Info about Sense - 不祥的预感: A Cyberpunk Ghost Story:

Official game description:
CURRENT BUILD NOTES
===================
Sense Version 1.1 is live, based on player feedback; as a caution old data from version 1.0 and from the demo may not work. Version 1.1 includes:  
*   Updated Save System - Added AutoSaves/Quick Saves  
*   Additional Journal Entries Explaining Controls & Saving  
*   Improving Key Bindings (inc. Esc key for pause rather than enter)  
*   Numerous Bug Fixes  
*   Various Interaction Chain Fixes  
*   Improved Visual Prompts  
*   NG+/NG++ Updates  
*   Smaller Fixes Throughout the Game
About the Game
==============
Sense - 不祥的预感: A Cyberpunk Ghost Story is a 2.5D game inspired by Clock Tower and Fatal Frame. With careful attention to pacing, atmosphere and storytelling, Sense hopes to return the horror genre to its roots; celebrating the slow, fearful creep of dread instead of relying on over the top action and jump scares. The ghosts - as glitches on our reality - act as spiritual and paranormal threats, not monsters to be killed. The horror of our story comes from atmosphere and storytelling, not loud sound and artificial effects.  
In 2083 Neo Hong Kong, a young woman named Mei-Lin Mak is dragged into a maelstrom of supernatural horror. As she peers deeper into a century old mystery, Mei will be forced to question her perception of reality and whether she trusts her cybernetic eyes. Under the neon lights of a cyberpunk dystopia, the ruins of the 'Chong Sing Apartments' hides a bloody mystery illuminated by both the traditions of Chinese folklore, and the innovations of the industrial future. If there is any hope of escaping this nightmare, Mei-Lin must explore this complex, piecing together the stories of 14 lost souls, and discover the truth of her own family curse.  
Sense features deep survival horror and exploration-based gameplay complemented by partial voice acting, puzzle solving, and intricate secrets and exploration. The game is playable in English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese, and Russian.  
The game features:  
The player will need to search and examine every nook and cranny of the world around them in order to progress. Some items may not be visible until specific chains are completed, and some items may be hidden from Mei's cybernetic eyes at all times, as if spirited away by the ghosts stalking her. Some may require quick wit - and have urgent consequences.  
NPCs will be heavily populating a few areas of the full game, but there may be some wandering the halls with you. Talking to them can reveal information about the world, the mystery at hand, and even some unexpected secrets.  
Some interactions require a closer look, zooms allow for a different view of items, areas, and puzzles. Make sure to search every inch.  
The world of Sense is huge and complex, each location will reveal details about Neo-Hong Kong and the surrounding world. From Geo-Politics to inter-character relationships, don't be afraid to click on anything that looks interesting.  
The ghosts of the Chong Sing building can hurt you, but can you hurt them? Short answer is no, but you can help them pass on. Shrines, offerings, and solving mysteries will be your only weapons.  
The 14 lost souls of the Chong Sing building are not the only spirits lurking the halls. Dozens of hidden ghost photos fill the locations of Sense. Finding them all may reveal a secret!  
Like all the best games, failure and mistakes should be punished, but in a heavily narrative game how do you do that? How do you promote stakes and risk? The answer is simple, fill the world with dangerous events and deadly spirits. Just make sure to record your progress at the occasional TV, there are NO checkpoints or autosaves in the Chong Sing building.  
Sense will be filled with secrets, only some of them will be revealed in a single play through. Some secrets wont be able to escape the spirit realm until the "Plus" appears

Release date: Aug 25, 2020

Categories: 2.5D Platformer, Point-and-Click Adventure, Puzzle Solving, Atmospheric Horror, Exploration, Narrative-driven Gameplay, Survival Horror, Cyberpunk

Feature scans:
- Proton/Linux: score 30; verdict: Minor Tweaks; summary: The game has a notable issue with localization on the native Linux version, specifically with displaying Japanese and Chinese text. Users need to switch to the Windows version via Proton to see the text correctly. However, the game plays well on Steam Deck out of the box once this adjustment is made.

