Sinking Island

This appears to be an early work of Benoit Sokal, creator of the Syberia series of adventure games. This makes it all the more surprising how badly designed this game is. Most time is spent slowly traversing multiple setting backdrops bereft of items, clues, or people to interact with, pixel hunting for interactive objects, and trying to guess what to do next. It's a pity because this has the bones of a good story. I wouldn't have played it all the way through if it didn't. Most people would have (and should) given up on it very quickly but my curiosity was piqued. Anyway, unless you want a great example of what not to do in game design, are a Sokal completist, really enjoy stories (or torturing yourself), I don't recommend anyone else play this title at all.

If you are a fan of Benoît Sokal, you will find his usual beautiful art and atmosphere in Sinking Island. You will not find compelling characters, a gripping story, or thoroughly engaging gameplay. Sinking Island is a detective game, where you are brought in to solve a murder mystery on a near-deserted tropical island on which a billionaire has created a luxury resort hotel for some reason. You will need to interview the man's family members who are on the island, collect clues, and piece those testimonies and clues together to solve deductions. It is a very slow game, where you will be retracing your steps a lot and hearing the same questions asked to each person over and over again. This could be an enjoyable experience, except that it is let down by how the game proceeds. I had a lot of trouble keeping the cast of characters straight in my head, which could have been resolved by placing their name on the screen when you are talking to them. There are various deductions that you need to solve throughout the game, which do not have very obvious combinations of clues that you need to put together. The game also never clears out your inventory of clues as the game proceeds, leaving you with dozens upon dozens of items and photographs and testimonies to sort through towards the end, many of which seem to overlap in their possible relevance to ongoing events, leading to confusion in finding the "right" combination of clues. There are also several instances of very bad pixel hunting, with items that I had to be told about in walkthroughs and could barely see, even when looking directly at them. This is spread across a large, sprawling hotel, where very small items could be sitting almost anywhere. There are many documents which are collected along the way, as well, which you can read. However, the text in the documents is often so small and blurry, with no zoom option, that it is difficult to make out, even when connected to my 70" display. The game became repetitive and I would not have had the patience to finish it without a walkthrough. A lot of the game is quite enjoyable, as you work through the questions and clues, and you can get very far by being an attentive player. But there are simply a few design choices which ruin the experience. The game isn't great and it isn't terrible. This is as mid as you can possibly get. Only for the hardest of hardcore Benoît Sokal fans.

Estou com este jogo faz alguns anos na minha biblioteca, até que dias atrás eu resolvi zerá-lo de forma definitiva. Eu já conhecia a desenvolvedora, por zerar Syberia 2 que por sinal, é um jogo incrível. A atmosfera de Sinking Island é NOIR investigativo, e os gráficos foram muito bem feitos para a época. Entretanto, aconteceram coisas surreais e engraçadas no final desse jogo: - As ondas do mar chegaram a atingir os andares 17°/18° (isso é uma megatsunami kkkk) - Os personagens presos dentro de um cenário impossível. - O carinha tinha um balão de fuga, mas só resolveu comentar isso no final. - e o protagonista ainda operando como se fosse terça-feira normal no expediente, enquanto o mundo estava acabando lá fora kkkk No final: O protagonista resolveu um crime no meio de um evento geológico impossível e depois confiaram a sobrevivência a um balão aleatório. No más, recomendo o jogo, e zeraria mais uma vez :D

Apart from B. Sokal's visual art, there's also a good Whodunnit mystery. The technical aspects of the gameplay are atrocious though (slow movement, pixel-hunting against practicaly monochrome backgrounds), and the dev's unwillingness for support (broken full scren implemetation) are making this a sad "No" Play the first two Syberia's instead,

Ein Krimi-Adventure mit dem man trotz einiger kleiner Mängel viel Knobelspaß haben kann. Ja, die langen Laufwege sind nervig und die Dialoge nicht richtig gut, aber darüber hinaus hat das Spiel auch viel Positives zu bieten: Eine interessante Geschichte mit plausiblen Wendungen bis zum Schluss, ein spannendes Setting und die Art und Weise, wie Aussagen und Beweismittel kombiniert werden, lässt Spielerinnen und Spieler stets darüber im klaren, was sie eigentlich gerade zu suchen oder tun haben. Für Fans von Benoit Sokal sowieso eine Empfehlung, aber auch andere Adventure-gamers mit Nachsicht und Freude an etwas älteren Spielen können hier mal reinschauen.

Już po tylu latach zapomniałem jaka to jest toporna kupa. Nieintuicyjne menu, upieeerdliwe sterowanie cutscenki, bieda ogólnie wylewająca się z ekranu przyćmiewa scenariusz niestety.

Naprawdę spędziłem trochę czasu fajnie się bawiąc. Dźwięki oraz grafika! Słychać, że to ręka mistrza. Lekki klimat grozy, grafika która nadaje klimatu i nie jest idealna. Gra trzyma w napięciu i powoduje momentami niezły mętlik wskazując innych sprawców. Na pewno każdy to przejdzie tą grę to będzie zadowolony z zakończenia! Jest też pewny ukryty sekret rodziny pod koniec który warto odkryć!

Gioco investigativo completato qualche anno fa' targato Benoît Sokal dove vestirete i panni dell'ispettore Jack Norm (sosia di una persona reale che ho conosciuto in una esperienza lavorativa passata). Due modalità per scoprire il/la colpevole; avventura o corsa contro il tempo; personalmente ho scelto la prima per completare l'investigazione senza patemi d'animo. Mi è piaciuto molto e lo consiglierei anche se non è un gioco nuovissimo e ha qualche imperfezione che ne allunga i tempi di completamento. Buona avventura sull'isola;).

IO non sono riuscito a farlo partire, ho provato di tutto ma dopo il primo video introduttivo appare una schermata nera e il gioco va in stallo. non so come risolvere il problema