Recent reviews by Crie

I really wanted to like this game but unfortunately I'm giving it a negative review, mainly with what other negative reviews said - the core gameplay just isn't enough to stimulate the game.

The aesthetic and concept are the highlights of the game. It's a unique spin on cyberpunk and blade runner aesthetics, with oddly specific, esoteric and minimalist devices in bright orange colors gives an other-wordly and vintage sci-fi feel which I think is very cool. The music, color palette and pixelated design of the game are runners up. The 'concept' being that you are a mind scanner, fixing 'insanity' in an unstable society. It meshes well together and had a lot of potential. I think it carries the game for a lot of imaginative people, hence some of the gleaming reviews.

But the meat and potatoes of the game, the gameplay, has less stimulation than free mobile games. It doesn't help that the mini games or 'devices' you use are time consuming, there is no game tech or strategy, some of these mini games require you to just sit and wait, there is no reward for thinking outside the box, you will always have to do the minigames like 5-14 times for each person. The worst is probably the voice dial or the wiggle suction cups. Thinking ambitiously, if the game had its own unique controller to accommodate for these mini games it would be sort of fun. But with a mouse/controller there is nothing inherently challenging about any of these puzzles. They are essentially time padding in a time-dependent game. The timing and personality system just make it even worse, the game punishes you for completing the challenge by making you do more time-consuming mini games so you don't fry your patient's brains- this just continues until the day ends and people harass you, you'll have to do this several times with every patient. Why they thought to use the same mini-game for something you have to use on every patient, I don't know.

The timing system is just too brutal to make any actual progress. Using time as a currency as well for travelling to patient locations and getting new equipment just seems contradictory - play less of the game to access more of the game. Being left with like 5-20 seconds in the day is pretty much useless, you can't travel, spend it or even make any progress with patients. You might as well have 0 if you have <50 seconds on the clock which punishes being cautious about time.

The inventory system is effectively redundant, you'll just be switching three devices to suit insanity types - i mean you can't play the game otherwise, so what's the point? It might as well be automatic because there is no strategy with the inventory system. You can put the special type of devices but other than personality ones there is little incentive. Reducing stress is completely counteracted by restarting the day or putting a modicum of effort to finish the minigames.

I don't really see people talking about the insanity system or the diagnosing system which to me was another weak aspect of the game. I feel like the game could have leaned more on the psychological aspect a lot more in an L.A. Noire fashion. Paying attention to dialogue and details. Instead, you basically have a multiple choice system with a 'right answer', which removes all sense of challenge from it. By the minimum I felt like it shouldn't give us correct answer but attempts for the players to find out for themselves, creating narratives based on the answers we choose. To then label someone as 'sane' or 'insane' just doesn't make any sense in a game that talks about mental-illness which obviously is all grey areas. Sometimes the patients are delusional but sometimes they are just depressed or anxious, which I wouldn't label as insane. Labelling them as sane just punishes you because they then tell you that they were actually insane and did something crazy. The patient files are otherwise redundant, their diagnosis is always given some randomly nonsensical made-up name and the information on the file is worthless, it will always primarily frame it as insane so there is no valid information to take from it.

On top of all of this there is effectively no consequence to doing anything in the game, you can just do whatever and it doesn't really fall back on you. Sure, the patients have consequences but its whatever, the game just tells you its fine. I never really care about the uprising, the outsiders of the city, my daughter or the world-building because you don't actually really interact with any of these things, nor do you have any idea what they look like (to some extent). It lacks any nuance in a concept that solely grapples with nuance. Your daughter is the rationale behind doing things, but it doesn't motivate me whatsoever to even complete the mini games, like sorry kid but im not doing simon says 30 times to save you. I just don't care because the game doesn't really give me enough to care. It just info dumps things on you and then gives you more mini-games lol.

I think more than anything, the critiques made of the game can be framed as "that's done on purpose, the game shows you that binary choices of the mind are bad or that you can never do enough in this society" but this just fundamentally destroys the game, the game doesn't play with these ideas it's what the game is built on until the game itself is just miserable. In other words, the game doesn't have to be unfair just because what the game's world is unfair. Papers please being a good example of this, it balances the unfairness of the world with fair and enjoyable gameplay, demonstrating how you can be nuanced and look out for people rather than just mindblasting everyone or not mindblasting everyone.

Monkey is prett good, textures on animals are soooooooooooooooo sexy, game is also vervy sexy. My tigers are sos exy, but I DONT LIKE THE HIPPOS BECAUSE THEY ♥♥♥♥ EVERYWHERE. the guests are also kind of dum but i dont mind because they give me money which make my zoo even sexir. 11/10

This is a masterpiece like no other. it made me go boom boom in my panties

good

its good

in both incidents i have lost all my fingers getting up to 4 stars in cook serve dilicious,
my wife and children have left me for another man, saying "I've lost my dignity considering
what i've done", i just laugh, sitting on the street, homeless wondering whats the next part of
my life, they call us the boat people, "no" i say "call us the cook, serve delicious people"

11/10

Didn't cry cause I was a big boi.
11/10

My fronds call it Spedrunners

12/1000000000000000

What cruel world do we live in where knives and hats are more expensive than guns