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- Orthogonal Games
- Orthogonal Games
- Orthogonal Games
- Orthogonal Games
All Platforms
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 42 User Ratings
6.2
40% Positive
17 Ratings
17 Ratings
36% Mixed
15 Ratings
15 Ratings
24% Negative
10 Ratings
10 Ratings
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 42 User Ratings
6.2
40% Positive
17 Ratings
17 Ratings
36% Mixed
15 Ratings
15 Ratings
24% Negative
10 Ratings
10 Ratings
What an amazing new direction in gaming! I felt so attached to the characters and their relationships and that made it that much harder to decide who should get what they want every chapter. At times, I found myself burying my head in my hands as I clicked the button.
I've never played a game like it. The closest thing is the Sims in that the characters live relatively normal lives but it really is not the same. The characters come to you with a complex back story and it just feels so organic. Dare I say it, it almost feels like a privilege to be let into these people(who aren't even people)'s lives.
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PC
The Novelist is a breath of fresh air in an industry that's getting clogged up with repetitive money-grabbers. Though that's not to say it's without it's flaws.
The Novelist is about a family of three: Dan, Linda, and Tommy. Tommy being the son of the other two. The story follows the three of them around their new, secluded home while they run into conflicts and the game throws hints your way to let you in on what each character is thinking and how THEY want things to go in the next few days. It's then your job to fulfill the wish of one or two of them, but there is always that third character's wish that is forgotten about.
The game does get repetitive; many visual "hints" are even repeated across levels, and all other hints are in the form of writing on paper; there really isn't much variety. But the story-telling is top-notch, even down to the camera angles. It's a very fresh looking game as well, very polished and sure of it's art direction.
The game focuses on relationship conflicts and time-management as well as compromises; will you be selfish and make sure Dan's book is a best-seller? Or will you spread your love and sacrifice your career for your loving family? Personally I love looking at emotions and feelings and relationships like this game explores, but I understand how it's not for everybody.
The Novelist lasts about two hours--it's short, yes--but I believe game length doesn't matter, it's the experience you have while you played the game and the memories it left with you for the rest of your life, and for that, I give The Novelist a slightly generous 8/10.
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PC
Original and satisfying. A slice-of-life game, factor that won't please the majority of the audience.
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PC
A great plot that any father and husband can relate to - it's good to see a game that explores mundane but real-life problems. This can be its Achilles Heel though since it might hit a bit close to home. It's definitely not a game for those who value escapism in their gaming or for those seeking some action.
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PC
This game clocks in at just shy of 2 hours. Most of that time is spent crawling all over the same map, over and over again, searching for "clues" while trying not to get detected by the humans. In nine chapters, you will search one single confined map as many as 36 times for roughly 135 clues - and that's the entire game. You find 135 bits of trash and make nine decisions, choosing each time from six possible alternatives. That is the entire "game;" much like To The Moon, this is a visual novel, not anything a normal person would describe as a game. Frankly, I don't see why this has gotten such accolades.
The execution is plodding to say the least; when I said most of your time will be spent "crawling" over the map, I wasn't kidding - the player's movement speed is agonizingly slow; learning to blink most effectively from one light fixture to the next is necessary just to pick up the pace a little.
As one tabletop gamer's wife once observed, "it's twenty minutes of fun packed into four hours."
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PC
This game has an interesting idea (balancing between needs of 3 family members) - and this may seem interesting when you read a review or a description of this game. But in reality, the game is horribly, painfully slow to play. You have to move around the house at walk speed (no way to run, Shift just doesn't exist here as RUN key, and possessing all those lights is just too clumsy as way of movement because each time you exit the light source you face in a such a direction that you lose orientation for a while, which loses time and makes the jumps useless). Every chapter, you have to re-search the whole house for objects with which you can interact - which you can find out only by coming very close to an object, which means you basically need to crawl each wall of the whole house like a cockroach, looking at the bottom of the screen to notice when some object can be interacted with. This search you must do basically once for general clues, then 3 times in memories of each of the characters. Each day the selection and sometimes positions of interactive objects change, so yes, you do have to re-search the whole house at least 4 times (or more, if you miss some object) every chapter. That's what this game basically is about, nothing more, as this crawling process takes 90% of playing time (9% for reading and 1% for thinking on your decisions).
Now, on the second day I didn't understand that selecting Fishing rods means actually continuing on the book. I though the main character wants to have a rest and go fishing, so I considered, to hell with his rest, now that's the book is progressing well it's time to tend to the wife. But no - it turns out now he is late with the book again because Fishing rods meant he would talk to a friend who is a writer, too, and will progress with the book. It's not that I made a wrong choice - the choice itself was mistakenly formulated by the game. At this point I wanted to re-load chapter 2 and change my selection because obviously I didn't understand what was meant by the text. But you CAN'T RELOAD. Ok, I had to start the whole game over. But right after 2 mins of walking YET AGAIN across this house and collecting all those objects yet again, I was annoyed so much that I simply quit. What's the point anyway..
Skip on this. It's a waste of money. The author certainly has no idea of what games are or what "gameplay" means in general. "Indie" don't mean this, indie is Braid or Limbo which are games. But this is not a game.
Adding all this 3D and walking around was a mistake. This game could work much better as a 2D Flash game where you just see a list of what each character wants, together with all clues as a clickable list or maybe just as one 2D screen with clickable objects. Then you pick Need 1 and 2 to fill, day finished. Next day. This way it would be story only, no fuss, and the game would take 15 mins in total to complete. But wait, it would be crap, right? It won't be a game at all. There just isn't enough to call it a game. So, the author went ahead and inserted lots and lots of walking between reading clues. Did it save the situation? Not at all, it just made it worse... I'm annoyed because the game itself is so much worse than its reviews everywhere. A promising concept with awful execution.
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PC
Summary The Novelist asks one central question: can you achieve your dreams without pushing away the people you love? The game focuses on Dan Kaplan, a novelist struggling to write the most important book of his career while trying to be the best husband and father he can be. The Kaplans have come to a remote coastal home for the summer, unaware...
Platforms:
- PC
Initial Release Date: Dec 10, 2013
Developer:
- Orthogonal Games
Publisher: Orthogonal Games
Genres: