La aventura gráfica y el noir son dos géneros que combinan a la perfección, sobre todo si lo hace con el estilo y jugabilidad que muestra esta demo de Blackbone.

Estéticamente el juego es arrebatador. Tanto por el detallismo de los diferentes escenarios como por el ambiente turbio que genera a ritmo de jazz. Y en cuanto a la jugabilidad, los diálogos y puzzles dejan ver un gran cuidado y amor por la aventura clásica a la vez que añaden un par de mecánicas, como la del sigilo, que le vienen como anillo al dedo.

Directo a la lista de la compra para cuando salga.

Love yourself through the love of other. Know yourself through the small rituals of truth. We are all one - breathing in unison, rhythmically becoming. Pulsating.

Bom, como não joguei Backbone pela steam e sim pelo gamepass vou escrever uma análise aqui.

Começando que Backbone é simplesmente o melhor jogo do ano até agora disparado, sem mais nem menos, é uma mistura de misticismo, toda uma puta mitologia rica por trás do mundo do jogo, e ao mesmo tempo tudo é tão simplista, um detetive num caso de traição, é simplesmente lindo o que esse jogo consegue fazer, a arte é simplesmente de outro nível, top 3 jogos mais lindos da história, a história é absurda, todos os twists delas são sensacionais, pouco explicados, mas não precisam de explicação, me pergunto como muita gente não gostou dessa obra-prima, é simplesmente outro nível, narrativamente, artisticamente, musicalmente (assumo que esse jogo tem uma das melhores trilhas da história, é simplesmente absurdo, cada música era um arrepio diferente), o final é incrível, mas como sempre pessoal quer explicação até de porque a grama é verde, quem não consegue aproveitar um jogo desses ou não prestou atenção ou já tá morto por dentro, sinceramente, que obra incrível que a raw fury trouxe meu amigo, só uma coisa a acrescentar, o jogo é bem tristinho em alguns momentos viu, mesmo sem dublagem assumo que quase chorei, ainda mais no fim, quem é fã de disco elysium (como eu) vai amar o jogo, lembra muito.

-SPOILER-
tava revendo umas partes do jogo no youtube e me lembrei do anatoly, impressionante como o jogo consegue fazer você se sentir mal por um personagem com tão pouco tempo de tela, ainda mais que só depois de rever e lembrar de algumas coisas que tu realmente começa a ficar tristão por causa da morte dele, tipo o fato dele ter acabado de ter um filho, comemorando tudo que o filho fazia tipo sei lá, cagar (literalmente, ele fala que fica feliz dele ter feito isso em um dos diálogos), ele dizendo que era teu parceiro e que ia estampar o nome de vocês dois no mundo, saber que "você" (mais ou menos) matou o cara só te destrói ainda mais por dentro, esse jogo tem uma narrativa absurda e muito única.
Ainda tenho esperanças de que o cara que tava morto do teu lado quando te encontraram fosse o doutor lá, mas sinceramente não sei, depois da cutscene que tu meio que mata o Anatoly naquele sonho fica difícil de dizer o contrário, mas vou continuar sonhando aqui, não tem confirmação então ele tá oficialmente vivo, pronto.
-FIM DO SPOILER-


fim dos tempos, é tudo mentira. We are, we are.

I had been following this game's development and was so hyped for it to come out, but when finally playing it, I was dissappointed.

First of all, the good stuff. Writing, music, dialogue are all REALLY great. The ambience of some scenes are just amazing, very immersive.

The gameplay started out like a proper investigation game, with different ways to accomplish goals, a few puzzles, stealth sections. It was really well done, but slowly got replaced by a more linear narrative experience, with very little gameplay mechanics. I don't dislike games like that, really, but I was a little sad that the devs threw away a lot of cool concepts that worked really well.

The narrative was absolutely awesome for the first 2/3 of the game, really engaging mystery, nice themes of racism and broken people just doing what's best for them. And then the game makes a sharp turn into a whole other direction to the story and I just... I didn't like it. I'm not saying it's particularly BAD, just VERY different to the rest of the game, and the change was VERY abrupt. Some people might like this change, but it was a total letdown for me.

