POSTED 24/10/16


DEAD SYNCHRONICITY: TOMORROW COMES TODAY

Fictiorama Studios/BadLand Games

Many miles away, something crawls from the slime at the bottom of a dark Scottish lake...

Well, Mr Sting’s lyric may have been a prophecy for what caused the events of Dead Synchronicity. Who knows?

Well, its creators, most likely. Anyway, we’ve started so we’re not gonna stop.

If you’ve been on the Earth long enough to know what a diskette is then you’ll likely recall point and click adventure games. Stuff like Day of the Tentacle, The Secret of Monkey Island, and most anything ending in the word ’Quest’ from Sierra’s Wiliamseseses (who were “online” before being online actually became a thing).

This first episode of the Kickstarted Dead Synchronicity drops us into a post-apocalyptic future that doesn’t look particularly fun. You’re an amnesiac who thinks he’s called Michael, because a voice in his head that woke him called him that. You’ve been rescued by a bloke named Rod. In Rod we trust? Hmm, we’re not sure yet...

You discover that the “Great Wave” did a wipeout job on the Earth, leaving oodles of sick folk in its wake known as “the dissolved”. Give humans a tragedy and the marketing folk pop their heads up in a flash...

You start exploring, discovering that you’re in some sort of concentration camp. You’re cluey, so you can nut out how to get things done to learn more about your situation. However, if you had any idea what was instore you might just want to jam a crayon in your ear...

The art style’s fascinating, but the voice acting. Is. Rather. Wooden. Meanwhile, some puzzles are seriously obtuse, careening from enjoyable to deplorable quickly. Controls are thoughtfully done though, with button presses jumping straight to options rather than having to always schlep a pointer about.

Bleaker than the bleakest of bleaky things, Dead Synchronicity makes The Road look like a Farrelly brothers flick. But that (bastard) ending will drag you back for the next episode, even if it’s many miles away...

CLICK THIS!



CLICK THIS!