This game didn’t have a thread that I could find…in fact, the only mention of the game I spotted was from malkav11, who mentioned it in the March Game of the Month thread.
It probably deserves more than that, even if this game isn’t your cuppa.
I only noticed it because one of the developers at CDPR tweeted out that he was playing it. I took a look at it and was immediately captivated by the art style. It was one of those “I want to go to there” moments.
The game itself (and I can’t stress enough: DON’T LOOK FOR TRAILERS ON YOUTUBE! THEY’RE FULL OF SPOILERS!!) is pretty much right up my alley. A group of ordinary teenagers gather on an island for a fun, spooky overnight hangout. You play as Alex, a girl whose parents got divorced and whose mother recently remarried. Your new stepbrother, Jonas, is tagging along on the trip. You two don’t know each other well. Awkward.
Oh, and the island? Yeah, haunted. Totally haunted.
Most of what the game is involves unraveling stories. Sure, the big hook I guess is the mystery of the island. But there are other things to discover, like Alex’s past, Jonas’s past, their family, and other bits. The teenagers on the island all seem to have secrets from one another. Figuring those out is just as enjoyable so far as the island mystery…which is not to say that the island mystery isn’t interesting either. It is.
I guess what makes this work for me, though, is that I care about the characters, especially Alex, but also the others in a way that I think Alex would care about them. They’re interesting, funny, stupid, and wonderfully emo in the way that teenagers just are. Polygon called this Freaks & Geeks meets Poltergeist, and that’s probably not too far off. The voice acting is terrific. The cast I guess is a bunch of vets of Telltale Studio games, so they know how to do voice work for games.
The gameplay involves a lot of choices. Sometimes it’s paths to take or not take or not take at specific times. The puzzles aren’t too terribly complicated at all. In fact, for gameplay it might be a bit threadbare for folks; this isn’t the game for you if you’re looking for depth on that part. The things you do can get repetitive pretty quickly, although it’s never really a drudge.
There are some rookie developer mistakes here, too. Whomever thought I’d enjoy climbing up and down the tower multiple times? Yeah, no. One of the main mechanisms for solving puzzles isn’t very challenging, and as mentioned, it can be a bit repetitive.
So here’s the deal though. It’s a cold and windy night here on the east coast. There’s a storm howling outside, making eerie noises as the gale blows through the shutters outside. It’s the perfect kind of night for a good ghost story, and this seems like a good ghost story so far (I’m about 4 hours in.) It evokes wonderful feelings about being a teenager huddled around a bonfire with friends, surreptitiously sipping beer (and trying not to make faces), telling ghost stories and urban legends and playing truth or dare. It gets all of that so, so right.
It feels a lot like Gone Home, in a few ways. It’s obviously a different art style (but the art style here is just gorgeous; this is a beautiful game) and I think probably a different story outcome and goal, but still. The somewhat thin gameplay but wonderful storytelling that feels so real and right is what makes me think of GH when playing this.
Be curious to hear others’ thoughts on this.