Rainy City: Pandemic

You drive around in a futuristic hover car delivering pizza to various locations, read dialogue, and it's constantly raining. There's no way to sugar coat it, this is a poor mans version of Cloudpunk. These walking simulator style of games heavily rely on interesting dialogue and stories to deliver their value, but sadly, this doesn't cut it. The people have next to nothing to say, as the talking is comprised of casual conversation that has zero impact on anything you're doing. The gameplay basically boils down to picking up a delivery at point A, dropping it off to point B, read some dialogue, rinse and repeat until the game ends. That's it. It's a cool little game to mess around, but you'll likely play it once, and move on from it. As of this review, this game has a base price of 7.99 USD. I completed this game, and in my opinion, that's WAY too steep for what this is. By comparison, Cloupunk is 19.99, which is a bit over double this game's price (totally worth it by the way) but when both these games go on sale, they're nearly the same price. Let's be real, most people buy games on sale, and as of this review, both of these games actually are on sale, and there's only a 3 dollar…

Alright. [i]Rainy City: Pandemic[/i] is done and dusted. This was an enjoyable game in the vein of Cloudpunk, but much more focused on a singular topic and not as expansive. I really enjoyed this game. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3324193834 You play as Sam, whose sister, Naomi, has gotten sick and needs a treatment which will no longer be effective after about 15 days. So, you, in your role as a pizza delivery guy, need to come up with $1500 quick so she can get the treatment she needs. Your friend Betty runs the local corner store/pizza shop, and you will both chat her up about a variety of things and also get to know the people (and other things) who have ordered deliveries from Betty. This is all accomplished via hovercar. While the city is not nearly as fully developed as Nivalis, what is there is really cool and it's a fun place to fly around in. This game was made as a response to and documentation of the lock downs and uncertainties we all faced during the Covid-19 pandemic (weird pandemic deniers notwithstanding) and was really as spot on as anything I've read or played or seen. But, while this was a crazy time in our lives and a crazy time in…

As a game, it lacked purpose. not only is there no way to win, there is also no end. Neither the plot through dialogue nor the driving experience were enough to carry what lacked meaning to begin with.

So, I have waited to finish the game before commenting so I can judge the whole experience. I sadly cannot recommend this game, because it feels unpolished, and more than that, unfinished. I can understand that the goal was the game as it is, but then it does not warrant this price. The story and characters were fine but nothing extraordinary. But most importantly, I don't understand how a game in which you mostly drive can have a driving mechanic so bad, so floaty and imprecise, with bad physics. I have rarely seen that in any game, even other small indie games. I don't mean to be hating, but wow, the driving truly sucks. The GPS isn't great either. Instead of giving you directions & turns like an actual GPS, it just vaguely points an arrow in the general direction of the drop off address. Also, devs are no longer replying to bug reports, but here were mine: one bugged achievement not unlocking (twice), and later save got deleted after relaunching the game because the shop owner's textbox was black and frozen, which is a recurrent issue.

Not bad - on sale

I like narrative based games. After finishing Neo Cab, I was itching for another cab-based adventure game. The stylings of CloudPunk didn't seem to match what I was looking for, and despite some reviews saying Rainy City:Pandemic lacked in narrative and dialogue, the various positive reviews (mostly about how the game had a nice atmosphere - "cozy", "chill" "relaxing") and more-similarly styled gameplay towards Neo Cab swayed me. I thought I'd give it a try - I could always refund it. Issues - The graphics are very basic. The colors are basically purple and yellow (these are the colors that have left an impression). Nothing interesting beyond Betty's pizza sign. - The map directional arrow is vague and confusing whenever you go past a directional point that isn't a corner and it points you to go through buildings. - The "pick up" returns task is a bit finicky to achieve w/the clunky controls. - Whenever I'd try to back up in game after getting stuck on a corner or pole, I got confused as I tried to back up using the standard "opposite direction of forward to reverse in the direction you want to reverse in" maneuver - i.e. if I want to go right, I press back and left so I will …