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Wadjet Eye Old Skies - time travel adventure game from Wadjet Eye
- Thread starter MRY
- Start date
Only in chapter 2. Semi-interesting game so far, but I must say; it has one of the most unintentional dystopian worlds ever created.
With that I mean: If you are not protected from time-ripples, your life might change at a whim, thanks to others doing time-travelling and changing things. You might be successful, and have a nice family, but the next second, your family might get erased and you are now a bum. And you wouldn't even know or remember it happening. Time traveling in this world is 100% cursed, even if they try to minimize ripples.
With that I mean: If you are not protected from time-ripples, your life might change at a whim, thanks to others doing time-travelling and changing things. You might be successful, and have a nice family, but the next second, your family might get erased and you are now a bum. And you wouldn't even know or remember it happening. Time traveling in this world is 100% cursed, even if they try to minimize ripples.
Does if feel like a game written for 16 y.o girls ?
Sratopotator
Savant
- Joined
- Sep 21, 2016
- Messages
- 175
Isn't that Dave Gilbert's schtick?
Keshik
Arcane
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2012
- Messages
- 2,326
Yah, Nozzo has his family shifted out of existence and even watching Imani just disappear (especially after you went through trouble for her and her ancestor and even being protected sort of sucks in a way as you are kind of non-exsitent in the world, as nothing would be permanent.
This is probably my favorite dave gilbert game ever tbh.
But i get what they're going for. Not my absolute wadjet eye published game (primordia, gemini rue and technobabylon is prolly still my fave) but my best in-house developed game.
I love the ending (tho it's a bit disappointing you didnt get to play the actual final sequence. I thought when you play as nozzo, you are gonna get flashback of how fia saved her gf)
But i get what they're going for. Not my absolute wadjet eye published game (primordia, gemini rue and technobabylon is prolly still my fave) but my best in-house developed game.
Finished it. So, here is my review. You can read it down below, or at my site, if interested!
After many years since the release of Unavowed, Wadjet Eye Games is finally out with a new point and click adventure game titled Old Skies. While still having a focus on New York, Dave Gilbert is ditching the fantasy element for a futuristic sci-fi city setting, with time traveling shenanigans as its centerpiece. I do enjoy the occasional escapade through the vortex of time. However, most time travel stories touching this usually end up breaking their own internal rules, thus making a huge mess of the narrative. So, do Old Skies suffer the same fate? Let’s find out.
Welcome to Time travel R us
In Old Skies, you play as Fia Quinn, and, with your partner Frank Nozzarelli, form a team of time traveling agents working for ChronoZen. In the future of 2062, time travel has been around for a while. But soon after its initial discovery, it was made abundantly clear that it needed to be regulated. The first days were basically the wild west of time jumping, with people altering the timeline to the left and right, making the world an unstable place.
Now, it’s strictly regulated, yet not out of reach. It will only cost you an arm and a leg to be able to journey through time. And it’s here where your job comes in. You are to guide these rich clients wanting to travel, and make sure the rules are followed and the integrity of the timeline maintained. Many safety nets are in place, such as a ranking system of historical happenings. Anything ranked low to medium is allowed to be altered in certain ways, but people and events ranked high, which have a significant influence on the world, are considered too dangerous to alter.
While these directives establish what can be done, many clients are eager to bend the rules for their own gain. So, as you might expect, Fia and Nozz must resolve strange situations and requests, to make sure the timeline remains intact, and their clients happy.
I might check for tapeworms if I were you
The agents
The focus on time traveling is a constant throughout Old Skies, but the plot, and the fate of Fia and Nozz is very personal and emotional that I think is best left to the player to experience for themselves. In other words, I will not spoil anything. This means, I can’t say much without ruining the plot, but I thought it was compelling, even for having a slow start. It wasn’t until chapter three that I felt the plot started to pick up. That’s not to say the first two chapters were bad, but the two first chapters kinda meandered, and it had me wondering if this was supposed to be the structure of the whole game. At first, it seemed to just be random clients, from chapter to chapter, but I’m glad to say it eventually expands into a greater narrative of melancholy, loss and regrets that hit deep (if you also suffer from chronic remorse syndrome).
What I found very fascinating about the game, more so than the direct narration, is the background lore of time traveling. It’s painted as accepted reality (until later parts of the game). The job we perform is a necessary evil, even if the premise feels crass – having rich people altering the timeline for their own advantages at will, even if supervised. Now, what gets me about this, is how incredibly dystopian this world is. You see, if you are not chronolocked like the agents, and certain events and people, you are essentially fair game to have your life changed to suit the clients requesting a time alteration.
