Gamedec is a game produced and published by Polish Anshar, in 2021 for PC and PS5, and in 2022 for Nintendo Switch, with strong features focused on cyberpunk, a style that at the time was already on the rise and certainly helped to attract a certain audience.

The game has characteristics a little more common but very interesting to be explored but also offers new mechanisms of approach that can positively surprise.

The main objective of the developers was to offer an RPG for the public, at this point, I say, perhaps the game is a little away from the general trends because as a whole, adding gameplay, story and among others, it all seems a little too simple, but not that this is a negative point, I mean, the clear challenge proposed here is in other particularities beyond what avid RPG players are accustomed. To explain my point, there is no combat system and no inventory, our entire adventure will be based on dialogues and choices.

Continuing on, Gamedec is a single-player game in which we will play as a detective in a cyber world, that is, we will investigate a virtual reality various types of cases, which can make things a bit more, shall we say, complicated since the possibilities are certainly much greater in relation to a physical world. 

For this, all the time we will be faced with options in the middle of dialogs, which will determine the future, yes, the scenario changes according to the music you want to play. I must admit, for those not proficient in a foreign language, especially English, the language in which I followed the path, the challenge is doubled, because the dialogs can be quite extensive.



Focus on what matters

Particularly, I find it intriguing and even exciting to imagine how certain developments happen in the game, such as the character, but the creators were very judicious and adopted a unique posture here, to focus on some aspects and leave others aside, for example, the development of our main character is minimal, we only know that we live in a deplorable situation, without money in Warsaw City in the 22nd century.

Meanwhile, it is very interesting how the strengths of the game are recurrently shown, each character here, because it is a virtual reality, has its own opinions and professions, in short, another life, but this is not at random or just an extra, many of these features help us to approach them and get new information to the case, use the charm and charisma is part of the game.

And here enters one of the charms of Gamedec, in this context, using these ''special abilities'', we can unlock 4 different points of personality, gaining points and leaving possible access to new parts of the dialogs according to what we choose to evolve, like a tree of skills even.



It is much more intuitive than it seems, the way we behave with the character will tell which features we can unlock, this to some extent is good, to help the flow and dynamics of the dialogs, however, sometimes you will feel compelled to act as you may not want to initially just to unlock one of these professions.

Besides this, another of the main mechanics to be explored is the Deduction, this works, for me, comparatively to a mental timeline, in which as we move forward in an investigation, our hypotheses will appear and help us to follow everything more easily, including after understanding how this mechanic worked, solving our ORs was much simpler.



Just in case

Well, needless to say, the main focus of the game is clearly the narrative, and this they have done well. I mean, every time we go through an MMO to solve a case we will encounter completely different narratives while still revolving, in a way, around our character in one big final story, forming a character for the doll completely different and synchronized with the player.

In addition, the plots make great sense when carried out, no matter how complicated the mission is, when you get to the end and see that you have a whole structure and an interesting and well-structured plot, with well-done dialogues, it brings a certain satisfaction and even increases the immersiveness to the point of wanting to continue to see what happens in the future.

However, as all is not flowers, the game reaches a point where the story talks directly to the player, and this could even be interesting, but in several moments will hit the same key until it gets a little cloying, I explain, the questioning if we are living in a matrix, as in the game, is repeatedly seen.



Audiovisual Feedback

As said, the cyberpunk visual here is very present and also well done, the mixture of high technology with a perception of lifelessness is a great charm of the artistic style of the game, and the graphics (added with the gameplay) reminds a lot of the classic point-and-click adventure games because the locomotion of our character is totally focused on achieving simple tasks, besides when we start a dialogue the layout changes so we can see those involved in the conversation in a large picture (as in the next image).

Finally, as for the art, there is no great point to detail, only that really the proposed style for the delivery went hand in hand all the time, that is, you can easily see what was the intention of the developers for this point of Gamedec.



As for the audio, I fully understand that the idea of a tense investigation can help in the immersion of the player, however, I missed a lot of audio dialogs, because simply the whole game is a huge silence with ambient noise, of course, with the idea of solitude, of a miserable character, investigating within a cyber RPG, it even makes sense, but I would like to have in some parts this option.

Finally, the soundtrack is simple and thematic, ie, will vary in our case, apart from the factor mentioned, there are no other major aspects to be scored here, neither negatively nor positively, really, the main focus of the game is about the narrative.

Worth a hug

To be honest, this style of game is not one I look for when I want to spend some time, but I admit that Gamedec held my attention with a surprisingly interesting narrative. Obviously, I couldn't help but point out a few flaws I found, however, as a whole and keeping in mind the fact that the developers have focused on certain features, it's quite possible to get good enjoyment out of it here.

Gamedec is available for PS5, Nintendo Switch, and Microsoft Windows.