Of Streets and Secrets

I very much enjoyed the narrative that is established here, and the way the choices are designed certainly encourages replayability. I’m thinking primarily of the character creation aspects, the effects of which I felt could have been explored a bit more throughout the experience. The voice acting is also strong and thoroughly complements the imagery that the prose seeks to bring to life.

As far as my playthrough was concerned, I wish there had been a bit more leeway in avoiding player death, as choice design in a certain section caused certain combinations of choices to lose some of their meaning and impact. It’s a cool concept overall though!

I loved the option to choose the character’s background, and it would be even cooler to have options that flesh out that aspect in more detail. It seems like other people are also mostly drawn to the role-playing aspect of this game, so it would be awesome to see this developed further. The response and action choices could also have more weight so that they feel more meaningful. Overall, it’s a great concept I would love to see developed even more. And as much as I may agree at time, perhaps we can avoid calling children “it” 😅

The story is well-written (though I noticed a few minor slip-ups) and immersive, the voice acting is good and the stakes are high. It drew me in and made me care about the outcome.

It was nice that dying resulted in an opportunity to go back to a point of my choosing in the story. However, after dying several times, I still reached an undesirable ending. I decided to replay the story, and it took me several tries to finally save John.

Trying to get to the good ending, I noticed something. Yes, my choices had consequences, but they were not always logical and seemed random at times.

For example, during the investigation, a player has a choice where to start. Choosing one of the options will result in the rest of them becoming unavailable, though there is no narrative reason for that — the player could easily continue the investigation, but they aren’t given the option. I realized that I couldn’t save John because I didn’t have the necessary information, which was only possible to get if I started the investigation from another option. There was no logic to that.

And then, I was at a place where I had John and a thing necessary to save him in a moment of temporary safety, but the game still wouldn’t give me a chance to do it. I had to make a series of specific and random choices to get to the branch where saving him was possible.

This is the reason for 4 stars. The logic of the game could be improved. I’d prefer choices and their consequences to be more clear. Some randomness is fine, but not in these crucial moments.

This story really lets you immerse yourself in its world. You get to choose who you are and how you approach solving the mystery of your missing friend. The world feels alive with distinguishable characters in it and your choices truly affect the outcome of the story – there are consequences for your decisions, and that makes it so much more engaging and thrilling to play, boosting its replayability along the way.

I really enjoyed the role playing elements of the story and the story itself. I also really appreciated that the consequences carried a lot of visible weight with them. I often even replayed certain sections, to see where a different decision would lead me.