Overall, it's a really beautiful game, with a great start and a dissappointing ending. Play it if you like narrative games and noir themes, don't expect super deep investigation mechanics.

Good detective games are few and far between. The deductive process of interrogating witnesses, gathering evidence, and piecing together clues to arrive at a climactic whodunit conclusion is hard to pack within the confines of a game, so very few developers have given their shot at making a detective game in the decades the medium has been around. The genre flourished most during the 90s, when point-and-click MS-DOS adventure games like The Secret of Monkey Island or Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego were churned out by studios like LucasArts and Sierra Entertainment, but since then, the interest in detective media has dwindled.

Backbone, the debut game from Vancouver, BC studio EggNut, tries to live up to the legacy of these older games by spinning a tale of noir intrigue. The game is set in a futuristic version of Vancouver, where sci-fi experimentation and dystopia clash with a rich backdrop of noir-inspired architecture. Art Deco theaters and cafes shimmering with neon lights intersperse neighborhoods and slums containing abandoned apartment buildings and decaying shacks, while the background reveals a host of gigantic skyscrapers and dystopian monuments to the Apes—this Vancouver’s upper class—adding a dash of Bradbury to this otherwise Columbo-esque tale.

Backbone is but one of the latest pieces of mystery media to utilize anthropomorphic animals as its cast, with the game drawing inspiration from the comic series Blacksad and seedy detective serials of the previous century. You play as Howard Lotor, a raccoon and private investigator who takes on the case of finding a man suspected of cheating. It doesn’t take long to get wrapped up into a world of seedy conspiracy enveloped in cannibalism, political espionage, vice, classism, and a generous side of intrigue to keep the plot going. In standard noir fashion, Howard acquires a sidekick—the mysterious fox Renee, who’s penning a novel on political corruption and needs his help to expose the city’s hotbed of corporate cahoots.

There’s no undercutting how fantastic this game’s world and tone are. The architectural clash between glitzy towering high-rises and archaic brownstones is reminiscent of Bioshock, revealing a city that aimed for greatness but gave up halfway there. In classic dystopian fashion, Vancouver is surrounded by a border wall that hides a mysterious outside world from view. Although Backbone doesn’t entirely commit to its noir aesthetic, its characters certainly do: Lotor is a solipsistic antihero without a future, and Renee is a mysterious broad without a past. The game is shrouded with mystery, and slowly peels away the layers of its world like an onion as you progress through the story.

The aesthetics are where the game shines the most—outside of seedy, pulpy noir roots, the game features stunning art direction and a slick, engaging soundtrack. Pixel art has never looked this beautiful, with sharp, refined buildings and backgrounds dominating the screen, constructing a huge sense of scope and space. When the game zooms closer in, the characters appear delightfully crunchy and pixelated, appropriately shrinking down the game's scale when inside buildings or rooms.

Unfortunately, despite a menagerie of gorgeous artistic locales, it doesn’t take long for Backbone to wear itself thin. Areas often consist of a dozen or more buildings, but rarely can you enter even one or two of them. The pixelated sheen of Vancouver-inspired architecture starts to wear away, revealing a series of concrete facades. The choice-based dialogue system deprecates into a very linear sequence of stock dialogue choices, and despite the game’s array of diverse and eclectic NPCs, each of them talk and act the same, causing conversations to become tepid and artificial.

Backbone started out as a Kickstarter game, and it drew in appeal due to its gorgeous art and its promise of being a true detective game that allowed players to make choices that would significantly change the narrative of the story and pitted them against puzzles that would require them to think deductively. In reality, Backbone is as painfully linear as a game can get. There are no choices that change or impact the game, and there aren’t even puzzles or gameplay elements that allow you to feel like a detective. Looking back at the game’s original promises, it’s palpable that a lot of content was cut—original gameplay footage featured combat, chases, and complex stealth mechanics, none of which made it into the final release.

