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• gamedeal user

  Dec 6, 2015

  I really enjoyed Void and Meddler, and I'll get into why at the end of this review, but first I think I should list a few major caveats: 1. This is an adventure game, and it indulges in some of the worst elements of the genre; i.e. the puzzles tend to involve combing over every single screen and interacting with everything in every possible way until something actually happens. It's also obscure enough that there are no walkthroughs online yet, so have fun getting all the achievements! (I managed it with some help from the Steam forums). The game also features multiple ways to progress at points, which can be a little confusing when you're trying to figure out what to do with the items in your inventory, since they're not all actually necessary. (Using different items can lead you to different endings for each of the two "acts" in episode 1; bizarrely, the standard ending of act two is far more counter-intuitive than the "hard" ending). 2. This is episode 1 of a longer story; as such, the ending is pretty abrupt. Actually, the plot in generally is pretty incoherent. I didn't actually have a problem with that, as I'll explain below, but if you go into this one expecting a clear story, you'll likely be disappointed. So, why did I like this strange, flawed little game so much? Well, the atmosphere is truly fantastic. I'm a big cyberpunk fan, and the visuals and and music here do an incredible job of conveying that classic dark cyberpunk atmosphere (seriously, the soundtrack is AMAZING). The writing sometimes feels like it's trying too hard to be edgy, and sometimes feels like it's been badly translated, but there are also wonderful moments of humor too, and the overall effect is wonderfully hypnotic. It's one of those games that makes you feel like you've really stepped into another world, one where you barely have any idea what's going on, and that fits perfectly with the main character's hazy detachment from reality. I loved existing in this world; I loved playing as Fyn, who is one of those cyberpunk protagonists who's always starving and strung out and lurking around in grimy clubs and working dead-end jobs just to get by. If you're a fan of the genre, Void and Meddler is definitely worth checking out; just be aware of its flaws before you buy.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 26, 2017

  Recommended with reservations (after completing Episode 1). Void and Meddler has a gorgeous aesthetic. The beautiful graphics and music combine to create a lovely cyberpunk city populated with the best kind of strange characters. Regular humans, humans with horns, cat people, bird people, and others all intermix beneath the neon lights. It's a unique and refreshing setting, and I find myself wanting to explore more of it. The game looks even better in play than in screenshots. Void and Meddler grows on you. There are amusing and clever bits that you discover throughout. The first "quest" is to turn on some music to relax, and of course the protagonist's relaxing music is the most horrendous noise. There are different ways to finish each act, and the way you pick describes the character you're playing - a violent solution paints a violent character, while a clever solution a clever one. The protagonist is unsympathetic, which makes for an unusual game. You can do something really awful in Episode 1, which I found horribly distasteful, but who could I blame? Sure, the devs coded it in, and the protagonist carried out the action, but I was in control - I was the one who chose to do something I knew was wrong, that I didn't have to do to advance the story, so who can I blame other than myself for the awful outcome? Where Spec Ops' nastiness was forced, here it was optional - I didn't have to turn off the game to make it stop, I merely had to find another way to advance. The writing was a mixed bag. The descriptions of people and things were often lovely, but the sometimes long monologues upon visiting a location for the first time seemed unnecessary and out of place. It seemed that the writing was trying too hard at times, and worked better when it wasn't. Part of it is expectations - I expect a description when I examine an item, I don't expect a monologue when I arrive at a new place. Other reviews mention the walking speed, but it seemed perfectly fine to me, and at times beautifully synchronized with the music. Episode 1 does lack quick transitions for double-clicking on an exit, but that is added in Episode 2. Unfortunately, despite looking into the future for its setting, Void and Meddler brings with it frustrations from Point & Click Adventure past. There is little direction, though it's partially forgivable given that the protagonist is supposed to be aimlessly stumbling her way through the night. I was able to get through the normal ending of Episode 1 without a guide - relying on just stumbling around, clicking on everything, talking to everyone, picking up everything in sight. But the alternate and hard endings to Episode 1 require leaps of logic that seem impossible without a guide - having to examine or use the same item twice, trying to pick up things you'd never think to pick up, combining items without any reason or explanation for doing so. I'm not sure if Episode 2 improves on it yet. So I recommend Void and Meddler, but with reservations. If you like cyberpunk and unique games, and don't mind having to blindly stumble around or use a guide to get through the illogical puzzles, you'll find a lovely neon city to explore and bizarre characters to encounter. The visuals and music are a potent and delightful combination, and the setting is refreshing and begging to be explored. Also, note that you do not need to purchase the Deluxe edition if you don't care about the soundtrack. The Season Pass includes all the episodes, and is less than half the price of the Deluxe edition.
• gamedeal user

