As Dusk Falls

These are the Best games I've played in 2022, including Dusk Falls, a Video game set in the late 1990s Clinton Regime. It is inspired by the works of the Coen Brothers, Pen-Ek Ratanaruang, and TV shows like Ozark and I Love It. Michael Goroff of Electronic Gaming Monthly wrote favorably of the game's competently directed scenes, evocative painting-based art style, ability to view alternate paths, implementation of co-op mode, and immersive storytelling, but disliked the undercut tension of the narrative's second half and the cliffhanger ending. Robert Purchese of Eurogamer called it "the best interactive movie game I've played", citing the multiplayer component, photoreal comic strip art style, effective key frames, impressive voicework, character development, flashback-based storytelling, mature depiction of heavy subject matter, and TV-inspired presentation as its strengths, concluding, shows how well games can handle stories and themes like these when done with care and understanding, and how well it can pull us into the lives of others and invest us in the decisions they have to make."

This game is a fantastic experience to fall in love with if you appreciate storytelling above all. Personally love the art style with a passion, but I get some may not be a fan of it out of the gate, still, give it a chance and you will start to appreciate it and enjoy it - or at the very least not feel like it is a detriment to the game.

Gameplay is not the strong suit of this game, but that is to be expected in this kind of games. If you are a fan of games like firewatch, telltales the walking dead, or what remains of Edith finch, this game will definitely deliver in the story front.

It was better than I expected and I would like to see more games if it becomes a series. The only negative thing I can say is about the last episode. It shows the results of our choices, but they ended the game in a hurry. You might not even realize if you've finished the game until you see the screen that takes you to the main menu. In short, the game starts well, but by the end it has lost its charm. It's likely that either a second game or a DLC will be released in the future, otherwise it doesn't make much sense for them to end the game this way. Because you can look at all similar games and they all have a story that starts and ends. As Dusk Falls has a beginning but no end. On the other hand, some of the characters we meet along the journey don't seem to be handled well enough. I would have liked to see more details about their personalities and their lives. The ending is very important for this kind of game. This part of As Dusk Falls is not very well thought out.

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.

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!!!)