Despite what its name would lead you to believe, Backbone is a game that lacks backbone—it lacks structure, it lacks focus, it lacks a hook. A good mystery needs time to stew, as all the intrigue, drama, and excitement sits and thickens in the pot. Backbone lasts only about four hours, which is nowhere near long enough for its ideas to settle into something discrete. The first three-fourths of this private eye romp are worth wading through shoddy mechanics and gameplay for, but once you hit the three hour mark, the game desperately tries to rush towards an ending by cramming in a sci-fi conclusion that feels more District 9 than it does The Long Goodbye.

If you’re hankering for a detective game you might as well give it a shot, but Backbone ends up feeling more like an undercooked appetizer than a delicious and filling entree.

Detective adventure game set in a dystopian city populated by anthropomorphic animals with the animal species acting as a class divide. Beautiful art work and animations, well written, good music. Does a good job at world building for its short length. No real puzzles or item interaction after the first of the game's five acts, so it's primarily narrative focused. When it gets to act three the game starts to feel very rushed, there's a huge shift in a lot of what is going on followed by an abrupt ending. Still worth a look.

Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1487550770568302593

Mi sa che 'sta gente qui che ne sta parlando non ha capito un cazzo. Non solo la ramificazione dei possibili modi di affrontare i dialoghi o specifiche situazioni è, in realtà, tutta apparenza (il gioco è estremamente lineare e una seconda partita non permette di scoprire assolutamente nulla che non si fosse già appreso già con la prima), ma tutto quello che questa avventura narrativa ha da offrire è la veste grafica, che riesce effettivamente a essere spettacolare.

Ogni singolo luogo è, infatti, ricco di dettagli e particolari che riescono a renderlo unico: la pixel-art è di altissima qualità e molti degli oggetti e personaggi di sfondo hanno una brevissima animazione in loop con cui riescono, assieme alla presenza di lens flare, nebbia volumetrica, superfici riflettenti e di un sistema di illuminazione dinamico e realistico, a rendere l'immagine sempre interessante, viva e mai banale.

Il character design dei personaggi è ben realizzato e, per quanto semplice, riesce a restituire bene l'identità di ciascuno di essi (anche grazie all'adozione di un determinato lessico anziché un altro). Nessuno di essi sarà mai presente per più di 5-10 minuti su schermo, fatta eccezione per il protagonista, ma saranno comunque più che sufficienti perché la personalizzazione possa aver luogo. Purtroppo, non riescono comunque a restituire la sensazione di trovarsi in una città viva e attiva.

Implementate la possibilità di arrampicarsi su specifiche pareti, e di rannicchiarsi per completare brevi sezioni stealth estremamente basilari. Purtroppo, nessuna di queste due aggiunte arricchisce davvero il gameplay in quanto avvengono molto raramente e in nessun momento particolare o memorabile.

Purtroppo, narrativamente il gioco è ricco di scelte di dialogo poco sensate e mai profonde (ovvero che permettano almeno di approfondire il mondo di gioco - sarà però possibile approfondire aspetti della loro personalità, parti della loro biografia, e/o delle relazioni tra di essi, ma quasi tutti i personaggi saranno presenti su schermo per un tempo insufficiente a che possano diventare effettivamente interessanti). C'è di buono che il dialogo (come confidenzialità e tono) evolve a seconda dell'opzione scelta e generalmente non si potranno pronunciare frasi che poco hanno a che fare con quella selezionata immediatamente prima.

Anche la sceneggiatura dei singoli dialoghi è di qualità altalenante e inconsistente, e dopo il prologo va tutto scemando e banalizzandosi. Sarà molto frequente trovarsi in situazioni in cui si avrà la sensazione di esser andati avanti troppo rapidamente nel corso di un singolo dialogo. Un'ispirazione ai cRPG (come da descrizione) si può effettivamente notare in alcune scelte, ma, pur volendo considerare la breve durata del gioco, non raggiunge mai la qualità della scrittura di un Disco Elysium (volendo prendere un caso analogo degli ultimi anni, e cui Backbone si ispira abbastanza chiaramente vista la presenza - inconsistente - di dialoghi interni del protagonista durante i quali si manifestano pensieri intrusivi), neanche lontanamente.

Molto bizzarro che sia presente letteralmente UN solo puzzle in tutto il gioco, e per giunta nel prologo (gratis dal 2019, praticamente): gli sviluppatori avranno pensato di inserirlo lì per stuzzicare l'interesse degli acquirenti?

