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Good idea, rushed execution...

I played Surreality: Fabrication of Time since I played Esoterica: the Dreamlike in the past and I liked it. Well I like a lot surreal games, no matter if they incorporate combat or not.

Graphically this game is a bit of a mess: while there's the clever idea of using the same maps with different chipsets to create "parallel realities", I did not like she use of so different charsets and the lack of characters, because the city looks empty. But well this is a surreal game! Anyway I liked the use of realistic portraits and charsets taken from Resident Evil, if only they were more like in Esoterica...

Mapping is barely ok, since maps are quite boring and have some imprecision, what instead I like was using similar maps, the changing rooms their different graphic style, and a crescendo of a fog effect that permeates the locations with passing of time.
Sounds are strange as sometimes they do not fit the actions (maybe this was made on purpouse to enforce the "surreal" feeling?).Music is ok, fitting, even if the X-Files theme was a bit too predictable.


When you wake up with a pretty wife that looks like Jill Valentine, and she speaks gibberish...

The ending was quite predictable too, and that's a pity, not because the whole story is bad, but because I'd have preferred a slower and more detailed approach, that probably was not possible due to the limited time available.

I thing that the stoy would have been find with some more event, character or detail added, also Esoterica is a quite simple story, but the real time combat and the better enviroments add a lot to it. In fact the gamplay of Surreality consist mainly in walking, talking to some character, then interacting with an item and repeat. Your main driving force will be the curiosity to see the end of the game, and luckily the game is short so you won't be too annoyed by the repetition of these actions.

Verdict
I did not give a lesser score because after all my complaining I did not ound a single bug or typo. Well maybe I was lucky, the truth is that the game isn't terrible, it just suffers from being rushed. And this unnerves me!
Just a little more and it would have been a nicer lookingand more interesting game. Pity. Still 2.5 (1 point less than Esoterica) since it's not a total mess and I played it from the beginning to the end with no issues.

That's my idea, anyway play it, try it and see if it was too harsh or too generous...

Posts

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Thanks for the review!

This game really was a mess, even I can admit that lol. While I spread development over a few months, I tried to make sure the actual development time (hours put in) amounted to roughly the same as Esoterica, much to its detriment as I didn't fully realize enough of... well, anything lol. I think everyone who tried it felt the same as you do. I'm also sure there's something else that can be done with the general idea, so maybe one day I can revisit that. We'll see!
author=sbester
Thanks for the review!
This game really was a mess, even I can admit that lol. While I spread development over a few months, I tried to make sure the actual development time (hours put in) amounted to roughly the same as Esoterica, much to its detriment as I didn't fully realize enough of... well, anything lol. I think everyone who tried it felt the same as you do. I'm also sure there's something else that can be done with the general idea, so maybe one day I can revisit that. We'll see!


The idea was pretty good, the problem is that Esoterica had some action parts that broke the dialogue/fetch quests (and I admit I liked the story more)... I think that it could be improved with some more variety (maybe more events and characters... I do not know) or little more.
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