Rubicon : a conspiracy of silence

TW - [spoiler] do not play if you are stressed or burned out [/spoiler] Rubicon is a well written visual novel about work, professionalism, and business malpractices. The emotions run high with the story, and it feels polished and engaging. Playing the game almost felt too much like working at the main character's job and sharing her responsibility for putting out (or not) a new milk formula for babies, after some missing safety lab reports. The choices were significant and I felt that there was an impact on the story (though I have not checked that yet as I played only once). My ending was satisfying enough, though very very very idealistic - but that is a game after all, and we are allowed to think and maybe act more towards a better future :)

An interesting interactive visual novel about the dilemmas of a person who wants to make things right in her company at her own cost, and the effect of her situation to her personal life.

tl;dr at the end of review. I completed the game in a single sitting of almost 4h, and I'm writing this just as I finished my playthrough so the whole experience is still fresh in my mind. As an interactive fiction, the game focuses on narrative and is comprised mostly of dialogues and choices, so the natural questions are: Is the plot engaging? Are the dialogues well written? Do your choices actually matter? Does it have a satisfying ending? The simple answer is no. There are better narrative games out there, save your time, get more bang for your buck. For most this is good enough, read on if you're interested in the nitty gritty. The gist of the plot is exactly as described in the game's description: You take the role of an employee of a multinational corporation that discovers increasingly incriminating evidence about said corporation. So now you, a lone and hardworking employee, must balance your personal life, work life, professionalism and ethics as you suffer constant pressure in a conspiracy involving powerful people. This immediately got my attention as I found it to be a very interesting premise for a narrative game, and indeed the game does a decent job of placing th…