Tacoma
So, The Initiate didn't work out for me. My computer wasn't up to snuff, but judging by some other comments it seems like the game wasn't optimized well either. No mouse cursor showed up, I couldn't move the screen, and the intro cutscene was choppy to begin with, so it was impossible to play. I tried one or two other games as well which didn't work out either, so out of frustration I was about ready to just play a HOG, but before surrendering to that... :P... I tried one last game and that was Tacoma, which did work.
From the makers of Gone Home, I consider Tacoma to be in the "what happened to the crew on the spaceship/station" genre. I've played several of these by now, but I did end up liking this one, short as it is. Like I said you're investigating what happened to this crew on a space station. You have to retrieve and transfer data in the different rings of the station. You get the data by watching holographic recordings of the crew going about their business. At first, I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing other than listening to the recordings, but I soon realized I had to pause the recording at certain points because the characters would open up some kind of holographic data pad, and you had to click on them and read the text. They vary from one-on-one conversations with other crew members, to photographs, to chats with the AI, Odin. And the story is revealed to you. The thing is the characters move around, so you really have to play the recordings more than once to get all the dialogue and follow the characters around. By the end you find out what did happen to the crew, and I thought it was going to go in a different direction, but the end result was actually satisfying.
Other elements of the gameplay include picking up objects and looking at them like you would in Gone Home. Completely optional as you don't have an inventory really. I didn't do as much of that as in Gone Home because I just couldn't be bothered. The only other thing is getting passcodes. Sometimes you get them from the data you collect or other times in dialogues, but they usually unlock a door to a new location. There was a code in each section you went to.
Overall I did enjoy this and the story, but it's all over pretty quickly when you don't spend time looking at everything. I would certainly play another game from Fullbright. Here's a screenshot. This is how you see the people as you play the recordings.
I've now been playing A Short Hike, which is RPG-ish with anthropomorphic animals, but that's all I'll say for now.
From the makers of Gone Home, I consider Tacoma to be in the "what happened to the crew on the spaceship/station" genre. I've played several of these by now, but I did end up liking this one, short as it is. Like I said you're investigating what happened to this crew on a space station. You have to retrieve and transfer data in the different rings of the station. You get the data by watching holographic recordings of the crew going about their business. At first, I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing other than listening to the recordings, but I soon realized I had to pause the recording at certain points because the characters would open up some kind of holographic data pad, and you had to click on them and read the text. They vary from one-on-one conversations with other crew members, to photographs, to chats with the AI, Odin. And the story is revealed to you. The thing is the characters move around, so you really have to play the recordings more than once to get all the dialogue and follow the characters around. By the end you find out what did happen to the crew, and I thought it was going to go in a different direction, but the end result was actually satisfying.
Other elements of the gameplay include picking up objects and looking at them like you would in Gone Home. Completely optional as you don't have an inventory really. I didn't do as much of that as in Gone Home because I just couldn't be bothered. The only other thing is getting passcodes. Sometimes you get them from the data you collect or other times in dialogues, but they usually unlock a door to a new location. There was a code in each section you went to.
Overall I did enjoy this and the story, but it's all over pretty quickly when you don't spend time looking at everything. I would certainly play another game from Fullbright. Here's a screenshot. This is how you see the people as you play the recordings.
I've now been playing A Short Hike, which is RPG-ish with anthropomorphic animals, but that's all I'll say for now.