choose your own picture – Arcana Agency: Prologue Review

Every phase of this game consists of a drawing, which takes up 2/3 of the screen, and some text, which takes up 1/3 of the screen. You read the text, then select from a few cryptic action choices. I'll describe each of these in turn. The drawings are nice and well-done, but they quickly become redundant as the same drawings are reused over and over. Sadly, the (repetitive) artwork is the game's only selling point. The text looks and reads as if it were thrown in as an afterthought (that's why I call this a "choose your own picture" game instead of a "choose your own adventure" game... there's no adventure if there's hardly any text). The dialogue is extremely clumsy, and the notation makes it unclear who is speaking at any given time. Continuity is lacking, in that you will "turn the page" and start reading something that seems completely irrelevant to what you were just reading. The text is so poorly written that I suspect English is not the author's first language. You will find little suspense, excitement, or adventure in this sloppily-written story. And now on to the action choices: as I mentioned, these are cryptic. That is because they are often just one or two words (again, too little screen real estate was used for the text in order to make way for the game's only strength: the drawings). What does a choice of "head down" mean when a woman asks you a question, and for that matter, do I even know what I'm speaking to this woman about yet? Nothing is made clear and the game reduces to a series of guesses. Making matters worse is that the action choices are often completely inconsequential. What does it matter if I choose tea or not? (I'm not making this up, that is one of your choices.) As it turns out, nothing! (I've tried both.) One more thing that appears thrown in as an afterthought is the rolling of a die. This happens on occasion. You are never told what you are rolling against (i.e., am I trying to roll above a certain number, below a certain number, and what number, and why that number?). There is a cheesy animation of a die that eventually settles on a number. You are told whether you failed or not. Then the story resumes. Some interesting dice dynamics would be a welcome addition to making this into more of a game, but unfortunately die rolls are not at all implemented in an interesting way. Apparently there is a mystery to solve here, but it's never made clear what the mission is, nor what clues you have collected. I love the 1930's setting, and a mystery game like this is a great premise. Sadly the execution here was about as poor as it gets. Don't bother paying a cent for this one.
Review by simkn on Arcana Agency: Prologue.