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playingstory2020-06-27 10:26 pm
got_quiet) wrote in playingstory2020-06-27 10:26 pm
Dry Drowning
Name: Mission: Dry Drowning
Status: Complete
Site: https://vlg.itch.io/dry-drowning
Rating: R (Graphic Violence, no smut)
Pairing: M/F, but really Gen
Description: Serial killers, revolution, fascism, oh my!
Talk about tone whiplash. After playing a game that was way too wholesome for me in Mission: It's Complicated, I went to a game full of murder, lies, and thriller-type gameplay that was just short of too scary for me (I'm an actual wimp so that doesn't mean much).
I'm so used to playing tiny VNs created by one or two people for the purposes of just having some good old traditional BL that it's a novelty when I end up playing a game that's long, polished, complex, and feels like a good game without the caveats of the genre. Dry Drowning is a game that's actually worth paying for. It took me about 3 to 4 evenings of play to get through, and was entertaining throughout.
The theme of the game sticks to some tired and true genre staples. It's a murder mystery set in a near-future dystopia. Your character is a morally compromised detective, with an ongoing interest in unmasking a serial killer who is fond of puzzles and graphic, "artistic" crime scenes. The horror element is prevalent, with excellent eerie music, graphic if not somewhat cartoon violence, and suspense around your choices and their consequences. Although you can describe it in terms of a cluster of cliches the execution is good and transcends such a generic summary. Almost everyone in the game is flawed but compelling (with the exception maybe of Freya who's actually just a good person). Characters are not completely predictable. For example your partner Hera is someone you might decide you need to protect, since she seems to have had a traumatic experience with the killer and is vulnerable as an immigrant in a xenophobic city, but she's actually quite strong and will fuck people up if she has too. Enemies can come to your aid and allies can't be trusted.
Puzzles can sometimes be a big problem with games like these because they can depend on either the player being able to read the mind of the devs or the devs simply not giving players a clear indication of what the consequences of their actions may be. This game manages to be both clear and fair without being overly boring. The main character suffers from some sort of psychological affliction, where if someone lies in front of him he sees a grotesque mask appear in front of their face. So the major goal in each chapter is to pick apart the lies, Ace Attorney style, to get to the truth. There are a couple parts where I did know what it was that the game wanted me to do in the broad sense, but couldn't figure out what the exact thing it was they wanted me to click on. But for the most part the puzzles were straightforward and didn't require me to be psychic. And the puzzles as they related to solving cases are clearly delineated from certain choices you make that have an actual effect on the plot. One of my gripes about VNs is how somehow they obscure their systems in the name of immersion, which really just means that the player doesn't have as much control in a plot driven game, but in Dry Drowning every significant plot decision in clearly marked. And the plot based decisions are not particularly easy. There's a large emphasis on no choice being a great one, but in the end there is one good ending, and two that are clearly bad. I managed to get the good ending on the first try by listening to Hera and trying to do the right thing, but there are definitely times when it's hard to determine what the right thing is. For example, there are times when you have to choose between one person or another living and the other dying, and at that moment you could justify either choice pretty easily.
Aside from whole serial killer thing, there's a lot of worldbuilding in the game around the city of Nova Polemos, a xenophobic city state that has absolute control over its people, preventing travel, information, and communication in or out. Broader issues of surveillance, politics, discrimination, policing, and so on come up and have direct relevance to the plot. On these issues the game is broadly unequivocal. The xenophobic political party is the enemy, and the protagonists are more at risk from racist mobs than they are from the guy who likes to slit people's throats and rip their eyes out of their heads. Funny enough, even though almost everyone in the game is some flavor of asshole, and even though the game is blunt and ungentle in the topics it addresses, it still feels more with it than Mission: It's complicated, which talked the talk but had no substance to back it up. There is a trans character in this game too. Her history comes up in the end of Chapter 1 and that scene is kind of fucked up, but at the same time, I like how it's addressed. The protagonist straight up doesn't give a fuck and is mostly concerned with her safety, rather than the revelations that Pandora the killer seems to think matters.
There are 4 chapters. Three are around three different murders, and the fourth is one of three endings based on your prior decisions. While the advertising in the game says that there are many different plot paths, I was satisfied with going through once. It felt like I got a complete story out of the deal, and I did go a watch the two other endings that I managed to escape on youtube. After seeing them all, it does feel like the choices I made were significant.