You don’t even have to be the target, you can just be the unlucky innocent casualty. Like when a company you work for gets blinked into oblivion, only because the founders are having a spat over ownership and the future vision of the company. Anyone that has read time travel stories before, knows that even the smallest things can affect the future massively, at least on an individual level. The person who had his job erased might have met his wife at this place of work. But now, thanks to this change, his life has been modified, his family deleted out of existence, and he wouldn’t even know that it happened. To me, this is undeniably horrifying, as your existence only holds worth depending on what you have done for humanity – judged by a government entity.
How can people even set their mark, when your life can change at a whim, unless you are already connected to someone that is ranked high? And who is to say that the government will not abuse this, making them sit as leaders in perpetuity. It would be easy for them to remove any political movements from history that threatens them. This is some truly unsettling stuff, and something to ponder, even if the game does not explicitly go into details.
With driving like that, it could be!
Chronolocked
That’s not all. I risk spoiling some elements of the main plot here, but this needs to be said. The agents working ChronoZen are chronolocked, meaning they are locked into the timeline, and can’t be changed. This is a different horror from what the unaware citizen might face. These agents get to see all the wonders from the past, but at the cost of nothing being permanent, other than other agents. It’s a very high price to pay, since it makes the job a solitary one, seeing as everyone outside ChronoZen can be altered at any time. I’m not sure what fate is worse: living as a nobody in a world where nothing you do has any permanency, unless you do something big. Or being trapped in an existence where most things are in flux, with no real history, in neither people, objects, nor events.
Before we go into gameplay, the most important questions remain. Does Old Skies make a mess of the rules it sets up? Thankfully, no. I’m not a time traveling expert, but I found the story consistent throughout, without me ever having to second guess the narrative. So, well done!
Pointing & clicking
Old Skies is a very traditional adventure game that consists of talking to people and collecting items to solve problems to progress the story. Much like Unavowed, it’s on the rather easy spectrum, with a larger attention put into the narrative. For veterans, this will be an easy game, but it keeps the pacing high. The only gameplay aspect that might require a few retries, is the time-rewind system, that is also connected to the narrative. These segments have you picking the right kind of choices to progress, otherwise death will come knocking. It’s an okay mechanic, but some of them annoyed me. Being forced to click past animated scenes and dialogue to try again can quickly become a drag.
It was a cursed path to take – I want a redo!
Look & feel
Old Skies look good for the most part, but I feel it’s a world missing details at times visually, and some of the more zoomed in scenes felt rough, especially with thick black outlines for the characters. It has a bit of an amateurish look to it, something many older games made in classic pixel art don’t suffer from. However, it’s not terrible, but some scenes come off as flat, while others stand-out. The music and voice acting are terrific, specifically the soothing jazzy saxophone, all to highlight the melancholic nature of the emotional scenes. Sound-wise, the presentation is top-notch, while the graphics lies somewhat under that.
Conclusion
Old Skies is a good game, and I entirely enjoyed the story, but what really nailed it down for me is the implied dystopia behind the world. A big bonus is that its internal rules weren’t broken, as is common when it comes to tales of time-travel. It might not look the best going by adventure gaming standards, but I found the music, voice-acting, and story easily making up for that. If you want a well-told emotional sci-fi story of loss and regret, this is the game for you. Don’t go expecting deep mechanics, yet the limited gameplay comes at a generous price, around twenty euros or so. It’s well worth that!
Thanks for reading.
Rating:
After many years since the release of Unavowed, Wadjet Eye Games is finally out with a new point and click adventure game titled Old Skies. While still having a focus on New York, Dave Gilbert is ditching the fantasy element for a futuristic sci-fi city setting, with time traveling shenanigans as its centerpiece. I do enjoy the occasional escapade through the vortex of time. However, most time travel stories touching this usually end up breaking their own internal rules, thus making a huge mess of the narrative. So, do Old Skies suffer the same fate? Let’s find out.
Welcome to Time travel R us
In Old Skies, you play as Fia Quinn, and, with your partner Frank Nozzarelli, form a team of time traveling agents working for ChronoZen. In the future of 2062, time travel has been around for a while. But soon after its initial discovery, it was made abundantly clear that it needed to be regulated. The first days were basically the wild west of time jumping, with people altering the timeline to the left and right, making the world an unstable place.
Now, it’s strictly regulated, yet not out of reach. It will only cost you an arm and a leg to be able to journey through time. And it’s here where your job comes in. You are to guide these rich clients wanting to travel, and make sure the rules are followed and the integrity of the timeline maintained. Many safety nets are in place, such as a ranking system of historical happenings. Anything ranked low to medium is allowed to be altered in certain ways, but people and events ranked high, which have a significant influence on the world, are considered too dangerous to alter.
