Info about MINDHACK:

Official game description:
ABOUT
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MINDHACK is a text adventure game where you change evildoers into happy-go-lucky saints.  
You are the “Doctor”, a genius hacker who can destroy minds with the power of programming.  
Meet unique evildoers and hack their minds to rewrite them into happy people.  
No matter how heinous they are, they’ll turn into docile sheep once they’ve been in your hands!  
Enjoy the pleasure of destroying minds.
WORLD
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The story of MINDHACK is set in a world based on both fantasy and our modern society. Meet characters with unique appearances and backgrounds, like a sea urchin who also happens to be a gang leader, a fanatic of a cult religion who believes that he’s a cabinet, a monster from outer space, and even a fatal glitch plotting the end of the world…!?  
Hack such evildoers, rewrite their minds, and reform them into benign citizens!
STORY
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You are the Doctor, whose duty is to remove BUGs: destructive impulses that hide within people’s souls. Along with a supercomputer and a security force, you fight day and night at an institution created solely to deal with these BUGs!  
Will you be able to defeat the catastrophic BUG, the “FATAL ERROR”, before it destroys the world…!?
FEATURES
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**Interact with a unique cast of characters!**  
During the adventure portion, you will meet and interact with various evildoers in a dystopian world. All of the characters have unique and tricky personalities. The main character’s hands are always displayed on the game screen, embellishing your conversations with vibrant animation.  
**Type to change evildoers for good!**  
During the hacking portion, you will type out code to unlock an evildoer’s memories and explore their past. As you read through their memories, you may find that people aren’t as they seem…? After you understand who they really are, a typing sequence will begin in order to rewrite their mind. Type out keywords connected to their souls and turn them into flowers, changing the evildoer into a harmless and benign person!

Release date: 5 Apr, 2023

Categories: Visual Novel, Choice-based Narrative, First-Person Perspective, Character Development, Narrative Adventure, Puzzle Solving


- Hardware Profile: No data
Feature extractions:
- Community Price: No data
- Playtime Metrics: No data
- Time-to-fun: No data
- Player Archetypes: No data


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:
- Exceptional Art and Character Design (weight 0.99): Players consistently praise the game's visual presentation, including its unique art style, stunning illustrations, and appealing character designs. This aesthetic quality is often highlighted as a major draw and a strong point of the game.
- Compelling Story and Characters (weight 0.7): The game's narrative is highly engaging, featuring an interesting plot, well-developed characters, and thought-provoking themes. Players are deeply invested in the story and its progression, often replaying to explore different choices and uncover more lore.
- Innovative Typing Mechanic (weight 0.3): The integrated typing mechanic is a unique and enjoyable aspect of the gameplay. Players find it fun, helpful for typing practice, and appreciate how it seamlessly connects to the story and character lore, offering a refreshing change of pace.
- Unique Concept and World (weight 0.28): The game stands out for its highly original concept, unique world-building, and distinctive non-human character designs. This originality, particularly the focus on 'heteromorphic' and masked characters, strongly appeals to a niche audience.
- Smooth and Expressive Animations (weight 0.26): The animations, especially the first-person hand movements of the Doctor character, are frequently highlighted for their smoothness, expressiveness, and charm. These detailed animations significantly enhance the visual experience and character appeal.
- Immersive Music and Sound (weight 0.16): The game's music and sound design are consistently praised for being immersive, engaging, and high-quality. The soundtrack effectively complements the game's atmosphere and enhances the overall player experience.
- Engaging Hacking Segments (weight 0.09): The hacking segments are described as enjoyable and well-stylized, contributing to the game's immersive feel. Players appreciate how these segments allow them to explore character personalities and the mysterious world.

Common complaints:
- Short playtime and slow updates (weight 0.76): Players consistently report that the game's overall playtime is extremely short, with individual chapters offering minimal content. This brevity, combined with slow and infrequent chapter releases, leads to a feeling of incompleteness and poor value for money, especially given the game's price.
- Linear and underdeveloped story (weight 0.64): The story is frequently described as linear, predictable, and lacking depth, with insufficient character development and world-building. Players feel choices have little impact, and crucial plot points are often vague or poorly explained, requiring external content for understanding.
- Repetitive and simplified gameplay (weight 0.62): The core gameplay, primarily typing, is criticized for being simplistic, repetitive, and lacking creativity or challenge. Recent changes to the 'hacking' mechanic from typing to word selection or button presses are seen as a downgrade, reducing player enjoyment and immersion.
- Disturbing and uncomfortable themes (weight 0.21): Some players found the game's themes and story developments, particularly the 'breaking' of characters, to be unpleasant or emotionally distressing. The timing of these intense moments felt premature for some, leading to discomfort and a desire to stop playing.
- Inconsistent translation quality (weight 0.11): The quality of translations, particularly for Chinese and English, is inconsistent and contains errors or awkward phrasing. This negatively impacts the narrative experience for non-Japanese speakers.
- Obvious 'bad' choice indicators (weight 0.1): The game explicitly marks 'bad' choices, which removes the challenge and player agency. This design choice diminishes the sense of exploration and the impact of player decisions on the narrative.

