498 Produkte im Account
22 Reviews
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768 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 24.09.20 15:01
Knackige kleine Rätsel. Guter Soundtrack. Tolle Geschichte, mit herausstechenden Charakteren.
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326 Produkte im Account
71 Reviews
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578 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 19.04.22 11:38
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503 Produkte im Account
458 Reviews
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608 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 11.04.22 01:53
For people who are normally into non-conventional game experiences, someone that likes to play a game that doesnt repeat the same recurring gameplay mechanics you see in most games today, if you have the patience for a more type of a slow paced gameplay that is probably not going to give you any action or stuff to shoot at then the Sexy Brutale may be a good pick but what exactly is that game ? well the game is set in a mansion which the staff are trying to kill the guests who inhabit it, you the protagonist have a power that lets you rewind time, there are some interesting characterization in each one of the guests and your objective is to save them from their eventual murders by investigating the mansion, eavesdropping on conversations between them and by spying on their repeated routines, its a mix of a little stealth with puzzle game, its pretty slow paced and requires patience, you may have to even look into a guide sometimes but its a game of style with beautiful visuals and good story, if the slowpaced natured of the game doesnt interest you then it may be not for you but if you like investigative games and think that the game's story is enough to grab your attention theres no reason to avoid this one, especially considering how cheap it is, its a well-made and beautiful game that I do recommend you to try.
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766 Produkte im Account
128 Reviews
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841 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 30.03.22 12:22
- very engaging gameplay loop. Explore the day and prevent murders
- interesting mystery to unravel. Why is this happening?
- emotional rollercoaster
- excellent aesthetic (music and graphical style)
Gameplay
At its core, it's an exploration game. Many locked doors, blocked paths, and a challenge at your newly-discovered location. Every person saved grants you new abilities which allow you to open more doors, more paths. Kind of like a Metroidvania, and there's a useful map to boot. Finding your way through the mansion, discovering ways to alter the events, what you need to do where and at what time - that's the bread and butter of this game. It's complex enough to be fun, but simple enough to be readily accessible.
Then of course there's the murder prevention. For *reasons*, you can never directly interact with anyone until after you've saved them. As such, you need to find indirect ways to do guide them, or perhaps sabotage the killer somehow (direct approach also doesn't work). It starts simple, but you quickly learn that you need to use wider and wider range of tools and abilities to do what you have to do. Challenging in a good way.
Mystery
To avoid spoilers, I'll keep things simple and vague. Things are happening. Why? What's going on? Why are people dying? What exactly is happening and where? At what time? What is behind that door? How did this person manage to achieve this?
What exactly is my role in this? What am I supposed to accomplish in the end?
Those are the questions that constantly flare up in your mind. And by constantly I do mean constantly. Locked doors, dialogue tidbits, mysterious sounds, some of which you hear almost everywhere at a given time - what is happening? The game is absolutely packed with mysteries - and considering it's a murder spree happening in a casino-mansion, it set its bar high. But it managed to deliver with flying colours anyway.
Emotions and Aesthetic
I won't describe the emotions too closely to avoid spoilers. Let's just say it's intense. The setup is good, the payoff is good. The ending is great too, although it left me wishing for more, perhaps some narration or something. But no, the game mostly tells you the story by showing you what's happening, and rarely explains things directly.
As for aesthetic? I mean, look at it! Ultra-fancy masked ball with jazzy music. The characters are all unique and cartoonish, in a good way. The interesting thing is that for the most part it's difficult to discern what time period are you even in; it does become more clear later on, not that it matters.
The... title?
The reason why the game has a ridiculous title is because that's the name of the location where is taking place - it's a bit of a glimpse into the mind of the person who named it. There's a wonderful prologue comic available for free where it's explored a bit more. Let's just say that the name is like that for a reason.
I know I didn't write much about the flaws of the game - if there's one thing, it's that sometimes waiting for the right time can be a bit boring, especially if you've seen everything happen one too many times. But that's par for the course in such games, isn't it? I also wish the game was a bit longer, I guess. My playtime comes from playing through the game twice.
Hoping the review was helpful. Enjoy! I can't recommend it enough.
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159 Produkte im Account
32 Reviews
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634 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 13.03.22 13:02
Edit: After 8 hours in, the game has gotten better. (Please, do search dead bodies to get Invitations. They reveal more about the game's plot.) The game mechanics and puzzles become better as the game progresses. Get the game on sale and maybe you'll enjoy the unique art style of the characters and in-game caricatures, but that's about it. Still, getting this game at anything higher than 80% off would be a travesty.
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34 Produkte im Account
10 Reviews
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571 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 27.02.22 22:40
It's a fine game, I did enjoy it even though I didn't care that much about the whole story to be honest. Somehow I never got attached to the characters. But it's indeed a really nice point-and-click time loop adventure. Just sometimes the puzzles were way more about exploring the rooms than actual using logical thinking and felt a bit random. However, I still had fun playing through.
