Floor 13: Deep State Reviews

Honestly, this game could be way better, and should be. I absolutely love the premise but for a modern game it lacks a fair bit right now. You are pretty much chucked in the deep end when you start, with only a cursory "probation period" which serves as the tutorial (although it barely deserves to be called that) which you seem to have no choice but to repeat each time you restart the game. You can breeze through it in a few minutes but honestly it shouldn't be too hard to let it be skipped. My main issue though is with the complete lack of direction when playing. It's just, 'here you go you figure it out'. Next thing you know you're fired. I have no idea which of these people I should put under surveillance since there's more than 3 and you can't put more than 2 under surveillance and 3 being tailed and none of what I find makes any sense to me whatsoever. This would seriously benefit from like, some form of easier mode, or a better tutorial instead of a few short 'documents' that simply show you how to issue orders and not at all explain when to issue them or how to make sense of any information that your pursuit or search yields. I'm like "so the search of this persons house found nothing and all he did for the last two days was leave home, go to work, and come home.. what the hell do I do now??" The soundtrack is basic, but somewhat immersive. The scenes on the Tube, and walking to work etc are also somewhat immersive but get repetitive real quick so it's be nice if there were a button to just skip that since even speeding it up gets annoying. It's also incredibly annoying to not have something like an on screen 'memo' or something to immediately recall who is what suspect as going back and forth between suspects, orders, locations etc to try and rescind old surveillance orders so you can put new people under surveillance really takes the fun out of it and gets old reallll quick. Maybe something on the right of screen with current orders and an 'X' to cancel them nice and easy? I also feel like there may be too much going on at one time. Maybe it could be broken up case by case instead of seemingly throwing everything on the plate immediately. Could also have some DLC with new cases and such released, I'd buy the hell out of that if the issues are fixed. I'm going to find the original to play in the hopes of understanding this one a little better, because I love games with this premise and this one genuinely feels like there's a diamond just screaming to be cut out. But honestly, it needs work, and I absolutely hope they work on it because it could be seriously good fun. Right now though I'd go for Orwell or Spycraft if you're looking for a government or spy game story to tickle you in the right places.

I have played the old "13th Floor" on DOS and this remake of the game brings nostalgia. I have only played a tiny bit of this version and I have to commend the developers for sticking to the main format. Be prepared to face the consequences of your action, Director General.

The original is better, and free. This game was incredibly boring in comparison, and I feel like there was less overall. Less features, less paths to take, less motivation to keep playing.

I enjoyed this game right up until I hit a game-breaking bug. It had already been reported but I submitted my bug report in May of 2021. The dev was quick to respond and said a fix would come soon with a new patch and new content. Over a year later and more people have reported the same bug, it's still not fixed, and I can't finish the game because of it. I'd avoid this one until there's a resolution since it seems to be impacting more than just one or two people.

Very disappointing. I bought the game when it was released based on the quality of the original and the fact that at least one of the original developers was allegedly involved in this one, but this is nowhere near as good as its predecessor: early missions are extremely hard and purely based on trial-and-error mechanics. Also, the game is much less forgiving now (even though Mr. Garcia is nowhere to be seen) and some of the UI/gameplay bugs make for an infuriating experience. Avoid even if it's on sale, and play the original one instead.

I really thought I was going to enjoy my time with this game. I played the original, I played Black Closet, and I was seriously in the mood for some spy thriller nonsense. I was very bored on the day I bought this game, too, so I ignored the negative reviews and got into it; I've enjoyed unpopular games before, so who knows? Unfortunately, Floor 13: Deep State has multiple flaws that - while possibly surpassable individually - are entirely impossible to navigate when together. First, the game tells you almost nothing about your actual goals. It's basically pure trial-and-error to figure out each individual case. I discredit one journalist who's publishing a negative article and it gives me a massive popularity boost; another journalist who's publishing a dangerous article, and nothing happens. Second, many of the best-case outcomes feel like you failed the scenario. There is a scenario centered around Uzbekistan which demonstrates this perfectly. You get an initial popularity boost as the government says Uzbekistan is no issue, and then are told that an expert on the matter will likely go to the press and expose the government's lies. Cool, so you search his home, finding his original notes on the matter. At the same time, a journalist appears, giving you a minor popularity hit as she expresses her doubts about the government's stance! So you discredit the journalist and yank the notes, now they can't achieve anything because the article has no leg to stand on! Nope, you just scrapped your run. You are guaranteed to go 30 points behind. So you reload, get Uzbekistan again, and this time you assassinate the journalist. Problem solved! Nope, now you get dragged into a plaza with some wacky head totem pole to get yelled at for breaking cover. Congratulations, you have gotten the second-best outcome for the scenario. Everyone who played the game hates the Uzbekistan plot. (Incidentally, the best outcome I have found is [spoiler]stealing the notes and assassinating the expert on the day he shows up, then discrediting the journalist the moment she appears[/spoiler], which requires you to either be following a guide or replaying the game after having already figured out the scenario. This [i]still[/i] feels like failure, because you still go to get yelled at. Third, and on the topic of failure, the developer has said officially that [b]some game states are guaranteed to make you lose.[/b] With a game this vague, with a game where every option for every scenario feels like you're losing, why would you do [i]that?![/i] Now every run, you're going to be second-guessing whether it's even possible (as a tip, the more assault and assassination missions you need to sign off on over the first two weeks, the less likely you are to have a chance in succeeding even with perfect play). I don't mind difficult games. I sometimes don't even mind obtuse games, if they're well-done thematically. But this game isn't a challenge, it's just a crapshoot where the odds get a little better the more you learn. I have felt like I was solving a case once, and that was during the tutorial- I just keep feeling like I'm doing a 'practice run' for the real deal next attempt, now. Stay away, play Black Closet or Sigma Theory or something.

