Very neat! I found it all rather immersive and affecting. The dark right half of the screen at a specific moment was a nice touch. Are there multiple endings? It feels like there are but I've only played through once.
Nurazhi
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Wow. Each of these chapters has been better than the last, but it was true here by a wide margin. Not only the obvious that the production value is higher, but the pacing and storytelling are on another level. Elijah was by far the most compelling character in Midnight Scenes so far, maybe in any of your games. And telling the continuation of Oliver and Tina's story through him was really compelling. Just a great experience overall, I'm excited for whatever's next!
A new release from you has turned into something of an event for me, but especially a new Midnight Scenes, and this definitely didn't disappoint! I thought this was a step up from the previous entries in terms of basic presentation. All of the little touches like the slug crawling around the rock, the change in the painting, these made it all feel more immersive and lived in.
And I love how even before the implication of a larger mystery and a likely continuation of the story, I was feeling that this was the precipice of something deeper. Questions arose in my mind such as, "Wait, is that the same chocolate bar?" Also, I liked the thematic introduction of "doubles" as the merest hint that we were about to see something like this.
Great work! I get more excited about your future output with every game.
Wow. Amazing experience, and the writing and conceptual design reaches what I think is the highest level in cosmic horror: there is something happening that feels completely realized, an entity or force with a shape and a definition and an eternity of history that exists. The story refuses to explain it in full, even implies that the full explanation may be impossible, but at the same time it convinces you that there is a true and complete truth.
That's hard to achieve, but the best cosmic/unknowable horror reaches it, and this game completely delivers. It also describes it with beautiful prose, if prose is even sufficient for such horrific lyricism. I'm speaking specifically of the penultimate (I think, at least) tape where the speaker drones on about the nature of the entity behind all of this. "Every instrument is a chord in its metallic throat," or something like that. Beautiful and haunting stuff.
The presentation was also wondering. This is the kind of project that demonstrates how something that would make an intriguing but very fleeting short story can be catapulting by adding even the most basic level of interacting. I love how much the medium of video games is doing that these days. It really engages my (and I think a lot of people's) attention-starved brains in a way that pure prose can't really do.
Also, we see a lot of games like this are very low-poly or don't put a lot of care into the visual design--and I'm actually fine with that. I don't need amazing visuals. But it's definitely awesome that this game put the effort and care into the visuals and sound design, especially when they could have ridden purely on the prose because it was at such a high level. I would have loved the IF version of this game, but this version is superior and really something special.
Man, I didn't even NOTICE that the clock was changing on the main screen.
But this was a fascinating experience, influenced by previous works but not quite like anything I have ever played or watched. It played with perspective, with choice, with both the meta-knowledge of the player and the knowledge the characters have. No one knows what they think they know in the way they think they know it at any point, including you. And I don't mean "you."
Most of all, this game plays with the idea of "endings," perhaps with more creativity than I've ever seen before. It reminds me a little of "No-One Has to Die," but whereas that game touches on the idea, this game takes it and sails off into the stratosphere.