Taking the price into consideration, it's a decently made narrative experience, mostly just talking to characters and backtracking with some very basic platforming, about 70 to 80 minutes, seemingly with a few forks in the story, granted the game is not complete so there is no point for me to experiment with it now. Aside from those optional tasks, the game does not have much in terms of optional navigation, I would like to see maybe some collectibles or more world-building in the future, putting some hidden platforming sections with something to collect might go a long way.
The game is a bit of an eye candy despite not having a ton to work with, it actually does not have that many unique objects or models, but the dev managed to smartly recycle some of the characters under different circumstances, which is not always ideal, but in this case, I think it works well enough, I think the color-coding changes were a smart decision, it feels like the game has more unique areas than it would otherwise. A few decent music choices, I think the game was very chill, not sure if was made for the game or not, but I also feel like it could focus a bit more on the atmosphere and do more sound manipulation between the areas, put more focus on the weather effects.
The story so far is interesting enough, it has a nice mystery going for it, although some of the dialogue was difficult to follow, and it's not really an English thing, just very time-consuming, even when I would skip text sometimes it took like 50 seconds just for one character, I think the game could use better pacing. The game is told from the perspective of robots and humans, plus the mysterious package that you are meant to deliver to an unknown receiver, presumably to uncover the conflict between AI and humans.
As far as the puzzles and platforming gameplay, it does not have any significant gameplay elements, you get some power-ups like pushing things and hovering, but the game does not utilize them in any challenging capacity, perhaps in the later chapters. I thought the change between different characters was a neat idea, hopefully, we see more of that mechanism in the future, to control different robots perhaps.
[h1] Pros: [/h1]
(+) I thought the game looked very nice, it's obvious that the dev recycled a lot of the content, but it's recycled smartly, it feels like it has more unique locations than it actually does, so for an indie dev, if you going to get resourceful, this is not a bad way of doing it.
(+) While I do wish the dialogue was a bit more playful and not so lengthy, the narrative was not bad so far, I like the little mystery it has going for it with the mysterious package and perspectives of different characters. It seems like there are a few narrative forks as well.
(+) Decent sense of atmosphere, I still think you could focus a bit more on individual sounds in different locations, try to give every location a more unique vibe to it, but it works well enough.
[h1] Feedback: [/h1]
[u] Exploration [/u] - even though you put a few forks into the choices, it still feels like the exploration is just linear backtracking, I think if you could sandwich the game with a bit more optional interactions and collection content, it would make the game feel more complete. Maybe some hidden areas with more platforming or puzzles, collect something to unlock different trinkets and have a few hidden characters for world-building. In general, I think you are not utilizing platforming as much as you should, give it more purpose since you already have hovering and box pushing which didn't really have much to do.
Other than that, I think the music choices you made are decent, but I still think you could give the areas a bit more life in terms of sound effects, make the weather stand out more from the background, and have various sounds happening in different locations. Maybe even give different robots unique sound effects for the dialogue.
On a side note, maybe experiment with adding a more prominent sound for character movement as well.
[b] Overall Thoughts: (not rating it, technically not a complete experience yet) [/b]
I don't really have any issues with the game, it's perfectly fine for a narrative game, one thing I will say, the devs with more experience will do exactly what you doing, but they will also populate the world with more optional content, more optional interactions, and world-building. You have a lot of backtracking, but it's mostly there for the story, so you not taking advantage of rewarding curiosity and having the actual feel of exploring the town on your own terms, just add some optional areas, more platforming with things to collect, it would elevate this serviceable game to a potentially great game, I think.
[code]Niche, obscure and underrated games: http://store.steampowered.com/curator/31294838-Hidden-Gem-Discovery/ [/code]
