Demons' Timeline

Overall, this is a fun detective puzzle game. You spend your time scrolling twitter basically and deducing what person has which account. Making the deductions is really satisfying. Every time I worked out who was who I felt absolutely psyched! lol The ending is pretty good too. I liked the reveal at the end and thought the way they tied things up was interesting. The music is good. I find that sometimes these sorts of games can have music that gets a little grating during difficult puzzles but I never had that issue here. My biggest complaint would be that it can be a bit repetitive during the mid game and occasionally a little too wordy. Also there's a bit of transphobia at the end which made me sad :( It doesn't seem to be included to further any of the main philosophical themes the game considers either. It kinda just seemed like right wing 'social commentary.' There are other hints of that in this game as well. Just something to be aware of... I think if you like detective games you'll enjoy this, but just don't expect to like everyone in the game and what they say. It is scrolling twitter after all!

Delightful deduction game. In many ways it feels like a mix between Hypnospace Outlaw (in form, if not setting) and No Case Should Remain Unsolved (in the way you do deduction). You solve mysteries by browsing the in-universe equivalent of Twitter (Parotter). The setting is near future and we are presented slices of an internet with it's own memes, slang and culture. It feels surprisingly organic even if we are presented only curated selection of posts (as chosen by our two AI helpers according to the topic we are currently researching). By the end some of the phrases and concepts have become recognizable and familiar for me, to the point it feels weird to consider they are fictional slang and memes and not a thing in the actual internet. Core of the gameplay involves first identifying which accounts belong to who (everyone has a public account and an anonymous secondary account) and then figuring out further facts from what we've read and seen. This is a process we repeat in new contexts as we delve deeper into the overarching case. The deductions generally make sense (though might involve some assumptions and 'soft' clues) and if you get stuck both hints and brute-forcing are …

The concept is neat, and the execution on the "social media detective" aspect is right on the money: you read a bunch of tweets, and then organize what you read into the answers to figure out who's who. Mechanically speaking, it's reminiscent of games like [i]Return of the Obra Dinn[/i] and such (which is great!), but in a narrative sense, I did feel like the middle-to-later sections dragged on a bit. The finale was pretty fun, though, and even though the middle of the game felt slow, all the buildup helped create a feeling of achievement in the epilogue that was very enjoyable.

While leafing through the negative reviews before playing, I saw quite a few in Japanese that were really pissed at chapter 3 for featuring a raging feminist who is constantly criticising men and demanding censorship of advertisements that she deems raunchy, along with pushing a radical political party. One even went so far as to say she wouldn't recommend the game to any women, and made it pretty clear that she had the same opinions as the fictional Twitter account. It was pretty funny to see the dev reply and very politely tell her that it was all based on what was actually found on Twitter, and that he was not necessarily criticising any opinions nor pushing his own beliefs. This was technically true, as that chapter in particular has quite a few scumbags on display, even warning you about it beforehand. I just thought it was pretty funny, and I had to check it out. Overall, it's a fun game with a cool mechanic, nice artwork, and satisfying deductions. The BGM is pretty solid, although it does seem to remain the same for most of the playthrough. There's one long mystery, and it's divided into 7 chapters, with a total of 9 "timelines" to solve. It takes around 12 hours to finish…

I've you've ever enjoyed a detectivey puzzley game of any kind, this is an easy recommendation. Plenty of leaning forward in my chair and some small tears at the end

DIdn't think Quantum Physics from 12th Grade would ever be relevant in my Life again