Recent reviews by Half Dragoness

My secret word was Trusting.
Patiently waiting to see if this all fits together.

My secret word was Accomplish.
Is that good?

My secret word is Angel.
But it's not so secret now I've told everyone.

Game is a lot of fun, soundtrack is incredible, Pedro is the friend I wish I had in real life, this game makes way more sense if you imagine the main character is deadpool!
10/10

This game has been on my wishlist for a while and I brought pretty much as soon as it came out. I didn't really know what to expect from it so I went in fairly open minded. I think a lot of the reviews here are a bit harsh given that the production team that made this game is one person.

It's not 100% a game, it's more like a story of which you experience it at your own pace. And by that I mean it's less like The Stanley Parable in which the player has a lot of control, can affect the story, the narrator and the endings, it's more like, the same creator as The Stanley Parable's other game: The Beginner's Guide. You can't change the story at all, but you are needed by the characters within the game to advance the story.

The characters talk to you, each other, and other elements of the game. For example the Loading System has a very distinct personality later on. There is plenty of breaking the forth wall, with all the characters knowing that they are trapped inside a game and wanting to be free. A lot of the negative reviews here are negative because of the long cut-scenes and unskippable speech, which if you are trying to race through this as a game would definitely be frustrating and boring. However if you let it play out a bit more like you're watching a film it's much more enjoyable. The only time it is actually annoying is at the final boss, there's a hefty chunk of speech that you have to sit through every time you die and have to try again.

I think it also seems like there isn't much in the game, but what is there is so well done. Each character speaks with their own distinct font and colour. The pace at which the text appears on the screen is the same as if someone were actually speaking. Text appears rapidly when a character is excited, and there are pauses between words when they're delivered with gravitas. Sometimes the speech spills over the screen edges which draws attention to the boundaries of the game.

Each character is made of simple shapes and eyes, or eye, and these are animated perfectly. I think the Creator has surprised us all with just how many emotions you can convey with just a square, two eyes, and some font. The way the game feels to move around is done so well that you can overlook it. In that way that we all notice when a game feels 'bad' to play but when it's done well it becomes invisible unless you look for it.

The rest of the game is a brilliant paradox. It draws attention to all the elements that make up a game like the graphics, the sound, the physics, the amount of control the player has, the amount of control the characters have etc.... but you also play the whole time knowing that you can't really break the graphics engine and still play the game. As the player you are regularly confronted with what you can and can't control in a subtle way. When control is taken from you you still find yourself pressing all the buttons to see what you can affect. There are lots of things to discover and plenty of encounters with NPC's. I'm not going to lie, but the CopyCat NPC definitely reminded me of the attachment the player experiences to the Companion Cube in Portal. I spent a lot more time than actually necessary moving around so I could take it with me even though I was aware that it wouldn't actually change anything.

The core of this game is:
'What if characters in games were sentient, and were aware of the player'
'Where are the edges of a game?'
'Can you 'break' a game?'

The only other negative thing I have to say about the game is that if you finish it and you want to start again, You can't. Unless you go into your local files and delete your savegame data.
I also discovered there's a level editor in there. Which I haven't really done anything with but I imagine there's a lot of scope for creativity there with some people.

And yes, even if Kevin isn't 'real' he's a bit real to me :)

10/10

I grew up watching my mum playing the Myst series which I then went on to play myself, even the original Myst in its tiny screen resoultion. I'm just mentioning this so that you would know this is not the first Cyan game I've played, and that I'm aware of the role Myst played in shaping what a video game can be.

So to Obduction:
Absolutely 100% Fantastic! The game is vsually stunning which makes it a total pleasure to walk around in. The random chunks of different pieces of planet next to each other is both eerie and fascinating.
I love that the story isn't completely in your face, you kind of discover it through bits and pieces and uncover it at your own pace.
This game challenges the way you think about space (not outer space) and the way spaces can fit together.
The other main thing I have to say about this game is that once again Rand and Robyn Miller have demonstrated exellent story telling, absorbing game play, plausible puzzles and beautiful music. And not only have they done all these things but they've balanced them perfectly. And I think that is one of the greatest selling points to me, that each puzzle isn't shouting at you 'I'M A PUZZLE, SOLVE ME,' they are worked into the world in an entriely plausible manner.

The atmosphere of this game (along with all the Myst games) is something is really love and identify with. It's this slightly errie, disturbing feeling of visitting places where people once were but aren't any more. It's a constsantly deserrted feeling with thes sense that living creatures aren't that far away but you never see them.

I have only one problem with one of the puzzles in this game (Spoilers):
It was the lift in the mayors office puzzle, I have 2 problems with this puzzle, the first being that I definately understood the clue 'Under the direction of our first mayor' and I definately found a compass with a post-it-note on the bottom, but the font of the mayors name on the box is basically unreadable unless you already know what it says. My second problem with this puzzle was partly ignorance on my part and partly a cultural dfference in that in the uk our liscence plates just have the liscence number on them. I didn't know (though retrospecitively it's kind of obvious) that in U.S. there are states on the liscence plate as well as the number. This was the only puzzle I had to find a hint for which kind of interrupted the immersion.

I also feel kind of sad that I couldn't offer any help to the injured Villein, but for my own peace of mind I will assume Farley and the others offered help.

Overall, definately a soulbindingly mindblowing experience of a game. 10/10 will reccomend of a bunch of other people I know. :)