Recent reviews by ZONE BASE

basically a perfect game

✨hidden gem alert ✨

(played during the beta) SEASON is a dream game: a cycling road trip and beautiful meditation on memory, impermanence, narrative, culture, and ecology, with a gorgeous aesthetic and beautifully generative soundtrack and sound design by Spencer Doran (Visible Cloaks).

RIYL: Sable, Eastshade, Outer Wilds, Mutazione, Kentucky Route Zero

you're tasked with exploring and documenting the final days of a place on the brink of impending change through field recording (an incredible system which deserves a full review by itself!), photographing, scrap-booking in a highly customizable journal, & collecting memories from the people you meet on your cycling journey. much of the the game is optional; there are locations, side-quests, and characters which you might completely miss. the framing of the game -- being the sole record-keeper of this place and this time -- made me consider what I chose to collect and record both in-game and in my daily life.

SEASON is brimming with delicate sensuous details, layered mysteries and provocative themes, richly creative tools, and an overall contemplative vibe that invites lingering and attentive focus. my main criticism (of the beta; will update after playing the released game) is that some of the cut-scenes and dialogue edge into the overly sentimental/precious.

*highly recommend playing with a PS5 controller, if possible, for the incredible haptics implementation.*

An ambitious, flawed exploration-driven Source Engine environmental puzzler. A camera and flashlight are your main tools as you work your way through a city's crumbling infrastructure, fixing and documenting, and slowly uncovering corruption and conspiracies. There are some frustrating puzzles due to backtracking and huge maps - for which I might've given up playing if I wasn't following a guide - and collectibles which I can't imagine you could come close to completing without looking them up. But overall there's a lot here to keep your interest if you're a fan of walking sims, 1st-person puzzle games, and stacking boxes in Half Life.
(Review written most of the way through Act I)

Cozy & atmospheric one-hour experience with a GORGEOUS hazy, surreal, low-poly art style and fun secrets. Really enjoyed poking around the small but detailed environment while shopping for strange gifts (and going on a quest to locate a mysterious bathroom hidden in the basement...), soaking in the atmosphere and brilliant hand-crafted aesthetic from creator G.P. Lackey.

You can choose what to buy, chat with the shop owner, listen to different radio stations, make coffee, pet the cat, drink sodas which change the color palette for the entire game(!), discover more occult objects hidden in a back-room, and spend the good part of an hour examining surreal posters, occult iconography, unique 3D models, and weird souvenirs. The achievements are a fun guide to trying out different interactions and can all be completed in 1-2 hours. A memorable little walkabout game which I thought was well-worth the $5 price (I purchased on itch.io and received a Steam key).

Clearly a labor of love!

Recommended if you like: GNOG, Kentucky Route Zero, Tales From Off-Peak City Vol. 1, Vignettes, Firewatch, The Witness, Tacoma, etc.

A deep and lovingly-crafted ode to 90's Internet culture, wrapped up in open-ended detective and puzzle mechanics via a customizable desktop OS. Immersive world-building of an alternate retro world, complete with tons of community Zones and personal pages, downloads, over a hundred music tracks (which you can play on the in-game music player), and an evolving story where nearly every page in Hypnospace changes -- some in response to your actions. There are some well-hidden secrets and plots which are a blast to uncover over time.

Even as someone who knew they would love Hypnospace Outlaw, having grown up with 'Web 1.0' and making early Geocities/Yahoo pages, I spent a lot longer exploring every nook and cranny of Hypnospace than I thought I would! The level of detail here, encapsulating hundreds of GIFs, MIDI tracks (seriously, if this game was just a vehicle for the soundtrack, it would be worth it), and what felt like a million micro-stories of people connecting and expressing themselves online, blew me away. It's hilarious, surreal, and touching all at once.

One of the finest 0451 games in a generation!

Kentucky Route Zero is the most bewitching, intriguing, thought-provoking, and simply beautiful piece of interactive media I've come across in years. Many criticisms have been levelled against the protracted development time, which is both a weakness (unclear communication) and strength (opportunity to revisit, the release of interludes) of the episodic nature of the game. Now that 4 out of the 5 planned Acts have been released, it's a perfect time to pick it up and dig in. With the recent release of Act IV, it's clear how much care and detail has been put into each successive release - including a major revamping of the engine. Small choices and decisions from each Act carry through in unexpected ways, combining exponentially to create both subtle and major changes in each playthrough. The writing is simply great, too - probably the finest example of Telltale-style narrative choice out there. Every option you don't pick adds flavor to the world, its characters, and their motivations.

The game opens up a few times each Act, letting you explore the roads of Kentucky and the mysterious roads & rivers beneath it. Tons of hidden encounters and locations can be found in these parts, completely missable if you choose to rush through. Many places can be revisited, with some surprising changes to be found. It's really a joy to replay and uncover these secrets, choose different paths in conversations, pick up on new threads and connections each time. The game's themes of memory, loss, debt, place, identity...are really embedded everywhere you look. I get a kick out of all of the references and influences, too: historical, architectural, artistic, early poetic computation, stagecraft and set design - not pretentious, just added depth & flavor.

A Few Situations You Might Encounter Playing Kentucky Route Zero:
- Performing recorded found sounds at a theremin concert on a houseboat.
- Playing a text adventure simulating the creation of the archaic supercomputer you're playing it on.
- Picking mushrooms on an artificial island of cypress trees.
- Exploring a museum of domeciles, mostly inhabited.
- Touring a subterranean whiskey distillery underneath a church burial ground.