This article about Overboard is in the June 2022 Issue 4 of ChoiceBeat: The Visual Novel and Interactive Fiction Zine.With eye-catching flat graphics and exciting period-stylized environments, no one could say the game Overboard! doesn’t have class. (Also known as Overboard! Get Away With Murder.) Literary elements and composition create an intellectual environment on the fictional steamship SS Hook, where your task is to resolve speculation on a murder. It’s not just an…
Today, I plunged headfirst into the free games pile of new releases over on the Steam store. On my arrival, I discovered a cozy little visual novel among the listings called Fayburrow, and I decided to take a look at it. Fayburrow is a free game created by the self-named “Fayburrow Troupe” at VIA University College in Denmark. It just hit the Steam store today. What was first intrigue, turned into a fascination…
Tales of the Neon Sea is a bright pixel art in the hardboiled cyberpunk detective style. It’s also borderline platformer and adheres to a very high-density environment in synch with some of the best cyberpunk cinematics out there. Explore shadowy laboratories or deep dungeons sewers. This game is not for the light-hearted but it does deliver on content. This is probably the most sophisticated pixel art game I have ever played. Let’s take…
My Cup of Coffee: The Trouble with Earl Grey is a visual novel that takes place in a turn-of-the-century coffee shop presumably somewhere within Victorian society. You play as a family apprentice of the coffee trade and you more or less are plonked right into days as a barista. The story revolves around a casual plot involving a group of customers known as the Grey family. Using clues from casual conversation, you are…
Genesis Noir is an experimental detective story that takes place in a cosmogonic setting in different parts of the universe. If that already sounds mind-blowing, it’s artistically extravagant in the creative gears that turn its two-dimensional, or even 5-dimensional, gameplay mechanics–metaphorically at least. The game starts wandering the streets of some strange alternative 1950s cityscape and blows open a new case to investigate with a bang, a big bang. Yes, that one. In…
The Cultist Simulator was offered on Play Pass, so I sat down and played it on my tablet before this. My Play Pass subscription is about to end the trial–I’m still going to keep it–but there are tons of paid indie games for free on there. After some adjustments to my desk for ergonomics (it’s quite nice now), I am ready to go. Descriptors of The Cultist Simulator It’s a digital tabletop card…
Brok the Investigator is a side-scrolling point-and-click cartoon adventure detective story. Fully interactive, voiced characters. It’s chock full of feel-good, heartwarming, animal noir gameplay. And what would an animal people noir be without a detective croc named Brok? The game begins in an inexplicable house fire, although things aren’t quite what they seem. After this introduction, you’ll start your story from an underground apartment. Brok’s son, Graff, is a raccoon or bear, I…