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23 Produkte im Account
4 Reviews
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440 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 23.02.22 01:45
Fascinating concept, quirky gameplay and overall, a game that I won't forget!
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248 Produkte im Account
137 Reviews
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523 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 22.02.22 09:35
I did not experience any crashes or problems the entire game. There were not graphical errors or glitches, and the game performed perfectly. This is a worry free gaming experience.
While the game is beautifully artistic, the story is not for the faint of heart. I figured out the story about half way through, but the way the ending was delivered was perfect.
I suggest The Sexy Brutale for those that enjoy a light challenge puzzle, with fun and unique mechanics, and a well written story. Brilliant job to the developers. This is a real gem.
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446 Produkte im Account
4 Reviews
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370 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 17.02.22 18:23
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653 Produkte im Account
329 Reviews
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604 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 17.01.22 22:00
While the Sexy Brutale doesn't do anything terrible, it also doesn't do anything well other than aesthetics. The plot is mostly nonsense but is passable. You don't care about the characters or their stories as you don't get to interact or learn about them in any meaningful way. You just spy on them to learn what they're up to and their schedule.
You spend large portions of the game following people and spying through doors at what they're doing/saying. The puzzles are incredibly simplistic and barely require a functional braincell to solve, you're never doing anything clever to save anyone. There's also no variation in how to save anyone either, there is only one possible solution. The playing time for this could swing wildly depending on your style. A large portion of the play time will only happen if you decide to follow a character throughout their whole day. If you decide just to get the info you need to solve the puzzle, this could easily be completed in 4-6 hours.
This could've been salvageable if you were given full access to the mansion and left to explore to find the ways to solve the murders, but you're not. You can only ever save one character at a time (sometimes two, but this only requires solving the same puzzle for both of them, not separate puzzles for each). You're often locked into small areas with someone to save in that area. Even if you're not locked into a small area, the characters have designated areas they stay contained in. There is only one instance where a guest interacts with another guest that isn't part of the same murder.
If you go into the same room with a guest or an employee, their mask very slowly comes off their head, very slowly starts chasing you, and then does a very minimal amount of damage to you until you leave the room. Most of the time you'll run through rooms with people because you'll never take enough damage to actually die.
The Sexy Brutale is fine if you're bored, but it's not outstanding in any way and wastes what could have been a well made premise.
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988 Produkte im Account
39 Reviews
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419 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 11.01.22 18:34
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377 Produkte im Account
100 Reviews
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465 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 31.12.21 05:42
- Some puzzles are very brilliant, while some would use mechanic was never presented or use anywhere else through out the entire game.
- The story is okay, but feels confusing and seem to have many plot holes.
- The optimization is quite shite, some room run at 20fps for no reason, loading into each room would choke the game. Its not gonna affect your experience but it could have been a lots better.
Overall it's still a very enjoyable 5-8 hours ride that well worth the money if you grab it when it's on sale
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143 Produkte im Account
27 Reviews
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928 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 29.12.21 02:30
TLDR: Point-and-click-like stealth Murder Mystery taking place in a time looping casino-mansion, with a style all its own. Fun for what you will discover: Highly recommend avoiding all spoilers.
Quick warning: You do watch characters die in this game, often several times over as you puzzle out how to save them. One of them in particular is self-inflicted and left me unsettled. If you're at all sensitive to that sort of thing, maybe skip this one; you will need to see the deaths of each of the characters at some point to complete the game.
Long review/potential spoilers ahead of this point:
Sexy Brutale takes place in the titular casino slash mansion, full of fantastic and unrealistically ludicrous riches. Every year, 'The Marquis' hosts a party for his closest friends, but this year, he and his wife are nowhere to be found, and the guests are being murdered by the staff. It's up to you - Lafcadio Boone, the only man outside of the time loop - to save them and find out what happened in the Sexy Brutale.
The game is definitely driven by the dialogue, characters and the exotic and marvelous scenario. Everybody wears a mask, and if you are in the same room as someone with a mask, the mask will stop time, rise and chase you, meaning that you must not be in the same room as the characters. The main way you will be changing things is by spying through keyholes, hiding in closets, and otherwise paying attention to events in the time loop to discover the secrets of the mansion.
The mechanics are solid. While for someone used to much faster-paced stealth action, Lafcadio's lumbering steps can feel sluggish at first, it's perfectly paced to keep you on your toes; any faster and it would be too easy to do a hundred things in one day. The game forces you to learn that resetting time is an essential mechanic, rather than admitting defeat. Knowledge you get about the mansion will stay, even when time resets, so spying is the primary mechanic you will use, but you also have an arsenal of items to help you - primarily keys. Your map will also track who you have seen throughout the day, so you can use it to observe what happens throughout the day and plan ahead. To be honest, the pause menu with all your bits and pieces is probably one of my favourite mechanics in the game, simply because of how well it lends itself to the puzzle-solving.
