Finished "Abscission" in 3 hours!

Hope I don't need to get a tattoo myself...

I finished Abscission in 3 hours and I must say, I'm rather sorry it was so short!

Well, there were moments where it felt a bit long. There's a lot of exposition near the end, some long cut-scenes that are certainly beautiful to look at in their graphic novel style, but when you paste a huge block of text over them it does away with that effect a bit.

Is this guy on Tramadol or something?

But when it comes to the story I was certainly intrigued. It also felt like there are multiple ways to get past obstacles. You also have to make some decisions. There's one about 2/3 in, another one a little bit later, and a final decision to get one of four possible endings there. I only played through the game once, so I don't know if the first two decisions lead to a 5th and 6th ending, though I assume it's more of game-over screen then. Truth is, I never go back to do things differently in games with multiple endings, they're just not really my thing.

Sorry, dude, I'm not into bondage...

I was stuck only once, because the hotspot to enter an alleyway was a bit small and I missed it. I liked how clues were added to your inventory, and you had to combine those "items" to make deductions so you would know which location to visit next, though it was a bit unintuitive to do that because other adventure games often make those deductions automatically once you find those clues or items. I also liked how you had to look up some information on your office computer, even though you only had to do that for one instance. I would've liked it if we had to make more use of that, but then again other gamers might find that boring, lol!

Let's call it water under the bridge, a'right?

The game offers some great close-up graphics. You play as a detective, but it truly is a horror game, so be prepared to see plenty of blood and some weird things. I would've wanted to delve even deeper into it all. The story went a little fast in places. I'm definitely curious to see what the developer can come up with next.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2392160/Abscission/

New game: "Abscission" playthrough

New game!

I've started playing Abscission, created by Jacob Lowry of Beyond Booleans, and I'm 1 hour into it! I must admit though, since I'm not a native-English speaker, I had to look up the meaning of the title and it's a word used when an organism sheds its parts, like when a tree loses its leaves, or when an animal sheds a claw.

It's a dark point-and-click detective game with a supernatural edge to it, though I haven't yet uncovered what the deal is exactly. There's been a murder in the town of Ashfield, and detective Luna calls in the help of detective Will Stanhope, whom I'm playing as. Several years ago they worked together on another murder case, but ever since Stanhope has been working in Vice, having turned his back on Homicide. Luna has called him back now because she thinks there are some similarities to that old case.

Cool graphic novel style cutscenes.

From the start, the film noir style drips off this game. The game isn't voiced but there's an excellent soundtrack and good sound effects as well. But it's that first person narrator, Stanhope himself, who performs as the typical dark and brooding P.I. commenting on his own life.

The four approaches during conversations

Abscission is a typical point-and-click: investigate the scenes, pick up interesting objects, talk to other characters to follow up on leads... It's the conversations that get a bit tricky: while talking to people, you can choose four different approaches, and if you pick the wrong one, you probably miss out on an easy solution for a certain puzzle, though I'm not far enough into the game to really tell what kind of consequences this has. Only that I failed to get a piece of information from one source, but of course I don't know what, but I did receive a spare key to an apartment room from someone else, so I don't know how I would've gotten in there otherwise...

I don't think that's all just paint...

So far I haven't encountered any real puzzles other than gathering the necessary information to get new locations on the city map. Currently I'm following up on the ex-boyfriend lead, but I doubt it'll be that simple. There are details to the murder that complicate matters, the coroner is a bit confused by the evidence he finds, so we're definitely dealing with something new here.

Something's rotten in the town of Ashfield...

Now it's time to search the ex-boyfriend's apartment. Who knows what I'll find?!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2392160/Abscission/