Recent reviews by Kitten

Barn Finders, where to start?

** Note that this review will contain spoilers but there are warnings beforehand **
((Scroll to the bottom for the TL;DR))

(I have about 18hrs logged in the game, but a good portion of those hours were spent AFK. I did finish the game)

First, I do genuinely like and enjoy this game. However, there are so many things that make this game hard to love and support. Starting with the characters, you get like 5 fully stereotyped NPCs that will bid against you, buy your stuff and sell you stuff. You have an Asian woman with quite possibly the worst voice I have /ever/ heard. It feels like a mockery of her accent. You also have a lady that is supposed to be dark and menacing (i think?) but comes off as flat and annoying. A man that is always high and whenever he buys my items he gets way to close to the camera, which is nitpicky, I know, but wow it never gets any less jarring when he comes straight at my camera. You also have some construction man that is just so loud and obnoxious when you sell him things that you consider not selling anything to him at all, not to mention the dance he does afterwards. Certainly reminds me more of a middle school kid than a grown adult.
And I get it, this game wasn't meant to have stunning character design with depth and personality, but if you're going to put specific named characters in and have them be pretty much the only people you interact with, you might as well put some effort into them or at the very least their animations.

I guess I was expecting more from this game, less "hey get this thing" and more "I heard that this foreclosed house is going up for auction as is, go check it out?" It felt a bit strange from a story perspective, how did they know that this specific thing was going to be at this specific house and at the same time, why don't they go get it themselves? I feel like this game could have been more immersive, have more jobs and give more opportunities for replay-ability if they didn't determine 12 specific plots of land to base the entire game around. At first I thought I must be just exploring a small area, this can't be the entirety of "Ameryka." But, it is. I thought this was in one state, turns out I'm traveling across the country? Either way, I can get past that, I can move on from that. Then, there's the "plot" of the game, although I'm hesitant to call it that because it barely shows itself on the "day-to-day" within the game, other than dancing Aliens that give you a poster when you drink Moonshine, a "disguised" Alien that pops up in your shop from time to time and a couple Agents that have nothing to say to you. Which, speaking of the Agents oh my god, they're so annoying when you're in your shop. People come in based on a small timer on the top left, when it runs out, some people spawn ready to buy stuff (as far as I know, there's no way to make this timer faster or for it to spawn more people in your store at once) and at that time there are 1-3 people that will be ready to purchase something at a time and when that slot is taken up by an Agent who doesn't ever freaking buy anything and just stands there asking about Aliens so you stare at him with all of the hatred in your heart until finally he leaves and the timer restarts for the next group of people. The plot felt hastily thrown together at the end, without any real closure, leaving you asking more questions than were answered and feeling all around anti-climactic and lackluster. (Spoiler) Like the thief that ended up being an Alien but nothing was ever explained about that??? Huh? What was his motive? Was the thief always an alien? Agh But, fine, whatever, it's not a story based game anyways so I guess I can move past that.

When I was spawned into the game, I saw this horrid looking old man and a decrepit plot of land overgrown by weeds and full of garbage with a worn looking store planted between a garage and a shabby "Janitor's Closet" that will serve as your house. I immediately had the thought (and hope) that I would be able to sell this land, buy a new plot with a nicer looking store etc. I thought that I could fully upgrade it off of this used-to-be farm and into somewhere with class, hygiene and customization options. Alas, my hopes were trashed when I found out that not only is there no "next store" to work towards, but the only upgrades you can make are to the walls and floors (which you have to go through the game to find designs for) as well as the shelves and stages for your stock. You can't fix the doors, the exterior, the open ceiling, or the eyesore of the posters/signs hung on the wall. You can change the posters for sure, but so many of them were in such poor taste that I practically just had the same 3 posters hanging up if I bothered to change them at all. I just wish that you had a choice to remove these signs or posters. You can't even change the desk that you stand at! It's this weak rotted desk with chipped paint and bare bones. It's got this dinosaur of a computer on it as well. I was even hoping that I could take the uncle and fix him up a bit, maybe even send him off to live somewhere else so I didn't have to be near him anymore. This game is just.. so.. redneck.. But, again, fine I can move past this.

Let's talk about how the game plays, though. First of all, it gives you almost no instruction, and maybe I didn't pay attention enough or missed something, things happen, but it.. kept.. happening. Granted I haven't been feeling my best, waiting on COVID test results as I write this. Regardless, I don't know if this was a conscious choice or if they felt it was enough information to move on. I didn't even know that you could break boxes and junk to get resources until like the 3rd or 4th barn so I'm sitting here accumulating junk that needed to be repaired and not quite understanding how to get the resources. Yeah, I figured it out, but why wasn't there a little pop-up like they had for other things saying "hey, btw! hit junk to get resources to fix your other junk!" But, I digress. The barns were all mildly interesting, I got through them all with full completion except for a couple which i just didn't care enough about the possible loot to find the last item or two. There was, however, one single barn that stood out to me and got me genuinely excited. (Spoiler ahead) The barn that had the secret bunker in it, where you had to find key cards which not only had an interesting puzzle mechanic to finding and using the cards throughout the plot of land. But, it also had a story with it! The keycards came with diary style recordings that brought you into the story of the house. So please, if more of that was added, I think that it would add a lot more drive to continue playing the game. I finished the game in somewhere around 12-14 active hours and for me, that is a very very very small amount of time, especially on a game that is regularly $20. Another thing is the dialogue and writing throughout the game. The dialogue from the NPCs drove me insane, I could barely read any of it, the emails were even worse. It was like nobody in this game could talk or act like a normal human being. Within the dialogue of the Aliens who generally spoke normally, as well as the game's instructions and guidance there were tons of spelling and grammar mistakes (I played this game in English), I understand the developers are based in Poland, but they got /so/ close with the dialogue and instructions they did make that the point gets across even while stumbling through. I feel like having a native English speaker just correct what's already there in terms of grammar and spelling would be rather easy, heck, I would even do that for them.
Another thing that irked me was the childish, low brow humor. It had me rolling my eyes at almost every moment.
TL;DR: Yes, I would recommend this game, it has potential. If the devs work hard enough to let it shine.