Explore a town cut off from the modern world, get involved with rituals and spirits while trying to find the truth of your past in Unforgotten, a non-linear choose-your-own-adventure game.
Format: PC via Steam
First playthrough time: 1 hour
Released Dec 17th, 2020 by Scoreboardgames | MV Games
Quick Overview
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Hovering a choice
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In-Depth Review
Unforgotten is a choose-your-own-adventure game where players take on the role of Oleg, who gets lost in the woods and stumbles across a strange shaman town. The story is told from a deck of cards and players flick the cards in different directions to make choices (both mouse and keyboard work). Throughout the story, players will gain items and increase or decrease relations which are displayed to either side of the card deck. Some items may be used by selecting them from the display on the right.
Viewing an item for more information
The story starts off with Oleg finding a mysterious photo of him as a child, between a couple he doesn’t recognize. Fearing his father may have lied to him about who he is, he consults his friend and crush Rusalina. This leads the two of them deep into a snow-covered forest where they quickly become separated and Oleg gets taken to a strange town practicing shamanic rituals and with strong beliefs in spirits. Depending on the player’s actions, items, and relationships, there are 3 possible endings. Players can also jump back to prior scenes to make different choices, which is helpful after completing their first ending.
Timed decisions
The main mechanic for affecting the story is to swipe decision cards to either side to make choices. Usually, this is left or right, but at specially marked cards this also includes up and down. Text will display on the card briefly describing what decision is made for the direction the player is hovering. In some situations, players will have only a few seconds to make a decision, before these sequences start, the player is usually given a bit of a heads-up in the story card right before. Story cards contain only text and can be swiped in any direction to continue.
A puzzle where the player can swipe in any of the 4 directions to choose their answer
The atmosphere of Unforgotten is wonderful. Despite the fact that most of the screen stays the same throughout the game, Unforgotten has very distinct character designs and thematic music for almost every scene in the game. The music and various background sounds were by far my favorite part. They brought the player into the scene and gave life to the town and surroundings.
Scene tracker
Recommendation
Overall, Unforgotten was a very enjoyable choose-your-own-adventure game. I enjoyed the plethora of choices I could make and how they wove together to create the outcome. The atmosphere was great, I liked both the character visual designs and loved the music and background sound effects. There were however a few rough interfaces to look at that felt unfinished and at least in English, there were a fair number of typos (though the intention was still clear). I recommend Unforgotten to players looking for a quicker choose-your-own-adventure game with lots of choices and a good atmosphere.
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Categories: Desktop games, Video game reviews
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