Good first person walking sim/detective game in the vein of Firewatch, though with more engaging gameplay.
I will say that the novelty of the gameplay loop kinda wears off after the first chapter, and that I wish there were a bit more variety. You do spend the whole game placing cameras around and following squirrels through the footage. That said, it's only like 2-3 hours long, so it didn't get tiresome for me or anything.
The story is good, though I do kinda wish it had a voiced protagonist. You're very much a non-character in this, and you have no name or backstory. I get that that might've put it too close to Firewatch, but it just felt off to me, being called by the game's actual main character over the phone and listening as she has one-sided conversations. Might've felt different if I'd ever gotten to hear more than just one character's voice, even if it weren't the player character. The story itself was good and kept me engaged, but it wasn't stellar or anything.
The visuals, of course, were great. And not just aesthetically. If the game had been in a more generic, multi-colored art style, I can only imagine how much of a nightmare it would have been to track these squirrels as they scurry about, running through bushes and climbing up trees. The stylized color palettes make sure that the squirrels stand out from their environments as much as possible.
On that note, the design overall is great. The way you interact with things in the world (mainly the camper in which you conduct your research) feels so natural. There's hardly any UI, just things which diegetically exist in the world that you use in intuitive ways, mostly only using LMB. Makes me wish more games were like that. I only wish the game weren't so repetitive, because I feel that it barely taps into the potential of its mechanics.
That said, I enjoyed this very much and would recommend it to anybody who's into this sort of game.
I will say that the novelty of the gameplay loop kinda wears off after the first chapter, and that I wish there were a bit more variety. You do spend the whole game placing cameras around and following squirrels through the footage. That said, it's only like 2-3 hours long, so it didn't get tiresome for me or anything.
The story is good, though I do kinda wish it had a voiced protagonist. You're very much a non-character in this, and you have no name or backstory. I get that that might've put it too close to Firewatch, but it just felt off to me, being called by the game's actual main character over the phone and listening as she has one-sided conversations. Might've felt different if I'd ever gotten to hear more than just one character's voice, even if it weren't the player character. The story itself was good and kept me engaged, but it wasn't stellar or anything.
The visuals, of course, were great. And not just aesthetically. If the game had been in a more generic, multi-colored art style, I can only imagine how much of a nightmare it would have been to track these squirrels as they scurry about, running through bushes and climbing up trees. The stylized color palettes make sure that the squirrels stand out from their environments as much as possible.
On that note, the design overall is great. The way you interact with things in the world (mainly the camper in which you conduct your research) feels so natural. There's hardly any UI, just things which diegetically exist in the world that you use in intuitive ways, mostly only using LMB. Makes me wish more games were like that. I only wish the game weren't so repetitive, because I feel that it barely taps into the potential of its mechanics.
That said, I enjoyed this very much and would recommend it to anybody who's into this sort of game.