Gameplay feedback:
- Typing is Core Gameplay (weight 0.39): The core gameplay revolves around typing, often involving English key prompts or words. While some aspects are basic, typing is central to the narrative and mind-hacking mechanics, with some optional elements tied to typing speed.
- Story-Driven Visual Novel (weight 0.26): The game is primarily a story-driven visual novel with extensive dialogue and text. Gameplay elements, including typing mini-games and choices, are generally simple and not mandatory for progression, making it accessible for casual play.
- Early Access, Incomplete Story (weight 0.17): The game is currently in Early Access, with only a limited number of chapters (up to Chapter 4) released. This means the full story is not yet complete, and more content is expected.
- Mind-Hacking Narrative Focus (weight 0.15): The central narrative involves the protagonist, a 'Doctor,' performing 'mind-hacks' to rewrite criminals' thoughts and memories. This process is depicted as a forceful intrusion, transforming destructive impulses into something benign, like a 'flower garden.'
- Choices Affect Information, Not Ending (weight 0.08): While the game offers player choices, these rarely lead to a 'lose' state and the overall ending appears fixed. However, repeating chapters and making different choices can reveal new information and character backstories.
- Blackening Value Impacts Gameplay (weight 0.08): A key mechanic is the 'Doctor's blackening value,' which influences the mind-hack process and the specific revelations obtained from targets. Different 'blackening' levels can alter narrative outcomes and character insights.
- Achievements & Optional Typing Speed (weight 0.06): Achievements are tied to various actions, including completing chapters and specific choices. Some achievements require fast typing, but typing speed generally does not affect the main story content.
- Hacking Input Method Changes (weight 0.05): The input method for hacking has seen changes, particularly for the Korean and Chinese versions, which initially shifted from direct typing to directional keys before some versions reverted to typing.
- First-Person Perspective & Character Roles (weight 0.03): The game is presented from the Doctor's first-person perspective, with the Doctor's hands often visible. The game's characters are broadly categorized into 'Doctor,' 'FORMAT,' and others.
- English Proficiency Not Required (weight 0.03): Players who are not proficient in English can still complete the game, though playing the Japanese original or English translation is suggested for the full experience.

Performance notes:
- Performance issues reported (weight 0.02): Players have reported experiencing some lag during gameplay, which can negatively impact the overall experience. This suggests a need for optimization to ensure smoother performance.
- Good Proton compatibility (weight 0.02): A positive note from players is that the game runs perfectly when using Proton, indicating good compatibility with Linux-based systems through this compatibility layer.

Recommendations:
- Wait for full release (weight 0.33): Player sentiment is divided on immediate purchase. Many recommend waiting for the full release or further updates to experience the complete story, while others still recommend it in its current early access state, citing its value for money and potential.
- Niche appeal and themes (weight 0.22): The game is particularly recommended for players who enjoy specific themes, character types (e.g., non-human, heteromorphic), graphic novels, dystopian sci-fi, or those who appreciate dark, heavy-hearted, or manipulative narratives.
- Highly recommended experience (weight 0.18): Many players express strong positive feelings, rating the game highly (10/10) and enthusiastically recommending it. They encourage others to play and support the game.
- Content warnings advised (weight 0.12): Players warn that the game contains unpleasant or violent story developments and may require 'sanity checks.' It is not recommended for those sensitive to such content or with mental health issues.
- Specific player advice (weight 0.06): Some players offer specific advice, such as checking warnings, reading the 'EXTRA' section, or keeping an eye on the game's development. One suggestion is to buy it on sale after early access if primarily interested in visuals and typing software.

Other player notes:
- Eagerly awaiting full release (weight 0.73): Players are highly anticipating the full release of the game, including the remaining chapters and story content. There's a strong desire for more frequent updates and a complete narrative, with some concern about the current pace of content delivery.
- Improve optimization and input (weight 0.12): Players are requesting improvements to game optimization, particularly regarding text input methods and language support. There's a specific desire for Korean typing input and for the Chinese version to revert to or include the English version's gameplay mechanics.
- Strong emotional impact (weight 0.08): Some players express strong emotional reactions to the story and characters, finding them captivating or even emotionally impactful. There are also specific mentions of character traits, like the Doctor's lack of empathy.
- Enhance interactivity and choices (weight 0.05): Players suggest adding more interactive elements and subtle animations, such as idle hand movements. There's also a desire for choices to have more meaningful impact beyond just achievements.
- Game genre and completion info (weight 0.05): The game is identified as a Japanese-supported indie visual novel. Information regarding achievement completion time and the number of playable chapters is also provided.

