I NEED A NAME Reviews

I shat my pants

cool little game! the puzzles were fun, and i had a good time looking for all the secrets. i do wish that the walking speed was slightly faster though.

I'll start by saying this game has potential, but it fails in all aspects because it was too ambitious. This game is not a good puzzle game, not a good RPG-maker game, not a good horror game and not a good "game" overall (more on that in the Conclusion). Bad puzzles [hr][/hr] Of the "puzzles" I had, before I ended up quitting, I was told open a red gate with a string of numbers from ... ? The colors of those numbers were arbitrary and had nothing to do with the gate. (So is the game just gonna throw random shit at me and expect me to "solve" it? Maybe this ties into the narrative and horror, maybe numbers/colors are important to our character and this feeling of confusion needs to be conveyed to the player for them to understand the story that's to unfold; let's see.) The very next "puzzle" told me to do math after it gave me some operators with a red (or should I say yellow) herring [b]and now tells me[/b] the colors are important. Everything I said in the above paragraph in (parenthesis) for the narrative, is wrong, it's just poor design 🤷🙃, i.e. "go search the environment for arbitrary numbers, do math, and move rocks" does not make for good puzzles, if they serve no other purpose than being a gate, why even include them? Why not use that time for exposition or build puzzles that fit around the idea you want to give to the player. The puzzles were unsatisfying to say the very least. Bad RPG(-Maker) [hr][/hr] The aesthetic of an abstract environment was absolutely great and I loved seeing it (helped with the horror), but the limitations of the underlying engine (RPG-Maker) made it frustrating as hell to deal with. I'm taught at the very beginning that I am a square and I move in 4 directional planes. Great! I'm also taught there are clear boundaries for where I can and can't go (light areas--Good, dark areas--Bad). Great! Next, we're thrown into the abstract world as our character. Those things you just learned? Throw all that shit out ... Sometimes areas where there's light you can walk on to and move to different areas from. All other times that's not the case (60/40). It's there enough to notice and be frustrated with it. If you build up the expectation that anywhere there isn't light you cannot tread, well ... "get fucked idiot", because you just missed the first reversed audio recording ruining the story/horror because it will be incomplete in the end, but it's [i]justified[/i] because it's a "mystery" you need to "solve" ... Just like the "puzzles". So now you as the player are **REQUIRED** to map out every single tile of every single area and then keep that information in your head ... Why? That's not narrative driven, that's not the fault of the Engine, that plays no part in the puzzles, it's just poorly thought out. Bad Horror [hr][/hr] Good horror doesn't rely on jump scares, it relies on making an idea that's otherwise taboo and hard to explain, a reality. Sure, zombies are scary because they're living dead (spoooopy 😨😱), but what's really scary is the idea of losing all faculty of mind and [i]becoming[/i] a mindless drone set out to destroy the very thing that you are and everything that your species has worked to accomplish. The atmosphere looks good and it stops after that. The OST is non-existent and the jump cuts (which I'm guessing was for cheap jump scares?) were very underwhelming. So when it comes to bad horror (jump scares) it fails and when it comes to good horror (setting up a believable atmosphere and exploring big ideas) The story [i]had[/i] potential. It's a damn shame I couldn't actually see if there were any big or good ideas to be explored. So I have to go off of what I know. From as far as I got, there's a child that's gone missing from 2 parents who are (or are getting) divorced and want custody. We could have explored big ideas like feelings of ineptitude (are my parents separating because of me?), abusive/negligent parents, or several other topics. So when it comes to bad horror (jump scares/shock value) it fails and when it comes to good horror (setting up a believable atmosphere and exploring big ideas) it fails. Conclusion [hr][/hr] I should not have to fight the controls to play the game. I should not have to fight the map to play the game. I should not have to "guess" how TF I solve a puzzle to play the game, and I should not have to reverse an audio recording (???) to understand the game's story. This video game would have been served much better in a different media. If it were just a video, removing the game, it would be improved. Working to understand the [b]story outside of the game is bad design[/b]. The reason that works so well in a video is because the viewer isn't required to move around the clunky, hidden map or solve shitty puzzles. They just need to resolve "How do I decipher this message or understand this audio recording?" They feel like an active participant and are more invested in the story. I'm required to do that [b]AND[/b] move around the same areas, no joke, 12 separate times to find nothing has changed, with no direction given and no fucks to give to comb every square inch of every tile of every area for the secret entrance to a new area.