Taken on its own, this may be one of the most important games created in terms of historical significance, and in blending life events, narrative and cultural immersion, captures the essential truth of the human experience.
1979 Revolution: Black Friday tells the story of the Iranian Revolution in the year within the title. It’s a beautiful, heart-wrenching story that makes you quickly fall for every character on screen.
It was about time for a game of this caliber to be released. I remember seeing something about it on Fast Company back in 2013. It caught my attention because it was a married couple creating it and I thought that was pretty cool. Anyways - back to the game:
I very much enjoyed playing it. I'm looking forward to a sequel (if the team decides to make one, of course). It was great getting to know the different characters (really liked the main character's parents - not featured much but reminded me of my parents) and I was pleasantly surprised at some of the most important decisions - I have to admit, I had to take a break here and there because I was actually trying to analyze/predict the outcomes. I've played many of the telltale-esque games out there and I have to say, this game's story and attention to details in a historical thriller really surpassed my expectations - usually you see the historical accuracy being compromised but 1979 did the period justice.
I don't review content that often but iNK is an indie studio and I know they can use the support from pleased customers. So I'm happy to do that here.
I hope if you're reading this, it helps you make up your mind in getting the game and supporting a new genre which I think it's going to be a superb addition to the gaming industry.
Cheers!
As an iranian i can confirm that the story is pretty much true, we throw one scumbag out, but got hundreds of them in return, pretty good game, it made me sad
A docu-game where the line between right and wrong is never clear nor defined. 1979 Revolution: Black Friday tells a brief but though story with great emphasis on players choices and moral ambiguity. Outdated graphics limit the game potential, but its story and its characters hit the target.
Very intriguing documentary about the Iranian revolution, which however lacks in gameplay. But if you want to be entertained and learn something, do not hesitate. [Issue#264]
Best game I've played all year! Truth is I have no association with Iran or Revolution... or prior knowledge... and I was **** right into the action, characters and overall vibe of that world. Can't wait to play more from this team -- I'm really hoping there will be a follow up. Atta...
1979 does some things very well and others not so much. It does a great job of presenting a relatively unbiased portrait of history, at least my research couldn’t find many holes. The QTE game play works well for the most part aside from one section. For all but one part you are having to pick options while on a timer but for that other part you must be patient and wait for the right moment. Not a huge issue but the game conditions you to act one way only to swap it on you for one section which made it annoying for me. The game also did a great job of explaining people; events and culture for those who may not be familiar with Iran or much of it’s history. You are placed at various points of history as a photographer and the photos you take populate a menu going into detail about them. I thought the voice acting was fairly strong overall and enjoyed the dialogue choices. I will say that there was at least one faux choice early on. You can choose to not repeat your captor’s name to him but if you choose not to more than a couple times he kills you. While realistic it also made me have to redo the whole part which was annoying. It could have been just as good as a cut scene rather than a faux choice. The graphics weren’t bad but also not mind blowing. Everything from object detail to clothing to faces to buildings were serviceable but not fantastic. My main gripe was with the end part. The game ends very abruptly with little in the way of closure to the story. It just didn’t feel right. There were also other types of game play such as having to work on injured NPC’s. Having to remove glass; shrapnel and then bandage them. It was a nice way to break up the QTE’s and dialogue choices but was also clunky and looked crude. The gentleman whose wound I bandaged probably should have died from my poor quality work.
I played 1979 on Linux using Wine. It never crashed on me. I did encounter one glitch where I was unable to leave the camera mode which was an issue as I was supposed to help bandage someone. I had to restart the checkpoint and next time it let me leave the camera mode. There was a checkpoint save system which I usually despise but the spacing was done well so it wasn’t much of an issue. There were 3 AA settings; an AF toggle; a v-sync toggle; and 3 other graphics options. Alt-Tab didn’t work. I also would have preferred turning depth of field off rather than just to low. I couldn’t monitor the frame rate but I didn’t feel any lag throughout the game. The upper VRAM usage of 4702 MB also only lasted a minute or two before settling back down to the 1189-1500 MB range.
Game Engine: Unity
Disk Space Used: 5.8 GB
Game Version Played: 2.2.0.3 (GOG)
Graphics Settings Used: All High except depth of field on low; 8x AA; v-sync and AF on
GPU Usage: 43-99 %
VRAM Usage: 1189-4702 MB
CPU Usage: 9-29 %
RAM Usage: 2.1-2.3 GB
Overall 1979 told a good story in an engaging way but fell flat at the end. It is still worth playing though and was enjoyable. I really liked the world building and how the game put you in the middle of history. I finished the game in 2 hours and 8 minutes. The length didn’t bother me but the ending did. I would say the game is worth it’s current price tag of $11.79 CAD.
My System:
AMD Ryzen 5 2600X | 16GB DDR4-3000 CL15 | MSI RX 580 8GB Gaming X | Mesa 21.0.3 | Linux Mint 20.3 | Mate 1.26.0 | Kernel 5.4.0-96-generic | Wine 7.0
Really amazing game - despite the lower production value, I really felt the authenticity in this game and it was a really cool snapshot into the 1979 revolution in Iran.
1979 Revolution: Black Friday
A telltale Game that actually runs well
1979 Revolution is 2 hour a choose your own adventure game in the style of telltale game...
it actually runs better than any telltale game ever has.. But it’s nowhere near close to being any good.
This game tells the story of a photographer during the Iranian revolution that started in the summer of 1978. The game starts out by telling you that its base on real stories, real people, and real events…
The story has its fair share of twists and turns, but it’s just not ever good…
There’s a decent cast of characters here…. But aside from your main character, there’s not nearly enough time to develop them to make decisions in this game as impactful as they should be…
By the end of the game I really had no idea who’s side I was on, but the game makes you choose…
You also have to make a choice out of nowhere towards the middle of the game of who betrayed the group and you have little to no information, connection, or time spent with these characters to even make an educated guess..
All of these moments if huge decision making is what makes this game a little enjoyable, I just wish I spent more time with the characters I have to make decisions for, because I ultimately ended up feeling like I was just going through the motions of a poorly delivered story...
The choices here during dialog is handled poorly as well..
You have little to no time to think, you have to react to statements and situations almost instantly which I don’t have a problem with... but the developers made the mistake of make you point the analog stick in the direction of your choice and then press x to choose it…
And I feel like this is the slowest possible way to handle decision making in a game, and with such a short timer this lead to too many moments of my character not saying anything.
I really hope this game can be patched with choices being tied to separate action buttons like they are in the telltale games to make for a more smooth experience…
Though either way I feel like dialog choices don’t do much to shape the world around you... it really just comes down to decisions of passiveness or aggression during key moments of the story that can change things even little..
Outside of choosing dialog there are brief moments of walking around and interacting with the world a little...
This is where the game does what I feel is the coolest part, there are moments for you to take pictures and after doing so the real picture from the real life event shows up on the side, and I felt this really brought life into this game.. it helped immerse me into this world that on its own has a rough time doing…
Overall 1979 Revolution Black Friday just isn’t an interesting or enjoyable game…
it’s a disappointment from start to finish…
It functions.. It runs smoothly... but that’s about it...
you’re not missing out on anything by skipping it...
I give 1979 Revolution: Black Friday
a 4.5/10
Summary1979 Revolution: Black Friday is choice driven, narrative game that brings players into the brooding world of a nation on the verge of collapse. Play as Reza, an aspiring photojournalist, and make life and death decisions as you survive the gritty streets of Iran in the late 1970’s.