The Subject

The Subject starts out promising but you'll quickly realize how annoying the game play will be, as the majority of "puzzles" are buttons and switches that may do something, somewhere. It's all guess and check work. There are 4 rooms that have some real puzzles, but these are the tedious, brute force solving kind. Getting to all these rooms, buttons, and switches is a huge pain since you have to navigate a 4 section maze of corridors with a monster wondering around. (You can turn the monster off at least at the start of the game.) The monster sounds scary, but it looks very goofy and moves like a wacky waving inflatable arm tube man that just learned how to run. The game has a proximity alarm go off when you're near the monster, which is nice for surviving, but completely takes the tension away. I might actually be scared if I didn't know the monster was near. Also the alarm goes off even if the monster is on the other side of a wall or floor, making it misleading. All these annoyances while having a time limit too. You have to keep saving the game at scan stations to reset the time limit. When you re-load your save file, some puzzles reset while others don't. Not sure if that's a bug or intentional. Starting a new game instantly erases your previous save file, and it won't let you replay the tutorial again, so you can't find the combination to the Easter egg door. Overall, the game looks great. But the monster is more silly than scary, the puzzles are simply annoying, and the whole experience is just tedious. If you like walking simulators, random button pushing, and good space aesthetics, then you might like this game.

If it wasn't for the stupid AI monster interrupting your puzzling every 5 seconds, this game would be a decent puzzler.

There really isn't much to The Subject beyond what you experience in the first hour. Puzzles, a monster, and occasional steam blasts from vents. The puzzle are okay with a few memorable ones near the end, but I can't recommend this game to anyone. It's just not worth the time. Mostly you will just be wandering around halls trying to find how to progress to the next puzzle and then backtracking after you meet the monster -- you either die or go long the long way around.

You spend 95% of the time running down long corridors trying to find something to do. The game artificially prolonging its gameplay by making you run in circles without a clue. Absolutely terrible game/level design. Basically a walking simulator.

Annoying game, had potential with an awesome atmosphere and fun puzzles but ruined by terrible navigation. I even played on casual mode and it was still annoying as ♥♥♥♥, I missed a read circuit somewhere and could not find it after an hour of running through the same ♥♥♥♥ over and over again. I can’t imagine being in this position topped with a creature up your ass. ♥♥♥♥ THIS GAME.

Сперва долго ковыряемся с совершенно нелогичными головоломками, которые вызывают массу вопросов. Какому гениальному инженеру пришло в голову раскидать кнопки управлением саркофага будущего в разных местах корабля, ответ мне не удалось найти. Итак, поковыряв корабельную систему управления, созданную неким безумцем, мы открываем таким макаром капсулу, из которой с воплем вылезает довольно агрессивный уродец, всю последующую игру усложняющий своими появлениям борьбу с шизоидной системой управления aka головоломки, погружая игрока в предынфарктное состояние. Безусловно, атмосферно, но очень глупо.

Pela capa eu esperava algo mais parecido com Dead Space, após um tempo vi que parecia com alien. Mais não é nada parecido e nada similar, é um game apenas de puzzles e puzzles super difíceis e interessantes. O jogo não te da dicas e nem te mostra o que fazer ou o que interagir, é algo completamente inusitado; pois tudo ta escondido. Exemplo: Inicio você tem que ligar a força do elevador, só que o game não te mostra o que é parte da força do elevador e no final era as paredes, tocar em sequência correta. É um game que você pode zerar em 40 minutos com guia e detonado, mais sem ele você pena e vai além de 3 a 5 horas fácil. Para quem gosta de quebra cabeças e um game mais culto, aproveite. É interessante e barato, e nas sales ele deve estar por cerca de 3 reais.

Length 1hr + Getting lost and confused (2 hours for me) Of the Darkstone Digital games, the Subject is the first released and there are many positives and negatives to the game. This is the perfect example of how a developer refined the game design into future games. While I have a lot of praises for ‘The Subject’, with how my gameplay went I just cannot recommend the Subject. The Subject is effectively a giant puzzle exploration game set of an orbiting space prison, through the game the player will be looking for buttons, switches and passcodes as they complete puzzles rooms, and further explore the vessel. The further they explore opens new areas, gives tools to access further so they can reach the end of the test chambers. Only they are not alone, awakening a monster which will hunt the player, you will need to make use of hiding location to escape. Exploration is actually really fun, while there are variations in the hallways of the prison, the seeking for buttons and the multitude of them means you will always stumble across something. Early on this is great, as nowhere feels like a wasted trip and when you discover more tools new places become open to you. I can’t tell you how much enjoyment I get from just finding a random red button to press hidden in strange spaces. The problem comes as the game goes on, as you complete puzzles you will open more pathways which connect the whole prison into multiple loops. While corridors do look different the interconnection makes a jumbled mess and when you only rely on little maps on walls it is really easy to get lost. By the time I was in the fourth chamber I had the prison fully open and spent over 1hr getting lost and dying. This alone destroyed all enjoyment I was having, the endless slog was the train completely derailing. Literally having a mini map, or one you could open up, would instantly fix all of these problems. I actually really like the puzzle in ‘The Subject’, some could have more visual cues but overall they were great. Literally large three dimensional puzzles that means you need to think of how to engage with them. The only puzzle that required any level of thought is the revolving puzzle where you need to click three times to line up the plates. The problem with this puzzle is that it looks like a giant lock. I see three buttons and think I have to catch each disk in the correct spot. The puzzles' visual design and lack of active cues is what makes this hard, not the puzzle itself. This can be made cleaner by using the three lights on the console, if you had one of these light up each time a button was pressed the player would better identify what the puzzle needed. Beep, Beep, Beep, the player could quickly identify that the lights meant you needed to press the correct arrows. The other puzzle which could have been improved is aligning the discs to let only certain lights be visible. The puzzle is simple, just tedious, I found no decent spot to identify if it was done correctly. If they were made to be lasers instead of lights this would have been so much better, you could actually tell where problems were without blindly guessing. The monster is not really a threat, though hiding does not always work. I was literally shocked when it opened the door to kill me and did not see it coming. At most it is just a point to stay on your toes and listen out for the threat. ‘The Subject’, if it had a mini map you could access at will and a few minor puzzle alterations would be amazing. There is no inherent design point which destroys the game, simply the capacity to get lost and confused which could easily be remedied with little changes. It’s to the point that ‘Kohate’ is literally the refined version of ‘The Subject’ the only sad part is the game did away with the puzzle rooms which to me destroyed some of the most imaginative puzzle design for the escape game. Literally if those few aspects were changed the Subject would be a must play puzzle game but till then, I really recommend you play the other two in the series ‘Our Secret Below’ is my personally favourite puzzle room game, and while Kohate is lacking the puzzle aspects, the exploration button pressing is still top notch. To those wanting a really cut down gameplay video I will leave the link below, I recommend you not watch too much as you will spoil the puzzles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbVVpeU-9UU Looking for horror games, check out my curator page there is always more spooks to find: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/41770172/