Smile For Me

I was really intrigued by this game, and it turned out to be a fun way to spend an evening. I’m a big fan of first-person puzzle games, so the mention of puzzles in the tags and in the description made me wonder if this game qualified. My conclusion? Kind of, idk! 🤷‍♀️ It is not a puzzle game in any traditional sense, but if you are a fan of point & click adventure games, I think you’ll really enjoy this game. Anyway! Off to the “Habitat” you go, where the sad people go to stand around waiting for happiness to find them, I guess? There is a eery and weird vibe to this game that you pick up on quite quickly, and it really adds to this games personality. The odd cast of characters, the weird messages from the puppet each night, and the characters lack of acknowledgement (for the most part) of how odd the situation is, made me lovingly place this game into my “weird & wonderful” category once I was finished with it. The main gimmick to this game is that to communicate, you need to nod or shake your head at characters. I did wonder if this novelty would wear off quickly, but I enjoyed it all the way through. It adds just that tiny touch of whimsy that lets this game take a further step away from being a ‘normal’ game. I really enjoyed the art style, and the 2.5D character sprites, it was an interesting game to look at and in a lot of ways reminded me of the “Double Fine” art style that I love dearly. It took me roughly 6-7 hours to complete apparently, but I did definitely wander off a few times so I doubt it’s a good time to go from. I also completed the achievements, which in my opinion were fairly easy and fun to get. You need to do like 1 and a half playthroughs to 100% it, but it was not a chore at all. I played on Steam deck, and had pretty much no issues. No controls needed to be remapped or anything like that, although I did get some random freezes that would last 10-15 seconds and then the game would come back. It didn’t happen often enough to have bothered me though. At the end of each night in the game a video plays, and there was, I think, 2 times that the video got stuck/didn’t play and I pretty much had to force close the game with the Steam button + B. Thankfully, nothing was ever lost as the in-game saves are good enough that I always just picked up where I left off. Overall I really enjoyed this game, it was a fun and whacky way to spend a bit of time and I really enjoyed the first-person point & click vibe. If they were to make another game I would 100% play it. Also, a fun little sidenote for after you finish the game: the developers made an epilogue to the game which presents like a chatroom of the characters talking to each other. It acknowledges fan art (a really fun way to do so), gives you one last interaction with the characters and there is a thank you from the devs. It is [i]very[/i] wholesome, and I adored the devs for that. Make a note for after your playthrough: https://smilefor.today/