I decided to check this game out kind of on a whim. I didn't know too much about it, other than the fact that it's on the shorter side. So I finished it in one 6 hour sitting and I'm very happy I did so.
It starts off with raindeer boy Luka mourning at his father's grave, slowly introducing the setting and the characters we'll be interacting with. All presented in a sort of Winnie the Pooh-esque illustrated storybook kind of fashion. Fitting, for a game that is in part a visual novel type of game (but also an adventure game).
My interest perked up when I realized what was going on structurally with the game. It's not just a linear story told to completion (well, kind of, but kind of not); akin to something like Detroit: Become Human there are a number of branching paths the story takes, and you unlock more options for the branches the more you explore the world. For example, walking around and exploring in Branch C might unlock a new verb to try in Branch A.
My critique of this is that while it does work well enough, it could get kind of messy sometimes to retain the knowledge of what exactly has happened in any given timeline. Questions like "Wait, did x happen in this timeline?" arose quite frequently.
Walking down all these different paths to ultimately unspool the threads of the main mystery was satisfying though, enough so that I wanted to see the story through to its conclusion in a single sitting as I said before.
It starts off with raindeer boy Luka mourning at his father's grave, slowly introducing the setting and the characters we'll be interacting with. All presented in a sort of Winnie the Pooh-esque illustrated storybook kind of fashion. Fitting, for a game that is in part a visual novel type of game (but also an adventure game).
My interest perked up when I realized what was going on structurally with the game. It's not just a linear story told to completion (well, kind of, but kind of not); akin to something like Detroit: Become Human there are a number of branching paths the story takes, and you unlock more options for the branches the more you explore the world. For example, walking around and exploring in Branch C might unlock a new verb to try in Branch A.
My critique of this is that while it does work well enough, it could get kind of messy sometimes to retain the knowledge of what exactly has happened in any given timeline. Questions like "Wait, did x happen in this timeline?" arose quite frequently.
Walking down all these different paths to ultimately unspool the threads of the main mystery was satisfying though, enough so that I wanted to see the story through to its conclusion in a single sitting as I said before.