Plague: London 1665 Reviews

So we have on the surface a charming plague simulator where we manage the life of a plague doctor attempting to look after his family in London. The Good: Pixel art is gorgeous, sadly... this is kind of it. The Bad: Narrative - The plot set up is fairly solid, and I won't post any spoilers here, my issue is virtually nothing has any kind of emotional or intellectual feedback. There is one NPC who takes centre stage and speaks to you but you are given no option to speak back to them, and they offer little more than a plague based weather report with no suggestion of how to proceed or change the possible outcome of the city. Your wife has one poetic section of speech, and literally nothing else... ever... no matter how bad things get, and your children do not speak our interact with you at all. Vendors interact with you only through a sellers window, and granted they can refuse you service if you look ill but that is where their interaction ends. And the side quests must be the most self-entitled NPC's I've ever met, with one beggar claiming he was starving as no one would offer him any food because of his disease, but he would only accept a leg of roasted lamb as food... it would be funny if the game wasn't trying to convey such a somber tone. My last two points regarding narrative is whenever an NPC passes away, we are given a eulogy designed to pull on the heart strings... except we have no reason to care about these people what so ever because they are a collection of pixels that refuse to interact with us, I'd feel worse if the fish-monger died. And lastly, with no spoilers, there is a disclaimer in the ending asking the player not to leave a negative review if they didn't like the ending, as its based on true events and the characters fates cannot be changed, I only have one issue with this and it isnt the ending itself. If it is based on true events are the developer claims, can I please have access to their research? Not as a 'Huh I don't believe you.' more as a 'Actually I'd like to learn about the person I was just playing, and would be fascinated to see things through their eyes.' Sadly we get no such information. Gameplay: Repetitive, there is two mechanics and two only, pick up bodies and bury them, grab things for quest givers if you want to up you morality rating, but outside of the previously mentioned quest givers talking to you in the first place this seems to do nothing. In short, its a good concept, and its beautiful to look at, but I can't actually describe it as a game.