Today, I want to take you on a journey. A journey that tells the story of an unsuccessful family of three. Beware, this game handles have themes that might trigger some people. This game contains family violence and alcoholism. So, if you are sensitive to that, I highly recommend that you proceed with caution since this game doesn’t back away from using these themes. Thanks to the developer, I got a review code for this game. This doesn’t mean that the developer censored anything about this article. This article is completely my opinion. As usual, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on the game and/or the content of this article in the comment section down below!
The intro is strong in this one.
When I was playing this game and when I was taking notes, one of the first things I wrote down was that this game has a strong intro.
The game doesn’t have any voice acting, but the voice samples used in the introduction and the cutscenes between chapters make the game even more powerful.
For real, the game drew me in with the introduction alone. I’m quite a big fan of point-and-click games and this game doesn’t disappoint. The story takes some interesting turns and I really got interested in the characters.
The story is pretty well written and the pacing is good. The only thing that I would change is the fact that in almost all dialogue boxes, the final “.” or “!” is missing. It just something I found annoying while I was playing this game. Sometimes the “End” option to exit out of a dialogue tree was written in “end” instead of “End”. It’s those little details that can annoy me but I think a patch can fix.
Something that I really liked in the launcher was the fact it recognized that I had two monitors running and I was able to choose which one I was going to play the game on. One thing I didn’t like was that the game doesn’t pause when it loses focus. I was writing the article while I was playing the game and taking notes, and the game didn’t pause when I clicked on my word document on the other screen.
In some cases, I was also under the impression that the text automatically went to the next dialogue instead of waiting for a click. While I have seen it happening here and there, I wasn’t able to recreate it.
Pretty mess
Visually, this game is amazing. I really like the art-style in the game and the comic book cut scenes are just eye candy. If you enjoyed the games like Hotel Dusk or Trace Memory, you will love the artwork and gameplay of this game.
The UI is extremely handy too. The cursor turns red when you hover over something that is interactive. For some puzzles, you will have to pick some objects that are in the background. But don’t worry, you are able to click on the eye-icon in the bottom left corner to show all hot spots.
Speaking about the puzzles, they are all set in reality. Something I found really strange is the fact you can still interact with objects of puzzles that are already solved. For example, you need to trade something for an action figure. When you found the right toy and trade it with him, you can still trade toys you find with him later. I found this pretty strange. This could be fixed with either changing the dialogue to adjust the fact that the puzzle is already solved or make those objects not being able to be clicked. But let’s be honest here, this is a nitpick.
Something that could be disappointing to some players is that this game is rather short. If you know what you are doing, this game is only about an hour long. Personally, I don’t mind it. Since the story that’s being told is told in a pretty strong way and the message it brought is really memorable.
You would think that this game would be pretty easy since it’s over in an hour, but you would be mistaken. The puzzles are pretty clever and for some, you will need to use your point-and-click skills to the max. Thankfully, there aren’t any puzzles that require moon logic. Some puzzles also have an explanation on what you need to do to solve them, but they don’t tell you the solution outright. This is a good thing.
There isn’t a hint-system in this game as far as I can tell. But if you keep focusing on what you need to do and what’s stopping you from achieving said goal, you won’t get stuck too soon.
For the people who are interested, this game has Steam Trading Cards. You will need 7 of them to craft the badge and you get 4 cards dropped during gameplay.
Some minor tweaking
To be honest, I feel pretty mixed about the saving system of this game. While I’m glad that this game has an autosave feature; I’m pretty sad that I can’t save just after solving a puzzle.
But that’s a minor issue again since the game automatically saves when you start a new chapter and that happens frequently enough.
Speaking of saving, something I think would be nice is that when there is a save file present, that the default option is “load” when you enter the main menu. In the current version I played, v1.09 is the default selection “new game”.
This game has the same problem that Rogue Quest: The Vault of the Lost Tyrant has. In some cases, when you double-click on an item that is on the other side of the room, your character teleports to that location, skipping the walking animation. This caught me off guard on several occasions. It just feels so unnatural since the animation in the game is pretty well made.
The soundtrack and sound design of this game are pretty good. The soundtrack of this game really fits the mood that has been set by the game. While there is nothing memorable, the soundtrack really helps the atmosphere of the game. Also, you can buy the soundtrack on Steam. You can be sure that I bought that directly when I saw it!
Something pretty strange I found is that the Steam Overlay bugs out when you play the game in full screen but not in the full resolution of your screen. My laptop has such an awkward resolution… But, this is another nitpick since when you play it at full resolution, this issue isn’t present.
Something I don’t like to say is that this game is made in Unity. I know that Unity has a bad reputation since a lot of bad games were created in it, but I think that this game is a perfect example of a good game created in Unity. So, please, don’t let this be a factor that makes you not want to play this game.
The game is also translated into various different languages. They are Russian, Ukrainian and Dutch. So, if you want to play this game in your own language, you can. Personally, I think it’s a strange selection of languages, but I’m under the impression that more languages are coming in the future.
Currently, this game is 7€ on Steam. To be honest, this is a rather cheap price. For real, this game is a steal for that price! And let me summarize why.
Conclusion
The bad:
-Some minor typo’s at the end of the sentences.
-No manual saving.
-The default option in the main menu is new game.
The good:
+ Amazing story.
+ Great visuals.
+ Great puzzles.
+ …
Final thoughts:
I really enjoyed myself with Little Kite. I was a game I’m glad that I experienced and reached out to the developer to cover. Thank you so much for giving me a code for this amazing experience.
I bought myself the soundtrack and I hope that thanks to this article, other people are convinced to give this game a go.
While it handles some heavy subjects, that can be very sensitive to some people; I think it’s handled in a respectable manner.
You would think that this game would be bad if you look at the price of the game, but this is only another reason why you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover or a game by its price.
Score: 80/100.
Thank you so much for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to see you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.
Man, I have done this for five-ish years and it’s so much fun to do. Last year, I even did it with my godchild and she enjoyed it an awful lot. Even my aunt, her mother, joined in for a few rounds of Mario Kart. My aunt respects games but doesn’t play them.
I was touched, mind blown that I received a game as a bonus. Since then I made a tradition each and every year to start up my DS and pop in The Legend of Zelda – Phantom Hourglass to relive those nostalgic moments.
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