Beautifully stylized visuals, solid writing that actually makes you care about your band of misfit survivors and genuine choice & consequence gameplay that rewards multiple playthroughs and experimentation, make Dyscourse a thoroughly enjoyable adventure.
You wake up on the beach after your plane crashes. You band together with five other survives who make you their impromptu leader. The choices you have to make have some major consequences in this dire fight for survival. Their lives rest in your hands. Do you have aptitude to make the right choices to save everyone?
This game is all about cause and effect. When a boar steals what little food you have do you try to hunt it down or stay put? When the storm threatens your shelter should you make do or wander blindly into the night and hope to find something better? Even choosing who to feed with your limited food supply is a tough choice. Maybe someone is injured and you feel badly and want to feed them. On the other hand, maybe you give the food to a more fit candidate to give them some energy to help you forage. Maybe you just decide based on their attitudes and personalities.
The story and the level of emotional attachment in this game is through the roof. The characters all feel so real. You have Teddy, a super paranoid tech wiz, who thinks this is all one big planned conspiracy. Jolene, a demanding yet surprising optimistic women, who is losing interest in her husband and fellow survivor George. Then theirs Steve and Garret, a depressed office worker and a gaming addict. Rarely have I found it this easy to remember characters names, its just their personalities and so strong and believable you really feel connected to them as time goes by.
The art and sound effects are really unique and fit the game so well. The game has a really pretty, colorful and slightly cartoony, paper-craft look to it. The story can get dark at times and I'm glad its not too realistic looking, I feel that could have made it even more gloomy than it already is. The characters all make funny and super charming voices when the talk. You can read what they say but all you hear is them mumble with their different accents that fit their personalities perfectly.
This game isn't very long, in fact it only takes a little over an hour to complete. Please don't not write it off just for that, for what plays in an hour feels like days as you immerse your self in this game. Not to mention there are so many different paths to take the replay value is very high. Watching my sister play and make different choices vastly changed the direction of the game and let me see lots of things I didn't in my play-though. If you enjoy the TellTale games like the Walking Dead or the difficult choices likes those in the Mass Effect series I believe you'll really enjoy this game. So tell me, are you ready to step up and make the though choices?
Dyscourse is a short and approachable game, offering a replayable experience featuring a branching narrative and a ton of meaningful choices to make, putting you in charge of a group of survivors stranded on a desert island.
Dyscourse is an interesting adventure in both its art design and cause-effect mechanics. It has some defects but it can be definitely enjoyed by any point and click fan who loves the idea to make his own story in a videogame.
An adventure game that's enjoyable, easy to play, with an interesting plot, sold at a disproportionate price compared to the duration of the experience, despite the alternative endings.
Dyscourse has charm and personality to spare, and though you can peel back the layers of its systems if you spend enough time replaying it, few games make your choices feel as meaningful and impactful as this one does.
Dyscourse looks great on screenshots and seems like a complex gamebook, but in reality is not that beautiful and gameplay is very repetitive if you play over to see different outcomes. [06/2015, p.73]
Graphics is fine. Music is also good. I would be probably bored if it took more time, but it was quite fine as it is just about one and a half hour long(at least for me).
I really like story-driven games, even more when they let you choose the story. For that, I really wanted to like this game.
The art is pretty, yes. The soundtrack is not awful but at some point the way the characters talk just gets annoying. You can, however, turn that off so it's not a big deal.
The problem with this game is that I didn't like the characters, I tried, but they would just complain about anything. At the end I was just skipping dialogues because I couldn't care less about some weird couple's marriage or all the games some dude played. Even though the 'desert island' theme has been used several times I felt they could have made a much better story. On the bright side, they did keep the story credible, but maybe too much. Maybe an unexpected twist or some characters with a deeper background would have made this more enjoyable.
They did what they promised and your choices DO matter. But at the end they are choices about 'who gets the water' or 'who gets to eat'. In the first case, whoever you picked would get hurt (and usually this will ONLY mean they're going to keep the wound visible through the game and the will complain about it. As I said before, they just complain about everything). In the second case, you'll decide who dies.
I have read many positive reviews about this game, so I guess it just wasn't my cup of tea.
Simply put, this game is just bad. The art is pretty, but that's about all it has going for it. The gameplay is awkward at best. It feels thrown together and like they let their donors down... curse you kickstarter and your no refunds!
I cannot believe this "game" has any positive review. I was bored in seconds. My friends kid took slightly longer to be completely **** it was under a minute. There is nothing "quirky", fun, funny, interesting, or cool about this non-game, game. Feel angry and ripped off. $25 hard-earned dollars going to losers probably kicked out of school for wasting their teachers time.