Reviews from

in the past


This game is really weird. I couldn't bring myself to finish the second level. The first level did really grip me, but the second lost me so damn fast. There's some great ideas here, they just desperately need better writers and, tbh, a fully voiced dialogue suite.

I don't recommend playing it unless you check out the demo and you’re extremely into it — because sadly the game gets worse the further you get.

The positives are a very good art direction, and some stunning environmental work. The game serves as a great showcase of what the studio can build in Unreal, and it almost seems intentional that by building different games inside of Gamedec, Anshar is basically proving their versatility and attention to detail in creating unique levels. It's a great "hire us" pitch, I'll admit.

The negatives are the narrative, the dialogue and some very basic quest design. The lore is so unnecessarily complicated for a game that has very little new to say. The main ideas of each level are explained in one line in a trailer they made 3 years ago. Everything else is filler, and it increases in quantity and stupidity the further you're in the game. By the end I couldn't care less about the main plot and the protagonist. There's also a lack of good secondary characters, so it's very hard to stay invested.

Gamedec is disappointing because it had a good premise and the art and production chops to pull it off. A narrative game lives and dies by its writing, though, and here it went from basic but serviceable to bad and boring.

Interesting idea, but the execution is lacking. The writing is not good, which is needed in a game like this where gameplay is basically non-existent. Finished the first case and I'm honestly never going back.

I covered this game as part of my coverage of the Humble Choice for June 2022

A great elevator pitch, but only that.

Here’s the idea, you’re a game detective, and you’re going to go into multiple different video games and solve crimes in a futuristic cyberpunk world. That sounds great, and I’ll even ignore the fact that it’s a point-and-click adventure game rather than an action game or anything else. There was a good concept at the core here.

The problem is that Gamedec tries to highlight its writing as a major element and pushes the player to appreciate the vast quantities of dialogue. This isn’t Disco Elysium, but it’s trying to be Disco Elysium at times. The problem is that it is blunt with its exposition. It feels more like a thirteen-year-old chuckling about the ability to discuss adult games than an interesting depiction of whatever subject matter it’s trying to reach, and oftentimes wants to just drop strange words when a better term exists. Why call yourself a Gamedec if Game Detective exists and you have to say that often enough. For an example of the writing, the very first case involves a son of a powerful exec that’s currently been on a multi-day bender in the virtual world with an erection. And that’s delivered far more bluntly than you can imagine.

Pick this up if you like poor translations, or potentially know a different language. The studio is in Poland, and I see a lot of Italian and Polish sites rate this game higher than others. It’s likely a translation issue that puts the game in the state it’s in, but it’s still in a state that is hard to accept as is if you’re going to play it in English.

If you want to see the video this was taken of, or more from me on the Humble Choice or Game Pass, check out: https://youtu.be/NPxN2M0c65w


Isometric RPG where you play the role of a Gamedec, a detective that goes into virtual game worlds to look into private or crime-related cases for people. Gain four types of personality aspects from choices that can be converted to following four different profession trees that give you more active and passive interactions and observations.

Decent writing with an interesting setting and set up where your job types give a lot of focus to the digital world letting you do things like hack parts of games to benefit you, create new code, influence emotions with ads, knowledge of medical and body language, becoming a Youtube/Twitch/Podcast/etc style personality where people can be influenced with your real-world fame, etc. In most games, as you progress the early jobs in the tree would become obsolete but the game frequently has uses for everything, some options just need you to make more correct decisions depending on what you are interacting with or having other complications. The setting also allows some commentary and
situations dealing with how people and corporations use games.

You gain notes on people you meet and clues related to your investigations, you then can see those clues tied to related thoughts in a deductions tree where you try to reach the logical conclusion to different thoughts relating to your cases. Once you lock in a choice it can then be used in dialogue options or certain moments to move your case forward. There are moments when these choices can change what goes on next in the game. It's a cool idea and works well with the style of the game but meaningful changes are mostly limited to the first two areas for the biggest effect and unfortunately being wrong doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things, and the conclusions to your cases don't really matter.

Little reason for replay as everything basically leads to similar results, doing things wrong can happen but you don't really suffer for it later, and allies you can make don't really end up being able to make any kind of meaningful difference in future sections. Sudden ending with let down final areas. Takes a mostly uninteresting and now cliché twist near the end, that could have had some interesting results with the path the game takes but never is able to capitalize on it in an interesting way before the abrupt end.

Some minor bugs and likely translation issues though I ran into nothing major, game-breaking, or too confusing not to be able to figure out.

It makes for an enjoyable enough playthrough and has some good ideas, but never is able to make the best use of its mechanics and setting.

Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1517969311024836608

it soft locked on me I think near the end

I enjoyed it for what it is but it is too out there for me so I mostly felt lost throughout.

Poor execution, lackluster writing and confusing game design make for a cyberpunk cRPG I couldn't stick with after the first chapter.

Conceptually it is interesting but it can't even get the takeoff correctly to warrant looking at the landing.

A good game, the scenarios are great, and really cool the mechanics, not an original story with damn bangers sides wow, but its cool, if you like cyberpunk shit and rv things.

Gamedec is a neat little detective CRPG without any combat. The world and its games are nicely designed with some nods to existing game types like farming games and such. Just be prepared to read a lot. Next to the conversations and decisions, there is a cool conclusion system in which you can decide what clue to follow. This affects further decisions and possible answers in the many, many dialogues. The game oozes that cyberpunk atmosphere and opens up a lot of questions about what is humanity, what is a person and so on. There are even some cool twists along the road. At some points, the story gets a tad convoluted and unnecessarily complicated but most of the time it is pretty easy to follow. Unfortunately, you'll be through the game in about 6-7 hours. But the journey was fun.

An interesting indie narrative-driven investigation cRPG with a cyberpunk setting. Story has ups and downs but ultimately the end is strong and worth playing through the game to experience some interesting plots.
Gameplay is basically reading and investigating to find clues and make determinatinos to solve cases that occur both in the real world and a virtual world.
Writing in the game is not perfect but overall fairly good considering the indie nature of the game. No voice acting (not even partial) is available for this game. Recommended if you can find this on sale.

Do not ever play this game.

In the end you have 6 choices, and if you commit a single mistake, you can only have a bad choice.

Stay far away from Anshar Studios, terrible, terrible design.

You are punished for playing the game.


Game lives or dies on the quality of the areas and writing, and it really doesn't do much for me outside of the first area. It took me like 10-11 hours to beat and it became a giant slog at the end.

Starts off very strong and takes a nose dive after the first area.