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Orwell takes place in a distopian near future in the fictional city of Bonton in The Nation. Orwell is the codename of a vastly advanced surveilance system. They outsource investigations to outsiders of the nation - you! It is your task to spy on suspects and inform the government of what is going on. Basically, you roleplay as "Mr. FBI Man".

• Interesting Story - The game is divided into five chapters, each representing a day in game. I won't be spoiling anything here so there isn't much to say, but I will state my overall impression. The story is good! If you take everything at face value you'll be in for a surprise when you realise this game is not as shallow as it may seem. Each chapter unveils another layer of mystery. There are also three endings (more on that later).
  
  
• Some Replayability - Every chapter has a few endings (usually two or three). After you finish the game, you may choose to replay starting from any chapter (subsequent ones are erased). Most unique paths you can take are linked to an achievement, so 100%-ing the game is pretty much just exploring every possibility. Don't get too exited though, as that took me about 8 hours and two playthroughs (but in the second one I did consult a guide to save time).
  
  
• Clean UI - I really like the clean, very intuitive interface. Which is good, considering as this UI is basically the whole game itself. The only downside is that it does not have a dark mode for playing at night, but it's not a dealbreaker.

• Hand Holding - You give information to Orwell by drag and dropping data chunks from your spy browser to the Orwell app. They are automatically outlined for you, which seems stupid, but it's a necesarry evil if you think about the programmers. However, one thing I don't like are the special chunks - the conflicts are highlighted in yellow, even if you didn't find both. This makes you extra careful before uploading as one makes the other invalid. This is how the story branches, but if you think about it it's a little stupid. How does the browser know about the conflict if you didn't access the other data chunk yet? This should be up to you - the "detective" to figure out. I wish they were all blue all the time, or turn yellow only after discovering both.
  
  
• Choices Almost Don't Matter - Remember when I said chapters? Well... they're pretty much isolated instances. Outcomes are mentioned from one to another, but only through slight dialogue changes. But the story progresses the same no matter what you do, until you reach chapter five and finally get to choose an ending.

Orwell is a good game because it explores an interesting concept and offers a good story to boot. While it's not as mindbending as I first expected, I still recommended it as a very interactive visual novel. If the topic interests you and don't mind the short playtime, this is a good game to pick up.

[quote][url=https://gtm.you1.cn/storesteam/curator/7871885/]Follow our curator page:[b] OCG-Curations[/b] if you like and want to see more reviews like this one.[/url][/quote] [h1]Overview:[/h1] Orwell takes place in a distopian near future in the fictional city of Bonton in The Nation. Orwell is the codename of a vastly advanced surveilance system. They outsource investigations to outsiders of the nation - you! It is your task to spy on suspects and inform the government of what is going on. Basically, you roleplay as "Mr. FBI Man". [h1]The Pros:[/h1] [list] [*][b]Interesting Story[/b] - The game is divided into five chapters, each representing a day in game. I won't be spoiling anything here so there isn't much to say, but I will state my overall impression. The story is good! If you take everything at face value you'll be in for a surprise when you realise this game is not as shallow as it may seem. Each chapter unveils another layer of mystery. There are also three endings (more on that later). [*][b]Some Replayability[/b] - Every chapter has a few endings (usually two or three). After you finish the game, you may choose to replay starting from any chapter (subsequent ones are erased). Most unique paths you can take are linked to an achievement, so 100%-ing the game is pretty much just exploring every possibility. Don't get too exited though, as that took me about 8 hours and two playthroughs (but in the second one I did consult a guide to save time). [*][b]Clean UI[/b] - I really like the clean, very intuitive interface. Which is good, considering as this UI is basically the whole game itself. The only downside is that it does not have a dark mode for playing at night, but it's not a dealbreaker. [/list] [h1]The Cons:[/h1] [list] [*][b]Hand Holding[/b] - You give information to Orwell by drag and dropping data chunks from your spy browser to the Orwell app. They are automatically outlined for you, which seems stupid, but it's a necesarry evil if you think about the programmers. However, one thing I don't like are the special chunks - the conflicts are highlighted in yellow, even if you didn't find both. This makes you extra careful before uploading as one makes the other invalid. This is how the story branches, but if you think about it it's a little stupid. How does the browser know about the conflict if you didn't access the other data chunk yet? This should be up to you - the "detective" to figure out. I wish they were all blue all the time, or turn yellow only after discovering both. [*][b]Choices Almost Don't Matter[/b] - Remember when I said chapters? Well... they're pretty much isolated instances. Outcomes are mentioned from one to another, but only through slight dialogue changes. But the story progresses the same no matter what you do, until you reach chapter five and finally get to choose an ending. [/list] [h1]Conclusion:[/h1] Orwell is a good game because it explores an interesting concept and offers a good story to boot. While it's not as mindbending as I first expected, I still recommended it as a very interactive visual novel. If the topic interests you and don't mind the short playtime, this is a good game to pick up.