La OST è ben realizzata, e ha una buona durata (quasi due ore) rispetto alla lunghezza complessiva del gioco (poco più del doppio). Purtroppo, in alcune situazioni finisce con l'appiattire le scene di cui è accompagnamento in cui non vi è variazione di tono o di stile. Inoltre, in molte situazioni è totalmente assente, così come qualsiasi effetto sonoro: vista la mancanza di doppiaggio, il gioco finisce con l'essere fin troppo silenzioso durante molti dialoghi chiave, rendendo estremamente piatta l'esperienza.

A thrilling detective tale of a city plagued by corruption, and a PI too cowardly to stand up in open defiance of it.

The writing is spectacular. Every single twist and turn creating a new gasp as the story reaches new heights.

Typically Adventure games such as this have me wishing they were shorter. But all I crave now is more from Backbone.

first, i want to get this out of the way: the art is great, the music is perfect. most of the writing is good, and i appreciate that the dialogue options were often pretty varied in terms of what type of howard you're going to be. most of the real-world themes it tackles are handled with care, if not always gracefully, and i think all the concepts for its worldbuilding are cool, if not entirely unique. the blend of concepts, i feel, is pretty unique. there's a lot going on in the background.

this is a tricky one to rate, because there are sections of it that feel so at odds with each other. i respect the ambition in terms of how many topics and tones they touched on. i'm not sure it gels into a cohesive experience for me, but i really want to talk about all the sections. i'll keep spoilers to a minimum, but there's obviously structural spoilers since that's most of what i'm thinking about.

it opens as a detective adventure game, has two or three very short stealth sections (which are so easy you'd be hard-pressed to fail them on your first try). i like this section, it's very classic noir, and the mystery it sets up is pretty compelling. it takes you to some beautiful settings

after some time, probably halfway through my playthrough, it completely changes tone and gameplay. i think this starts out as an interesting change, but doesn't stick the landing toward the end. i really like the section in the camp, aside from having a popular twitter/streamer personality hanging out which kind of broke my immersion and felt a little out of place. not a huge deal. i really liked the focus on participating in a found community, and it treated the subject matter in a way i thought was humanizing without being patronizing necessarily. it's not perfect, but i appreciate that it went there and didn't fuck up.

after that, however, you go to a lab, where the scenes mostly take place in a single tiny room. by now the tone has shifted so drastically from where we started that i wonder where it's going, and if i'm playing the same game at all. not necessarily in a good way.

then there's the epilogue, which sets up what *i think could be a really interesting sequel. but is this game*, on its own, a satisfying and complete package? i can forgive a cliffhanger (and i am looking forward to a sequel, if they make one), but i feel like a lot of the plot threads lacked the closure they were owed.

i think my biggest issue here is that it feels pretty rushed toward the end. i only encountered bugs at the end, i found that the gameplay and setting were monotonous and sparse for the last couple hours, and it feels like the focus on setting up a sequel was to distract from not knowing how to wrap up the other plot points. the ending sequence, while beautiful, didn't really punch me in the gut like i think it wanted to.

do i recommend this game? yes, i think this is worth your time, just know it's an uneven experience and writes some checks that end up bouncing. i think there are sections that i'd rate 2/5 and sections i'd rate 4/5, so make of that what you will, but don't let a lukewarm review scare you away, this game has ambition and heart, and i really want to play a sequel someday.

moody and atmospheric narrative game that starts as a furry neo-noir for its first few chapters, then takes a hard swerve into very different genre territory. Story doesn't ultimately cohere and leaves far too many unanswered questions, and there's definitely the sense that what released was cut down significantly from a more ambitious earlier vision (the description on this very page, taken from the 2018 Kickstarter, indicates that stealth and action elements were intended to play a major role, but in the final game, they only factor into the first chapter; the rest is overwhelmingly narrative-driven with a tiny bit of puzzle-solving here and there). still, there's great atmosphere, beautiful pixel art, and some intriguing ideas in the story; I just wish it could have delivered on more of the vision set out in the original Kickstarter pitch.