Lamplight City
I finished Lamplight City. It's set during an alternate Victorian America in the 1840s. There's concept art of a map and it's pretty interesting to look at. It looked like the game mainly took place in the Virginia/Maryland area. It seems like different regions of the country were colonized by different countries. In the case of the region you play in, it seems more French judging by all the French names. So, the world building is definitely interesting. You play as a detective named Miles Fordham and together he and his partner Bill Leger go around solving cases that is until Bill dies during one of them and the culprit gets away. A few weeks later, Miles is a mess over his partner's death. He left the force, but becomes more of a private investigator in hopes that maybe one day he'll find Bill's killer. Oh and he starts hearing Bill's voice in his head commenting on basically everything. It's sort of like Blackwell, except you can't see the ghost this time. Miles takes a soporific to shut Bill up at night and eventually starts to descend into alcoholism. Yes, Miles is a washed up and broken man, but he keeps doing his job. As far as how he looks, he reminds me of the Eighth Doctor from Doctor Who hehe.
The gameplay is kind of like a Sherlock Holmes game. You have your casebook with the clues, documents, and a suspect list. There is no inventory. Any items Miles picks up are used automatically. Most of the time is just spent going around place to place questioning people. There's little in the way of puzzles. Overall, I had mixed feelings about this game. I did like it, but there are times where if you make characters angry, they'll refuse to talk to you and/or kick you out and you can't speak to them again. And this prevents you from getting all the evidence you need to make a informed decision about a case, or worse it can leave the case unsolved. And this happened to a degree to me in most of the cases. I get the idea is to save often and then reload if you screw up, but why should I have to do that? Instead it makes me feel like I'm missing part of the game because I was unable to progress. I really didn't like this mechanic at all. It annoyed me. So, that brings the game down for me. Otherwise I liked the characters well enough. Bill could drive anyone nuts though lol. And I did really enjoy the setting. There are quite a few locations you get to visit. It's just a shame about that one frustrating gameplay issue. I don't think this is Francisco Gonzalez's best game. I think I liked Shardlight more. But have a screenshot. In one of these cases you encounter these anti-steam protesters heh.
Now I'm playing the next game off my HOG list, which is called Medford Asylum: Paranormal Case. Seems better than the last game so far.
The gameplay is kind of like a Sherlock Holmes game. You have your casebook with the clues, documents, and a suspect list. There is no inventory. Any items Miles picks up are used automatically. Most of the time is just spent going around place to place questioning people. There's little in the way of puzzles. Overall, I had mixed feelings about this game. I did like it, but there are times where if you make characters angry, they'll refuse to talk to you and/or kick you out and you can't speak to them again. And this prevents you from getting all the evidence you need to make a informed decision about a case, or worse it can leave the case unsolved. And this happened to a degree to me in most of the cases. I get the idea is to save often and then reload if you screw up, but why should I have to do that? Instead it makes me feel like I'm missing part of the game because I was unable to progress. I really didn't like this mechanic at all. It annoyed me. So, that brings the game down for me. Otherwise I liked the characters well enough. Bill could drive anyone nuts though lol. And I did really enjoy the setting. There are quite a few locations you get to visit. It's just a shame about that one frustrating gameplay issue. I don't think this is Francisco Gonzalez's best game. I think I liked Shardlight more. But have a screenshot. In one of these cases you encounter these anti-steam protesters heh.
Now I'm playing the next game off my HOG list, which is called Medford Asylum: Paranormal Case. Seems better than the last game so far.