Gamedec Review
Publisher: Anshar Publishing
Developer: Anshar Studios
Platform: PC, Nintendo Switch
Release Date: Sept. 16, 2021
Price: $29.99 USD
Gamedec is frustrating. It’s always difficult to write a review like this, a game I clearly had some fun with, a game I really want to like, but that I also have to criticize. It’s a cyberpunk noir RPG-adventure game with actual investigation and deduction mechanics. The world is so deep you could spend hours lost in the various codexes and character bios alone. The graphics are a little basic in places, but the world has a genuine aesthetic that it’s a lot of fun to look at and wander through. But every time I find myself charmed by its world, I get stuck in the level and forced to load a save. A decision tree might say one thing but possibly mean another.
In short? This could be a really good game, a solid entry in the genre pioneered by Disco Elysium that’s just starting to take off (see also Murder Mystery Machine and to a more failed extent, The Sunken City) but dear God is it in a rough state.
Sometimes, a car is an effective solution
Gamedec drops you into the trenchcoat of the titular gamedec, a kind of private investigator who handles cases in virtual reality MMOs. As you hunt down cheaters, scammers, cultists, and the odd child labor ring, you make enough to get by and hopefully try to make a little light in the dark world of futuristic Warsaw. But as you investigate, slowly another, more sinister thread emerges— one involving a mysterious tree, twin cultists, and possibly even your own memories and thoughts themselves. It will take all your cunning and instinct to get out of this one, especially in a world where everyone’s wearing a false identity.
So first, the good. Gamedec’s investigation system is unrivaled and I wish more games would do something like it. As you solve sidequests and gather clues, you slowly fill up a group of deductions. At any time, you can use the clues you have to make a conclusion and move on to the next phase of the case, as long as you’ve collected enough evidence for it. This can be a godsend if you’ve gotten tired of a certain scene or movement in the game. It also allows something most games don’t, which is the ability to draw the wrong conclusion and possibly send the case in a different direction.
This ties directly into the branching narrative. Choices you make don’t just last within your current investigation, but can have far-reaching consequences down the line, depending on how you interact with others and what clues you can figure out. Each case has a variety of outcomes, and depending on your skills, background, approach to each situation, and how you interpret the clues, you can get a wildly branching story with a number of start and endpoints based on that. In theory, it’s liberating— a huge (if linear) world where all your choices matter and each playthrough can be completely different based on how you work the case.
Aiding in this, there are a number of “professions” related to skills you can pick up, everything from electronic intrusion to programming to even cheating in games. Each one’s related to different methods of responding, so you can level up your skills based on how you play, as you’ll be earning points from that. It’s incredibly adaptive, and while the skill tree might not be as vast as some adventure/RPGs, it’s a lot more expressive in places, with clear, concise descriptions telling you what everything is supposed to do.
The most essential starting skill. Never leave home without it
But here would be where things start to fall apart a little. While it’s clear how things might help, the actual in-game benefits range from “marginally useful” to “can solve entire stages of the case in one section and then do very little the rest of the game.” It’s not clear how helpful a profession can be until you use it, at which point you might be rather deep into a case. Similarly, while the skill points you earn are based on the personality of your gamedec, apart from a few adjectives and a group of bars on the side, it’s unclear exactly how the points you need to earn relate to each approach. Overall, this just makes it feel obtuse and confusing more than anything.
Adding to that obtuse feeling, sometimes puzzling through the plot feels like stumbling blindly. While it’s to be expected that you won’t see or do everything during one playthrough (and Gamedec makes this very clear as you play), the lack of direction, existence of wrong choices, and the idea that some things can be permanently locked off just make it feel obstructive rather than open-ended. Sure, it’s refreshing to have a game that allows you to miss content and doesn’t hand-hold at all, but Gamedec’s lack of signposting feels downright malicious at times. Especially when compared to the game’s own demo, which walked you through an early case without completely solving everything for you. It’s especially annoying when combined with the difficulty, where sometimes making the wrong deduction and getting the wrong people angry with you can feel like the game hits a dead end.
Gamedec could also benefit from a better quest log. While I understand the need for the player to puzzle through everything on their own, the lack of a detailed log apart from the information on the right-hand side of the screen makes it difficult to know what direction you need to travel in at all. Even the slightest bit of info could help, as it’s difficult to tell what “investigate the anomaly” means apart from wandering around and looking at the street, hoping the right hotspot suddenly reveals itself.
Getting stuck in VR Farmville is a special kind of Hell
Which brings us to the bugs. Even with the fixes and patching done to the initial prerelease build, the game’s in rough shape. While I can’t speak to every player’s experience, I personally ended up getting stuck in place in some areas, clicking frantically in an effort to move around the screen. There were also moments where NPCs reacted to dialogue from later in the scene, or simply closed conversations quickly using dialogue from earlier parts. One scene stopped completely dead, making it impossible to continue. In a rather odd gesture, controller support is automatically enabled when the game detects a controller, and no option in the menu exists to turn it off. It’s upsetting that a game with this much promise is this rough, but it’s also a sad reality that sometimes ambitious projects just need a little more love
So should you play Gamedec? Unequivocally, yes. But not right now. Wait a little longer, let the game get a little more polish, and you’ll be rewarded with an unusual and fun adventure/RPG with a wide degree of replayability. But until it sheds that layer of frustration and smooths out some of the rough edges, you’re going to want to be a little more patient.
The Good
- Deep, branching mystery with unusual characters and a twisting plot
- Excellent character interactions and some truly messed-up noir scenes
- Intriguing mechanics for both character creation and investigation
- Deduction mechanic rewards players for finding evidence and replaying scenes
- Immersive cyberpunk world
The Bad
- Obtuse narrative design means it’s difficult to find out where to go next
- Loads of bugs can make getting through the game painful
- Large range of deductions can make getting the essence of the story a little difficult
Final Score:
Final note: This game was procured as a review code in exchange for an honest review. The review is based on a release build as of 9/11/2021. It may not reflect the final build of the game