I enjoyed the mechanics and got sucked into the story, which is all I want from VNs. This game was probably worth the cost of the BLM bundle for me by itself.
Status: Complete
Site: https://vlg.itch.io/dry-drowning
Rating: R (Graphic Violence, no smut)
Pairing: M/F, but really Gen
Description: Serial killers, revolution, fascism, oh my!
Talk about tone whiplash. After playing a game that was way too wholesome for me in Mission: It's Complicated, I went to a game full of murder, lies, and thriller-type gameplay that was just short of too scary for me (I'm an actual wimp so that doesn't mean much).
I'm so used to playing tiny VNs created by one or two people for the purposes of just having some good old traditional BL that it's a novelty when I end up playing a game that's long, polished, complex, and feels like a good game without the caveats of the genre. Dry Drowning is a game that's actually worth paying for. It took me about 3 to 4 evenings of play to get through, and was entertaining throughout.
The theme of the game sticks to some tired and true genre staples. It's a murder mystery set in a near-future dystopia. Your character is a morally compromised detective, with an ongoing interest in unmasking a serial killer who is fond of puzzles and graphic, "artistic" crime scenes. The horror element is prevalent, with excellent eerie music, graphic if not somewhat cartoon violence, and suspense around your choices and their consequences. Although you can describe it in terms of a cluster of cliches the execution is good and transcends such a generic summary. Almost everyone in the game is flawed but compelling (with the exception maybe of Freya who's actually just a good person). Characters are not completely predictable. For example your partner Hera is someone you might decide you need to protect, since she seems to have had a traumatic experience with the killer and is vulnerable as an immigrant in a xenophobic city, but she's actually quite strong and will fuck people up if she has too. Enemies can come to your aid and allies can't be trusted.
Puzzles can sometimes be a big problem with games like these because they can depend on either the player being able to read the mind of the devs or the devs simply not giving players a clear indication of what the consequences of their actions may be. This game manages to be both clear and fair without being overly boring. The main character suffers from some sort of psychological affliction, where if someone lies in front of him he sees a grotesque mask appear in front of their face. So the major goal in each chapter is to pick apart the lies, Ace Attorney style, to get to the truth. There are a couple parts where I did know what it was that the game wanted me to do in the broad sense, but couldn't figure out what the exact thing it was they wanted me to click on. But for the most part the puzzles were straightforward and didn't require me to be psychic. And the puzzles as they related to solving cases are clearly delineated from certain choices you make that have an actual effect on the plot. One of my gripes about VNs is how somehow they obscure their systems in the name of immersion, which really just means that the player doesn't have as much control in a plot driven game, but in Dry Drowning every significant plot decision in clearly marked. And the plot based decisions are not particularly easy. There's a large emphasis on no choice being a great one, but in the end there is one good ending, and two that are clearly bad. I managed to get the good ending on the first try by listening to Hera and trying to do the right thing, but there are definitely times when it's hard to determine what the right thing is. For example, there are times when you have to choose between one person or another living and the other dying, and at that moment you could justify either choice pretty easily.
Aside from whole serial killer thing, there's a lot of worldbuilding in the game around the city of Nova Polemos, a xenophobic city state that has absolute control over its people, preventing travel, information, and communication in or out. Broader issues of surveillance, politics, discrimination, policing, and so on come up and have direct relevance to the plot. On these issues the game is broadly unequivocal. The xenophobic political party is the enemy, and the protagonists are more at risk from racist mobs than they are from the guy who likes to slit people's throats and rip their eyes out of their heads. Funny enough, even though almost everyone in the game is some flavor of asshole, and even though the game is blunt and ungentle in the topics it addresses, it still feels more with it than Mission: It's complicated, which talked the talk but had no substance to back it up. There is a trans character in this game too. Her history comes up in the end of Chapter 1 and that scene is kind of fucked up, but at the same time, I like how it's addressed. The protagonist straight up doesn't give a fuck and is mostly concerned with her safety, rather than the revelations that Pandora the killer seems to think matters.
There are 4 chapters. Three are around three different murders, and the fourth is one of three endings based on your prior decisions. While the advertising in the game says that there are many different plot paths, I was satisfied with going through once. It felt like I got a complete story out of the deal, and I did go a watch the two other endings that I managed to escape on youtube. After seeing them all, it does feel like the choices I made were significant.
I enjoyed the mechanics and got sucked into the story, which is all I want from VNs. This game was probably worth the cost of the BLM bundle for me by itself.
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