- Hardware Profile: No data
Feature extractions:
- Community Price:
  - Community fair range: $6.00 - $10.00
  - Reasoning: The reviews consistently mention that the game is not worth the full price but is recommended on sale. This suggests that the community finds the current base price too high and expects a fair price to be significantly lower, typically within a sale price range. The sentiment indicates that a fair price would be around 70-80% off the current base price.
- Playtime Metrics:
  - Game completion: 15.0h
  - Story completion: 6.0h
  - Session length: 1.0h
  - Endgame: N/A
  - Reasoning: The evidence provided gives a range of playtimes and experiences. The first quote indicates a single session completion, suggesting a shorter playtime. The second quote mentions 15 hours across multiple playthroughs, including NG+ and NG++, which suggests a longer total playtime for full completion. The third quote implies that the game can be finished in a shorter time, but the player decided to stop. The fourth quote provides a specific estimate for the first playthrough, which is around six hours. Combining these insights, we can derive typical playtimes for different completion stages.
- Time-to-fun:
  - Summary: The game has a slow start with initial friction due to pacing and mechanics, but it becomes enjoyable once players adapt and appreciate its atmosphere and storytelling.
  - Stance: Fun after initial hurdles
  - Anchor: Adaptation to pacing and mechanics
  - Time to anchor: 1h 0m
  - Friction: Slow pacing; Backtracking; Tedious mechanics; Buggy user interface; Poor walking animation
  - Unlock drivers: Adaptation to pacing; Appreciation of atmosphere; Engagement with storytelling
  - Conditions: Patience with slow pacing; Interest in mystery and cultural depth; Tolerance for initial tedium
- Player Archetypes:
  - Classic Horror Enthusiast (sale)
    - Motivation: Nostalgia and support for niche developers
    - Playstyle: Investigative and adventure-focused
    - Experience: veteran
    - Purchase stance: sale
    - Labels: Hardcore fan; Old-school player
    - Reference games: Fatal Frame; Clock Tower; Fable
  - Supportive Community Member (sale)
    - Motivation: Support for developers
    - Playstyle: Community-driven
    - Experience: mixed
    - Purchase stance: sale
    - Labels: Supporter; Community member
    - Reference games: N/A
  - Value-Conscious Gamer (deep sale)
    - Motivation: Getting good value for money
    - Playstyle: Cautious and value-driven
    - Experience: familiar
    - Purchase stance: deep sale
    - Labels: Bargain hunter; Sale shopper
    - Reference games: N/A


Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category.
Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews.
What players like:
- Compelling and rich story (weight 0.31): The game features a story that is widely appreciated for being compelling, interesting, and rich. Players have described it as very cool and fairly decent, indicating a strong narrative element.
- Excellent artistic design (weight 0.31): The game is praised for its artistic design, including great still designs, background art, characters, and a unique art style. The character designs are noted for being unique and detailed.
- Unique blend of genres (weight 0.27): The game uniquely blends cyberpunk with ghost story horror and Asian folklore. This interesting mix of cyber tech and traditional elements captures the essence of both genres effectively.
- Outstanding soundtrack (weight 0.27): The game's soundtrack is highly praised, with players describing it as good, excellent, and awesome. The music and sound effects contribute significantly to the overall experience.
- Great atmosphere (weight 0.27): The game is praised for its excellent atmosphere, which is enhanced by good audio and ambiance. The atmosphere and tension are noted as great, contributing to an immersive experience.
- Interesting character and ghost designs (weight 0.23): The game features interesting and detailed character and ghost designs. Players appreciate the unique and cool costumes and character designs.
- Authentic Cantonese folklore (weight 0.22): The game is noted for its authentic and unique focus on Cantonese folklore. It includes Chinese folklore and Cantonese Taoist myths, providing a fresh and culturally rich experience.
- Immersive cyberpunk setting (weight 0.19): The game's visual style and cyberpunk setting are highlighted as strong points. The futuristic and cyberpunk art style enhances the overall atmosphere.
- Engaging puzzles (weight 0.14): The game features good puzzles that are simple and logical. The variety of puzzles adds to the gameplay experience, making it engaging.
- Cultural depth in narrative (weight 0.11): The game's narrative is rich with cultural depth, and players appreciate the story elements and cultural nuances included in the game.
- Effective scare factor (weight 0.1): The game's scares are well handled for the most part, providing a semi-decent scare factor that enhances the horror elements.
- Fluid and engaging gameplay (weight 0.1): The gameplay is described as simple and fluid, yet engaging. The basic but engaging gameplay mechanics are well-received.
- Multiple language support (weight 0.09): The game includes multiple language localizations, making it accessible to a wider audience.
- Strong start to the game (weight 0.09): The game has an amazing and interesting beginning, which sets a strong foundation for the rest of the experience.
- Detailed death animations (weight 0.09): The game features detailed death animations and graphics, which add to the visual appeal and immersion.