  Aug 14, 2017

  The atmosphere of the game is fairly well done (the art style, music, and setting), but that is probably the only good thing I have to say about it. You play a woman who has lost her memories, and acts like a completely random sociopath in her pursuit of... something. Her goal and approach to realizing it are vague and nonsensical. I can't really tell if she wants her own memories back or just wants to have more chances to spout navel gazing or nihilistic garbage that consists of song lyrics and high school level poetry. The only thing this character made me feel is annoyed. None of the characters are written any better, and most are much worse. I've only played the first "episode" which was incredibly short and simple to beat. It was around an hour, and I got up to do things and left it running so my real play time is probably much shorter. I finished it and didn't realize the game was actually over until it took me to the title screen. There is no pacing or feel of progression through the game. You just do mostly terrible things that don't really make a lot of sense, get some vague word salad tossed at you, then it is over.
• gamedeal user

  Jul 21, 2018

  God I wanted this game to be good so bad. I really did. Alas it is not. Both the pixel art and the music in this game are breath-taking, so much in fact that they make a horribly bland and poorly written game somewhat bearable. The ambiance of the whole game and the visual effects and camera planes they choose (an area seen from a security cam for example) are incredible. But the writing in this game is god damned awful. Its just cringy. It feels like the author of the game couldn't get his novel published on account of his terrible writing and decided to shove it into a video game. The descriptions the MC gives would fit a novel better than a game, they feel completely out of the loop. The story is structured poorly. The MC lost her memories and all of the sudden, for no reason whatsoever, decides she wants to recover them. The MC is bland as fuck. All she does is throw in nihilistic cliched over the top poorly written lines to (unsuccessfully) seem deep. The dialogs aren't witty, interesting or entertaining (which is what you'd expect from a point a click). The navigation is HORRIBLE. Just HORRIBLE. No fast travel, the character walks very slowly and you have to walk from door to door, from screen to screen, each time you want to move around. No skipping the walking animation and no map to fast travel. The puzzles are non existent. You just do random shit without a concise motivation and they push the story forward for no good reason. The visual artist sure is carrying this game on his shoulders, I don't think anyone would waste their time with it if it wasn't for it's visuals.
• gamedeal user

  Jul 22, 2017

  This game is frustrating in the fact that yes, it's beautifully designed, the music is flawless, has so much atmosphere etc etc...however, it doesn't save it from the awful truth that the narrative is inconsistent and lackluster. To be completely honest there is not much of a story going on here at all that isn't defined in one complete sentence. "Cyberpunk junkie has lost their memory and is trying to find her deeper meaning among gender/species bending characters in an anarchical hacker underworld " ... I wish there was more to it, however there is not. Fyn's character design is straight up "Jane" from the tv show "Daria". Full of angst, cynicism, bad attitudes, and awkward humor. Her dialogue comes out of a whiney, teenage goth girl's diary, who just thinks they're so much better than you because they're so " A E S T H E T I C ". The typos and grammatical errors are extrememly annoying simply for the fact that you can see all of the effort that went into creating such a visually beautiful game. Why not follow through to the very end and not allow your work to come across as though you've given up and that you don't care? Designing another character after Hunter S. Thompson was an interesting touch given the main topic of the story, quoting a Cure song called " A Forest " ... I can't tell if the awkward placement of this was intentional or due to the lack of having any idea on how to progress the story further. Gameplay drags out far too long, having to revisit places over and over again, one minute the character can run, the next she can't .... the puzzles are a mess to figure out .... most have nothing to do with the story at all, and I feel as though this occurs only for the need to make up for the fact that the story is quite hollow. Even the characters in the story don't really know what's going on. I truly wanted to like this game and gave another chance within hopes of the second episode carrying the story. It just didn't happen. I can see the dedication behind the art. It's just not enough in my opinion.
• gamedeal user

