I am not experienced with point-and-click adventure games, and thus found this game to be more cerebral than most other story-focused games I have played. I was often left wandering around town, clicking every dialogue option until the game gave me a hint of what I was actually supposed to be doing. I also felt that the puzzles, whilst more challenging and engaging than I would expect from something that was not a straight-up puzzle game, were at times rather obtuse and frustrating.
The main focus of the game is, of course, the story. I think it's okay. It's short, and doesn't really have a beginning or ending — it's more like a slice-of-life thing, where the characters' past is mostly left to the imagination, and the future — to speculation. The game has blatant commentary on the nature of artificial intelligence, as well as presenting a rather... unapproachable moral dilemma about the dangers of semiconductor-based technology. As someone who used an extremely complex semiconductor-based system to play the game, and is using one to write this review, I honestly could not take the arguments against technology presented in the game seriously.
The music was decent, providing a good atmosphere without particularly sticking out to me. The actual prose was fine, though lacking in the poetic flare of the likes of Disco Elysium, Planescape: Torment, or even Norco.
The game has narrative paths which define your "play style". Since this is a point-and-click adventure game, they don't really end up changing your approach to solving problems as much as they would in a game with more player agency and free-form gameplay, but it is nice to feel like there is something unique to your play style. Of course, the alignment system leaves questions, as it is usually very obvious when a dialogue is prompting you to pick a direction to nudge your alignment in (most dialogues seem to have three options, corresponding to three alignments)
Overall, I would say that the game was just fine, if not overly memorable. It did not come off as particularly ambitious in any regard. The pixel-art style seems to have been well-realised, at least.
The main focus of the game is, of course, the story. I think it's okay. It's short, and doesn't really have a beginning or ending — it's more like a slice-of-life thing, where the characters' past is mostly left to the imagination, and the future — to speculation. The game has blatant commentary on the nature of artificial intelligence, as well as presenting a rather... unapproachable moral dilemma about the dangers of semiconductor-based technology. As someone who used an extremely complex semiconductor-based system to play the game, and is using one to write this review, I honestly could not take the arguments against technology presented in the game seriously.
The music was decent, providing a good atmosphere without particularly sticking out to me. The actual prose was fine, though lacking in the poetic flare of the likes of Disco Elysium, Planescape: Torment, or even Norco.
The game has narrative paths which define your "play style". Since this is a point-and-click adventure game, they don't really end up changing your approach to solving problems as much as they would in a game with more player agency and free-form gameplay, but it is nice to feel like there is something unique to your play style. Of course, the alignment system leaves questions, as it is usually very obvious when a dialogue is prompting you to pick a direction to nudge your alignment in (most dialogues seem to have three options, corresponding to three alignments)
Overall, I would say that the game was just fine, if not overly memorable. It did not come off as particularly ambitious in any regard. The pixel-art style seems to have been well-realised, at least.