Adam, I have to say that I think you truly made something special with this new version of No Players Omline. This is a full-on commercial release of one of my favorite freeware horror titles that has a surprising amount of content, story elements, and deep lore surrounding both the developer John Mullard and Sarah. I even love how many simple, silly little mini-games there are, like the parody of Minesweeper and that fake visual novel dating sim. The most notable part about what makes me love it so much is that it is a full single-player campaign. Whereas the original freeware title was just a base for a really in-depth alternate reality game (ARG), this is a game that explores the concept even further and takes it to new heights and levels. You enter the world of MC-93, a fake operating system tied into the game's world where you learn of a mysterious capture the flag game that has long since been abandoned, and you eventually trudge through the OS, finding clues and secrets to uncover the story of John Mullard, the owner of Enuit Games, and his mysterious, never-released video game. You spend a lot of time in the OS digging through archives, notes, and downloading and even combining fake software that you will combine with the main CTF build, which usually are separate playable games with their own unique charm and feel to it before you are able to reconnect Sarah with her past and eventually John Mullard himself. This, in my eyes, is a massive exploration game where you advance the story at your own pace, and you even can dig through a whole fake in-game internet complete with fake forums, websites, blogs, and everything else, reminiscent of one of my favorite indie games of all time, Hypnospace Outlaw, where you take the role of a HypnOS Enforcer to clean up people's acts and keep the world of Hypnospace under control. This CTF game John created is actually a portal to Sarah, who in this game, has taken the form of a record player and only has very limited memory of her past. It contains all of her memories and her past life with John, who added her to his game to remind him of her and keep her soul and spirit alive. The original game released all that time ago was just the base of an ARG experience, where you would have to dig through the game's blog posts here on Itch to uncover hidden features or even separate games outright that tie into the game's interconnected world. But this? This is a full commercial game that takes your original idea and concept and cranks it up to 100. The original game was a short experience, a short freeware title, but this on the other hand is a multi-hour long commercial package with hours of content and mini-games to play on top of the game's main campaign and story. This new expansion takes what made me love the original so much and just improves upon it tenfold. For a game priced at $15 USD, this is a massive steal for what you get. I honestly think that this is a special little game that people who play it will only get to experience once. I highly advise against backseating with this game, because it is truly special and I think players who play it need to go in blind to get the full, raw experience like I did. I beat the game's campaign in roughly 4 hours and I had an absolute blast. This has to be one of my all-time favorite indie game releases from this year. As a big fan of your original No Players Online game, this took everything I loved with the original game and just absolutely shot it into the stratosphere.
9/10, this is an absolutely INCREDIBLE game.