First Impressions: Last Day of June

Last Day of June is a game that I picked up for free through Epic Games' promotional period (which is still going on if you're at all interested) and I started playing shortly after I finished What Remains of Edith Finch.  I also landed on this game because How Long To Beat suggested that it would take about 3 hours to beat the game, although I typically look at the Completionist time even if I am not trying to 100% a game, mainly because I tend to take longer because I like to read all I can and look around the environment.  And I can sometimes take longer to solve puzzles.  I probably should have guessed that I was going to be in for an emotional ride just by looking at the header for the game, but that was apparently lost on me when I clicked the Install button and booted the game up.

The premised for the game is that start out playing as the character of Carl shortly before he goes through a traumatic event in his life and through mysterious means, is offered the chance and ability to possibly change the outcome of that trauma.  In the first section of the game, I guess you could call it the prologue, you see the events that lead up to the main event in the game which operates as linear storytelling with very little to do aside from triggering events to happen.  Presumably, this is fine as the developers put the player in the frame of mind that events happen as they are intended to happen and there is nothing you can do to change those events.  You know, the whole you cannot change your own fate stance.

In the second act, through magical (is it really magical though?) means, it seems like Carl's consciousness is able to travel back to the day of the traumatic event seeing how possible different actions taken  by different people in their surrounding community could alter the outcome of the event, or even prevent the event from happening in the first place.   This is where I am currently at in the game, and from what I can tell, I believe that I am about 22.22% of the way through the game and that it will definitely take me longer than four hours to finish the main story (complete or no) having played for a couple of hours already.  I anticipate that I will probably take another 3-4 hours, which does not bother me at all.

The only thing that I am currently worried about, is what I think is going to be one of the game mechanics that I am only able to speculate on because I have not seen it happen yet; if it will happen at all.  Based on finishing the second character story one of four times, I feel like I will be able to go back to play another/previous character's story after affecting the world (opening up inaccessible areas, gaining access to new items, etc) then going back and earning a slightly different ending.  I guess I am not entirely worried, but if this is not how the game is going to unfold, then I am just overthinking things again.  But that is my thing.  I overthink things, frequently making them more complicated than they really are, which is why I know I will not be finishing this game in the next hour.  And that is just fine with me.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
And That's How The Story Goes