![]() ![]() This game takes you along with Tina, a sharply intelligent 9-year-old Orphan, and SAM-53, her robot protector.Īs a homeless orphan who lives under and draws energy from a corporate neon sign (a brilliant and unique touch of world-building), Tina has a very complicated day-to-day struggle. Its reimagining of the point and click genre stays true to the harsh difficulty and slyly hidden objects of Monkey Island and Fate of Atlantis – while updating movement, interaction verbs, and dialogue choices to more modern sensibilities.Ĭhoosing to encase their cyberpunk adventure in the trappings of the point and click genre was a canny choice on the part of ChaosMonger Studio. In a lot of ways, the game is successful here. It certainly has lofty goals, taking aim at both the heady themes of a cyberpunk universe and attempting to create what they call a “modern” point and click adventure. It is often not as clever as it thinks it is, but sometimes surprises with a delightfully written character, devilish puzzle, or novel twist on a cyberpunk trope. It can be frustrating at times, however, with the occasionally inconsistent logic bogging down its puzzles. It is gorgeously drawn, pulling on some incredible 3D line art that brings the distinct and intricate lines of the cyberpunk aesthetic into a sharp focus. Unfortunately, the journey there is not always smooth.Įncodya is many things. It runs through what would otherwise be a fairly clichéd set of cyberpunk aesthetics and themes with a lightly mocking tone before it takes one huge volta into a fascinating new place and atmosphere. When you play Encodya, a smirk is exactly the expression it wants you to hold. A sneer means you should watch your back. ![]() ** Find The Strawberry received a free key for Encodya from Assemble Entertainment.“A smile in Neo-Berlin’s not right. The story and art in the game are what kept me investing time into Encodya, as I regularly found the finicky point and click components frustrating.Īs a novice point and click player, I seemed to need ‘super easy, show me all the hints’ mode! If you enjoy traditional point and click games, though, you will most likely have a great time with Encodya. It was interesting to see where the story would lead and who we would meet along the way. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, I just don’t think it’s correct to say there are no politics in this game. There is quite a lot of commentary on his policies and characters regularly state their dislike for him, plus there’s an election around the corner. The main storyline is centred around a corrupt mayor who will do anything for control and power over his people. The dev has pushed back on this opinion saying Encodya doesn’t have politics, but I would disagree. I enjoyed the story in Encodya though some don’t like the political aspects of it. The soundtrack brings a fantastic ambience to the game with a cyberpunk feel and sombre tone. Tina and SAM-53 find a huge ship in a fieldĮncodya has full voice acting by awesome voice actors Lizzie Freeman and Richard Epcar as Tina and SAM-53. The backgrounds and characters are detailed and a little melancholy, which is fitting for the drab dystopian world of Neo Berlin. It is pretty much the entire reason I played the demo and wanted to experience the rest of the game. This brings additional complexity to the game when solving puzzles. Some robots will only talk to SAM, and some humans will only talk to Tina. One big part of Encodya is that you can play as both Tina and SAM-53. This never seemed to work reliably for me. The easy difficulty enabled clues from SAM and highlighting of interactive items with the space bar. Two difficulty settings attempt to alleviate this issue, but I found myself having problems finding items even on the easy setting. The other issue with this is some of the items were very difficult to see, especially if the hulking SAM-53 was standing on them. I occasionally found myself combining an item with every other item out of sheer desperation. You can also combine items from your inventory and, in true point and click style, some of these combinations will induce groans and eye-rolls. Search for items and clues and try to work out what they all mean. ![]() GameplayĮncodya is your classic point and click. Together, along with the helpful (and not so helpful) people and robots of Neo Berlin, they need to uncover the code and solve the mystery. The game opens to Tina and SAM needing to find some basic supplies like food and shelter, but then they discover that SAM has a hidden piece of code and some people are eager to get their hands on it. This is lucky for Tina, as Neo Berlin’s world is rough and not a good place for a child alone. All children are assigned a nanny bot at birth with the year as their model. Set in 2062, Encodya introduces us to Tina and Sam, a homeless child and her nanny robot, SAM-53.
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