The Corruption Within is a psychological thriller first-person point & click adventure game set in the Victorian era, with an emphasis on strong narrative, intriguing characters and puzzle-solving.
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The Corruption Within is a kinda okay point-and-click adventure game.
Gameplay-wise, it's pretty standard. You click on stuff, get inventory items, and use them to solve puzzles. It's not the most obtuse puzzles, but there is the occasional weirdness. One problem, is that because the game is short and there aren't many puzzles, it can be way faster to trial and error through rather than think. I also don't really like having to click on something multiple times to get something useful from it.
Unfortunately, the story wasn't very compelling either, although a little bit of that is my own fault. For some reason, I thought this would be a horror thriller. It was not. There are no horror elements and that did dampen my impression of the story a bit. Aside from that, the mystery and plot are just okay. The villains don't have any interesting motives and the mystery isn't particularly compelling or suspenseful. The "plot twists" weren't very shocking and my response to all of them was: "Oh... I guess that makes sense." A lot of dialogue also feels kinda stiff. Like the writer wanted to communicate some information to the player/reader and didn't bother dressing it up to sound natural sometimes. Looking back on the story now, it feels like the whole game was written with the minimal amount of story and dialogue needed.
Ultimately, it's passable. It's a short story that I killed an hour playing. It's not bad, just completely middling. Got it on sale for $2.49 and felt it okay with that, but probably wouldn't pay full price.
Gameplay-wise, it's pretty standard. You click on stuff, get inventory items, and use them to solve puzzles. It's not the most obtuse puzzles, but there is the occasional weirdness. One problem, is that because the game is short and there aren't many puzzles, it can be way faster to trial and error through rather than think. I also don't really like having to click on something multiple times to get something useful from it.
Unfortunately, the story wasn't very compelling either, although a little bit of that is my own fault. For some reason, I thought this would be a horror thriller. It was not. There are no horror elements and that did dampen my impression of the story a bit. Aside from that, the mystery and plot are just okay. The villains don't have any interesting motives and the mystery isn't particularly compelling or suspenseful. The "plot twists" weren't very shocking and my response to all of them was: "Oh... I guess that makes sense." A lot of dialogue also feels kinda stiff. Like the writer wanted to communicate some information to the player/reader and didn't bother dressing it up to sound natural sometimes. Looking back on the story now, it feels like the whole game was written with the minimal amount of story and dialogue needed.
Ultimately, it's passable. It's a short story that I killed an hour playing. It's not bad, just completely middling. Got it on sale for $2.49 and felt it okay with that, but probably wouldn't pay full price.
A perfectly enjoyable point and click with a retro throwback style.
Its a game that runs on Aesthetic. Its pure old school point and click, from occasionally unclear directions and clicking on everything you can. Sometimes the path is straightforward, sometimes you need to hit a specific flag to activate the path, sometimes you can tell what those flags are, sometimes you can't. The greatest achievement of this game is that there's no pixel-hunting. That's one thing about retro point and clicks that I'm perfectly happy leaving behind.
The story is fine. The game never necessarily promised anything supernatural, and it was definitely filled with Evil Victorians, but its ultimate conclusion is kind of.... muted. Normally I wouldn't mind a story where there's no true villain, but its like... its more like they make it so the villain isn't culpable and it just kind of cuts away the fun of the drama. Everyone makes it out for the better and that's just sort of bleh for a game advertised as psychological thriller.
Despite all that, I just found this to be a pretty reasonable time. An hour or two with some spooks and scares and creepy Victorian fucks. Can't go wrong with that.
Its a game that runs on Aesthetic. Its pure old school point and click, from occasionally unclear directions and clicking on everything you can. Sometimes the path is straightforward, sometimes you need to hit a specific flag to activate the path, sometimes you can tell what those flags are, sometimes you can't. The greatest achievement of this game is that there's no pixel-hunting. That's one thing about retro point and clicks that I'm perfectly happy leaving behind.
The story is fine. The game never necessarily promised anything supernatural, and it was definitely filled with Evil Victorians, but its ultimate conclusion is kind of.... muted. Normally I wouldn't mind a story where there's no true villain, but its like... its more like they make it so the villain isn't culpable and it just kind of cuts away the fun of the drama. Everyone makes it out for the better and that's just sort of bleh for a game advertised as psychological thriller.
Despite all that, I just found this to be a pretty reasonable time. An hour or two with some spooks and scares and creepy Victorian fucks. Can't go wrong with that.