Despite a few drawbacks and narrative tangles, State of Mind is a great game that I had a ton of fun playing. The attention that's gone into creating an engaging world results in an experience that has a lot to offer anyone willing to be a more passive participant in the engaging experience. It’s a slow burn, the perfect game to relax with for a few evenings like a season of a good tv show.
I would actually say this game is about 8 - 9 out of 10, but I believe it deserves way more than its current metascore, so giving it a 10! :)
Disclaimer which is also a pretty good bottom line - If you ever happened to play Dreamfall or Dreamfall Chapters, and enjoyed it, there's a very high probability you're going to like this title as well.
All mentioned games share the same good aspects: Great storytelling, mild futuristic andor sci-fi vibes, you get to play multiple characters who are mainly interesting and likeable, and it all generally has a nice cinematic view.
The graphics and soundtrack also has a nice touch to them, and fit very well to the game's atmosphere.
Unfortunately they all also share the same bad aspects: this product usually feels much more like a film trying to be a game, and doing to by plenty of mildly challenging puzzles mini games go-fetch-come-back sequences. This can definitely become a nuisance and a letdown for plenty of players.
While I didn't suffer from those, I did find them slightly out of place or annoying at times, but there were also some good ones, too.
This game certainly isn't perfect as an actual game, yet the plot kept me totally gripped and wanting more, and I felt that for this type of games, there was an OK balance between "plot moments" and "gameplay moments" , plus the overall experience and story were totally worth it.
I hope to see more of this from Daedalic, and totally recommend this title!
State of Mind won’t be for everyone but it is fantastic when it sticks to it’s strengths. It has a very good story; good graphics; a great world and great characters. It’s puzzles are where it falls short. Daedalic Entertainment is know for it’s 2D Point and Click games but this is the first third person game I have seen them do so maybe it just couldn’t make it’s puzzles translate over genres. Luckily the majority of the puzzles aren’t bad or even difficult. It has 2 puzzles I disliked but they weren’t difficult so much as they were tedious. The story as mentioned was one of the strong points as you try to piece together your past in order to find your family. One thing I will say is few games have made me dislike the main character as much of State of Mind made me dislike Richard Nolan. I have played as characters that cut old ladies throats for a few coins and I found more I liked about them then I did Richard. I’m not sure if this was intentional or not, if it was then bravo I say. He was just a child like man who spends more time looking for his family then he asks why he is doing it or if he even deserves them. He treats his friends poorly; never accepts blame; is just an all around dbag. The only times he showed a little humility or kindness was the few times I was allowed to choose a dialogue choice that gave that to him. Again, if intentional then that is well done. The dialogue is well done and the choices at least give me the feeling of having decent control over most of the story. The characters were interesting and made me want to get to know them better. Lydia was not only my favourite but had a very memorable scene where you take control of her as a VR cam-girl for a scene. It was genuinely creepy like few other scenes in games. The graphics has a great style to them that was like a mishmash of cell shaded graphics and realism. The people and clothing were mainly cell shaded but the world detail was mainly in a realistic style and it made for an interesting blend. The world detail was very good as homes felt lived in and the city felt alive usually. In particular the rain soaked sidewalks of Queens New York was fantastic. The voice acting was also well done.
I played State of Mind on Linux. It never crashed on me. I used version 1.2 of the game. It did have one glitch one time where an NPC blocked me into a desk and I couldn’t move away. I had to reload the save and stand further from her when I spoke to her. Another issue was the audio at points got low for a few seconds and then went back to normal. This was always in just one ear of my headphones. It only happened a few times throughout but is an issue anyway. The game uses the Unreal engine. It has a 60 FPS lock that can’t be changed. Alt-Tab worked without issue. There are 4 settings for AA; a Vsync toggle and 4 other graphics options. The performance is usually great sticking to 60 FPS but there are points where I experienced drops in frame rate for 1-2 seconds. It could drop to anywhere from the 20’s to 4 FPS. This was random and brief. I noticed the GPU usage was frequently all over the place going from 99 to 60 to 0 to 4, etc. The game uses OpenGL.
Disk Space Used: 19.56 GB
GPU Usage: 0-99 %
VRAM Usage: 1.23-1.89 GB
RAM Usage: 3.2-6.3 GB
Frame Rate: 4-60 FPS
Settings Used: All Epic; motion blur and Vsync off @ 1920x1080
I paid $42.18 CAD for this and feel it is worth every penny. I finished it in 9 hours and 48 minutes. Some people will probably say that there is not enough “game play” to State of Mind but I find that the story is so strong I don’t mind plus I like games in this genre anyway. There are light puzzles throughout but no combat or action. The dialogue and choices are the main draw. If you enjoy walking simulators or story driven games in general there is a lot here for you. If you enjoy puzzles mainly then you still may like it.
My Score: 9/10
My System:
AMD Ryzen 5 2600X | 16GB DDR4-3000 CL15 | MSI RX 5700 XT 8GB Gaming X | Mesa 20.0.4 | Samsung 970 Evo Plus 500GB | Manjaro 19.0.2 | Mate 1.24 | Kernel 5.6.3-2-MANJARO
State of Mind is a good narrative game that brings you in a very well created futuristic world. A Sci-fi thriller that doesn't need a challenging gameplay to be appreciated and keeps you in suspense until the final credits.
From the slow pace and the bland choices of game design, State of Mind is certainly not one of the best sci-fi productions of recent years, but could intrigue the most avid fans for its essential style and extremely contrasting environments.
State of Mind has nothing special to offer for Sci-Fi fans and even arcade gamers, and besides that, the gameplay is slow and the potentially solid story isn't developed well enough. But it still is a step forward for Daedalic Entertainment who did a great job in designing a futuristc Berlin 30 years from now.
State of Mind stands as the most ambitious brainchild of award-winning German game writer/designer Martin Ganteföhr and it executes its purpose as a satisfactory narrative-driven experience despite it uninspired setting and disappointing main character.
Even the most linear of adventures cannot completely ignore the player's implied sense of possibility and wonder, without seriously affecting the immersion. For this reason, it's hard to feel engaged in State of Mind, despite its highly compelling story content. It might even be more enjoyable to watch a streamer play through it, than do it for oneself. Ouch.
I have no idea why some "critics experts" gave this game such a bad score as low as 50! This game might not be a masterpice, but it is undoubtedly good!! It touches many philosophical questions but don't dwell on them enough to make the game unappealing or too complex for the audience. I has a good story and very nice artsyle (it's ok if you dislike this, since it's pretty subjective).
Oyun kesinlikle güzel bir anlatıma ve kendi içinde güzel bir hikayeye sahip ama baya sıkıntılı olduğu kısımlarda var. Oyunda oynanış çok kısıtlı. Ufak bulmacalar dışında hiçbir şey yok.Telteles kafası desek o da değil. Seçim imkanı baya kısıtlı.Genelde 2 seçenek arasından birini seçiyorsunuz. Bol seçenekli ve sonuçlarının etkili olduğu seçimler olsa çok daha iyi olurdu. Bunların dışında grafikler kendine has güzellikte, bayıldım. Cyberpunk atmosferi on numara. Richard karakterini Geralt of Rivia seslendiriyor daha ne olsun :D
SummaryState of Mind is a futuristic thriller game delving into transhumanism. The game explores themes of separation, disjuncture and reunification, in a world that is torn between a dystopian material reality and a utopian virtual future.