Continue?9876543210

hmmm. I only played for 30 mins and do not know what to make of it. soooo slow to play and stupid long cutscenes all the time. Glad I got in bundle cheap. If you like different experiences they you might find something in here but nothing here is making me go back for more.

Continue?9876543210 is an interesting game with some potential for frustration. It's somewhat mysterious and pretty good at creating tension while aiming to bring about its philosophical conclusion. We see deliberately low-poly 3D graphics which nevertheless are easily translated into "the world". The game expects the player to go for several, slightly changing run-throughs, not all of which let the player get to the end. The player is mostly playing on limited time but can sort of recover in mostly unskippable cut-scenes. Will you find the strength to go on or will you find the strength to rest? + Nice low-poly design + Good music and good atmosphere + Special exits + Live stories + Restarting areas 0 "On the clock" 0 A tad short - Bad restart method - "Have you tried turning it off and on again?" - Camera is sort far-sighted - Fade-ins waste time and make it harder to react - Controls somewhat lacking - Incomplete menu with and ambiguous option The game features a number of modes. There is investigation mode where you run around an area or level, talk to people and gather knowledge which is needed to find an exit from the area and build up shelters, all within a time limit (except for the first level which has slightly different rules). That mode already shows how the camera is sort of far-sighted when giving a perspective view. Enemies will randomly and with increasing ferocity and frequency spawn around you. While the perspective view shows enemies or people in the background pretty well, it's hard to see things in the foreground. This is coupled with the foreground also often going down. So it is possible that you run the avatar towards the foreground/player, run over an edge, be in the air and without control over the avatar while unknowingly steering into an enemy. You have a sword to fight of enemies but to use it effectively you still need to know where enemies are. Running into an enemy brings you into an action mode of always the same type where you have to fight of a number of enemies approaching you from the air while you play in a 2D brawler fashion, think minimalistic smash brothers. Those fights are easy but time-consuming at first but grow challenging and fast over the levels/investigation areas. Hint: When jumping and attacking in the air go into the direction the avatar is not looking to make an overhead swing. Each investigation areas also features up to three other action modes where you are thrown in one of a number of, let's say, mini-games. There are some where you have to find an exit, there are some where you have kill objectives and there is even one where you simply go right. Action modes mostly offer treasure and performance-based rewards, but failing them results in harsh consequences. The third mode is a shelter mode where you need to hide from impending doom. It's paramount to have gathered enough shelters or this is where the avatar gets GC'ed. While cut-scenes offer time for recovery and breaks - they prompt the player before continuing - they are mostly unskippable and it may take you upwards from 30 seconds to get into an investigative area. This is unnerving in connection with the restart feature. You can restart the current investigative area if you feel like you didn't get enough out of it - the game autosaves at the beginning of an investigative area. While the game tells you restarting is an option it doesn't tell you how to realise that option. Instead of clicking the button "Start Over" in the menu and confirming the reset you have to kill the application and restart it, then you are loaded back into the area. The reset instead means starting the whole run over and losing all progress, not just that of the last area. Imagine my happiness when I found out. Apart from the "far-sighted camera" problem there is another one with visuals. While investigating you are required to enter houses. When you subsequently leave them the main area fades in, i.e. the world is turned back on before you can see clearly. While you can remember positions of enemies or people and interact with them blindly you are more likely to run into a problematic situation all while running out of time. Action modes have a number of control problems. First off, navigation is sometimes hard because you don't always know which things you can pass over and which things present an obstacle. Then, I often felt like I couldn't turn fast enough with incoming enemies. When trying to stab enemies you sometimes only hit when your sword is at or near full extension. So despite facing the enemy and presenting good points they will hit you anyway, reduce your performance and hinder progress in the meta-game. Specifically the last and fix action mode where you need to turn and jump had me failing jumps multiple times because "up" is somehow not available when being pressed while changing directions. And yes, I specifically bought a keyboard where ghosting doesn't happen when only two keys are pressed. I found the gathering of knowledge surprisingly fun, the random life stories are effective towards the game's philosophical goal and I enjoyed the special exits you can find. Even though I played through the game with "full points" I have yet to see some parts of the game. If you're not immediately put off by its graphical style, I'd say give this a go. With all the little short-comings listed above, I, maybe not highly but securely, recommend Continue?9876543210. Even with its relative shortness of six captivating hours its price tag compares well against the average movie. "Oh little town shelter me"