TL;DR - A magnificent, compact, and fascinating experience from start to finish with amazing art and an engaging short story that is expertly done!
This game blew me and my expectations away in the best possible way. I will readily admit that I was personally not the biggest fan of the previous game, Dead Plate. While the art was gorgeous, I personally found the characters and story in that game to be predictable and dull at times. Furthermore, the gameplay just didn't really do a good job at capturing my attention and was slightly frustrating at times. (Now to be fair, I did drop the game about halfway through. I fully acknowledge that the game very well could have improved in the second half, however I just didn't feel engaged or interested enough to bring myself to pick it back up again.)
Needless to say, I was slightly apprehensive when booting up this game. However, despite that, I can confidently say that by the time the credits rolled I was absolutely surprised and beyond pleased with the experience overall.
To begin with, the art is, as always, an absolute treat. The art style with these games are incredibly well done and something that I personally really love. I can't quite explain why I love it so much, but I do.
Secondly, the characters, their personality, and their motivations are much more engaging and extremely well done than in Dead Plate in my opinion. It truly is an achievement to pack in so much with so little time. For a game that is at most 40 minutes, (if you go around interacting with every object and hearing all the dialogue), there is a shocking amount of depth present here.
Third, the gameplay itself while incredibly simple is more than enough to engage the player and makes the player actually think.
And of course last but not least, the story. In my opinion, the story while basic was really well done and paced extremely well. I really enjoy this take on, "atonement". It just works so well in so many ways that I would love to go into for this review, however I have written enough as is.
All in all, I think everyone who worked on this game did a fantastic job in every department. I highly recommend supporting them however you can. I can't wait to see more of your work in the future.
Thank you so much for the wonderful time and I hope you all have a pleasant day!