I had this game for awhile now in my Steam library, but like all games on it, I never took managed to allocate time for it until a friend speaks about it.

He told me that it’s probably fun to stream it, which got me to search the duration of the game. The game is 8 hours long, which sounded like a reasonable duration. And oh man, was I hook from the start to the end.

Where do I even start? The concept? You are just a guy tasked with identifying each crew member on board of a ship and find out what happened to them through a pocket watch that can transport you to their time of death. It sounds straightforward but trust me when I say that it’s not. For example, not all deaths can be ‘seen’. Yes, it’s kind of a detective game. I have played a few games like that in the past like Phoenix Wright or Dangenronpa, but oh boy neither of them prepared me for this game.

There are so many angles to praise this game but it feels unfair to single each angle out and praise them individually. All I can say is that the whole game comes together beautifully: the graphics, the gameplay, the stories, the production and the experience comes together to give every individual player a unique experience. I can’t wait to get more people to play so that we can discuss how we manage to identify the fate of each crew mate.

It represents one aspect to what I strongly feel games should ultimately be about; unique journeys for each player. The best part about this game is that the unique experiences formed is not spoonfed like some games do. Hints found felt implicit more than deliberate in order to maintain the balance of gameplay/production/story. Now I just want more people to play so that I can fully experience the game even more. It’s something I haven’t really felt since the 1990s.

Another thing that blew my mind is how well versed I am in understanding the storym, how I am able to recognise all 60 crew members and how easily I am able to identify where I want to watch a certain scene (yes you have to memorize where the scene is to view them). The amount of time you spend repeating each scene to scrutinise every frozen actions of each crew member, coming up with hypotheses, piecing together all your theories in chronological order helped me get intimate and understand every detail of the story.

I don't think I have ever been this well versed in a story, whether it's from a book, game or movie. It proves to me that there is hope for games to be an effective medium to tell a story. Sure, games might not be as effective as writing or movies for certain stories, but they could be well-suited for other kinds of stories!

Definitely a must play. I had so much goosebumps, not just from the game itself, but also just from thinking about what Lucas Pope was trying to experiment with.

I look forward to his next game.