First Impression: Silicon Dreams (PC – Itch.io) ~ Humans, how do they work?

I promised that this article was coming. Back when I published the press kit of this game, I said that I was going to write an article talking about my opinion on the game. This game is being developed by two people who created a very interesting game already in the past called Spinnortality. Now, what is this game about? If robots sleep, do they dream of electric sheep. … I’m sorry, I just wanted to use that phrase at least once in my article about robots and AI. In a way, you are the AI of a robot that is interviewing humans. But, is it any good? Well, let’s find out by taking a look at the pre-release demo that you can find on Itch.io. As usual, feel free to leave a comment in the comment section down below with your opinion on the content of this article and/or the game.

Humans, how do they work?

When you start up this game, you get greeted with an invitation to subscribe to the newsletter of Clockwork Bird, the developers of this game. Honestly, I think it’s worth it since their game concepts are quite interesting. Spinnortality was a game about building a company that could conquer the world while trying to get yourself immortal. And with this second game, I feel that there is a lot of depth to the game.

In addition to that, I like the attention to detail that this prototype demo has. I mean, it has a nice menu screen and it even has an icon instead of the default icon that some prototype games have that are made in Unity or Unreal Engine.

The menu screen is very interesting, instead of your typical list of options you get in almost every game, you get a radar type of deal where you can click on the menu options to get started. The only nitpick I have is that in this prototype, the animation of selecting a menu item plays after you selected it. So, the animation can point to an empty thing in the next menu. I think it would have been cooler if the animation played while selecting an item in the menu.

After you picked the robot you wanted to start with, you get the basic premise of this game. You are D-0527, and your goal is to try and find out what’s wrong with other Androids that are created by Kronos Robotics.

In order for you to play this game, you only need your mouse. You can interact with three things in this demo. That is, the tablet, the TV screen and the printer. The TV screen starts the actual interrogation of the broken Android. The printer is a log of the things that were already being said and the tablet is the way you select and ask your questions. The yellow text is clickable and brings you to the questions.

Now, how does one find the errors and glitches in the Androids? Well, during the interrogation, you notice that in the middle of the screen, you have a whole range of emotions. Some questions can provoke the Android and have a certain emotional response. It’s up to you to find and ask the right questions to get to the right conclusion. So, you would make a mistake if you clicked through everything since you will have to answer certain questions correctly or you might not be allowed to continue further.

This game gets even more tricky. You can’t see the log of the interrogation during a dialogue. So, yes. For this game, I even got out a pen and paper to take some minor notes. While the log is useful, it becomes one wall of text rather quickly and without a search feature, this can get quite tricky to keep track of all the information. And I’m glad that there isn’t a search feature, since this makes the game that more challenging and rewarding for when you pay attention.

The end goal of each interrogation is to fill in a report. The report asks some questions that Kronos Robotics has about the Android. Now, it’s your job to ask the right personal and general questions to get the information you need. But do keep in mind that you only ask each question once apart from some exceptions. So, be very careful on the questions you ask.

So, that’s the gameplay in this game. And I have to admit, that I have fallen in love with this game. Frequent readers of my blog know that I enjoy games like Ace Attorney and Zero Escape. Two game franchises that just play with your expectations and emotions. And this game has the potential to do the exact same thing, and I simply can’t wait to sink my teeth into the full version.

Let’s give some feedback

While I know that this game is still under development and that I most likely played a very early version of the game, I do have some things I would advise to the developers for the full version of the game. Do keep in mind that if you are reading this article in the future when a newer version or even the full version has been released, that some or all of these things might be invalid points of feedback.

First of all, I wouldn’t change anything about the audiovisual design. The atmosphere of the interrogation room is excellent and the animations that are in the game like raising the tablet and report are great.

The music is tense and reminds me a lot of games like Ace Attorney, Zero Escape and Corpse Party. It made me feel tense and I liked it. Since it added a ton to the atmosphere. Now, I do think that this game lacks some sound effects. I think that the game would come a bit more alive when with certain emotional reactions, some sound effect would play. For example, an angry response can have a growl or because they are Androids, a chainsaw starting up. Doesn’t that sound like an angry Android?

But, when I can nitpick about things, I have a few recommendations.

First of all, I find it quite strange that the text on the tablet is being typed out and the words of the Android are all right there in one fell swoop. I think it would have been better if the message of the Android is typed out as well.

Secondly, I think it would be great if in the dialogue box, there is some sort of icon that shows you that the message is done and there is a follow up message after it. Of course, that icon would be different if you reached the last part of that dialogue.

And finally, I would like to mention that the flashing when you hover over the yellow text is a bit too fast to my liking. But, know that I only noticed it when I rest my mouse over it for a longer period of time.

Of course this will be added in the full version of the game, but I just want to warn players who are planning to play the prototype demo that there is no way to save and load the game. Thankfully, the prototype demo is rather short and can be finished in give or take an hour or two.

And honestly, that’s all the major feedback I can give about the game so far. Now, if this game sound interesting to you, I think it would be a great idea to go over to the Itch.io page and try out the free prototype demo that’s available right on there.

With that, I have said everything about this game I wanted to say for now. Of course, when the full version gets released, I’ll write a follow-up review, but until then, I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

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Types of gamers

Thanks Nhi for creating this.