Common complaints:
- Clunky controls and mechanics (weight 0.52): The game suffers from janky and unrefined controls, leading to a poor gameplay experience. This includes shaky controls, poor combat systems, and overall clunky mechanics.
- Puzzle design flaws (weight 0.43): Puzzles in the game are often bugged, too difficult, or rely heavily on backtracking and trial-and-error. Some puzzles also contain typos and require excessive travel between locations.
- Misleading cyberpunk elements (weight 0.42): The game's title and advertising suggest a strong cyberpunk theme, but the actual game lacks significant cyberpunk elements, leading to player disappointment.
- Poor animations and performance (weight 0.39): The game features stiff, clunky, and unnatural animations, along with performance issues such as hitches and lack of visual polish.
- Excessive backtracking (weight 0.37): Players are forced to engage in tedious and extensive backtracking, which becomes frustrating and confusing, detracting from the overall enjoyment of the game.
- Lack of genuine horror (weight 0.18): The game fails to deliver genuine horror elements and lacks significant jump scares, making it not very scary.
- Hidden ending requires multiple playthroughs (weight 0.15): The true ending of the game is locked behind multiple playthroughs, requiring players to finish the game three times to unlock it.
- Repetitive gameplay (weight 0.15): The gameplay mechanics are repetitive and become boring quickly, leading to a tedious and unenjoyable experience.
- Poor Russian localization (weight 0.15): The official Russian localization contains grammatical errors and lacks highlighting in some active in-game zones, making it difficult for Russian-speaking players to enjoy the game.
- Limited save system (weight 0.15): The game only allows manual saving and has infrequent auto-saves, leading to a limited and frustrating save system.
- Bugs and glitches (weight 0.15): The game contains various bugs, glitches, and script breaks that can hinder gameplay and frustrate players.
- Outdated mechanics (weight 0.14): The game uses outdated point-and-click adventure mechanics, which can be frustrating and not memorable for players.
- Confusing design choices (weight 0.14): The game features bizarre and confusing design choices that do not make sense, detracting from the overall experience.
- Overly linear structure (weight 0.11): The game features an overly linear structure and gameplay, which can make the experience feel restrictive and uninspired.
- Pacing issues (weight 0.11): The game suffers from poor pacing, which can make the gameplay experience feel uneven and unsatisfying.
- Poor voice acting (weight 0.11): The game features awful Japanese voice acting and script, with some voice acting sounding terrible and detracting from the overall experience.
- Lack of subtitles (weight 0.1): Some cutscenes in the game lack subtitles, which can be frustrating for players who rely on them.
- Inconsistent skippable scenes (weight 0.1): The game has some scenes that are skippable while others are not, leading to an inconsistent and sometimes frustrating experience.
- Frustrating quick time events (weight 0.1): Quick time events in the game can be frustrating and sometimes do not work, detracting from the overall gameplay experience.

Gameplay feedback:
- Puzzle-solving mechanics emphasized (weight 0.63): The game heavily focuses on puzzle-solving, requiring players to think critically and explore environmental puzzles. This includes traditional point-and-click mechanics and inventory-based puzzles.
- NG+ modes with additional content (weight 0.27): The game features New Game+ modes, including NG+ and NG++ modes, which offer additional content and encourage multiple playthroughs for hidden endings.
- Backtracking and item collection (weight 0.25): The game involves a significant amount of backtracking and item collection, which can be excessive at times and may require players to revisit areas frequently.
- Combat and quick time events (weight 0.18): The game includes combat sections and occasional quick time events, adding action elements to the puzzle-solving and exploration gameplay.
- Mixed genre elements (weight 0.16): The game blends various genres, including 2.5D gameplay, 2D-platformer elements, and a lack of cyberpunk elements despite some horror themes.
- Unique ghost-fighting mechanics (weight 0.15): Players use ancient Daoist knowledge and Taoist exorcism rituals to pacify ghosts, adding a unique cultural element to the gameplay.
- Survival horror with dialogue (weight 0.15): The game combines survival horror gameplay with dialogue-heavy sections, creating a mix of tension and narrative depth.
- Limited save system (weight 0.15): The game includes a manual save system with limited saves, which can add tension and challenge to the gameplay.
- Ghost photography feature (weight 0.14): Players can photograph ghosts, which adds a unique gameplay element and enhances the horror experience.
- Linear structure with chapters (weight 0.1): The game has a linear structure with self-contained chapters, making it easy to follow but potentially limiting exploration.

