I can't rate this game because I can't tell you if its good or not. I don't know how to rate this game. I don't know how to define this game.
The cyberpunk mystery centers on Karl Carbon, a gritty ex-cop turned social worker who manages various child protection cases involving robots and hybrid creatures. His first scene involves him smoking an e-cigarette, which immediately informs him he’s “out of smoking credits for the day.” He bitterly remarks "damn social justice AIs."
Fearing the worst from that line, I start to plan to close the game as soon as the cutscene ended. But then the cutscene progresses to Karl's daily work. A robot is in line to receive assistance. She needs support so she can get a job and move into better housing. The clerk informs the robot that she needs to get better housing if she's going to get assistance. The robot complains: this is a catch-22. She can't get assistance until she's already on assistance. A security guard immediately proclaims that he's been approved to use lethal force and pulls out his gun. Karl complains: "its these kind of trigger happy idiots that I had to leave the force to begin with." The puzzle involves using your taser on the security guard and letting the robot escape before she gets killed. The sequence was so intriguing, I decided to stick with the game a little longer.
The game jump between these weird extremes a lot. Karl travels to a robot neighborhood, which is AGGRESSIVELY black coded and full of misused AAVE. At the same time, research informed me that the creator is a Native Hawaiian social worker/STEM robotics teacher. Even if the robot = people of color cliche makes me uncomfortable, I don't think I have the place to comment on it when the creator is distinctly non-white.
In the middle of that, you get a minigame where you complete a CPS checklist. The home you're vising violates every health protocol in the book, but you can tell the family is trying their best to offer their kids the support they can afford. You can choose to look the other way and let them live in peace. There's no reward for this and the game's events make the choice meaningless soon after. It doesn't do it to make the protagonist or the player feel good about themselves. It just offers the possibility and leaves the player to determine their beliefs. Its a genuine sincerity in a game that came off kind of edgelordy at first. Karl has no quips that permeates most of his dialogue. He's quiet, gentle, and doing his job.
Oh, also, the robot father in that scene is a Terminator. Like, traced over art of a Terminator.
The game never stops with strange swerves and decisions. A human-squid hybrid girl reading Das Kapital on a street corner. A (white) socialist princess who's time traveled from the future to prevent feudalism from taking over again. One of the final scenes is a rich woman complaining that she won't be able to afford riding her mutant pegasus if she has to pay taxes. Weird pop culture references, stolen art. LONG monologues about the failures of bureaucracy in social work and how the rich profit from it all. It keeps throwing whatever idea it has right at your face, without stopping to breathe. Its an assault to the senses. It has some of the worst voice acting I've ever heard. Its art style is aggressively post-modern and absurdist, sometimes to its detriment. I lost track of the factions and manipulations the second time travel entered the equation. I don't know if I could rec it in good conscience. I think I kind of loved it? Its charming, from a distance. There's an infectious glee it takes in its absurdist, slapdash aesthetic. It has strong beliefs about social structures and oppression and that's more than I can say about some other cyberpunk stories I've encountered.
What an experience.
The cyberpunk mystery centers on Karl Carbon, a gritty ex-cop turned social worker who manages various child protection cases involving robots and hybrid creatures. His first scene involves him smoking an e-cigarette, which immediately informs him he’s “out of smoking credits for the day.” He bitterly remarks "damn social justice AIs."
Fearing the worst from that line, I start to plan to close the game as soon as the cutscene ended. But then the cutscene progresses to Karl's daily work. A robot is in line to receive assistance. She needs support so she can get a job and move into better housing. The clerk informs the robot that she needs to get better housing if she's going to get assistance. The robot complains: this is a catch-22. She can't get assistance until she's already on assistance. A security guard immediately proclaims that he's been approved to use lethal force and pulls out his gun. Karl complains: "its these kind of trigger happy idiots that I had to leave the force to begin with." The puzzle involves using your taser on the security guard and letting the robot escape before she gets killed. The sequence was so intriguing, I decided to stick with the game a little longer.
The game jump between these weird extremes a lot. Karl travels to a robot neighborhood, which is AGGRESSIVELY black coded and full of misused AAVE. At the same time, research informed me that the creator is a Native Hawaiian social worker/STEM robotics teacher. Even if the robot = people of color cliche makes me uncomfortable, I don't think I have the place to comment on it when the creator is distinctly non-white.
In the middle of that, you get a minigame where you complete a CPS checklist. The home you're vising violates every health protocol in the book, but you can tell the family is trying their best to offer their kids the support they can afford. You can choose to look the other way and let them live in peace. There's no reward for this and the game's events make the choice meaningless soon after. It doesn't do it to make the protagonist or the player feel good about themselves. It just offers the possibility and leaves the player to determine their beliefs. Its a genuine sincerity in a game that came off kind of edgelordy at first. Karl has no quips that permeates most of his dialogue. He's quiet, gentle, and doing his job.
Oh, also, the robot father in that scene is a Terminator. Like, traced over art of a Terminator.
The game never stops with strange swerves and decisions. A human-squid hybrid girl reading Das Kapital on a street corner. A (white) socialist princess who's time traveled from the future to prevent feudalism from taking over again. One of the final scenes is a rich woman complaining that she won't be able to afford riding her mutant pegasus if she has to pay taxes. Weird pop culture references, stolen art. LONG monologues about the failures of bureaucracy in social work and how the rich profit from it all. It keeps throwing whatever idea it has right at your face, without stopping to breathe. Its an assault to the senses. It has some of the worst voice acting I've ever heard. Its art style is aggressively post-modern and absurdist, sometimes to its detriment. I lost track of the factions and manipulations the second time travel entered the equation. I don't know if I could rec it in good conscience. I think I kind of loved it? Its charming, from a distance. There's an infectious glee it takes in its absurdist, slapdash aesthetic. It has strong beliefs about social structures and oppression and that's more than I can say about some other cyberpunk stories I've encountered.
What an experience.
2 Comments
Yeah, its that passion that makes me kind of adore it. The guy committed truly loved what he was making and you can tell.
vehemently
2 years ago
Really sounds like one of those games that more than anything shows a passion and vision for their craft, even if it ends up being a mess. I think we should all have a soft spot for that.