Emotions:
- Satisfaction (weight 0.21): Players felt satisfied due to the game's high overall quality, particularly its captivating story, well-developed characters, and unique world-building. The distinctive art style, immersive music, and creative writing also contributed significantly to a positive and fulfilling experience, often aligning with personal preferences.
- Excitement (weight 0.16): Excitement stemmed from the game's engaging narrative, unique gameplay mechanics like the typing minigame, and appealing character designs. Players were also highly excited by the potential of the game, eagerly anticipating future chapters, updates, and the full release, often due to explosive plot points and an interesting premise.
- Disappointment (weight 0.13): Disappointment primarily arose from the game's incomplete state, short playtime, and slow development/update pace. Players also expressed frustration over limited choices, a lack of plot progression, and perceived issues with narrative structure or translation inconsistencies, feeling the game's potential was wasted.
- Frustration (weight 0.08): Frustration was caused by the game's slow and inconsistent update schedule, leading to an unfinished story with too many loose ends. Players also experienced frustration with meaningless choices, bland storytelling, and specific gameplay issues like typing speed requirements or wrist pain.
- Anticipation (weight 0.08): Anticipation was driven by the desire for future content, including new chapters, updates, and the complete story. Players were eager to see how the narrative would progress, how characters would develop, and for the full release of the game, including potential new features or localizations.
- Admiration (weight 0.06): Admiration was directed towards the game's exceptional creativity, stunning art style, and unique character designs. Players also admired the compelling narrative, immersive music, and innovative integration of gameplay mechanics, particularly the detailed hand animations and subtle plot elements.
- Joy (weight 0.03): Joy was experienced through the sheer enjoyment of the game, its pleasing visuals, and interesting plot. Players loved the characters, found the game fun to replay, and appreciated specific features like official language support, contributing to an overall positive and happy experience.
- Enjoyment (weight 0.03): Enjoyment came from the overall high quality and fun of the game, including its unique visuals and the 'healing' feeling it provided. Players appreciated the clear character personalities, effective mind-hack expressions, and the ease of typing that allowed them to immerse themselves in the world.
- Hope (weight 0.02): Hope was expressed for future improvements, such as game optimization, the addition of voice acting, and the return or enhancement of specific typing mechanisms. Players also hoped for more content, branching paths, and greater recognition for the developers.
- Discomfort (weight 0.02): Discomfort stemmed from the game's plot presentation, particularly the lack of meaningful choices and the painful or disturbing nature of certain text inputs. Players also felt discomfort from the extreme nature of mind-hacking 'human' evils and being forced to harm characters within the game.
- Desire (weight 0.02): Players expressed a strong desire for specific features, primarily Korean typing input and more branching paths in the narrative. There was also a clear desire for more content and improved localization, particularly for Chinese players.
- Confusion (weight 0.01): Confusion arose from ambiguous dialogue, unclear world-building, and uncertainty regarding game tags or the protagonist's image. Some players also felt confused by the emotional impact the game had on them.
- Intrigue (weight 0.01): Intrigue was sparked by the game's unique experience, often involving elements that were both 'disgusting yet beautiful.' Players were drawn in by strong emotions and the mysterious nature of the story, finding the game's unique appeal captivating.
- Love (weight 0.01): Love for the game was expressed through an overall appreciation for the game's settings, the Doctor's personality, and the entire game experience. This emotion signifies a deep affection and strong positive connection to the game.
- Concern (weight 0.01): Concern was raised regarding the main story's lack of factual context and the writer's ability to handle complex themes, leading to fears of a predictable plot. Players also expressed concern about the potential impact on character portrayal and the presence of potentially triggering content.
- Interest (weight 0.01): Interest was generated by the anticipation of future cases within the game's narrative and the unique combination of its narrative and mechanics. Players also showed interest in supplementary external content related to the game.
- Anger (weight 0.01): Anger was primarily directed at the developers due to the perceived abandonment of the project and a significant lack of updates for an extended period. Players felt cheated by the slow progress and unfulfilled promises.
- Sadness (weight 0.01): Sadness was felt by players after reading in-game archives and witnessing the unfortunate fates of characters. The choices made within the game and their consequences also contributed to feelings of sadness regarding character outcomes.
- Boredom (weight 0.01): Boredom was experienced due to repetitive dialogue, unengaging gameplay, and a perception that earlier chapters of the game were uninteresting. This indicates a lack of stimulation or engagement in certain aspects of the game.
- Curiosity (weight 0.01): Curiosity was driven by the desire to uncover the mysteries within the story and to see how character development and the overall plot would progress. Players were eager to learn more about the game's narrative secrets.}