  Nov 9, 2015

  Void and Meddler contains a lot of things that I love - Cyberpunk, adventure and queer/trans elements, but sadly that doesn't stop the game from falling into a few pitfalls of bad Point and Click adventures, as well as few of its own problems. Credit where it's due, the art in this game is lovely, especially the backgrounds which have a gorgeous colour palette that create fantastic atmosphere. The characters themselves are pixel art and while it's an artstyle you've seen before many times in indie games, it still looks nice. As well as being visually pleasing, the soundtrack too is very good and suitable for a Cyberpunk adventure. It's similar to Hotline Miami's in some places, which is wonderful. A lot of bad Point and Click games share the same flaws - the objective isn't inherent, which means you'll spend a lot of time just clicking things or go look up a walkthrough and that can happen here. Another is that while a puzzle or item combination may make sense in the head of the game designer, to a player it's completely unobvious. Some spoilers but let's go through one I just did; there's a guy at the arcade who will exchange drugs for an item that belonged to a famous person. At the beginning, you can get a rubber duck from your bathroom and outside a nightclub, there's a bottle of smelly liquid in a hobo's corner. Combine the two to get a dirty duck and you give it to the guy, lying about what the item is. Maybe I missed some things in game, but I'd gone to every location and looked around properly before reading the Steam Discussions forum for this but I honestly have no idea how you would link the two items together on your own. I'm not finished with this game and if similar puzzles later on in the game are like this, I probably won't do so. The game mentions itself being non-linear in the Steam description and I honestly do not think that's a good thing for Point and Click games. Now hear me out, I'm not saying it shouldn't be done - having multiple solutions to a puzzle or way to progress the story is a really good idea that adds replay value and suits different play styles but if you're going to be open, then please make it more obvious what you have to do or how to progress, because otherwise it only means I have to click more random shit in hopes of moving forward. The main character is not likeable in the slightest and just constantly acts incredibly shitty without even a drop of remorse. Once again, spoilers, but you want to distract a person who works at the arcade. There's a guy plugged into a machine, dancing. You fry his brain by insulting him and saying it's his fault his girlfriend left. The writing overall is okay but as others have mentioned, comes across as trying too hard to be edgy which explains Fyn's attitude. I'm going to continue playing Void and Meddler, because I feel like I should give it more of a chance. It has the potential to be an amazing game and I hope it gets there.
• gamedeal user

  Jan 19, 2018

  It is a very beautiful game, and it looks like the writers put a lot of effort into writing the world around, however, art is the only thing really outstanding about the game. I really wanted to love this, but it is very slow, and confusing, and it looks like you have to have a lot of backgrund in your head to play it. I mean, I [b]love[/b] good adventure quests, nonetheless, I don't think I'll be bying the next chapters, because I didn't get the bloody thing about the first one. It is reliable on some background developers have [i]in mind[/i], but do not present to the public. I had no idea what to really interract with and for how many times (it sometimes requires to repeat the same action over again to get a result, although nothing in the game suggests this - not the looks of the object, neither in-game commentary og our main character); and, honestly, asides for two social scenes in the game, I just was ramming objects together until I got some result to further develop in the story, which is never a good sign. Again, it looks [b]beautiful[/b], the visuals are just [b]stunning[/b], and I'd love to explore the lore and the world; but the gamedesign is... well, [i]lame[/i] is the closest word for it. It seems that in their attempt to imitate Lynch-s amazing work, the devs forgot about putting effort into making the game if not [i]fun[/i], then at least [i]user friendly[/i].
• gamedeal user