Well, it’s a big pain if you always need to explain which games you like and which you don’t. You can lazily say that you are for example a casual gamer or a shooter guy. But if you think about it, there are a million names then. I started to look around and think about which types of gamers I think exist. Because this subject is mostly opinion based, feel free to give me your opinion. I’m not wrong, since it’s my opinion. I can be mistaken and needing to correct myself. That’s a totally different cookie to crumble. If I had to tell which type of gamer I am, I would have an issue. Be warned, the types of gamers I talk about are the main games they play, exceptions are always there. Also, let me know with which type you can relate the most. 

Type 1: Casual Free Timer

Finding a picture where they are both presented well was such a trouble.

You mostly see these gamers at a busstop or in a doctor’s waiting room. They have a tablet or a mobile to tap away on.

You also could find them on Facebook playing games where you need to reach easy objectives like switching jewels or collecting coins.

Many other types of gamers don’t recognize these people as gamers. Sadly enough, since they are gamers. But they don’t devote their lives to games. While it’s possible that they buy an app here and there, it’s not the end of the world for them if they can’t play a game.

They also sort of avoid other games that require an other device or controller. It’s possible that you can also find them with an emulator on their phone to mostly play handheld games from their childhood.

Type 2: Die Hard Fanboy

Some minecrafters and Call Of Duty players are a major example.

These gamers don’t care much about other games. They devote their whole life at mostly one game. Games that dare to be similar to their “holy” game are called names and they give them bad rep.

I’m not going to get ranty about the Call Of Duty players so spare me there please. I don’t do easy targets.

What I mean by that is that these type of gamers are the best troll bait you can get. Since they go out of their way to be the best in the game they play. Some go as far as bullying or making somebody feel bad if they are defeated.

They are also the living version of WikiPedia about their game. Some even dream to go working at the company which produces the series/game they love so much. They also get extremely excited as soon as a new title in their series is announced. They are also the first to rant when there is too much change in the sequel.

It’s also possible that they are a fanboy of one company. And they praise everything that they release. Since for them, everything their developers touch turns into an emptier wallet for the fanboys.

Type 3: Old school & retro gamers

Pixely retro-goodness?

This type of gamer doesn’t care about the time the game is released. They just play what ever catches their eye on various gaming websites and blogs.

For some retro gamers, the older the better. They are also the style of gamers that play in texture packs to make the game look older.

They always love the original and think that the new entries in a series are killing the series.

Many under them are big collectors, sometimes of one company or system. They start playing a game but sometimes don’t finish them since another game caught their interest.

Angry responses they give when somebody starts nagging about graphics. (I get even annoyed by graphic junkies) Since they don’t really care about that.

Most retro gamers want to know the ins and outs of the system so that they can explain what happened if a game isn’t working and that they maybe can fix it. Or replace something when it’s broken.

There is no real difference between old school and retro since they are pretty much the same.

Type 4: Platform/genre gamers

It feels great to be a gamer.

I don’t mean here people who play platform games. Not only that, platform and genre gamers are people who only play on one platform.

They see other consoles as less worthy to play and often say bad things about them. Pointing out their flaws or saying that their platform is better.

You can also have gamers who only play on consoles or handhelds.

PC gamers are a prime example. Devoted PC gamers will build their own PC and buy the PC version of a game even when there is a console version.

The genre gamers try to play as many games from one genre as they can. Most (in)famous of these guys are the shooter fans. They have loads upon loads of games of the same genre and are mostly extremely good at it.

They also have a certain game in the genre that is their absolute favorite. They often compare other games to the holy game of them.

Type 5: Mainstreamer

The mainstream guys are the ones who sometimes buy all the consoles. Buy all the things. A new console by Google? Oh, that doesn’t stop them. They go out and buy it.

They follow the latest gaming news and always want to play the newest of the newest. If it’s not new, they don’t play it. If it isn’t hyped, it’s no point in the schedule for them.

Mostly triple A title (expensive games to create. Big name games too.) games. Indy games they don’t care much about.

Wait wait, stop there.

Hold on a second, what am I doing here? Something doesn’t add up here. If I continue with this, I can find a piece of myself in each type. To me it’s extremely pointless of trying to see which types of gamers there are.

Many issues raise up. First, personal preference. You can like a series and it suddenly dies out. Then you can go from a mainstreamer to an old school gamer.

There are in fact, three main types of gamers. Mainstream, Old school and Casual. Since let’s face it, if you don’t follow the mainstream you either play games on Facebook or your mobile. If that’s not the case, you play games on your DS or other platforms.

Secondly, you can always merge types of gamers. You can be an oldschool NES gamer. Does this makes the two types of gamers actually one type?

Thirdly, the gaming market changes so quickly that this article can go out of date in matter of months if I truly continued in this fashion.

Before I go on a big rant, finally there is the issue of time. Yup, the older you get, the less time you get to play games sadly enough.

All in all, I think it’s silly to put gamers into groups. We all have one thing in common, we play games to pass our time and enjoy them. Some might devote more time on it then others. Some will even go blogging or/and collecting them.

Anyways, what do you guys think? Let me know in the comments. But for now, NekoJonez out!