![]() Don't remember much else.Technobabylon is a cyberpunk adventure game developed by Technocrat Games and published by Wadjet Eye Games for Microsoft Windows, iOS, Linux, and macOS. They're fine, I liked everything to do with switching the AI personalities - "Would the bartender in the body of the maid with the memories of the toaster tell me what I want to know?" Loved that bit. I don't know, I liked parts of it but something about the main themes and final act lost me. I liked Charlie and Max, but I couldn't relate with Charlie's need to "carry on his legacy" and almost be complicit with some terrorism to save his frozen embryos. The plot has good bits too, but it's in service to a story that I failed to connect with. I stand by the quality of the art and general worldbuilding setup. But it wasn't in the 'this is thoughtful material that can be tackled from many angles and enriches my mind' and more 'this is somewhat interesting but something doesn't sit right and I want to know why'. Ran out of room, so my spoiler thoughts are here - The game getting me to think about it this much is credit enough. There's a lot of material and some good twists but many pieces don't sit right with me. Most of the plot and themes center around the creation of the central AI, Charlie's desire for children and guilt over his past, and some plot hijinks with clones, chosen ones, and mindjacking serial killers. ![]() But that's not even my biggest peeve with the story. Latha is by far the least interesting of the three. It's more a standard perspective switch at different points in the story like you see in a lot of books. And not in the Pathologic 'play the same story from 3 vastly different perspectives thing'. That's the sort of worldbuilding I like to see, fun extrapolations out of 'what ifs'. And it's exactly the sort of thing future youngsters would do if given the chance. ![]() But it's also pretty stupid to give yourself dangerous symptoms as a pastime. Bringing that back to the table can act like a form of protest. The establishment doesn't want disease as a part of their world, it makes them uncomfortable. It's explained, by a young man suffering from self inflicted aphasia, as a form of counter culturalism. But just the symptoms, which they can revert at will. So the younger generation gives themselves debilitating diseases for fun. Like-It's so far in the future every major ailment is curable. The Trance, an VR/AR environment, takes over citizens lives as the real world gets more hopeless. The city of Newton is overseen by an experimental AI with it's own police force to carry out it's will. The setting is familiar while still having original elements. It's a decent presentation all around, but it's still a low budget adventure game studio game. The music didn't stand out too much to me but I remember one or two tracks that grabbed my attention. The backgrounds are colorful while still giving off a depressive big city vibe-the Blade Runner thing. The color palate is nicely refined too-lots of emerald greens and blues against the industrial greys. So the backgrounds have baked in shadows along every corner, making the image look pleasing despite it being very low resolution. This is one of those pixel art games that recognizes that lighting exists and needs to be represented. The Art and music that depict that adventure are solid. It's got a variety of puzzles, story beats, and little set pieces to fill out a decent sized adventure. They consistently put out adventure games that follow the heart of the 90's design, but with enough improvements to make them palatable to modern tastes. ![]() It's a Sci-fi Point-and-click from Wadjet Eye Games. So I have strong thoughts about writing this stuff, but not about the game itself. The alternative is not doing it, or *journaling*, and fuck either of those. If I can't give an accurate account when I just finished it, my future self gets nothing out of this. Half the reason I write reviews is so I can read them later to remember how I felt about the thing. ![]() Most games jump up in down in quality and saying things like "the pacing needs work" or "the 2nd act is too slow" is peanuts compared to how complex my experience with it was. I feel like a complex graph of those states over the course of the runtime might tell more than I could ever recount in text. In the moment I sway back and forth between investment, curiosity, enjoyment, and sometimes boredom. Story heavy games are hard for me when it comes to expressing my thoughts on them. ![]()
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