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Good idead, but it so unpolished, that I cannot recommend it.

This game is a virus I know that's a pretty serious allegation and it was actually an alright game but to be really frank, I am actually livid that it has modified my system in such a way that the installation no longer works. I really couldn't care less about this game now other than reporting it for abuse and making a formal complaint to Steam to remove it. Basically, it deleted it's own executable and for some reason will not install on my system anymore. Thanks to this game, I'm probably going to have to try and figure out what is going on and maybe even reinstalling my operating system and all my applications just to be safe. To the developers I'm really sorry I have to be a kill joy. I am really sorry you worked as hard as you did to create this game and I am really sorry I couldn't appreciate your "feature" to add to the "spooky atmosphere" of the game deleting but I live in the real world. And in the real world, when I download a game and decide to play it, ESPECIALLY IF I'M PAYING YOU MONEY, we are engaging in a contract where I trust you will stay out of the rest of my system, that Steam will actually keep a lookout for these sort of applications. Now my trust in this platform is broken, you could have installed a fucking keylogger and spyware for all I know and I would be none the wiser right. You give software developers and bad name and you should retire early. Fuck you and your "game".

On the surface it had an interesting premise, but I don't feel it is very well executed. The game is broken into section where you do the following during each section: Read some exposition on your character arriving at work, solve some simple puzzles using a command-prompt-ish interface, and read chat messages from the system admin and some other folks that used to work at your nameless company. The puzzles are pretty flat. The chat you read doesn't really build up to much, nor do you get options that feel very realistic (or that contribute to much sense of an overall story). The exposition between sections feels out of place and again, does not really contribute any to the game being coherent. The game could passably be summed up as some 'creepy' sounds and effects. Weird Undertale references for no reason?

It's terrible. If not for the slow, uncompromising speed of text display I would have found out it's junk in 20 minutes. There are exactly 4 simple, tedious puzzles you're asked to do altogether about 20 times between the sluggish narratives. It walks you into a "bad ending" with no indicator that there is a choice anywhere. Given the unskippable start-of-day cutscenes and no replayability of the puzzles, (even if they weren't boring they're exactly the same) you're discouraged from trying again because you could spend another hour seeing absolutely nothing new.

It's a weird sensation. The visuals, and the "UNIX system" design is pretty well done, quite high level, but the intermissions between days, menus (or lack of them) and the "story" are quite bad. Feels like one person did the visuals, and somebody else use it to do a "meh" game.

There's a lot I like about it... the first 90% of the story, art, and sound design is fantastic, and the pacing of gameplay + chat is good. I also appreciate how fast the hacking is when you play thru a second time, using a guide or your previous notes. But I disliked the ending. [spoiler] It felt extremely silly and hokey... why did this otherwise down-to-Earth story need a bizarre, unoriginal sci-fi element instead of just being about hacking / identity theft / murder? I felt like I was supposed to get both endings because of the achievements, which unfortunately involved playing the whole game again, and then the good ending felt even dumber than the bad one. [/spoiler] (Edited to add spoiler tags. Sorry!) Oh - and I didn't get to see the resolution of the main thread about [spoiler]Michael[/spoiler] on my first playthrough because the chat controls froze. I thought it was an intentional effect, but on my second palythrough I realized it was just a reeeeally unfortunate bug.

Pro's: - Love the sounds. Creaking chair. Weird sounds in and outside the office that disturbs your concentration like it does in real life for those who work on the command prompt. Old school PC power switch that has a meaty 'ka-chunk' sound like they used to back in the day. - Love the figuring out part. Manual is weird useless collection of 'unix motd' quotes. And an achievement. Luckily the instructions are good. Notes need to be kept as you will need to do some deciphering tasks. Con's: - Demanding game. You can literally get stuck on the /chat command right away or not find '/' and '-' since the game doesn't care that you have non-US keyboard so find those special characters. You will need them. Later listening to those cryptic audio recordings will have you pull hair. - Bad ending and save purge comes at you suddenly. Means you should go through it all again but i must say the game does not exactly motivate you to try again for a better ending. Not that big of a deal i suppose since this is one of those games where keeping notes is pretty much mandatory. (i have notepad++ open on my second monitor for this) but still... would it be worth to go through it again? maybe. Still i consider it a bad design choice to kill the save and force a new restart. - Saves only per day so you must keep going until a day is complete. - Unskippable day intros. Small thing but still. All in all a decent game. Not many like this on steam. Get it on sale but i don't think it's worth full price in this condition. edit: motivated myself to go for the good ending and got it. Made a guide about the experience. Good review still stays but mind the caveats. This game is not for everyone but it was a good <5 hour deciphering game for me and i enjoyed it a lot despite there being obvious areas that should have needed a wee bit more polish.

The reason I'm giving this game a positive review is that I believe that this game has POTENTIAL. HOWEVER, please read the rest of what I have to say. First I'm going to start with what can be improved: The language and grammar are not brilliant (but tolerable), some glitches and bugs halt the game completely and ruin the experience, some randomized codes do not work at all, some instructions are not being made clear enough and characters sometimes do not provide messages so that the story continues. I also find it irritating that I have to restart a day over and over again because either a glitch has completely broken the game or I'm not getting clear instructions. Of course, the developers are working to fix a number these issues and I'm very grateful for that. Now let me get into the positives. The sound design does get me into the mood, I do feel like I'm sitting in a cold room working away at computers. A few of the scares did get to me.[spoiler]Especially the creepy face gradually appearing as I work.[/spoiler]And this game does have a sense of humour, that I always welcome. If you like supporting Indie Devs and playing metagames, then I would give this game a try. EDIT: After finally completing this game after the game-fixing update. I enjoyed it, and it certainly made my evening a whole lot more terrifying. Many of the issues that I stated in my review have been fixed. Thank you devs!