E is for... Eternal Threads

Platform: Steam

Genre: Adventure

Completed: 18/12/2023

And we are back to games being installed and left in perpetual hell. Seriously I had a very bad habit of installing everything under the sun (assuming I had the space for it) and switching back and forth between them. Though there was more forth than there was back...

I got this game as part of a Humble Choice Bundle and before that, it was on my wishlist. So naturally, when I first got it, I was excited to play it.

Then I drifted away from it... It wasn't that I lost excitement for it. It was simply that to get started it felt like it was dragging on. The whole premise of the game is to experience the lives of six people living under the same roof in the week leading up to a critical event. In the first few days, there are a lot of things to witness, and that's even before you start altering decisions to affect outcomes. So it was always a case of running to a hot spot; seeing the event; are there any options to alter?; move to the next and so on.

So I just left it sitting on my desktop for a rainy day.

That rainy day came shortly after completing Dark Seed. I chose to start from the beginning and I was determined to get through the first few days. I could have chosen to play the short version of the game, but I wanted to experience the full story. Not only that, the short version leaves out some of the possible endings, and we couldn't have that now, could we?

So whenever I could, I would sneak a bit of time on there and experience some of the events. There were close to 200 of them, so it was going to take a bit of time. But I kept chipping away. Around the middle of the in-game week, things started to get interesting. Most of the events were locked and could only be opened by altering a single or even combination of previous decisions. So it became a matter of seeing what does what and taking down notes to see if that path led to the best ending. And I do mean the best ending because each character had a bad, good, and perfect ending to their personal story.

Once that midpoint was reached, I was no longer forcing myself to go through another batch of events, but actively looking forward to seeing them.

After I finished the game, even though I did enjoy the experience, I felt that a lot more could be done with the game mechanics. A lot of the game was simply you being a passive spectator. The only times you had any direct influence on your surroundings was when you would find a key to locked areas of the house. Other than that, there was hardly any need for all the running around to simply see an event, when it could theoretically all be viewed in one location.

I'm hoping that there will be a sequel (especially with the way the game ended) and that you will be able to interact with the surroundings a lot more; maybe even find clues that will help guide you to alter the right moments to get the better outcomes.

Guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Next up will be - The Forgotten City