迷雾之夏-The Vigilant Villa
I saw reviews here and it got me interested in the game, I also like detective mystery game so I was excited for it. Overall I enjoyed the game. The characters are varied and I liked the music as well. However, while I was enjoying it at the start, I begin to have mixed feeling for it towards the end. I recommend people to play this definitely, it may be me only getting the mixed feeling, and this part is also enjoyable as well. This may be in spoiler territory so i put the spoiler tag below.
– Real player with 26.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Mystery Atmospheric Games.
It was difficult for me to decide whether to recommend the game or not. The game is very good and one of my favorite detective games. The atmosphere is good, puzzles are challenging and fun, the story is interesting too (even if the translation is a bit rough at times).
But the DRM (?) can be really awful. Sometimes it would not let me play the game at all, it said “Login from a different location”. Sometimes it let me play the game just fine. My internet connection is fine. Is it because I’m on wi-fi? Other people seem to have this bug as well.
– Real player with 20.8 hrs in game
Crossword City Chronicles
Addiictive and not what I expected! Would recommend
– Real player with 28.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Mystery Text-Based Games.
Very simple game - quite repetitive as well. Admired the difficulty curve but ultimately very easy to get all of the Achievements. The same characters keep popping up every so often so it lacks variety in that area as well. I give it a 6 / 10
– Real player with 23.2 hrs in game
SELF
SELF – An Ambitious and Surreal Text Adventure
SELF is a Kafkaesque text-based adventure that unfolds on an interactive CRT screen. The game claims to draw inspiration from titles such as Undertale and Just Shapes & Beats, striving to combine text-based narrative and choices with a variety of gameplay mechanics.
It is a decent interactive fiction that will provide around two hours of gameplay. The game has an interesting albeit confusing storyline that successfully captures the player’s attention. However, it oversells itself with exaggerated claims of puzzles and bullet hell sections, which although fun, are not overly challenging and often feel like a side note that would be better marketed as a unique take on decision making in games. I would recommend the game as a narrative experience, particularly to fans of text-based adventures, but would ward off anyone looking for more action-packed or high octane gameplay.
– Real player with 3.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Mystery Indie Games.
Very creative and dreamlike with enough nudges to help you find all of the narrative branches without taking away the mystery. Very unique narrative and I would love to see more like this.
– Real player with 3.1 hrs in game
Tales of the Mirror
Bless whoever come up with this art style! I’m rarely play game like this because it such a pain to go here and there asking, and can only save after you finish a day, so if you mess up you have to replay EVERY step. And go through so much other pain just to finish this, like watching Chinese playthrough, draw every words in gg trans when I get stuck, hoping to find the clue to continue. I wish the developer give or sell the complete guide, I want to max trust with Nan Chau, help Ko Yuh-hung and San-niang be friend etc T.T
– Real player with 61.8 hrs in game
The art is pretty good but the story is not attractive anymore. The logistic of each evidence is not strong enough and there has time limit for player, so there is no time to enjoy.
– Real player with 14.8 hrs in game
Sheng Tian (升天) - Episode 1
Really creative game for learning. Kinda feels a bit like Myst, very laid back and relaxing but also a productive way to spend some time learnign some new characters. I’ve been learning Chinese for a few months now and this game reflects that skill level, it is for beginners for sure. I do wish the puzzles were a bit more complicated and challenging but that might make it more stressful so it’s an interesting trade off. Overall the game and level design feels creative and unique. Worth the price for sure!
– Real player with 25.0 hrs in game
Pretty short, even for a first episode, and the game play was a little slow even for an educational game. Not bad, but hoping for more in the next releases. Perhaps incorporating mouse control. If you’re learning Chinese this can help break up the boring other stuff you’ll have to learn. Will update after/if episode 2 happens. Thanks for the learning game.
– Real player with 3.1 hrs in game
Don’t Forget Me
Bought it thinking it’s a cyberpunk point-and-click but it turned out to be a graphical novel with branching paths instead. I normally don’t like this genre but Don’t Forget Me is surprisingly good. It’s too short to recommend at it’s retail price, but consider picking it up when it’s on sale if you like an engaging story.
