An epic and wholesome tale of a man on a quest to find his lost dog. Told in a very unique way, with cards!
*** Warning Spoilers! Continue at your own risk. I recommend you play the game for yourself ***
Honestly I wasn't sure what to expect when I started this game, Ooh card flipping... Ooh the cards are items... Ooh the cards are EVERYTHING. OOH Dinosaurs... ooh cultists...? Ooh... corpse?
The game sucks you in with such a novel and cute aesthetic and over time as your character visibly descends into madness you also began to unravel the truth of the world.
I absolutely loved the exploration and card flipping. Building the world as you traveled and giving context to cards with other cards nearby helped build a visual in my head of the area i was in. The people and the animals reacting was so cool. And the game communicated the goal very clearly with just some purple cards and empty boxes. Very well designed.
I did get lost when I was supposed to find the bread. I didn't realise the naked showering guy in the park dropped it. But once I got it there was no other real issues. And when you scare the birds away and all the cards fly away I instantly knew I was playing something unique that was made with love.
Artistically the world is very barren which is exactly what gives the cards and their context meaning. Flipping over a bunch of buildings turns that barren landscape into a street. Flip over a bunch of trees and you're in a forest. You don't need to know more than that and it all makes perfect sense. The characters face changing throughout the game was great and reminded me a lot of Disco Elysium and the mirror.
The audio was fine for the most part the cards having appropriate sounds was great and gave some nice character to the world. The greatest part about the audio though was when the music stopped and things got serious.
I would say the one thing I really didn't like was the "Dave" reveal. It just kinda felt a bit "eh" with me. Other than that I loved everything else about the game.
Is there more to discover with the black cards or is it just some cool little "somethings not right" points to put the player on edge? I would love to know if there's more to the game that I missed or not.
If there's plans to develop this further I'd love to see it. But to be honest it feels like a pretty complete and well told story. It would be hard to imagine a bigger game and world created this way, but I'd love to see it.