South of the Circle is a work of art told through a wonderful narrative done in its own unique way. With gameplay being simple interactions, the minimalist aspect allows the players to focus on the story rather than intricate controls. The selection of various emotions for the cut scene dialogue and what you choose reflects the players' thoughts of Peter and his decisions. There are moments of joy, distress, sadness throughout Peter's life and the visuals/soundtrack really reflect his emotional states.
There needs to be more narrative-driven games like this where gameplay isn't always the focus centerpiece. Minimal gameplay can be just as impactful.
South of the Circle tiene una narrativa muy bien desarrollada. Consigue atraparte con su arte y el desarrollo de sus personajes. La banda sonora acompaña muy bien la experiencia.
South of the Circle is as good a game today as it was years ago. The PC version improves the graphics slightly and is perfectly playable even without the use of the touch screen or "the mobile approach." It can be played in small bites or as a movie to be completed in one or two evenings. If you do not have access to Apple Arcade and have yet to try State of Play's narrative adventure, you now have no excuse. Avoid it only if you can't stand limited gameplay or if you want every single choice to have a huge impact on the scenes and plot.
The ending sequence of South of the Circle is still packed with emotional catharsis and an ambiguous ending the leaves the player wanting more, and that alone makes this game a must-play for narrative-driven players.
With such an imbalanced gameplay/narrative ratio, South of the Circle clearly won't appeal to everyone. The few gameplay mechanics are really anecdotal, so much so that even the choice system does not lead to different ends as tradition dictates. It is imperative to approach this production from the angle of the essentially narrative adventure, or even squarely to place oneself in the spirit "I am watching a nice animated film of 3h30".
A good-looking game with great voice acting and interesting characters. Your own choices, however, don’t matter at all, there’s no gameplay to speak of and the story itself is rather bland.
Now this. This was one beautiful narrative piece of masterwork. Original design, dynamic dialogue, music that hits the right spot, man oh man. Loved this thoroughly.
(2-hours review)
Let's start with the fact that this is an interactive novel, most of the scenes here are everyday dialogues that minimally move the plot forward, you will just chat with a girl, friends, boss, in flashbacks, and, at the same time, sadly walking or looking for help in the snow in real life, for such a "indie" game, the animations are great, there is even facial expressions, the picture is minimalistic, but at the same time providing a sufficient amount of detail,
But there are problems in the gameplay, who even came up with such a design of the selection buttons?, they give you 2 circles, in 1 some square, in the other some kind of triangle, and what should I understand from this?)What emotion does the little purple square at the bottom represent? They seem to write us the characteristics of the circles at the beginning of the game, but after 5 minutes they stop, and I just didn’t have time to remember, and I didn’t immediately understand that they are different, because the usual qte is also done badly here, no way it" intuitively clear", unclear enough just to press or you need to hold the button, but still the developers have foreseen such difficulties a little, in the menu you can press "help" and see the descriptions of all the circles, but again.. Firstly, you won’t immediately think of it, the second - it`s still difficult to remember which minimalistic picture is responsible for what,
Because there is a bit of laziness, because the plot is also quite banal, we have a love story and career of a scientist working at a university during the Cold War.
In general, a very specific product, but for a mobile game, which it was before the release on Steam, it is very worthy.
Subscribe on my Steam`s Curator`s page: ****/curator/41977550/
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(2-часовой обзор)
Начнём с того, что это интерактивная новелла, большинство сцен тут - это бытовые диалоги, минимально продвигающие сюжет вперёд, вы просто будете общаться с девушкой, друзьями, начальником, во флешбеках, и, параллельно немного печально идти, или ехать в поисках помощи в снегах в реале, для такой "индюшной" игры анимации сделаны великолепно, тут даже мимика лиц есть, картинка минималистичная, но при этом предоставляющая достаточное количество деталей,
А вот в геймплее есть проблемки, кто вообще придумал такой дизайн кнопок выбора, вам даётся 2 кружка, в 1 какой-то квадратик, в другом какой-то треугольничек, и что я должен из этого понять?) Какую эмоцию отражает маленький фиолетовый квадратик внизу кружка?) Нам вроде пишут характеристики кружков в начале игры, но уже через 5 минут перестают, и я просто не успел запомнить, да и вообще не сразу понял, что они отличаются, потому что обычные qte тут тоже сделано плохо, ни разу не "интуитивно понятно" достаточно ли просто нажать или удерживать кнопку, но всё-таки разрабы немного предусмотрели такие трудности, в меню можно назвать "помощь" и увидеть описания всех кружков, но опять же.. Во-первых не сразу додумаешься до этого, во-вторых всё равно сложновато запомнить какая минималистичная картинка за что отвечает,
Потому что и лень немного, ведь сюжетец то тоже достаточно банальненький, у нас есть история любви и карьеры учёного, работающего в университете во времена холодной войны.
В общем, очень специфичный продукт, но для мобильной игры, коей она являлась до выхода в Стим, очень достойно.
The game is a visual novel with minimal gameplay and choices that don't decide anything at the end. I did not find any obvious problems with the game, it was pleasant to play. This game can be called a movie with a running time of 3-4 hours. Important questions are raised in the world after World War 2, but in the end they are not fully disclosed. Another open ending game with no choice. You can walk in 4 hours and think a lot at the end, but no more.
he game has a nice art style and a good artistic presentation The voice acting is good as well. Unfortunately the gameplay is almost non-existent, in some instances the game plays itself. The story is well presented but filled with a ton of 1960s cliches. And the game is not subtle about it either. It reemphasizes the same points all over again, without providing a balanced view on certain cultural aspects of that era. This is unfortunate because the game has a good start, but looses it with its plot fast. I sadly cannot recommend
SummaryAntarctica, 1964.
A crashed aircraft, tail to the sky.
Cambridge academic Peter stumbles from the wreckage in search of help, fighting the cold. As his attempts to escape the ice grow more desperate, the lines between his past and present begin to blur.
A love story between colleagues Peter and Clara, set against the backdrop of the C...