This article is in English.
TL;DR
Case Files: The Death of Paulette Williams is a really good FMV type of game to spend your time with, along with testing your English skills (if you are from non-English speaking countries), also to practise your deduction skills. It's definitely gonna be worth your time.
Notice
- This article aimed to review and spread the information about this game.
- There is no copyright infringement intended.
- Copyright toward images or videos or any kind of media used in this article goes to the owner, such as the developer or publisher.
- The author is not affiliated in any way with the developer, or publisher, or any other possibilities regarding this game. This article is purely a review from a gamer's perspective.
- As per the developer requests, this article will be free from spoilers, aside from the available information in the game page.
Update
Update on 01 August 2022: The game now available to wishlist on Steam, and planned to be available on 25 October 2022. You can click this embedded button below. Also, some Pros and Cons from this article has been fixed/updated on "the released version", but I'm gonna keep it as it's part of the history of how this game developed over time.
Update on 06 August 2022: You can watch me explaining features of this game through this thumbnail below:
Introduction
I came across this game through a Reddit post in r/playmygame, around three weeks ago. As playtesting and reviewing games became one of my fun-side-project-hobbies that I enjoyed lately, I decided to join the Discord server, and try it out. This game also marks the first time ever I played an FMV game like this, in "game environment". Previous similar experiences probably ❤๐ฉนํฑ Control Myself๐น (Taeyeon - Can't Control Myself promotion), and Black Mirror: Bandersnatch. Both are an interactive type of content, which requires consumers to interactively decide which decision to proceed. Anyway, prior to read the review below, you could watch a snippet to the game here:
Game Details
Specification
This information is acquired/cited from its official page in itch.io1, and from my own understanding2.
| Developer1 | Think Ten Media Group, prairiedogseeksheart. |
|---|---|
| Publisher1 | Think Ten Media Group, prairiedogseeksheart. |
| Released On | 09 March 20221. |
| Platform | Windows, macOS, Linux1, Quest 22 (from the developer's chat on Discord server). |
| Genre1 | Casual, Crime, Detective, FMV, Mystery, Story Rich, Simulation. |
| Required Specifications |
Hm... This is not available on their itch.io1 page, but the game size was reduced already, and I think as long as your device is decent enough (probably at least 4 GB RAM will be okay), then it's gonna be okay as there's not that much graphic inside, and I believe the videos just played like how you played an offline media on your device. |
| Game Size | 3.8 GB1 (downloadable for free through itch.io). Prior to the latest update, the game size was 11 GB, and after a few discussions, the developer decided to compress the size, and it's still as clear as possible to play with. |
| Available Language on Game |
|
| Price | FREE~~~~ ๐๐๐๐ป. For now. If you playtest the game for now, you could acquire the game for free. Later this year, this game will be sold for a certain price tag. |
| Player | Single player. |
| Connection | Offline2. No internet connection needed, aside from downloading the game files. |
Features, Mode, Characters
Features
In this FMV-type simulation game, you will play as a lead detective, which will help a police agent to uncover a case.
Modes
The only mode available is "Story Mode", I think2. You can change a few settings such as Quality, Resolution, and Skip Videos Mode.
Characters
The only characters shown on the screen are Martin Ruiz, Samantha Williams, and Elliot Jordan. Other characters are Paulette Williams, and Michael Cipher (?).
My Review
Played On
Played on Lenovo Ideapad Flex 5 AMD Ryzen 5 4500U with Radeon Graphics 2.38 GHz, and 8 GB RAM. Didn't use any gamepad, I only used Mouse, Keyboard, Pen and Paper (to take notes manually).
Game Play
As I said before, the gameplay is simple. You will act as a lead detective, which will help a police officer (Martin Ruiz), to uncover a case, where Paulette Williams was found dead at 62. Upon entering the room, you will be greeted with a few devices, such as display screens, controllers, some papers, a whiteboard, and notes, and such to help you understand and deduce better later on. Also this game better be played in one-session-go, even though there is a save feature which will save your progress after any major decisions made. You could continue to certain point later as you need.Also, as there is only one story going on, it's probably gonna be boring if you play it repeatedly... However, you could retry other decisions in case you couldn't solve the case in one go as there is a skip feature available to skip any interview session. As for me, I couldn't solve the game in one try, but I did in three tries, for around 150 minutes playing, and I loved every single second of it.
Pros
Practising English and Deduction Skills
For someone who isn't from English speaking countries, this game is gonna serve as a good (really good, even, IMO) game to practice your English skills. Currently it's still in development, and there are a lot of features that are not available yet, such as subtitles, police report, and such. Which also means it's gonna be a great challenge for you to train your ears as you won't rely to anything aside from your ears-your hands-and-your brain to be attentive, so you will be able to solve the case in the end by yourself.
Well-Designed
Even though the game is not fully-released yet, and some features are not available yet, the game felt "good" already, and there are no bad designs visible to my eyes as a casual gamer. You could move anywhere freely (and not feel dizzy), you could see and hear each character clearly, you could read any available papers clearly, and it's gonna make you feel as if you really are a detective in this kind of story.
Story-Rich
Yeap, story rich. The storyline for this game is actually simple. The timeline is not that far-stretched till months or years prior to the main event. However, all the details told by the characters and shown in the papers are really a lot for you to take notes of, and it will make you feel as if you are solving a case in real-life. I even need to use three to four papers to take notes of everything in the game.
Clear Objectives
The objective of this game is super clear. Solve a case as a lead detective, and that's it. No complex nor complicated side-objectives. Simply understandable.
Cons
No Case Report Yet, Or Already Available?
Well, the one that I played has no case report yet in the form of papers. Which means, I need to take notes of every single thing that Martin Ruiz said. I took it as a challenge, and from what I have heard, this feature is probably already available in the latest update of the game.
No Subtitle Yet
As it's an English speaking game, unfortunately, there are no English subtitles available yet. Again, I took it as a challenge. However, this feature probably gonna help and enhance gamers' experience in the game, as it's gonna be easier to follow what each character said in the game, instead of relying solely on your abilities only. As far as I know, the game will probably include subtitles in the future version of the game.
Footage Rewind Features Could Be Enhanced
This is... Kinda bothering me a bit. Well, as I said above, I couldn't solve the case in one try, hence I need to re-play the interview footage a few times. However, the only controls that are available are rewind and fast-forward buttons only. I couldn't just point to a certain timestamp to fast-forward the footage. This probably gonna be included in the future development of this game.
Closing
To conclude, I think...
If you wanna test your English skill as someone from non-English-countries, and also love detective type of game, along with loving to analyse or deduce things, then this game is definitely gonna be worth your time. As a one-time/session-to-go type of game, this game is going to make you super focused in analysing, taking notes, and such, so you won't miss any details before charging someone at the end of the game. This game also broadens my vision to discover more games of this type, and I hope there will be other games as good as this hidden one.
So, my rating for this game is...
Even though there are few features that are still not available yet in the game, I enjoyed my time playing this game. Also as it's still a playtest version, you can give your suggestion or opinion to the developer directly, which will probably contribute a thing or two to the game development.
Thank you for reading this post, and see you on another one :)