Q - Would I recommend Backfirewall_?
A - Maybe

Unfortunately for me, the more of the game I played, the less I enjoyed my time with it.

As such I recommend this as a “maybe” as I feel it will be very hit or miss, but because it will be “really” worth playing for the right person, I will not give the game a thumbs down.

The games strengths are in its visuals, it’s story, it’s voice acting, the package and experience as a whole are lovely and the nerdy nature of traversing the inside of a phone seeing Ints, chars, along with all the techy references will without a doubt put a smile and some people’s faces.

There are two stories in this game, the story you play through as an update package for the phones operating system which is presented in a fairly witty and humours way with dialogue from your companion the current OS and meeting apps on the phone such as social media F, I and T to health app and photos app. And then the story presented to you from the collectible chat messages through the games stages by the user of the phone you occupy.

The first for me was entertaining to start, but the more I played the less I unfortunately cared about it. It does, or can have a deeper meaning if you wish to experience the story that way about change and the meaning of change or staying still and how that can affect your life. But to me the layers of a story shouldn’t be what make the story good (but can elevate the story to be better), it should be entertaining in itself.

I personally found the secondary story told through collected messages to be more entertaining as it was revealed, but these messages can be missed and even though I felt I was leaving no box unturned in my play through, I did miss a number of these and missed out on the end of this story having not collected the last messages.

As you can see most of my review is on the story, that’s because this is what I feel this game will be about and be the appeal for those who will enjoy it.

The gameplay itself is simple and the puzzles are not to challenging, they are simply a means to an end to get you to progress through this 7-8 hour experience.

And that gameplay starts to feel repetitive mostly as you get further, though does thankfully near the end throw a few more interesting ideas at you for the final stretch.

So in summary, if you liked games like portal, fire watch and similar titles in walking sim and “puzzle” adventure genres you could like backfirewall_ though your experience won’t be as good as those titles.

Get on sale if that sounds like it appeals to you.

——

I played this game via a steam deck to completion of the main story, but not replaying for completion of its secondary story.

The game had performance issues after the first zones which did impact enjoyment somewhat but not to the extent the game could not be finished. (I don’t feel this was a steam deck issue and more a game optimisation issue but cannot be sure.)

Q - Would I recommend Backfirewall_? A - Maybe Unfortunately for me, the more of the game I played, the less I enjoyed my time with it. As such I recommend this as a “maybe” as I feel it will be very hit or miss, but because it will be “really” worth playing for the right person, I will not give the game a thumbs down. The games strengths are in its visuals, it’s story, it’s voice acting, the package and experience as a whole are lovely and the nerdy nature of traversing the inside of a phone seeing Ints, chars, along with all the techy references will without a doubt put a smile and some people’s faces. There are two stories in this game, the story you play through as an update package for the phones operating system which is presented in a fairly witty and humours way with dialogue from your companion the current OS and meeting apps on the phone such as social media F, I and T to health app and photos app. And then the story presented to you from the collectible chat messages through the games stages by the user of the phone you occupy. The first for me was entertaining to start, but the more I played the less I unfortunately cared about it. It does, or can have a deeper meaning if you wish to experience the story that way about change and the meaning of change or staying still and how that can affect your life. But to me the layers of a story shouldn’t be what make the story good (but can elevate the story to be better), it should be entertaining in itself. I personally found the secondary story told through collected messages to be more entertaining as it was revealed, but these messages can be missed and even though I felt I was leaving no box unturned in my play through, I did miss a number of these and missed out on the end of this story having not collected the last messages. As you can see most of my review is on the story, that’s because this is what I feel this game will be about and be the appeal for those who will enjoy it. The gameplay itself is simple and the puzzles are not to challenging, they are simply a means to an end to get you to progress through this 7-8 hour experience. And that gameplay starts to feel repetitive mostly as you get further, though does thankfully near the end throw a few more interesting ideas at you for the final stretch. So in summary, if you liked games like portal, fire watch and similar titles in walking sim and “puzzle” adventure genres you could like backfirewall_ though your experience won’t be as good as those titles. Get on sale if that sounds like it appeals to you. —— I played this game via a steam deck to completion of the main story, but not replaying for completion of its secondary story. The game had performance issues after the first zones which did impact enjoyment somewhat but not to the extent the game could not be finished. (I don’t feel this was a steam deck issue and more a game optimisation issue but cannot be sure.)