It's really hard to make up my mind about whether to recommend this game or not. What we have here is a narrative driven puzzle and exploration game. But it goes beyond a tightly defined genre. It is weird from the start. The graphics are deliberately janky, sometimes even ugly, often mixing artefacts and glitches into the game. Sometimes to the point of making it barely playable. The sound is serviceable, the music and ambience often grating, irritating and annoying. The map layout is confusing and you are often left searching and wandering. The gameplay is oftentimes repetitive, sometimes boring, and confusing. The story bits are a disjointed mess, that have to be put together while playing.

But all this seems to be in service of an interesting narrative about childhood trauma, abuse and coming of age, all wrapped in the guise of a story about the singularity and artificial intelligence. I have to commend the author of keeping his clear vision and a consistent narrative through all this mess. A mess which is reinforced by all the thing I mentioned above, which would make a game 'not fun'. But being 'not fun' seems to be the point in this case. You feel the confusion, anger and bewilderment of the main subject of the story.

So I guess, if you are into this kind of story, and if you are willing to drag yourself through a confusing mess of a game (which seems to be a deliberately crafted experience), you should check this out. Everyone else should stay clear.

It's really hard to make up my mind about whether to recommend this game or not. What we have here is a narrative driven puzzle and exploration game. But it goes beyond a tightly defined genre. It is weird from the start. The graphics are deliberately janky, sometimes even ugly, often mixing artefacts and glitches into the game. Sometimes to the point of making it barely playable. The sound is serviceable, the music and ambience often grating, irritating and annoying. The map layout is confusing and you are often left searching and wandering. The gameplay is oftentimes repetitive, sometimes boring, and confusing. The story bits are a disjointed mess, that have to be put together while playing. But all this seems to be in service of an interesting narrative about childhood trauma, abuse and coming of age, all wrapped in the guise of a story about the singularity and artificial intelligence. I have to commend the author of keeping his clear vision and a consistent narrative through all this mess. A mess which is reinforced by all the thing I mentioned above, which would make a game 'not fun'. But being 'not fun' seems to be the point in this case. You feel the confusion, anger and bewilderment of the main subject of the story. So I guess, if you are into this kind of story, and if you are willing to drag yourself through a confusing mess of a game (which seems to be a deliberately crafted experience), you should check this out. Everyone else should stay clear.