LOGBOOK: Beneath the Storm

Came into this expecting something akin to Obra Dinn or any Lovecraftian/Nautical mystery, but ended up feeling tired towards the end. Ignoring the AI usage, the gameplay is very tedious. At first it's interesting with the starting 2-3 chapters, but over time the word puzzles get bogged down by so many additional verbs, nouns, and names that it becomes noise. At times the rush of names becomes frustrating because it breaks the immersion and feels like it's putting out so many words just to fill up the screen. Not to mention the game-mechanic of click-dragging each and every word into place gets tiring. At a certain point my brain just started to give up and I began dragging a lot of words into place to force the solution, though kept trying in earnest. The only thing that breaks it up is the odd puzzle here or there which are neatly done but it can only do so much to make up for the core mechanic. The story is also interesting with the initial mystery and the different perspectives, but it loses its ability to really keep that attention as it goes on. So many characters just come into screen, more and more each chapter, and a lot of them have very little in actual importance that …

I played the first three chapters and started the fourth before I decided to stop and seek a refund. Going into the game, I was aware of the AI-generated images as disclosed by the developer. While I have mixed feelings about that, we very soon see one of the biggest problems with this approach: the inconsistency in character models/appearance. One of the very most important rules for an Obra Dinn or Golden Idol-style game is that the characters remain distinguishable between scenes, unless their appearance changed dramatically for story reasons. LOGBOOK breaks that rule repeatedly. For example, we see a character in the first chapter with hair that extends a little past the ears, a mustache, and a beard. In the next chapter, he has the same hair and mustache, but only stubble across his chin. Next chapter, he's back to the full beard and mustache, but his hair is a few inches longer, almost shoulder-length. You just can't have that kind of unjustified inconsistency in a game like this. Also, I think the still scenes just don't feel very good in a game like this. I can imagine a very similar game with gorgeously animated pixel art that brings each scene to life, but this game fee…

This game is The Case of the Golden Idol - The exact story, the characters, the pacing, the plot, put through an AI slop filter. Not recommended at all.

Instead of being a love letter to the styles of Obra Dinn and Golden Idol games, it feels too generic. Plot feels like it was put through an AI model and as a result lacks any charm or nuance that makes it worth playing. The devs even admit to using GenAI in some capacity, and it feels like they used it in every capacity. You're better off starting a new save on one of the Golden Idol games.

очередная вариация на тему The Case of the Golden Idol, но оригинал поживее был, повеселее, история поинтереснее, головоломки посложнее, персонажи интересны чем-то кроме бесконечных гендерных разборок. тупо жалко потраченных денег. такое впечатление, что ИИ игру делал.

Decent enough, but if the golden idol is a 10/10 then this is a 4 or 5. Probably one of the worse out of these types of games.