Gamedec Review

Into the Matrix
By Richard Jewell
Reviewed on PC
Released on Sept. 29th, 2022 on PC (Standard edition available on Switch)
Developer: Anshar Studios
Publisher: Anshar Studios

​The year is 2199 and Warsaw City is divided between three vertical layers, aptly named the Low, Mid, and High points. As you can guess, these are also social divisions, with the Low Point being a dark and dangerous place inhabited by the poorer class, while High Point lives in luxury and the Mids are, well, in between. To escape the Realium, people are spending more and more time in the Virtualium: a series of interconnected gaming worlds where people can relax, blow off steam or even engage in their most perverse sexual desires. To businesses, it is also a good place to make money: and whenever sex and money are involved, crime is sure to follow. That is where the game detective (Gamedec for short) comes in. If you have money and need a case solved, then the Gamedec is who you call. Aside from all the abilities of a real private eye, they also come equipped with an arsenal of apps and technologies to help them hunt down digital criminals and crack cases.
 
Before you go all Cyber Sam Spade, you need to take part in a short character creation process. Cosmetically. You can choose your name, gender, pronouns, and avatar from a group of male and female models. Next, you can choose whether you were born in High Point or Low. I didn’t think this choice mattered and I was mostly right. There was one spot where I was able to unlock a dialogue option because of my birthplace choice, but that was it so don’t fret over this option. The final and most important choice that actually impacts how you will begin is your personality choice. This choice determines what bonus aspects points will be given to you when you start your playthrough and can be used to unlock your first profession. Aspects are an integral part of the game and I’m going to explain them now, so buckle up.
 
In the world of Gamedec, actions speak louder than words and your actions can send ripples all throughout Virtualium, where the characters have long memories and aren’t always so forgiving. There is no combat in Gamedec, instead the focus is placed on conversations, info gathering, and the deduction board, similar to the excellent Sherlock Holmes games. Aspects govern everything and can be viewed as a sort of “experience point” system for your cybersleuth. Aspects are grouped into four personality types; Decisive, Analytical, Creative, and Sociable. Each of these traits has a group of eight values associated with each one. For example, we’ll take a look at Analytical. Some of the traits you find in that grouping are caution, logic, facts, calm, and loneliness. If you base your dialogue selection on choices that like to adhere to the facts or take a calm approach to situations, you will earn Analytical points. 

​Now you’re probably thinking to yourself ”What are those points used for?” And the short answer is jobs. The profession menu contains sixteen different jobs you can obtain, placed into four different paths. Each profession requires several points from each aspect to unlock but once obtained, you will always have access to the benefits, no switching required. The game does not limit how many professions you can obtain, as long as you have the points. The four beginner professions are Scalpel, Infotainer, Glazier, and Sleeves. While the titles sound strange they kind of boil down to a doctor, douchey internet celebrity, computer tech bro, and hooligan. Through my playthrough, I found the most useful to be the Scalpel and Glazier paths, since in a dystopian cyberpunk world there is always opportunity for medical aid and hackers. One thing I love is that the game will show you during the convo if there are any special job-related answers and lets you jump right into the menu to unlock them if you haven’t already (assuming you have the required aspects).    
 
You can’t call yourself a detective if you don’t do a little detectin’ every now and then and this brings us to the Deduction menu. During your conversations and info gathering, any pertinent intel you receive will be noted on your Deduction board. To make a deduction, you need to have enough info to select one of the choices for the issue at hand. The more info you have, the more deductions you can choose from. Once you commit to a deduction choice it cannot be undone unless you take advantage of the save anywhere feature to reload your file. Go on, I won’t tell anyone. You can explore the areas and investigate as much as you want but eventually, you will be roadblocked until you have made a deduction, allowing you to progress the case. The game does a good job of letting you know when a deduction is necessary by showing the locked option when having a conversation with the appropriate NPC. Gamedec doesn’t shoehorn you into a course of action or punish you for making a wrong decision, it is up to you to go down your own path and make your own conclusions. You will see the implications of your choices later on and your actions will decide which of the six endings you will be able to choose from. No spoilers but in the end, you are given a choice on how to proceed and the options are stricken from the board depending on how you handled certain situations. So on one hand, I feel like Gamedec does a wonderful job of giving the players free agency and showing them the personal impact of their choices but meanwhile, their impact on the overarching story as a whole is minimal.
 
While some sections of the game take place in Realium, most of it takes place in a variety of Virtualium worlds. These places all have themes, like the family-friendly Wild West-themed farm game Harvest Time, the Feudal Japan era styling of Knight’s Code, or the grimy city streets of the sexual 18+ world of Twisted & Perverted. Not only are they visually different from one another, but they also have their own little gimmicky mechanics. Harvest Time has a small slice of farming gameplay that you can take part in to earn some cash and decorate your farm while leveling up, but you are capped at level 8. Knight’s Code introduces material harvesting and item forging, along with a time cycle and guild rules that you need to abide by, or else there are consequences that I don’t want to spoil here. You will also come across a cast of eccentric “players” as you navigate between worlds, like the super-charming star Esports player Ken Zhou. At first, he seems like an optional tag-along character but then he turns into an integral part of the adventure with his goofy wit and brawny approach to problem-solving. I felt like most characters in the game felt like they had some heart poured into them, the recurring players especially. 

The Definitive Edition throws in a few goodies and is a free update for owners of the base game. True Detective is a new mode that does not allow you to reload saves, meaning that if you make a decision and aren’t happy with it, you cannot cheat the system and reload. The second extra is a new quest added to the Twisted and Perverted world. You’ll find what basically looks like PennyWise the Clown with a Cthulhu-style tentacle head in one of the allies. It accidentally unleashed a virus on the world and needs your help to stop it. After clearing up some of the viruses and returning to it, the odd being disappears, returning at the end of the chapter while you’re trying to bring Fredo home before the virus takes him. It seemed like an odd finish but then again, I could have missed something important in my rush to escape. The final piece of new content has to be played from the main menu: it’s a standalone adventure featuring everyone’s favorite Goodabad star player-turned Gamedec Ken Zhou. This mission offers up a new Virtualium to explore based on the videogame Seven: The Days Long Gone. Despite the fact I have never played this game before, I still had a fun time playing the mission. It found that it doesn’t have the same impact as the main game but is still a solid addition to the overall experience, adding a few hours to the base game’s 10-12 hour runtime. Little side note: If you own Gamedec on Switch, Anshar Studios says it will take at least a few weeks before the Definitive Edition update releases on there.
 
While most of my game was an unproblematic experience, I did encounter a handful of glitches towards the end of the game where the game would freeze me in dialogues, forcing me to reboot. This mostly happened to me in the Axis Mundi world. Luckily the autosave feature saved me from losing too much progress but it can still be annoying to force a restart, obviously.  The other problem I encountered (also rarely) would be choosing a piece of dialogue and it not triggering a response from the other person, instead bringing up the remaining question selection again.
 
I wouldn’t let those minor annoyances detract from the fact that Gamedec is one of the most interesting titles that I’ve played all year. The cyberpunk genre is hot these days and many developers are capitalizing on that but Anshar Studios takes an interesting concept, throws in a cool and varied cast of characters, and then throws in a sublime narrative experience based on a well-crafted dialogue/choice system for a truly unique game that I feel is a must-play.
*Note: A copy of the game was provided for the purpose of review.

Final Score: 8.5/10

​+Interesting cyberpunk setting
+A fantastic narrative experience
+Entertaining ensemble of characters

​-Late-game glitchiness