CAUTION: Spoiler
I overall really enjoyed it. It’s a short and emotional story definitely worth playing. While the twist could have easily been poorly handled and seen a mile away, it managed to execute it perfectly and leave me surprised, making the reveals as the resolution played out feel more poignant.
The only issue that really bugged me was the dialogue writing. Some of it felt unnatural and stiff to read, with one or two heavy expositions as well. I can’t recall exactly which one, but I do remember one of the Jean-Marc messages being particularly clunky and expositional when I read it.
The art style also feels a tad generic for this type of text-based story game, with the minimalist forms contrasting against the solid colored background. That’s not to say it was bad by any means, it just feels very run-of-the-mill for such a game, and while I don’t have a specific example off the top of my head, I know I’ve definitely seen it before. It was clearly handled with much more care than it’s rivals, and maybe if I hadn’t seen it from the App Store first, I wouldn’t have made such a connection, since it’s usually cheap, quickly put together mobile games that use it just to save time. Given the personally done illustrations, thematic significance, and symbolic use on things like the absent faces, I can say wasn’t the case here. My first impression was an assumption it would be like those other games based on the art, and it wasn’t at all, but I almost skipped it completely. If I saw it on the App Store without the game of the day tag, I probably would have skipped and missed out on the story. This paragraph is less of a real issue than it is my personal opinions on the art, and the industry itself is much more at fault for my gripes than the artist or work. Because the impression almost made me ignore it, and I’m sure someone else probably thought the same thing, but they might not have downloaded it anyways, I added it in here. Might be worth something to you.
Again, great game! The review sounds mostly negative, but take it as a complement because that means the complaints were so few I could address them specifically, and the praise was so much I couldn’t fit it in beyond generalizations! 5/5!