  Oct 29, 2015

  This review refers to episode 1 at launch: Void and Meddler makes a messy first impression. It relies heavily on its writing, and yet that writing has not been edited and polished. It’s hard to go ten minutes through this game without coming across a jarring grammar error or a typo. This is of course something which can be fixed, and would raise the overall rating of the game a good 5% on its own. The writing is also “purple prose”--as in, it’s ornately written, all the time, with little clean text in between to make metaphors stand out. This is clearly meant to be a tool to create dreamlike atmosphere. The problem is, even dreams have solid parts which lure you to think that they are real. I think that the writing could use more solid parts to achieve that effect. Of course, the main draw of the game is its atmosphere. The artwork and music take every opportunity to exude atmosphere. “Blade Runner” (the movie, not the game) with dirtier undertones, essentially. If that attracts your attention, then it’s probably worth getting. That’s only atmosphere, though, not story. If you’re looking for a story arc and good puzzles, this is probably not the point and click to pick up. It doesn’t strive for a story arc, and the puzzles are barely puzzles at all.
• gamedeal user

  Jul 15, 2016

  [b]Void & Meddler is a cautionary tale to any who might choose to meddle with the void: style is no substitute for substance, and a story cannot survive a central vacuum.[/b] Mechanically, the game is unremarkable, a fairly linear point and click adventure. The puzzles are simple, though sometimes nonsensical. Aesthetically, there is a lot to praise - a strong visual style with rich use of light and shadow, a simple yet flavourful soundtrack, crisp details - the cyberpunk setting really comes together. Unfortunately, the powerful setting and solid mechanics are in the service of a game which is not enjoyable. Fyn, the protagonist, lacks both empathy and any measure of self-awareness, which renders play somewhat unpleasant. The dialog is disjointed, repetitive, and at times painfully derivative, unintentionally reflecting the shallowness of the protagonist in musical references and nihilistic cliches. The plot itself, already hampered by Fyn and the dialog, is uneven and underdeveloped. Void & Meddler touches upon well-established cyberpunk tropes and themes, but in an exploitative manner, without any discussion or - in some cases - reason. It is hard to pan a game at all, let alone one which clearly has so much earnest effort behind it, but I would counsel most to avoid Void & Meddler. You [i]may[/i] like it if you are a fan of cyberpunk and neo-noir from a stylistic perspective, particularly if the sociopathy of the protagonist is no barrier.
• gamedeal user

  Apr 2, 2017

  Just like many of the negative reviews say, this game is good in aestheticism but disappointing in gameplay. The artwork and the music certainly deserve a praise. This game depicts a world with neon lights, cold rain, high tech, multi-ethnic and lots of things you can find in a cyberpunk world. What I love the most is the verisimilitude of the effect of the raindrop rolling down the screen. So when I first got into this game, these just had me "wow!". Then it came the disappointment. The writing is the major shortcoming for me. The developers tried to make Fyn, the protagonist, sound cool. But those lines came out from her mouth just made her sound like a high school dropout punk girl who try to be cool but end up obnoxious. Those 'coolness' was full of act. As for the story, there wasn't a solid story. And if you don't look up the walkthrough, you won't get to know what to do next. Plus, the character walks way too slow. When she is outside the condo, it just takes too long for her to get to the other end. I wonder if the developers couldn't get her walk a little bit faster, then why they made this scene so big so that she could not pass by soon? Overall Art 9/10 Music 9/10 Story and characters 6/10 Gameplay 7/10 If you don't like cyberpunk, there is no need to check out this game. It is like the recent movie Ghost in the Shell ----- a shallow kernel in a marvellous cyberpunk setting.