I couldn’t help but feel this game was less of a game and more of a glorified visual novel with some exploration and easy stealth. The few game mechanics in it, while fun for the first chapter, quickly became boring and repetitive. It was more story driven than anything, which is fine, however even the story fell pretty flat on me while I read about this family’s problems.
Free will is an illusion, Dan
The story starts pretty innovative; the player takes the role of some semi-imperceptible being in a summer home with a beautiful view. I later decided I was a ghost haunting the house, although the game never reveals what the player could be, other than a ‘weird presence’. The assignment is to follow the family’s struggle; a mother worried about her marriage and the family, a father that is trying to write his next best seller, and their child who has child-like concerns that I never much cared for. The player’s goal was to search for clues about this family and find a suitable compromise in an attempt to make everyone happy and keep the family from falling apart.
Each family member has one compromise to choose from, and the ability to choose from two compromises is there if one was able to get all the clues from another family member 
without spooking them. However the buck stops there; there is a two compromise limit, so at the end of each level, someone is getting fucked over. I really liked the idea that I had to let someone down each time; it added a real pressure and some actual thought i
n to what 
matters the least, and what is the most pressing issue at hand. However, the game would sometimes make you feel like shit for choosing a compromise for one character; even though it is what the family member wanted, the game would hint that they still aren’t happy with that outcome. Other times, the ‘right’ compromise is so easy to pick out, it isn’t even a challenge. Sorry Dan, I’m not going to feel bad for you not being an alcoholic. By the end of each chapter, it seems like no matter what I did, everyone was unhappy and I was sure I ruined everything and contemplated which family member would commit suicide first. Yet miraculously at the end of my first play through, everyone was doing fine except for Dan. I fucked the father of the family over hardcore. I felt as though the game gave a very inaccurate description of how one was doing with their little snippets.
Racing Rogers will never be a priority
The ‘weird presence’ could walk around as normal, however, walking around made one liable to get seen by the family. There is also the ability to teleport from light fixture to light fixture, and for whatever reason, the family would not be able to see the player when possessing a light fixture. Later in the game, the difficulty increases by different lights being turned off, and for whatever reason, the ghost can’t posses light fixtures that aren’t on. While it was a neat concept, it added very little change to the game play as the player can almost walk around the whole house without being seen. I rarely used the light fixtures as a way of not being noticed, and more for quick travel around the house. This family is rather oblivious. There is also an option to make a light flicker while you are possessing it, which is really nigh useless and more of a burden than anything. The purpose is to get their attention away from where ever they are, assuming you need to be around there, and fixed towards the flickering light so you can teleport to another light behind them, and get to where you need to go. The family is so out of touch though, that I have never needed to use this. In fact I used it more accidentally than anything else. Even if the NPCs were aware of their surroundings, they move around often enough where you could wait half a minute for them to be out of the room. All in all, the game mechanics, while it was a good idea, was poorly implemented and became boring quickly.
If the family gets too suspicious of the ghost like entity, that character’s compromise will be lost as an option, and you can actually get a game over and restart at the chapter beginning if you let yourself get caught too often. I actually tried getting caught before and it is really hard to get someone too spooked. I had to walk right in front of the character and stand still for a good minute or so before my whole screen faded to white and I heard that familiar typewriter again. It’s easy to tell game play really takes a back seat to this when it’s so hard to get noticed, and then so hard to actually lose.
L-Linda! You’re so… uh, pretty…
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out The Novelist will be heavily story and text based. Which is not inherently bad, I love my lore and twists, and reading honestly does not bother me too much in video games. I had high hopes for a game following the life of a person who writes for a living. Despite the direction of the game and story, the little snippets and articles and entries didn’t really amaze me very much. I was left underwhelmed with the writing; it felt as though they were just trying to get a story out as quick as possible. Once in a while I’ll see something clever, whether it was foreshadowing or just a neat simile. There’s a few surprise twists that pop up, but they make a one time appearance and generally aren’t mentioned again. I guess I was expecting much more on a game so focused on the story and writing aspect. Being a novelist, I was hoping the father’s journal entries would be more colorful, but they were just as dull as everybody else. Which is fine for everyone else, but I feel as though somebody that writes for a living will be maybe a little more reliably overly dramatic or descriptive in his letters. I also couldn’t help but notice the family had such little personality and appeal. I was hoping their characters would develop past their problems, instead of only developing up to their current problems right then and leaving it to plateau there.It was really disappointing when I found out that character development pretty much ended in the game, and I was just riding on stories about their problems which have been structured by the end of the second chapter. I didn’t feel attached to the family at all. In fact I started to not even care about their outcome and maybe even loathe them a little bit. They were not likable characters by any means, at least not to me.
A picture Timmy drew of him with his dad
I should mention that the artwork was beautiful. The game sets it’s own path between realistic and art, which I wish more games would start doing instead of leaning way towards one side or the other. While all the faces looked at best, blank, and at worst, downsy, the house was neat and simple, like one would assume a summer house to be. To be honest, and in fear of trying to sound profound, the scenery was honestly breathtaking. The forest and the ocean view, though not a large view, were beautiful and made me a little jealous that my stupid ghost entity couldn’t travel outside. The music, while just ambiance, was still very much appreciated. I’m glad the game had some music to it. I do have to complain about the awful echoes when reading people’s memories, which were so exaggerated I’d often have to ‘read’ the memory multiple times before I could figure out was they were saying. Also, while I love the idea of finding the memory by sound, the sort of ringing becomes unbearably loud when you get up close. And turning the volume down will make the whole point of finding memories by sound moot. The game play was surprisingly smooth; I didn’t have high hopes for a free game that sounded like it focused more on story. But I was pleasantly surprised by the seamless transactions from lamp to lamp. In a few instances it was difficult to select a person or object, but it was rare. I couldn’t break the game, not saying I didn’t try. I really did, I love breaking games.
Any amount of Daddy juice is too much Daddy juice
All in all, it’s a free fucking game. I feel as though the game was brought a little too ‘middle of the road’, with both the story and game play lacking a little bit. I liked the idea it was going in, but in short, I got bored with it. The family didn’t seem like people I could ever relate to, nor their problems. Game play was very easy and quickly got stale. But the idea was good, simply poorly executed. There is a lot of potential of replaying the game and finding out all the different paths and outcomes for the family, although honestly it became a chore for me to finish it just the first time. If you’re bored and strapped on cash, especially if you enjoy the ‘choose your own path’ sort of games, why not waste a couple hours and give it a shot?
Abandoned Animal Accumulator 