The narrative / graphical novel genre is filled with games that have poor writing that is either simplistic emotional (like To the Moon) or barely philosophical, filled with lengthy dialogues and monologues focusing on ethics and morality (like 2064: Read Only Memories). I tend to stay away from this genre for this reason. Don’t Forget Me does have some lengthy dialogues about ethics but luckily keeps it concise enough that it doesn’t completely destroy the pacing. And because of the branching paths it even has replay value.
– Real player with 6.0 hrs in game
Tl;dr: It’s a good text puzzle game with cyberpunk aesthetics, but with very heavy topics. Trigger warning for suicide, manipulation, alcohol and drug use, physical and mental violence, murder, blackmail.
This game needs a more prominent trigger warning. My original review stated that there wasn’t a trigger warning, but the devs point out that there was one on the Steam page, but it is located at the bottom with the System Requirements. I never even thought to look there, because I personally only look at the game summary and description of games. There is currently no trigger warning mentioned in the Steam page game summary, description nor in-game.
– Real player with 5.3 hrs in game
Tell Me Everything
I enjoy this game, still haven’t solved any of the variations.
There is however a lot of unnecessary clunk when picking words, for example, you have to manually click the words you already chose to un-select them, I think making Backspace undo it would be much better.
Also perhaps some better layout for the words, or what would make me even happier would be an “available” word search, type in a word and have it pop up some words that match the letters you’ve already typed in. This would really make this a lot more enjoyable for me as I find myself spending 80% of my time searching to even see if the words I want can even be used.
– Real player with 9.3 hrs in game
Tell Me Everything is a detective simulator where you are questioning 3 suspects in order to solve a murder. You basically make sentences from a word bank based on the clues that you collected. I was admittedly a little confused with the gameplay, mostly because your choices are very limited to a specific subject. So far I find that playing with hints (on) makes the experience more enjoyable. You still have to decide which suspect is guilty so having hints does not completely ruin the game, it just makes it a lot faster. If you blame the wrong character the game is over, plus you need enough evidence to support your claims or the murderer will get away. I like that uncertainty aspect, it is hard to tell if you have reached the conclusion.
– Real player with 6.9 hrs in game
WILL: A Wonderful World / WILL：美好世界
“It is said that if you write a letter to (your) god, your wishes will be granted.”
A magical pen, letters and you now can alter people’s fate. This is the job of Will and Myth, the gods in this universe: guiding 12 unique characters in solving their own personal troubles and try to give them the so-desired “happy ending”. However, is the ending truly happy?
First things first: this is not a cute game. No matter how it looks, no matter how colorful and bright the characters seem to be, “WILL: A wonderful life” is not a cute visual novel. You might feel disgusted, sad, you might even catch yourself crying when you less expect it to happen: themes like suicide, human traffic and sexual abuse, to name a few, are included in this rich visual novel.
– Real player with 35.1 hrs in game
Light Yagami- Step Aside! throws away death note
(I mean I was a better God than him with the pen and notebook in this game. ;)
Prelude: You have no memories but there is a talking dog. You are trapped in a single house, cannot get out. Out of the window you see that it is always snowing, always. It never stops. The dog tells, hey man you are a god now. So do this sh*t and that. Energized by the Osmanthus cake and tea, you do your job with no money rewards but personal happiness.
Step into the abode of this very unique, and creative visual novel and play God and change people’s fate, but don’t forget, no one knows who you are and you also don’t know. What a wonderful world indeed! Fair warning though if you are sensitive to issues concerning pedophilia, child sexual abuse, domestic violence, suicidal tendencies, harassment and stalking, you might have to turn this game down.
– Real player with 30.1 hrs in game
当火车鸣笛三秒
人贩子司马~
– Real player with 3.5 hrs in game
Dragon Island
Dragon Island is a relaxing ADV in which you will follow Henry Heimlich as he creates unforgettable memories with six other dragons on Dragon Island. You can make a lot of choices and reach different endings!
Henry Heimlich, an ordinary lifeguard, suddenly received a letter of employment from Dragon Island. Together with six other dragons, he got on a cruise ship to the island. But until they boarded the island, they had no idea what they were about to face…
In the game, use different maps to move freely throughout the island, hanging out with everyone and chat with them.
Don’t forget to check your phone, it will be updated as you explore the island!
Every evening, everyone will gather together for some intense and exciting activities, such as debating, do remember to attend!
During free exploration, you will also encounter some unexpected small tasks. Completing them will help you earn more friendships from the dragons!