Yeah, so far this game is pretty fantastic.
To give an idea of what it is and how it works: basically, your character is a sort of detective who boards a ship and has to figure out what happened. There's basically dead people everywhere. Fortunately, you have the ability by way of a special stop-watch to "jump" into moments of the lives of these now dead people to figure out what transpired. In these sequences, the game requires that the player deduce some information about each individual on the ship: generally, their name, how they died, and who or what was responsible for their death. Often, these sequences will lead in naturally to another sequence: creating a virtual "ghost" of a body that encapsulates that person's story, though their story is generally just a slice of a greater whole. The game seems broken up in "chapters", with each chapter having multiple parts. When you've figured out the fate of 3 individuals, the game will confirm if you got it right. As the game opens up, you'll need to go deeper and deeper into the story, step by step, to learn more about the fate of everyone on board.
This game doesn't hold your hand at all. If you want a detective game that plays a little bit like clue but requires a little more consideration and thought, this is your game. It's dark, actually brutally violent (though, thankfully, the art-style ensures that it's never too direct). I've only been able to figure out the first 3 victims, and bits and pieces about others, but there are 60 people total on the ship so I can see trying to figure out everyone could take some time depending on how observant you are.
The scenes in the game that you explore are magnificent. Like freeze-frame murder montages, you can move around the scene and investigate the odds and ends; referencing images, information you've already collected, and dialogue snippets to try and piece together what is happening. A lot of the time the information you need to figure out what happened to just one person will require you to move backwards and forwards through different scenarios (which can be a little frustrating, since the visuals make it a little hard to make out who is who sometimes). This is a game for patient people.
The music is also spectacular, along with the ambient sounds of the ship; it's all telling a brilliant story with so little actually happening on screen. I'm kind of in awe of what this game is doing, and just how much trust it puts in the player to bit by bit build up an understanding of the events on the ship.
I was a little concerned that the price at 20 would be too steep, but I expected a walking sim: what I'm getting is actually a crazy, narrative-driven clue game of whodunnit where you have to account for the deaths of 60 people. It's deep, mysterious, and visually wonderful. If any of this sounds good, get this game.
