![]() They start with their own mini-mystery: that flash of what your demon-self did, and the question of why. The episodes feel like self-contained adventures because they each have their own arc. That's an addictive balance to strike, and a familiar one: it's how most TV drama works. Why?Įach cycle of this feels like a self-contained little adventure, with its own emotional climax, but each also reveals a bit more about the central mystery behind them all. That loops repeats six or seven times, and it's extremely compulsive. You go home, talk about what happened, and pick a new lead to investigate next.You end up having to make some excruciatingly tough choice about how to resolve it.You piece together what happened, and who's in trouble because of it.You have flashbacks to the terrible things you did there.You choose which one to go to, and who to take with you.Doing some mystical research back at base gives you leads on a few locations your possessed self visited.Your former, demon-possessed self, whose actions you only remember in brief, involuntary flashbacks. You're saved by a small team of supernatural investigators, whom you promptly join, and together you investigate yourself. I'll avoid spoilers beyond the basic premise. It's a glowing example of how to hook someone who doesn't normally have the patience for the genre, and I want to pick apart how it does that. ![]() It has a few mechanical modernisations over other adventure games, but most of what sucked me in was just the story, and the way it's told. But Unavowed gripped me from start to finish. I haven't played those games, and I don't usually like point-and-clicks. Unavowed is a point-and-click adventure from Wadjet Eye, who made the Blackwell series and The Shivah. What Works And Why is a monthly column where Gunpoint and Heat Signature designer Tom Francis digs into the design of a game or mechanic and analyses what makes it good. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |