The Almost Gone (2020)

2.5

I don’t mind an open ending, but this one was so open it felt unfinished. Like don't imply a bunch of stuff and just leave us with fragments of what???? I think it’s supposed to be the five stages of grief???? No clue.

It’s called Almost Gone but I imagine nobody in production has ever heard the song “Almost Doesn’t Count.”..........

J'ai l'impression que c'est la maladie des puzzle games depuis Monument Valley: vouloir refaire Monument Valley, vouloir faire mieux que Monument Valley.

Malgré une direction artistique agréable autours de motifs visuels récurrents (l'architecture, les étoiles, les cabanes dans les arbres) avec une jolie palette de couleurs et des thèmes musicaux angoissants (qui parviennent néanmoins à se faire discrets), la sauce ne prend pas. En cause une histoire qui cherche à explorer la thématique du trauma générationnel mais qui en fait tire sur le pathos. Chaque membre de cette famille sans exception est un psychopathe, le voisin est mort, le chien est mort, le flic est mort. Ca doit être fun de vivre à coté de voisins comme ça. Bref, les ficelles sont trop grosses, on y croit plus.

Et une nouvelle fois, on retombe sur l'écueil majeur de beaucoup de puzzle games récents: à trop vouloir se démarquer on finit par avoir des énigmes incompréhensibles et peu intuitives. Je déteste qu'un jeu me force à suivre une soluce pour comprendre des mécaniques qui devraient être claires dans le jeu. La navigation est aussi un véritable cauchemar, il est impossible de se repérer dans les niveaux.

It's a puzzle game that is supposed to have a story to it, but the story is just so completely, and utterly, SAD. Covers some SUPER dark topics and the puzzles are not great. There are far too many grammatical errors in it as well. Thank goodness I got this game for free, because it wasn't even worth the hour or two that I put into it.

Would not recommend, there are far better games out there.

Played on switch. Puzzle game, with some smart parts, but mostly nothing to them.

Whenever I got stuck, it was because of controls I forgot about. Sometimes turning a 3d model is with the left stick, sometimes the right. At the start forgot I even had items as they aren't shown anywhere.

Small things like that make it frustrating even though it is so short

This is what you get when you combine a walking simulator with a hidden object game.

There's little to do except wander around and click on things till you find the McGuffin that allows you to move forward.

There's a decent story underneath the light mechanics, but it's saving grace is that it's not overly long.

This would have made an excellent mobile title, if it's not there already, but as a Steam/PC game, it's a bit lackluster.

~David.