Orwell Being the Big Brother you wish you could

Privacy and safety... two sides of an extremely sharp sword, the idea of the government always watching and keeping an eye on you is a scary thought, I dont need the head of the country knowing if i scrunch or fold, but at the same time, If something were to happen to me, Id want the full extend of the law brought down apon the people in question, But that cant happen if there isn't enough evidence.

Which is where the idea of this game comes in.. you play as a new member of an information gathering group called Orwell, think Oracle from the Batman Comic books, the all seeing eye of Gotham, except instead of Gotham, its the nation. You take the part of a new recruit to this organisation on his first day and are given a "training "case as they call it.

You are tasked with digging into the life of Cassandra Watergate, a suspect in a crime, you start of as if you were any other detective, knowing nothing more then whats in the police report, this is where the game takes the turn into something i think is pure genius, they manage to mix puzzle and story telling together in a way that no one out side of tell tales has been able to do in a long time, games today spoon feed to much , and this game does as well to a certain degree.

But no where near as much as other story driven games that walk you right into the path of the next puzzle answer. Instead you have to use your own logic and understanding to figure out where the pieces fit in relation to each other, now this being only episode 1 with 4 more to come over the next coming weeks you are only given the opportunity to explore Cassandra's life and back story, despite being given information on other characters and their relationships with Cassandra. 

The way you gather the information to Cassandras backstory and find out about her relationships with these other people is by digging through new paper articles , Web sites ,Blog posts, Social media accounts to find any mention of her that you can, from there you can take that information, lets say a social media handle, and look for that online  and from there you might get a link to a blog post she made about someone, you are now given a blank profile on that person, and you must build the back grounds for these people to help prove weather Cassandra is guilty or innocent of the crime in question.

So remember when i said this game doesn't spoon feed you as much as other games do? the extent isn't as bad, they do spoon feed you in the sense that you cant put the wrong info about say cassandra, under the profile of her mother, that being said if you have 2 bits of conflicting evidence you do only get to decide on one piece ,and this can either save cassandra from jail or send her away for a nice sleep in a cold cell.

GamePlay

Its a point and click puzzle game, there is no getting around that so if you were hoping for am open world first person detective game, might want to look else were,(if you find one id really like to play that so let us know) what it does offer is a sense of exploration, you may not see it as that but its what it is, you are sifting through piles and piles of useless information in hopes to find that one link to a webpage, or that one text where they incriminate themselves, now most of the game is payed out through the " Reader" tab, think of this like your go to bag of tricks, it has all the links to everything you have uncovered about every one, from the news headlines, to the personal portfolio of cassandra, 

You are also given a tab called " listener" which is what it basically Orwell doing some magic tomfoolery and tapping the phones and social media accounts of the person they are investigating, giving you full access to spy in on their private conversations they are having with people, there is another labeled " insider" but as this is the first episode this is still locked, i speculate that the insider may be a way to tap into the suspects computer in latter episodes but this is just theory at this point so dont take it as fact. 

So along your travels you will uncover more and more info to put together the suspects life, back story, personality and other personal facts to develop a profile on said suspect.My first run through took about 45 minutes to an hour to complete most of which being the tutorial and walking you through how the game works, which is good, a game that explains how to play it is amazing, unfortunately 

The music behind the game-play fits the tone the devs were going for perfectly, the slow intense resonance off the bass combined with the energetic liveliness of the mids melds together to really set the tone for a serious story.

through my play through i found no bugs, no glitches nothing, it was polished and a great example of what a game studio can do if they want to put out a good game my score for game-play is n 8/10

Visuals

The UI is outstanding, its the right amount of cluttered and organised to fully immerse you in the the idea of being swamped with information, it really made me feel as if i had piles of papers stacked around me , not knowing where to look for the next clue, That being said the colour scheme didn't quite match for me, its not that it didn't look good, i personally dont think the only blue tones they chose worked with for 90% of the background was a good choice, they proved they know how to do colour with the rest of thee game be it the web pages or the character profile shots, if they had of gorn with something in more of a deeper shade it could have worked well but with just the dull lifeless pale blues they weren't winning me over with visuals sadly, which hurt because they did such a good job everywhere else , 5/10 

Fun

Now im the sort of guy who loves digging into things, always have, i like to understand why people do what they do, why things work like they do, and knowing what people are doing gives me a sense of reassurance that nothing will surprise me, so when i got to dig through page after page looking into Cassandras life and figuring out what made her tick and why she is the person she is... oh boy did i get excited, its the most fun playing a detective puzzle game i have had since playing L.A Noir years ago , which to this day i hold as the greatest puzzle game i have ever played, so it should be a surprise when i give Orwell a 7/10 

 Basic napkin math will tell you that's a 66.6% repeater of a score, which looks pretty low but dont let that fool you, the game lost a lot of score in the visual department, but if you can look past the dull lifeless colour of the back ground long enough to get engulfed into the world that is Orwell i dont think that will matter to you which is why i strongly recommend that you head over to either their 

website http://orwellgame.com/ 

their indiedb page http://www.indiedb.com/games/orwell 

or even the steam store http://store.steampowered.com/app/491950/ 

to go and get your copy of Orwell right now i know ill be on the edge of my seat for a week waiting for part 2 to come out 

------Lucas Cause

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Computer Repair Simulator Spotlight

How many times have you had a computer issue? how many of those times did you wish you knew what things were so you could go in and know exactly what the problem is? and how often have you opened up your pc and gone " shit.. there's so much going on where do i start"

if you were anything like me for a very long time then you probably tick all those boxes, but what if i told you, there's a way you can mess around with a computer with no worries of breaking something, no issues if you forget the thermal paste, no issue if you don't ground your self... and it could be used to teach kids basics without spending $1000s on old hardware?

