Mary (2024)

As a reviewer, I play a lot of titles, and I make every effort to be kind with my words. I know that the development process is a big effort for a small team, so I attempt to give grace without compromising my assessment of a game. On occasion, however, I take the gloves off. Mary is described as a ‘mystery and investigation game.’ For me, the only mystery is what the developers were thinking when they published this as a finished game. Mary is made up of 3 chapters, The first is a room with two hot spots. You interact with both, answer some observation questions and leave. Chapter complete. Help text is in a mix of languages and overwrites itself. The flashlight works intermittently, and the camera has yet to function for me. I finally figured out that one of the observations needed for Chapter 1 is not mentioned until the following section. Hmm… Chapter 2 opens with a scene that makes very little sense and then drops you onto an empty street with one active door. The first time I played, I ended up in the interior of a house with a message about a notebook and no hotspots. I could move freely about and passed through a non-active door leading to an unfinished room. The onl…