While these directives establish what can be done, many clients are eager to bend the rules for their own gain. So, as you might expect, Fia and Nozz must resolve strange situations and requests, to make sure the timeline remains intact, and their clients happy.
I might check for tapeworms if I were you
The agents
The focus on time traveling is a constant throughout Old Skies, but the plot, and the fate of Fia and Nozz is very personal and emotional that I think is best left to the player to experience for themselves. In other words, I will not spoil anything. This means, I can’t say much without ruining the plot, but I thought it was compelling, even for having a slow start. It wasn’t until chapter three that I felt the plot started to pick up. That’s not to say the first two chapters were bad, but the two first chapters kinda meandered, and it had me wondering if this was supposed to be the structure of the whole game. At first, it seemed to just be random clients, from chapter to chapter, but I’m glad to say it eventually expands into a greater narrative of melancholy, loss and regrets that hit deep (if you also suffer from chronic remorse syndrome).
You don’t even have to be the target, you can just be the unlucky innocent casualty. Like when a company you work for gets blinked into oblivion, only because the founders are having a spat over ownership and the future vision of the company. Anyone that has read time travel stories before, knows that even the smallest things can affect the future massively, at least on an individual level. The person who had his job erased might have met his wife at this place of work. But now, thanks to this change, his life has been modified, his family deleted out of existence, and he wouldn’t even know that it happened. To me, this is undeniably horrifying, as your existence only holds worth depending on what you have done for humanity – judged by a government entity.
How can people even set their mark, when your life can change at a whim, unless you are already connected to someone that is ranked high? And who is to say that the government will not abuse this, making them sit as leaders in perpetuity. It would be easy for them to remove any political movements from history that threatens them. This is some truly unsettling stuff, and something to ponder, even if the game does not explicitly go into details.
With driving like that, it could be!
Chronolocked
That’s not all. I risk spoiling some elements of the main plot here, but this needs to be said. The agents working ChronoZen are chronolocked, meaning they are locked into the timeline, and can’t be changed. This is a different horror from what the unaware citizen might face. These agents get to see all the wonders from the past, but at the cost of nothing being permanent, other than other agents. It’s a very high price to pay, since it makes the job a solitary one, seeing as everyone outside ChronoZen can be altered at any time. I’m not sure what fate is worse: living as a nobody in a world where nothing you do has any permanency, unless you do something big. Or being trapped in an existence where most things are in flux, with no real history, in neither people, objects, nor events.
Before we go into gameplay, the most important questions remain. Does Old Skies make a mess of the rules it sets up? Thankfully, no. I’m not a time traveling expert, but I found the story consistent throughout, without me ever having to second guess the narrative. So, well done!
Pointing & clicking
Old Skies is a very traditional adventure game that consists of talking to people and collecting items to solve problems to progress the story. Much like Unavowed, it’s on the rather easy spectrum, with a larger attention put into the narrative. For veterans, this will be an easy game, but it keeps the pacing high. The only gameplay aspect that might require a few retries, is the time-rewind system, that is also connected to the narrative. These segments have you picking the right kind of choices to progress, otherwise death will come knocking. It’s an okay mechanic, but some of them annoyed me. Being forced to click past animated scenes and dialogue to try again can quickly become a drag.
It was a cursed path to take – I want a redo!
Look & feel
Old Skies look good for the most part, but I feel it’s a world missing details at times visually, and some of the more zoomed in scenes felt rough, especially with thick black outlines for the characters. It has a bit of an amateurish look to it, something many older games made in classic pixel art don’t suffer from. However, it’s not terrible, but some scenes come off as flat, while others stand-out. The music and voice acting are terrific, specifically the soothing jazzy saxophone, all to highlight the melancholic nature of the emotional scenes. Sound-wise, the presentation is top-notch, while the graphics lies somewhat under that.
Conclusion
Old Skies is a good game, and I entirely enjoyed the story, but what really nailed it down for me is the implied dystopia behind the world. A big bonus is that its internal rules weren’t broken, as is common when it comes to tales of time-travel. It might not look the best going by adventure gaming standards, but I found the music, voice-acting, and story easily making up for that. If you want a well-told emotional sci-fi story of loss and regret, this is the game for you. Don’t go expecting deep mechanics, yet the limited gameplay comes at a generous price, around twenty euros or so. It’s well worth that!
Thanks for reading.
Rating:
Keshik
Arcane
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2012
- Messages
- 2,326
Yeah, agree with the ending just seemed rush. The post credits scene was a bit of a downer. Honestly themes of wanting your life to matter wasn't the thing to start my corpo drone work week on
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2011
- Messages
- 101,701
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2011
- Messages
- 101,701
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