Performance notes:
- Bugs and Glitches (weight 0.28): Numerous bugs and glitches have been reported, including incorrect collisions, display bugs, and character disappearance bugs. These issues significantly impact the gameplay experience.
- Visual and Animation Issues (weight 0.2): Players have reported various visual problems, including a blur effect during character movement, stiff animations, and an inconsistent walk cycle. These issues affect the overall visual quality and immersion of the game.
- Performance and Optimization Problems (weight 0.2): There are performance hitches and optimization issues noted by players. While some players find the game not very demanding on the system and optimization good, others have experienced game optimization issues.
- Audio and Sound Design Issues (weight 0.15): Players have noted barebones sound design in cinematic sequences and issues with menu music carrying over into gameplay. These audio problems detract from the overall immersion.
- Control and Navigation Issues (weight 0.12): Players have encountered clunky controls and navigation issues with gamepads. These problems hinder the gameplay experience and need to be addressed for better player interaction.
- Interface and Interaction Problems (weight 0.11): There are issues with the game interface and interactions, such as the game stopping to register key presses and problems with clicking on objects. These issues affect the basic functionality of the game.
- Resolution and Texture Problems (weight 0.11): There are reports of blurry environment and object textures, as well as inconsistent resolution settings. These visual issues affect the game's graphical fidelity.
- Gameplay Mechanics Issues (weight 0.11): Players have reported incorrect timings for QTE sections and repetitive pathways. These issues affect the core gameplay mechanics and player enjoyment.
- UI and Display Bugs (weight 0.11): There are various UI and display bugs, such as the sprint bar being visible in the main menu and incorrect zoom during interactions. These bugs impact the visual presentation and user interface.
- Installation and Technical Issues (weight 0.07): Some players have faced installation issues, which prevent them from starting the game. These technical problems need to be resolved to ensure a smooth gaming experience.

Recommendations:
- Worth buying for unique atmosphere (weight 0.16): Many players find the game worth buying due to its unique atmosphere and affordable price. It is particularly appealing to fans of point-and-click games and those who enjoy slightly spooky urban adventures.
- Recommended despite frustrations (weight 0.15): The game is often recommended despite some frustrations. Players appreciate its indie charm and visual appeal, making it a good choice for leisure gamers who enjoy visually appealing games.
- Appeals to fans of Coma series (weight 0.07): If you enjoyed the Coma series, this game might appeal to you as well. It shares similar elements that fans of the series would appreciate.
- Not for cyberpunk experience (weight 0.06): The game is not recommended for those seeking a cyberpunk experience. It does not meet the expectations of players looking for that specific genre.

Other player notes:
- Merchandise request (weight 0.06): Players are expressing interest in purchasing merchandise that features the game's art style.

Emotions:
- Frustration (weight 0.41): Players are primarily frustrated by the excessive backtracking required in the game, which is often compounded by technical issues, repetitive gameplay mechanics, and poor design choices. The combination of these factors, along with issues like weak combat systems, puzzles, and navigation problems, leads to a tedious and unsatisfying experience.
- Disappointment (weight 0.21): Disappointment stems from the game's failure to meet expectations, particularly in its lack of cyberpunk elements and repetitive gameplay. Players also express dissatisfaction with the game's linear structure, poor pacing, and various technical issues, which detract from the overall experience.
- Enjoyment (weight 0.13): Players enjoy the game's unique art style, atmospheric soundtrack, and engaging story. The character designs and cultural elements also contribute to a positive experience, making the game visually and narratively appealing.
- Appreciation (weight 0.04): Players appreciate the game's artistic freedom in character design and its unique blend of cyberpunk with ghost story and Asian horror elements. This combination creates a distinctive and appealing aesthetic.
- Excitement (weight 0.03): Excitement is generated by the game's scary moments and interesting puzzles. These elements keep players engaged and on the edge of their seats.
- Surprise (weight 0.01): Players are surprised by the game exceeding their expectations despite initial controversy. The positive experience is unexpected, especially for those not typically fans of the genre.
- Intrigue (weight 0.01): The inclusion of Cantonese folklore and the unique setting intrigue players. These elements add a layer of cultural richness and novelty to the game.
- Engagement (weight 0.01): The game's unique focus on culture and folklore engages players. This cultural depth provides a compelling and immersive experience.
- Interest (weight 0.01): The inclusion of Chinese folklore piques players' interest. This cultural aspect adds a unique and fascinating dimension to the game.}