Though the narrative is clearly and charmingly unapologetic in its Lovecraftian roots, do not be misled, this is not a serious, nail-bitingly terrifying story. Speaking of, let’s get to the meat of the review, the writing, the story, and the choices you get to make.
Though they’re nothing exceptional, the tracks do help create a sense of atmosphere and keep the player engaged in the narrative without getting bored (not that the writing needs any help, given how entertaining the storylines are). Other than the default theme that’s always playing, there are also a few more suspenseful, chilling tracks that take over when the horror aspects of the narrative occasionally creep out (depending on how you play). The music is mainly piano-based, and there’s not a whole lot of variety. Though these are few and far between, that makes them all the more unexpected and impactful when they do make an appearance. At a few points, there are screen shakes and sound effects to complement the horror as well.įor the most part, there’s nothing else visually to speak of other than this, except for a couple of neat meta-surprises I don’t want to spoil. The character designs and their animations (which change depending on what’s going on at the moment) are especially fun and humorous and provided just the right amount of visual representation to guide the player’s sense of imagination to do the rest. In addition, the setting, environment, and characters are portrayed above the text in fun, amusingly-animated illustrations. From the crisp, satisfying page-turning animation to the yellowing pages illuminated by the flickering light of the candle, the visuals do a lot to set the tone of the game, while also getting you into that warm, comfy reading vibe. Though it’s a visually light game, the few visuals on display are beautifully detailed and complement the narrative amazingly. This isn’t just a cool gimmick but also makes the whole game feel very cohesive and polished. T he game adheres excellently to the storybook theme, making the whole game, including the Options menu, the Settings menu, etc. While there’s a bit more to talk about in this department than gameplay, The Innsmouth Case is still pretty barebones relative to most games, as like I said, the game is narrative-focused more than anything. So you can rest assured you’ll get your money’s worth, and more.
In 8 hours of playtime, I’ve only managed to unlock 6 of the 27 endings, and I’m no slow reader. It’s honestly pretty impressive the number of scenarios the writers have written, and how consistently fun and entertaining they all are. Also, like in If Found, I wish the right mouse button were used to go to the previous page, like an undo button, as I misclicked a couple of times progressing to the next page without having read the previous one. Still, I do wish there were a quicksave option as there are some points in the story in the middle of chapters that I’d like to have returned to. Not only that, but a few of the endings also have multiple narrative paths that lead up to them so there are various different ways to get a certain ending.Īs you play through the game, you unlock checkpoints at certain ‘Chapters’ that you can return to later to make a different choice and see how that affects the story. Though my first playthrough was pretty short – it took me about 2 hours to get the ending – my fears were dissipated when I found out that there are 27 possible endings. That being said, you’re faced with choices to make pretty often after every couple of paragraphs, so there was rarely a large wall of text to read before you’re prompted to make a choice again. Styled as an illustrated, interactive storybook, it focuses on the narrative and making player choices satisfying more than anything else. This is a text-heavy, story-driven game through and through. If you’re not into reading and need some sort of gameplay loop to keep you entertained, this is not a game for you. Other than occasionally making choices to alter the direction of the story and experiencing the hilarious or creepy events that follow, there’s no real gameplay to speak of. Since this is mainly a story-based game, let’s get the peripheral stuff out of the way before getting to the meat of the game. Books are great, games are great, so it’s safe to say that a melding of the two mediums would be nothing less than awesome right? That’s exactly what the Lovecraftian mystery game, The Innsmouth Case, developed by RobotPumpkin Games and published by Assemble Entertainment, aims to prove. Around the same time, I remember playing the text-adventure game Zork and a couple of other similar ones to it and realizing the immense potential for interactive fiction.
0 kommentar(er)