I am enjoying the idea of it and the consequences of your actions having an effect on the game. You are a Director General. You will not be thanked for your service. Your greatest recognition is being unrecognized for the countless acts of security and safety you provide for the ministry. Reflect poorly on the ministry with scandals and mismanagement? Enjoy your involuntary retirement. There are some bugs however, with orders needing to be rescinded twice for them to actually go away, and orders not showing up when you want to review them. Definitely a great game so far, although for a 'point and click' I believe the price tag is a bit pricey. This is a $15 game at best.

Very disappointed. They could have done so much more with this. I loved the original game back in the day, it was a great idea. This is just a reproduction of it, with graphics that are messy, annoyingly long load times and sequences between days/events etc., slow and unnecessarily difficult. I was expecting some new features, or at least advancements on game play. What a disappointment.

The original Floor 13 was an obtuse and dry game of spycraft via bureaucracy and this sequel stays true to the original. Practically speaking, all you do is read news reports and order teams to surveil, pursue, arrest, and murder people who may be related to the plot. Every couple of days a new plot starts from a random assortment of the game's standard plots. For instance, and this is entirely made up by me so it probably does not reflect how the game actually plays, you might get a report that a celebrity is making pronouncements that could potentially be embarrassing for the government. You search the celebrity's house and have him followed and he is meeting with a foreign accountant. The foreign accountant is followed and you find literature pertaining to an terrorist group. You infiltrate the terrorist group, arrest the accountant, and subject him to level 2 interrogation procedures according to the standard Bureau of Agriculture procedures and guidelines (I.e. he's about to start losing body parts.). He gives the name of a financier, who you order a hit on. Two days later you get a report that the celeb has checked into rehab and is recanting his statements. The polls only take a minor hit. All paperwork pertaining to this case is pulled from your desk and shredded. Not every case is so easy and you might spend a couple days staring at dossiers of completely irrelevant places and people wondering if this plot is actually going anywhere. Your health are the polls, a ranking of how much the government is favored. If you fail to stop a plot or abduct/murder someone too high profile to get away with, you get a nasty news report that will tank the polls and your job evaluation is unlikely to go well. Again, this game is incredibly obtuse, as was the original. There were a few stories in the original game that had no possible way for you to avoid the poll hits from them (I can't say the same here but I am not far enough in to have seen them all.), and others just require psychopathic levels of abduction and torture of not particularly suspicious looking suspects to find the correct route through. (Though you can probably be certain that the muslim guy is not going to be the correct guy to kill in the "Our schools are being islamified" case because no story writer in the last 20 years would dare risk THAT sort of thing so you can probably just blindly eliminate the first English name that comes out of that case and win it automatically... maybe, but this is why you shouldn't rip from the headlines because we know you're going to be writing a Law and Order episode when you do that.) Timidity and just watching people for a while will lead you to surprise bad ends to the cases. You will have to retry the game a couple times and learn the right paths through the game's cases to get through to the end. While the game has a lot of gray, rain soaked London buildings to set the mood for the scenes, they have a lot of transitions that really slow the gameplay down. Practically speaking all you do each day is read 7 sheets of paper, click to assign maybe 4 teams on an exciting day and none if you are just waiting for the procedural interrogation techniques to yield results, and end the day, and even sped up these transitions take about a half second to a second per click. It is tolerable and does a lot for the atmosphere but for a game you have to repeat doing very little a LOT it is certainly a pain. Unfortunately, I have to change this review to negative because of how trivially easy it is to softlock the UI. Simply attempting to click through reports quickly will cause the office UI to freeze. Quitting in this state leaves your savegame in an indeterminate state where you are at the previous day but the previous day's reports are not executed properly. This is a game about doing ONE THING, clicking boxes and filing reports. I cannot accept a game releasing with errors like that.

Great Concept: Terrible Execution As somebody who enjoyed the 90's abandonware cult classic 20+ years ago, I thought I knew what I was getting into with this one. Unfortunately, the retro mechanics and retro UI turn this one just barely into a 'do not recommend.' Starting out with the good, the theme is something pretty unique: a modern day black ops agency in present day London. This is the same as the cult classic original, but the plots are all "ripped from the headlines" type of present day stuff. Ever want to suppress the Downing Memo leak by arranging the murder of a journalist in a freak mugging gone wrong? Sounds pretty cool, right? Well... I know this game is supposed to be hard and unforgiving (like the classic), but the game does this by being as obtuse as possible. You have very limited tools, almost no feedback, and a UI that doesn't even include mouseovers. (I'm assuming the dev's wanted to release this as a mobile game?) You'll routinely be investigating people and not even remembering why. Is there a way to look up the original report? Nope. Also, said briefing is always no more than three sentences. (See screenshots.) It only gets worse when you get simultaneous missions going. If only the dev's put in a murder-board or even a basic folder system... And again, just like the classic, there's no resolution or conclusion when you wrap a case/plot. Which is often confusing and usually dissatisfying. There are multiple solutions, but basically no feedback on if you could've done better or worse. You get a note that the following suspects are no longer being tracked and sometimes a news event that you have to figure out is related to the case. That's it. Was a full neutralization possible, or was that they best I could do? Was killing that random dude relevant or not? Guess I'll have to try on the replay... (Speaking of save-scumming, did I mention the game is quasi-Ironman? Playing a game this hard might be tolerable if it had a quicksave/load.) I get it, it's a faithful adaptation of the original, but this level of no-hand-holding just doesn't fly anymore.