection”, in which only 1 will ultimately survive.
tl;dr: A nice round up VN, where you can make a couple of choices leading to 7 different endings in total. The character depth is what this game is about.
Story:
The deadly survival game is explained right at the beginning. Though not all of its mechanics are very clear then, but you get to know them throughout the game. Each of the 12 participants of Divine Selection comes with 3 cards: Name - Cause of Death - Regret. Since only 3 at random are given to each participant and their causes of death undone, they have to learn these 3 cards from others to be able to eliminate them for good. You learn about this game lasting merely 12 weeks, so you always know exactly at which point you are through the entirety of the game. The mindset of our protagonist greatly depends of its relation to others, which will be the main point of making choices. You realise very early where the main story arcs will lead you, so the outcomes aren´t very surprising, though a narration style, beautiful artworks and character depths make up for it. The actual outcome might be known, but the details make this VN very thrilling nonetheless.
– Real player with 29.5 hrs in game
I’m on Observation Duty 3
A threequel to the infamous ‘I’m on Observation Duty’??
Yes. Yes! YES!! Shut up and take my money! This is my favorite ‘Spot the difference’ game.
Hands down my favorite in the series so far as there are no cameras(except the one in your phone) and you are free to explore the house. There have been a handful of improvements to the game that have made this an even more fun experience than its predecessors.
- Freedom to roam the house so you can see objects up close and have a better idea of their placement/size.
– Real player with 8.5 hrs in game
I understand the want to make a vr version but I feel that this kind of game worked better in the fixed camera format that the first two games had. Having to look around for such small changes works better when you can see everything at once and pick up on what has changed. The first level of this game is possible once you get a hang of going around in a circle so you can pick up on a pattern that is similar to the first two games but the headquarters level is so much bigger and has so many branching paths that the annoyance of navigating overtakes the search for subtle changes. It’s fine to try new things but I hope that you’ll do more similar to the style of the first two in the future. Even if you would just take these levels and make additional fixed camera versions, that’d be great. Then you could have both the vr and fixed camera versions.
– Real player with 4.6 hrs in game
Rebellion Gaia
This is the best RPG since final fantasy 7 and it’s genius stepson spiritual successor. Took a solid 70 hours to beat it and I enjoyed every minute. Full of red pills, humor and good storytelling. A gem. A real treasure.
– Real player with 70.4 hrs in game
This game is a lot of fun… and quite hilarious. Yes the voice overs are awesome!!! But the references to real life are bang on. I can’t wait to dive deeper into this game as I have only played for a few hours up to this point but trust me, if you like RPGs, this game will hopefully spread some awareness to the unaware and provide knowledge in areas that you may already be familiar with. Plus the proceeds go to a good cause and I will support this crew anytime I can. Thank you for this game!
– Real player with 49.7 hrs in game
Ilamentia
An amazing series of exploratative puzzles, and one of the best uses of design space that I can recall.
The game itself is difficult to explain. Its a first person wasd + mouse control scheme with only 4 additional forms of input. Fire, jump, restart, and exit. These functions change slightly from level to level. Sometimes you might not be able to jump, sometimes you might be able to fly, sometimes your fire button does… something entirely different.
There is very little in the sense of hints (usually you have the name of a level and a single short sentence with which to build your guesses). This can be a boon or a curse depending on how quickly you pick up the goal of a stage.
– Real player with 18.0 hrs in game
I’ve completed most of the game now and formed a love/hate relationship with it. The gameplay is nice and some of the levels are creative. BUT… Way too much of the challenge in this game revolve around the player not seeing a f’ing thing except the screen flickering or the theme of the world you’re in makes everything a huge pile of shit on your screen. On some levels you have to do platforming while the platforms are hidden and there’s nothing in the level that allow you to judge distances so you have to count in your head to figure when not to press forward anymore. Some levels make you lose your vision as you progress and this theme of not seeing s**t repeats over and over. There is some kind of logic in the puzzles but the rules mostly change as you progress and you will “die” because theres no way you could have known what will happen. I’ll give an example here about the poor puzzle designs here so SPOILER warning incase you’re going to purchase the game.
– Real player with 16.9 hrs in game
Hidden Object - Food
Hidden Object - Food, how well do you know your foods?
Our verdict: Unworthy
Find out why in our full game review .
– Real player with 0.7 hrs in game
Hidden Object - Food is not even worth the 0.49 cents it is on sale for. At best, it should be one of those free game apps that displays ads between levels - if it even had levels, which it doesn’t. I do not recommend it.
The root problem is that there is only one mode, timed, and very briefly timed at that. It is meant to be played in speedy sessions just to rack up a higher score that it does not keep track of. There are three difficulty modes that give you instructions like “Find 2 coffees.” 2 Coffees? Does that mean cup of coffee? Does that mean coffee beans? Well, just wait a few seconds because the game vibrates the objects you are looking for if you aren’t moving quickly enough - and there is no way to turn that cheaty feature off.
– Real player with 0.3 hrs in game
Hide and Shriek
Let me dispel some common criticisms:
-Nobody plays this game anymore
This is a halloween-themed game, so yes, for those of you complaining in June that nobody plays this game, jump in around October and you’ll get plenty of games in.
-No updates
Fuck off, this game was perfect the first time and does not need “updates”, this isn’t League of Legends
-Only one map
See above. Also, this was meant to be picked up one time a year. One map is plenty. I have a feeling the people who complain about there only being one map are the same people who only play Final Destination on Smash.
– Real player with 74.7 hrs in game
tl;dr version: Is this the kind of game you’ll play for ages and have ranked tournaments with months from now? No. Is it $5 worth of Halloween entertainment for the next month or so? Absolutely!
Hide and Shriek is a very well balanced 1v1 scarematch game where you have to either outscore or outscare (or ideally both) your opponent. The fact that resources are randomly distributed - even the runes you use to craft spells are randomly chosen at the start of the match - means that there’s no one preferred location or ideal loadout you can use. Having to continually scramble about looking for resources and never quite having the right spell components in place keeps it from being too comfortable at any point. (It is admittedly true that sometimes the RNG blesses you with abundant resources of exactly the right kind for your strategy but you can never count on this being true.)
– Real player with 16.5 hrs in game