Hello players
First... a warning! This game is _fade, NOT Fade, that was another game by Milennin that I reviewed lots of time ago, even if both games were realized with Rpgmaker 2003. Now, _fade is a game made by ForgottenDawn, author of other peculiar adventures such as The Linear game, but this is the first game from this developer that I'll review. _fade was released in 2016 but it's a prototype despite being listed as a complete game. And this was the first thing that made me curious, this is clearly a project that while not realized completely, it still is an ok prototype (I played the 0.05 version, no RTPs needed), a little more than a demo.


I do not know what are these items for... just collect them, ok?

The game will start explaining that's an adventure game about a shadow that has to recover its memories after waking up in an unknown world.
Our mission, as the nameless shadow, will consists in navigating various areas that includes mazes with telephrts, collecting items and solving a couple of puzzles. This is done to dissipate the darkness (it's strange that the darkness is the enemy/opposition of a shadows, but hey that's how the story goes) that will let explore further zones and learn more about the past.
The system is pretty simple: move around with the arrows, press Esc for the menu (to save the game, and you can do this at any point, and that's for sure a good idea) and Z to interact with people and things. Ok, not that there are many, still the main problem will be finding all the interactable points of interest and items you can get, since they do not stand out from the rest of the decorations of the various rooms and locations.

The most original and intersting part of the game is clearly the graphics: assets are all custom, the explorable world is divided in various surreal zones and dreamlike senarios that include gardens, misty plains, underwater areas, mysterious tunnels and a park with swings and other details. The locations are often simple (sometimes instead there are many details, depends on the particular area) but colorful and pretty, it has a distinct 16 bit feel, but the important things is that they're surreal, varied and colorful. Music is also original and evocative, you can even listen to the whole soundtrack without playing the game HERE.


A maze! Should we trust that arrow painted on the wall or not?

Final Verdict
_fade isn't a complete game despite the presence of an ending, that does look like an epilogue but doesn't really give us any answer (spoiler below).
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Who was our shadow? What were the other shadows? There aren't even many dialogues to make up a story (just the introduction and some indications that we have to "vanquish darkness"), anyway from a visual point of view it's a pretty stylish game, music is good, and the gameplay is also ok, the puzzles and mazes weren't too bad in my opinion. I don't remember how much time it took me to finish (rm2k3 does not register the playtime), but it's not a very long game, I think it was about an hour, mostly spent solving puzzles and navigating mazes.
Pretty cool, still I find impossible to give a rating since this is a prototype, but for me it was a good experience!