“You are Agatha Hope, a leader of the Cicadas, a rebel movement fighting against NexxusCorp’s tyranny. To escape their oppression, you must steal their spaceship. To save humanity, you must unite your crew. Your decisions will shape the course of your story. You must overcome challenges through mini-games and puzzles. All in an attempt to accomplish your mission and uncover dark secrets.”
Indie Info
Developer: From Hell Studio
Hunters Final Rating: 12/12
How games are rated
The Indie Game Spotlight system uses a 3 out of 3 system looking at the four categories: Play Ability (Does the game open, run well or not, any glitches ect) Player Comprehension (Does the story make sense and can I as the player Understand what’s going on) Game Flow (Does the game pace make sense for the story, introductions and mechanics or is it too slow or fast) Overall Enjoyment (Pretty self explanatory, how do I feel about the game)
Each category is based off 1-3; with 1 being the least of the category, 2 is on par with minor issues 3 is on par or exceeds category with no issues.
Genre:
Point&Click, Choices Matter, Visual Novel
ESRB Rating: Mature
Accessibility Options: (update soon)
Trigger Warning:
Mature Themes, Photosensitivity/seizure, Drugging, Mental Reprogramming, Swearing
Cover Judgments
At first glance you an tell you’re in for a unique experience. The start screen is simple, Vast space with a planet that makes you feel cold, alone and scared. In the limiting setting menu you’ll find an option to turn off strong language to make it more suitable for kids.
Play-ability
Hope is a SOLID piece of art; combining Point and Click, Choose-your-own-adventure with visual novel dialogue choices that effect game play later on, so be careful (or don’t, I’m not your parent wink). During my run I noticed things that could improve player experience and accessibility like colorblind features for connecting wires, highlighting important text to remember. Major cut scene text in the beginning could be slowed down or allow the player to click to continue. The UI could also use some improvement as currently when you click on a door, you walk to it and have to click the action node above the player to use it; causing the play through to be a tad clunky. The only thing to add is the QTE puzzles could use a little tweaking when it comes to timing and following along due to the speed you have to keep up with, but it’s not impossible to keep up with! (3/3)
Player Comprehension
The Game overall is very easy to understand and follow along with clear explanations of the games goal and tools you need to use to complete tasks; aside from the very beginning with the text error on the first puzzle before mission start where it tells you to “refer to the manual(paraphrasing)” and not the note, causing me a tad confusion which was cleared up by one of the developers who popped into my live stream! (3/3)
Game Flow
The flow of the game is pretty consistent! You’re given the option to talk to the other characters and read their personnel files at your own pace. I would say is, to my girl Agatha: Girl, you need to RUN. Currently that’s not a game feature yet which causes some scenes to lose momentum. While everyone is off running to med bay, Agatha is taking time to smell the roses insert canned laugh track (3/3)
Final Thoughts
Hope is an appropriate title. I have really high hopes this game is something great! Will and Azrael have been some amazing people to talk to and work with on making this review possible; kind caring individuals that really care about their project and really just want the best experience for the player and take feedback seriously. I look forward to giving the game a full review in its entirety.
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