Computer Repair Simulator does just that, the aim of the "game" ( if you can even call it that id call it a teachers aid and sell it to the school boards wink wink) is to bring computer repair to schools and business around. The goal is to use this "game" to train people and help them to understand what does on inside a computer, at least that's how i see it.

some back ground on the devs themselves, the team is composed of 3 people,a lead programmer-Garrett Swindell,a marketing and web developer Euthimis Kexagioglou and their graphics artist Brook Swindell, all with full time jobs or still at school them self's.

the project its self is not funded in any way and is instead backed by the creators themselves with both software and money they have put into the project.that said they are looking into other funding methods to help speed along the processes to avoid delays where they can.

so far the "game"(really need a new name for it as its not a game )has been in development for around 9 months, that may not sound like a lot of time but when factoring in the fact they all have full time responsibilities and only being able to work on it in spare time leads to slower development, not much they can do really.

CRS can be picked up on their website in the alpha stage here------http://s627866874.onlinehome.us/alpha-game-downloads


now on to actual "game-play" the game plays as a person who works out of their shed repairing computers for anyone who calls, this can be anything from replacing a ram stick to adding a new agp (accelerated graphics port) all the way down to removing the solder from the underside of the connections.

it used basic wasd keys to move around the table you work from with the mouse wheel being used to scroll in and out, one thing id like to note is that you can not invert the mouse wheel scroll which may be a small issue for people who play with inverted controls.

Lets gt into how a " round" plays out shall we? picture this...

GamePlay

your standing in your shed on a sunny afternoon , your phone rings.. " hello there seems to be something wrong with my computer it {xyz} can i bring it around?"
you are then given the pc to work on, you must first check the work order to find out what the problem is, from there if you dont  know what part is what, they offer an inspect tool to will flash they broken parts in red to indicate what parts need to be replaced, after you have identified which parts are broken you get on to the "fun" part,

you must individually remove each part one by one until the broken part can be taken out, so for example, if the cpu is dead, you must first take the screws from the side panel off, then the panel its self, then the 24pin power plug. then the cpu fan plug, then the fan clips, the fan... all the way down until the last drop of solder is removed and the cpu can be removed.

now that you have the broken part taken off you go into your inventory and find the broken part along with anything else you have taken off, you have either the option to sell the broken part, or you can repair the broken part, from what i can tell in the future you will have the option to buy new parts or just repair them based on how badly it is broken but at this stage all you can do is repair the part.

Great parts fixed,now you get to re assemble the pc, this is where the game takes its turn from game into teacher aid like i mentioned before, this is the part where you get to teach people how a pc goes together, no admittedly you cant show the force needed to tighten a screw, or feel the force needed to latch a cpu( if you haven't done it before its a little scary using that much force on something so expensive)

now what happens if you forget something? well nothing.. the game wont let you finish the job until everything is done, at the end of this i will have a link to a video of some game-play with some of my experiences.

for how well the game plays, with the small bugs i found with the wasd keys not working, easily fixed by just clicking the mouse its a solid 7/10 you cant say this game doesn't work because it does the game-play is solid and it just ..works

Visuals


the game looks.. as you would expect, its clear that its just one person working on it, but thats fine, you dont need bright flashy lights and over the top colours on a simulation game, especially if you are trying to show pc parts, a ram stick should look like a ram stick, a cpu fan should look like a cpu fan and so on and so on, i do like the fact that if you open the shed door you can see a lake and a couple tree, but i feel they could have done a bit more with the inside work shop space, all you have is a relatively empty peg board aside from a couple screw drivers, a desk lamp a blue anti static mat and a couple cupboards behind you, i couple posters or even a car model in the the back ground could have further improved the atmosphere, im giving the visual aspect of the game a 6/10 just because i dont get the impression of being a guy in a shed fixing pc like they are going for.

Fun

This is a hard one to give a final score on... because its all subjective at the end of the day, but to me , the person who picked the game up because of it looked interesting not knowing what to expect when i hit the download button.. i had fun, its exactly what the game implies, its a simulation game based around fixing computers, now that might not be fun for everyone,and thats fine you have to remember this isnt the sort of thing they are trying to sell to the masses, this is a very perticular type of product that i feel is perfect for who they are aiming it towards so im giving it a 6/10



Finale thoughts on Computer Repair Simulator, for what it is, and the amount of time they ave spent on it its good. its no AAA title but they arent trying to be , the aim here isnt to take over the sim world and have everyone rushing out the door to replace that broken cmos battery on the clients pc, i keep bringing this point up but its a teaching aid, polish it up maybe add a bit more personality to it in way of design ie that car model i said or a poster, and take it to the board of studies in your area with the amount of time we spend on computers these days and how young kids are being taught how to use them this would be a perfect demonstration tool for a teacher to show off


Remember to check out the games website http://s627866874.onlinehome.us/
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link to game play of the game   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vglScmZ-Q58