The Pale Beyond was an emotionally gripping tale that didnt quite stick the landing in a few key ways. It's a survival/management game with a narrative focus, and its strengths are in presenting the player with situations that appear stressful but are navigable with good planning. I say "appear" stressful there because personally, I found the game to be too easy on normal difficulty, which undermined the narrative. It really seemed like the game expected me to get to the end with half my crew dead and the other half disloyal, but by the end of it I had only one death and all but one of my officers remained by my side. If you're experienced with management type games, I'd probably recommend playing on hard mode for the best narrative experience.
The narrative itself is solid but it's held back by a few key aspects. You play as Robin Shaw, first mate in a doomed expedition to the South Pole. It's a compelling tale, and the characters' speech gives strong vibes of 18th century adventure novels - "Treasure Island" especially springs to mind. In terms of minutia, the game's writing is quite solid. All of the major characters have solid dialogue and there are plenty of small pockets of excellent writing woven throughout the various characters' small conversations with Shaw. The overarching narrative, by contrast, feels a little sporadic. My impression is that the goal was to take a streamlined approach, cut out the fluff from the story and focus on the big dramatic moments. This works well enough early on, when there are enough periods of management and milling about with the crew that it's not really noticeable. This facade wears thin in the latter half of the game, though, as the connective tissue of management fades into the background and the story becomes a series of set pieces strung together by little to no other elements. The ending was compelling, if a little frustrating. Without spoiling anything, it ends with a partial fourth wall break that feels awkward, but at the same time I cannot call it ineffective because it did spark some imagination in me.
Beyond the aspects already listed, the game is very well put together. The visuals are often stunning, and the music and sound design work incredibly well. I found the way that portraits changed in difference scenes to adapt to the new environments to be quite endearing. Overall it's a solid game and one that I do recommend, though it's nowhere near perfect. It's definitely enough that I'll keep my eye on the future works of this team and its developers, though.
The narrative itself is solid but it's held back by a few key aspects. You play as Robin Shaw, first mate in a doomed expedition to the South Pole. It's a compelling tale, and the characters' speech gives strong vibes of 18th century adventure novels - "Treasure Island" especially springs to mind. In terms of minutia, the game's writing is quite solid. All of the major characters have solid dialogue and there are plenty of small pockets of excellent writing woven throughout the various characters' small conversations with Shaw. The overarching narrative, by contrast, feels a little sporadic. My impression is that the goal was to take a streamlined approach, cut out the fluff from the story and focus on the big dramatic moments. This works well enough early on, when there are enough periods of management and milling about with the crew that it's not really noticeable. This facade wears thin in the latter half of the game, though, as the connective tissue of management fades into the background and the story becomes a series of set pieces strung together by little to no other elements. The ending was compelling, if a little frustrating. Without spoiling anything, it ends with a partial fourth wall break that feels awkward, but at the same time I cannot call it ineffective because it did spark some imagination in me.
Beyond the aspects already listed, the game is very well put together. The visuals are often stunning, and the music and sound design work incredibly well. I found the way that portraits changed in difference scenes to adapt to the new environments to be quite endearing. Overall it's a solid game and one that I do recommend, though it's nowhere near perfect. It's definitely enough that I'll keep my eye on the future works of this team and its developers, though.