Dyscourse

Dyscourse is actually starting promisingly. The Graphic Style is very successful, the Menu allows you to expect a humorous Love of Detail and the Music and Sound background knows how to please. Unfortunately, however, Dyscourse suffers from two much more important Aspects, namely the Dialogues and the History itself. A Lot of Charm falls victim to the Premise that Dyscourse is about Decisions. These are almost exclusively bipolar Possibilities, as they are known from Choose Our Own Adventure books. The Developers have also made an Effort to sort out the Decisions in such a way that the Player does not know exactly what his Actions will entail. In my Opinion, however, this has exaggerated it extremely. Again and again there are Situations that you would solve with logical Thinking in a certain Way, but the Game suddenly throws an uninspected Minitwist at your Feet, in which the Decision turns out to be wrong. Just remedy the Situation and doing it differently at some point. In order to create as many such Decisions as possible, internal coherence was also based on internal Coherence * * *. For example, a Storm is picking up and the Group is consulting on whether it wouldn't be better to find a better Shelter. Unfortunately, it is feared that it will not be able to locate such a Shelter and lose its Bearings in the Storm. If one Now decides to stay in Camp, fate takes its Course and a Storm Surge forces the Group to flee after all. One Figure now offers the following Advice: "I've seen a few Rocks inland that would provide a good Shelter." Great, the Advice comes a bit late, not giving it beforehand doesn't make Sense! There are many other such Examples. When someone from the Group dies, you Usually have the Opportunity to decide beforehand who they meet. Since the Developers want to keep you in The dark as long as possible, what he decides, one chooses, for example, who sleeps at which point in the Camp. Should the Player then feel guilty because he is "responsible" for the unexpected Death and why is the Player actually responsible for every little Decision in the Game? After All, the Group is critical of you than you come across to them as soon as the first Decision is due a few Moments later, the Player, who was just about to be ejected from the Group, is allowed to decide what to do. Ridiculous. And my second Main Criticism of the Game is Storywriting itself. The Dialogues Are really really underground. Each Character is a walking Cliche, the Jokes often just don't ignite and everything is kind of illogical. In addition, each Character is completely inept, stupid or advances with important Information only when it is already too late (of course only to allow the Player an unbiased Decision). After a few Minutes I was at the Point of wanting to skip any Text, I had to force myself to continue to follow the Story. Since I was able to see from the Reviews that the Game lasts no more than an Hour, I was able to torment myself more or less successfully at least once. I really can't recommend the Game. There are a lot of Games that are just better at what Dyscourse is trying to do. 80 Days, for example, offers similar Decision-making Diversity but it is much better written and invites you to Play Through again. Dyscourse may look nice, but if you look behind the Facades of Textadventure-esque Decisions, only a half-garish Game finds that is narratively very uninspired. Hopefully the Tide of bad Robinson Crusoe games ends soon, but strangely enough games like Dyscourse or Lifeline are getting increasingly good Reviews.