Gone Home is an interactive narrative driven by the scattered pages of our sister Sam.
Since this is an absolute story driven experience (more than a game I would say) I will try not to spoil the story for those who are interested in playing it. So, without spoiling the story of this game. It all starts when we arrive to our parents house after living abroad for a year. But instead of a full house and a warm welcome, we are greeted by no one.
What happened here? Where is everyone? Are some of the questions on our minds as we wonder through this seemingly empty house. As we start picking up the pages of our sisters diary, it all starts to become clear.
I think it is an interesting story with a satisfying conclusion.

Comparing it to another experience I’ve had in this genre (”What Remains of Edith Finch”), I was a bit let down by not having the same level of interaction. “What Remains of Edith Finch” I think finds a nice balance between an interactive story and a video game, whereas “Gone Home” doesn’t. However, I expect that a game that comes out later will iterate and improve upon the foundation built by older games. And as far as foundations go, “Gone Home” is a solid one to build upon.

The controls for the most part are fine. At first I had some issue where the mouse felt as if it was sticking to objects. But I fixed this using the in-game options. Other than that I had no issues.

The sound design and music really capture the feeling of being in an empty house during a thunderstorm, setting the mood perfectly to play this game during a rainy Sunday afternoon.

Beware that, while there exists one “linear” solution to the game, it is possible to miss parts of the story and some areas. To get the full experience, be sure to interact with everything you see!

I highly recommend this game/interactive experience if, of course you like the genre and you skipped over this one. Also recommend it, as I said above, for those rainy afternoon type days (sometimes it really is raining). Or in general if you are curious and want to have a different experience from the games you usually play.

Murder by Numbers tells the story of Honor, a recently fired actress who always seems to find herself at a murder scene, and her new robot buddy SCOUT who has lost all memory. With each picross you solve, you'll be helping them solve the case and get closer to uncovering SCOUTs past. Solid recommendation for those looking for more out of a picross game, and for anyone that loves murder mysteries.

The overall story is split in four cases plus SCOUTs memories. Plenty of variety in each murder case, be it the suspects, the circumstances or the environments. Each case helps build an image of Honor and SCOUT.
By the end of the game you'll know them quite well.

One flaw with the story mode however is the lack of puzzle/chapter selection. If you missed any puzzle you need to redo the whole case. This is a problem if you want to get all SCOUTs memories since you unlock them based on your case rank.
To get all memories you need to get maximum ranking and to get that you can't miss a puzzle or use any help.

The graphics are typical of a visual novel. While I like the art style and graphics, and I do understand why they used pixel art for the clues, I had some trouble understanding what some clues were by their images (there is a description though!).
I think the art style used for characters could have also been used for the clues.

The music and the sounds are great. The "pops" whenever you fill a square are so satisfying.

The core gameplay loop can is split in three segments:
- interviewing people, where we ask questions to solve the case or to uncover hidden clues. We can also present clues we have already discovered to people;
- investigating, where we search the environments for clues (puzzles) to solve the case;
- puzzle solving, where we solve the puzzles and get the clues;

When nearing the end of a case some options of who did it are presented to us and based on all the clues we've gathered so far we should be able to correctly guess the culprit.

The puzzles start out simple enough, and the game does a good job teaching you the basics of how to solve picross puzzles. The puzzles get harder by increasing the grid size, having smaller numbers to fill on the grid, or by being timed.

An undo/redo button is missing and it hurts especially when solving bigger puzzles. Sometimes a little back and forth is required to get the placements correct and without an undo/redo this can become cumbersome.
I think the game could have explained "advanced" concepts of solving picross puzzles. This is necessary by the third case when the grids are big and the numbers given to fill it are smaller.

Overall I recommend this game for anyone who loves picross and or anyone who likes whodunnit type stories. It's a really good game to play in bursts.