The Last Show of Mr. Chardish: Act I

AAAA storytelling AA optimization A some minor bugs

It is beautiful and the story is engaging. I'm new to this kind of game so it took me a while to get the hang of it.

Игра 'The Last Show of Mr. Chardish: Act I' — это настоящее погружение в атмосферу старого театра, где каждый предмет, каждый звук, каждая тень пропитаны тайной. Разработчики проделали колоссальную работу, создав не просто квест, а интерактивную драму, в которой игрок невольно становится зрителем и участником событий. Сюжет интригует с первых минут, постепенно раскрывая мрачные секреты мистера Чардиша и его загадочного театра. Головоломки органично вплетены в повествование, они требуют внимательности и нестандартного подхода, но никогда не кажутся надуманными. Визуальный стиль, выполненный в духе классических нуарных фильмов, завораживает своей детализацией и мрачной красотой. Озвучка персонажей и музыкальное сопровождение усиливают эффект присутствия, создавая неповторимое ощущение напряжения и меланхолии. 'The Last Show of Mr. Chardish: Act I' — это игра, которая заставляет задуматься, вызывает эмоции и оставляет после себя долгое послевкусие. Настоятельно рекомендую всем ценителям атмосферных и глубоких историй.

"The Last Show of Mr. Chardish: Act I" is not a game. It's an advertisement for a product called "The Last Show of Mr. Chardish". The Last Show of Mr. Chardish is a rather mediocre and objectively failed third person puzzle adventure game with a mildly 19th centuryish theme and not much else going for it. The puzzles and actual gameplay just couldn't keep up with the developers vision, so everything fell flat. But this isn't completely relevant because this is not The Last Show of Mr. Chardish, it's just an advertisment for it, so it's not correct to try to review that completely distinct product. We must instead review this for what it is... an advertisement. If you enjoy advertisements, you can consume them for free on the web or on Youtube without needing to add them to your game library, download them, and then launch the advertising. It's impossible in a general sense to recommend people should do that over playing real, full games on Steam, and that applies here with "The Last Show of Mr. Chardish: Act I" too. The purpose of this advertisement is to get you to shell out a whopping $10 USD on buying The Last Show of Mr. Chardish, and I don't recommend you do that either. This is only free in the same way that adverts on Youtube and banner ads in your browser are. This is a game demo that's been dumped on Steam to advertise another Steam store page in the hopes of raking in some cash. Just because advertisements are free, doesn't mean they're worth your time. It's important to understand there's a formal process to create a demo/page for a game which hasn't been followed here: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/application/demos While it might seem like an inocuous mistake, publishing demos and advertisements as if they are full games is misleading and in some ways harmful. This advertisement is taking up marketing space and visibility that would be better made available to a developer that's done the right thing and created a full game. Instead, that visibility is given over to a demo/advert that's been published incorrectly and is polluting the marketplace. It's unclear if this mistake was made through incompetence or a deliberate intent to mislead gamers. Often developers may choose to incorrectly publish demo/advertisements as separate games as a cheap way to bypass paying Valve for marketing presence on the Steam front page, which may seem clever to them, but it's harmful behaviour and it's not good for gamers. Despite having no up-front cost, this failed to appeal to the 120 million+ gamers on Steam. SteamDB showed the game peaked at only 5 concurrent players... this is a dismal public reception. This was so bad they couldn't even give it away. Advertisements and incorrectly published demos don't add +1 to your game collector count, they aren't full games. It's impossible for me to recommend this incorrectly published advertising spam to gamers, you deserve better than adverts.

"When you are on stage, even the light feels heavy." The Last Show of Mr. Chardish: Act I is the prologue to a narrative-driven walking simulator with simple puzzle elements. We play as Ella, an aging actress who returns to an abandoned theater where she used to work for Robert Chardish, "a brilliant playright, actor and theater director". As we explore the place, we discover all kind of documents and objects that tell us about the life at the theater and the different people who worked there. Finding a mask will then transport us into an imaginary world based on one of Mr. Chardish plays. The game itself reminded me of Edith Finch, and its art style of 11-11. And the least we can say is that the game is utterly beautiful. The art style really make us feel like we are walking inside paintings. As we progress, we just keep being amazed by everything around us. The gameplay alternates between 1st person as Ella in the real world and 3rd person in the imaginary world, both worlds having two distinct painting art styles. The puzzles encountered inside the imaginary world consists of manipulating theatrical props and lightings so that parts of the surroundings appear or vanish. I found this was extremely well done. I have been very impressed by this beautiful prologue and I am really looking forward to play the full game.

The Last Show of Mr. Chardish: Act I Positives: + Good idea + Nice graphics + Nice sound and music + Most of the voiceacting + Artistic + Everything is nicely designed + Simple but cool puzzles + Relaxing + Its free Negatives: - When short lines are repeated a lot of times - Not all the notes are interesting - Very short (lasts for about half an hour) A nice little prologue. It has a lot going for it, with its relaxing atmosphere and artistic look. Total Score: 7/10

Хорошая игра, интересная графика!