Game EXP: >observer_ & Curious Cases (NS)

This is our second article in this month-long series that combines different games from different developers/publishers that are not directly related to each other.  I decided to group these two games together simply because they are both first-person mysteries where you sometimes have to solve puzzles.  That was really it.  Although >observer_ is a bit more on the psychological horror side and a much better game than Curious Cases, even if it was more confusing.

>observer_
Systems: Windows, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Linux, macOS, Nintendo Switch
Original Release Date: August 17, 2017
Publisher: Aspyr
Developer: Bloober Team
Play Time: xx

[The Reason:  I had most of the article for >observer_ written back in November 2021, which was still long after I had played and finished the game.  There is a lot to >observer_ and I could not decide if I wanted/needed to write two articles talking about the game or leave it in one longer article.  The game itself was hard to write about because it starts off with a cop investigating a run-of-the-mill disturbance while also dealing with the disappearance of his son, and turns into a massive mystery involving a massive corporation and AI sentience (I should really finish Neuromancer).  Even now, it is still difficult to write.]

>observer_ is a strange game in a lot of ways that are hard to explain.  The story takes place in Krakow, Poland, in the year 2048.  The setting could be described as cyberpunk because most of the events take place in a tenement building where technology has reached a point where our main character, Detective Daniel Lazarski, is able to switch at will between different visual settings through the use of ocular implants and is able to jack/splice into the brains/memory banks of people to help him solve crimes.  The people do not even have to be alive as at one point Detective Lazarski jacks into a severed head.

The fastest most efficient, and likely least helpful way to describe this game is as follows.

This is how the game started:

These are the general rooms in the tenement:

This is how the game ended:

The game was a mix of sleuthing skills such as talking to people in the tenement building, albeit through video call panels on their doors, evidence searching of rooms through various filters from ocular implants, and sequences where you would "jack" yourself into the digital brains of various people (all scripted, in that you could not just find any person and have the option to hack into their brain).  As the game progressed, the question of when Detective Lazarski's dive into people ended and when reality returned a bit of a question.  These sequences were a mix of walking simulator and stealth sequences similar to games like Amnesia: The Dark Descent where being caught just means you have to start from the previous checkpoint.

I am very glad that I played through >observer_ even if I had a lot of criticisms about the UI, several of the game mechanics, and the confusing aspects of the story, or feeling that I was able to progress the story without fully understanding what was going on.  For instance, the written text on the Switch screen in handheld mode was very small, obviously not optimized for a 6.2-inch screen.  Game mechanics-wise, there were several doors that required a combination to unlock that I was never able to figure out simply because I thought I would get back to them before progressing the story, but never did.  Part of this was due to not either knowing or forgetting about a journal/log system that the game kept track of and only remembered about in the last quarter of the game.

I am actually curious about >observer_: System Redux, a revamp of the original game, and I believe the only available version on Steam, as I feel like I might be able to understand a bit more the game and the overall narrative on a second playthrough, which I know I could just as well do with my existing Switch copy.

<o>

Curious Cases

Systems: HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Windows, Nintendo Switch

Original Release Date: April 4, 2019

Publisher: OnSkull Games

Developer: OnSkull Games

My Play Time: ~3 Hours

[The Reason: I think I just never came back to writing about Curious Cases because I got pulled into other articles.  But I was also not as impressed with this game for reasons that will become clear and I did not feel like sitting down to write an article full of criticisms].

I picked up Curious Cases because it advertised itself as a longer-form series of escape rooms, rather than their stand-alone series, Escape First which Conklederp and I played through mid-pandemic.  Curious Cases was supposed to be a series of escape rooms with a single storyline running through them all, and while it was that, I found that for me at least, the game was not as executed as well as advertised.

For the most part, the puzzles were closer to what we would expect to find in in-person escape rooms, although there was still a video game puzzle-solving state of mind we found ourselves in since we were playing a video game (and having played through the atrocious "Keep of Lost Souls" from Escape First 3).  The problem was after we solved the first of the three chapters and the next day tried to then start the second chapter.  When we attempted to start Chapter 2, all I could find was the option to start the game, which brought us to Chapter 1 instead.  Because a lot of escape room puzzles are about finding an object that leads you to another object which leads you to information, sometimes out in the open, to unlock a lock, already knowing a code does not require all of the steps of the puzzle to be completed. Because we already had that knowledge, we did not have to "play" through the entire first chapter again as you normally would, so we spent a few minutes re-solving a few puzzles which took us to the start of Chapter 2.  The same thing happened when we came back to Chapter 3 since I could not find any menu option to save the game, although, by the third time, we had remembered what the final solution was so we just had to enter that information without having to do anything else.

The locations themselves were all well-designed and looked fine as far as graphics and frame rate were concerned.  There might have been instances of objects clipping through the environment, but nothing to the point that the stage became broken and unplayable.  I do recall that the last puzzle in the final chapter required a bit of guesswork on our part, but in the way that the answer could be determined based on the interpretation, as opposed to a solution such as 1+3=4.  The end as far as the story goes felt a little obtuse and vague, although it was nice to be startled in a very unexpected way.  I think it is safe to say that while Conklederp and I did have fun solving the puzzles in each chapter, not having the ability to save the game and being forced to go through previously played-through chapter(s) felt more like an inconvenience.

If you were to go ahead and play Curious Cases, at least on the Switch, I would recommend either playing it through in one sitting or not turning off the Switch between chapters so that you do not have to go through each previously played chapter.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Everything Will Be Permitted