Panorama

Panorama is a story-focused RPG starring filmstar Richard Reed, as we all know this is fiction, I couldn't care less about any resemblences.
He is the star, and has a party being thrown for him in honor of his career and effort. Before he can go there, however, he still needs to shoot a couple of scenes.
It is a rather short game and can be beaten in under an hour.

What makes this game great is the fact that both the underlying story and each set is fun and a precise parody of what we've known of movies, producers, directors and actors. It also demonstrates how we as "fans" know so little about the person behind the character.


On the other side of the fence .. that's where paradise is at.

What immediately catches your interest - from beginning to end - is the music. Instrumental through and through, orchestra even. While the music inbetween is bland and calm, the music on stage creates and catches the atmosphere perfectly.

The environments are kept small and realistic. There are no cameras anywhere, but so be it. The scenes, among the directors depict the typical clichés. A dancing sailor, a love-comedy, a haunted house and so on.
While our actor plays his part, he does give his own opinion on the matter and makes himself out to be more than a mere puppet. Rejecting to play some parts, too.

And indeed, with each scene, and between each scene, you learn more and more about the character. As time goes on, he really just wants to be done with it and carry on with it. He cannot risk being late to the party. It carries a significance we will later fully discover.


It's not all pretty on stage..

The dialogue has a few typos now and then, but is otherwise precise and to the point. From the director who wants to do "something new", "something different", to the critical dance-choreograpor, they're all there. And the scenes we are to shoot are scenes we should easily be able to recognize from all kinds of movies.

Because they all show different genre, the game also offers quite varied gameplay. You have a little bit of button-coordination during the dance part, have to search the house during the horror-part. This makes the set-by-set progression less linear than it could be.
The only real complaint I have is that with the slow movement-speed, you often spend too much time walking around. Or walking around doing nothing. While it is no problem during dialogue, it drags on when you just walk around.
Of course, this does relate to the urge to "just be done with it", especially towards the end, but it is slightly annoying nevertheless.

The underlying story catches you, and the turn of events does too. It's moving and cleverly planned out. You aren't attacked out of nowhere, but you had no way to know anything for certain, either.


This game sets out to tell a story of an actor, and to parody and depict the act of acting. It succeeds at both splendidly. It does what it's supposed to do almost perfectly.
It was fun, funny and emotional.

For those who need a complex gameplay "Panorama" will only be a series of minigames, but I can recommend it to anyone who can appreciate details and a decent story.