South of the Circle (2020)

South of the Circle has me conflicted.

I think the art direction is captivating, the music is stirring, and the well-written dialogue is expertly performed by the game's cast. The story's themes and time period are also interesting: I appreciated how it weaved several overlapping political quandaries.

But I spent most of my playthrough waiting for the game to justify its interactivity. The dialogue choices are so abstract that they're challenging to differentiate, especially when their impact on the story's direction is tough to identify (sometimes contradicted in the very next scene). Segments with direct player control are infrequent and so subtly telegraphed that I'd be caught off guard when they'd begin, or accidentally let go of the joystick only to discover I was already back on autopilot.

The game did eventually address my narrative choices, but in a way that felt weirdly deferential to the author's intent at the expense of what little agency I was afforded. While I can sputter off some potential reasoning for that, how it might represent the futility of the protagonist's situation, I simply found it too unsatisfying a payoff to recommend... which is a shame, given the degree of artistry otherwise on display.

Recently, I got a 3 month free of Apple Arcade, so I started to check every game one by one. And this one turned out to be really good.

To be honest, it's not really a game, it's just an interactive story. Sometimes you need to click on some objects on the screen or choose emotions in dialogue, but that's all. Nonetheless, narrative is so exciting, that you don't really care about lack of gameplay. The game starts in the snows of Antarctica as your plane crashed here and you need to get some help. It's a Cold War outside, and from time to time you see flashbacks from the past. I don't want to add anything else to avoid spoiling, so you just need to believe me that story here is worth your time. It takes only about 3 hours, so consider it as a good movie.

I liked the visual style, it's all bright and colorful, slightly reminds a comic book. Moreover, I really enjoyed the music (I hope devs will release an OST some day) and the voice acting, such a great work here.

If you have an Apple device, you must play it. It's a hidden gem.

My first Apple Arcade game turned out to be a banger!

South of the Circle is a narrative game where you are making choices (or are you) to guide the story along. And what a cool story does it have to tell. Like any good movie or tv show I was glued to this story until completion. I beat this game in 2 sittings and I didn't even want to turn it off during the first.

The voice acting is incredible. I wasn't expecting something so high quality from this game when I turned it on. I thought it would be passable but instead I was pleasantly surprised by actors that could walk away with an award.

The atmosphere of this game was awesome. You go from moments of stress to moments of calm in a cool flashback way of storytelling. The music compliments these moments of stress wonderfully.

I really enjoyed the graphics, but I do think they will be off putting to some. Personally though I thought they were gorgeous. I did come across some hiccups in the gameplay from time to time but nothing that was horrendous, but it did take me out of the game for a brief blip.

The controls were...decent. there isn't a lot of maneuvering around, but when you are it was a little hard to keep on line with where you wanted to go. Keep in mind I did play this with an Apple Remote and if you were connected to a controller I don't think this would be an issue.

TL;DR: A really great narrative game that will keep you glued to your seat with the atmosphere and flow of the story. The sincere care if the characters sis a plus as well.