As Dusk Falls

It's a great game with brilliant writing but the art style will likely put people off. It's a little bit like the storyboard prototype of the game we could have had. It doesn't destroy the game, but I don't think it helps it =(

First of all, this is not a game. It's an interactive drama, a bit like those rare Netflix shows where you get to make decisions in a few places.

That said, you might think you'll love it if you know interactive stories and 'choices matter' around like your kind of thing. In most cases, you'd be wrong for two reasons:

1) It's not a TV show. It's a bunch of photos of a TV show strung together. Half way between a show and a comic book. But the result is one of those things that gets the worst of both worlds, rather than the best: there are too many 'photos' to leave anything up to the imagination like a comic book; but half the emotion and action you'd get from video is lost.

2) MOST importantly, the vast majority of CHOICES DO NOT actually MATTER, for a range of reasons. Most common is that your choice is twisted to fit the story (eg. Choose to help someone instead of ignore them, and your character trips over on the way, ultimately failing to help). Less often is that all the choices are similar (eg. Hit a cop or abuse a cop). For ones that involve exploring a scene, it's almost always that only one option actually does anything - the rest add a little dialogue but the story doesn't move on until you choose the key one. And for 'quick time' events, even if you want to purposefully fail, almost all of them just repeat and repeat and repeat until you get it right.

Some choices seem to matter, and if I'm right, they can have a huge impact on the story. But they're so few and far between that the lack of impact is overriding.

There are a few positives: one character is easy to empathise with, which makes you want to follow the story. Some of the voice acting is decent. And the 'photos' have that 'pencil drawing' style effect that you can get on cellphone photo editing apps, which has a surprisingly pleasant aesthetic.

Despite this, it's boring most of the time (you're barely involved but have to have the controller in hand just in case), and frustrating other times (why bother with choices and quick time events if they do nothing!!!)

As Dusk Falls is a good interactive movie with a memorable artistic style. Despite the fact that the whole game on the big slide of the show you stop noticing it in a couple of tens of minutes. But what As Dusk Falls will be remembered for is the impact of player choice on the plot. Despite the abundance of games of this genre, especially due to Telltale games, the choice began to be perceived as a linear story that simply develops in a slightly different way. There is a good plot, pleasant music and a logically completed ending. After passing As Dusk Falls, feelings remain that he watched an excellent mini-series. Of course, INTERIOR/NIGHT is still a young studio, but I hope that their next project will continue to develop the ideas of the genre, and As Dusk Falls itself would not be bad to port to mobile devices.

"As Dusk Falls" is a moving and emotional masterpiece. The voice acting ranges from solid to excellent and is always believable, and the story is a film-quality narrative. Do your self a favor and get lost in this artfully-crafted labor of love.

An unfinished game with no hint at the devs ever making a second or a DLC. How can you release a game with no plans to continue the story? Would've been a 10/10 otherwise.

I have to use more characters for the review, but I don't have much more to say. I'd like to know what the heck happens next in the story of these two families. Also, the description says it's over the span of 30 years, but so far they have only covered 14. Also for some reason my computer just crashed playing it? Hmm. I'm just so frustrated with the ending (or lack thereof). 50 more characters than I can submit this review.