The storyline and characters are also solid; it's a bit vague, but your questions are answered at the end while leaving enough room for speculation. I'm still thinking about each of the characters, who individually are unique and charismatic, with each character having at least ten lines apiece - often more. None of the characters in the mansion will feel redundant or simple, or as if they do not have a role in the story.
My primary point to raise about Sexy Brutale is the final polish. I think if they spent a month or two more to eliminate glitches and smooth gameplay, it would have been a perfect game. I'm personally sure there was supposed to be a third ending, but that they removed it in the final version. Sometimes the game will have trouble keeping up with you; the clicking sometimes doesn't go through if you're too fast, leading to frustrating moments standing at doors; or if you do get through before the game is ready, sometimes rooms will be completely dark, as if the lighting engine hasn't realized you're in the room yet, and takes a moment to wake up. The walking can also lag on the de-press, leading to Lafcadio walking infinitely in one direction for a while when you aren't clicking at all. However, all these glitches are fairly minor overall, resolve themselves after a few moments, and do not majorly impede gameplay (at least during my 15 hours of playing - enough time to 100% the game).
To conclude: this is definitely a great game to pick up if you enjoy point and click, murder mysteries, or character driven/story driven games. It's about solving the puzzle and learning how each murder happens, and eventually uncovering the truth. It has a robust set of tools to help you complete the game, the characters are intriguing and engaging, and the storyline is both tragic and fantastic. I applaud the programmers, script-writers and artists who made it; its art style gives it a unique flavour, the mechanics are enjoyable, and the writing witty and at times visceral. I don't know when the next time I play this will be, but I deeply enjoyed every second I've played so far.
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90 Produkte im Account
20 Reviews
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441 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 28.12.21 15:09
Enjoyable Unique Gameplay
---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☑ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS
---{ Gameplay }---
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't
---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf
---{ Audience }---
☑ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☑ Grandma
---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☑ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer
---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☑ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls
---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☑ Isn't necessary to progress
☐ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second live for grinding
---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☐ Good
☑ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life
---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☑ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond
---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☑ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money
---{ Bugs }---
☑ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs
---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☑ 8
☐ 9
☐ 10
I don't think it was very easy to solve certain puzzles (or maybe im just dumb). But I think the gameplay was executed well (best played on controllers). Tried finding similar games but I think so far the closest would be Twelve Minutes (time loop based). Bought it at 85% off and gave me a good amount of play time. Some sequence was really short and might miss out some clues if you weren't paying attention. Would love to play a continuation or dlc of this game!
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309 Produkte im Account
21 Reviews
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361 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 30.11.21 01:58
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312 Produkte im Account
33 Reviews
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504 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 19.11.21 12:52
Unique Experience
This game takes place in a mansion with varied and very distinct sections, in which you solve puzzles in order to prevent the guests from dying. The characters and environment are a delight, and the sountrack fits the game really well.
Spying on the characters and listening in on conversations is an important part of the game, and it turns out it is really fun, as it reveals secrets on the mansion and on how to prevent the characters' deaths. Also, revealing everyone's location on the map, at the specific times when you spotted them is very rewarding.
The game's only major flaw is its performance, as it has frequent hitches when moving between rooms. Aside from that, there is not much else to complain about.
It's a really solid game that is unique enough to deserve your attention.
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35 Produkte im Account
9 Reviews
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685 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 08.11.21 21:41
+good music
+great story
+interesting art
+good puzzles of medium difficulty
-sometimes the movement of the character can take you out of the immersion and it can have too many charging screens, nothing terrible they're really short, but it becomes a little bothering after playing for a while, it affects the momentum
The story is the best part in my opinion, it's really well done and engaging, you care for it. The gameplay is special, I love all the mechanics. The art is awesome, great designs on the different rooms and characters.
I grew fond of the game by the end ❤︎
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344 Produkte im Account
36 Reviews
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82 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 08.11.21 17:31
Music and design is decent. Actual gameplay is poor and very easy.
I guess if you want a chill puzzle game with laborious dialogue in between then go right ahead. Otherwise, steer clear.
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497 Produkte im Account
68 Reviews
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481 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 04.11.21 05:59
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725 Produkte im Account
188 Reviews
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534 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 02.11.21 00:27
Trigger warning: Has one [spoiler]suicide[/spoiler] and lots of murders.
Pros:
* Fun storyline and plot twists.
* Excellent level design w/ multi-layered secrets. Some more obvious than others.
* Suitably cartoony, to offset how gruesome some deaths are.
* Ending is... crazy enough that few will be able to guess its full scope.
Cons:
* No way to see which cards (collectible) you've found, just shows how many.
Meh:
* Doesn't make a point of explaining how to see the clues you've collected on the map interface.
TL;DR: If you enjoy a good plotline and exploration/puzzles, 8/10; else, avoid.
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586 Produkte im Account
24 Reviews
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639 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 17.10.21 21:02
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162 Produkte im Account
27 Reviews
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1154 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 25.09.21 03:13
The graphics after lovely and feel real. The sound is crisp and makes you feel like you're in the mansion with exciting and atmospheric music to keep pulling you in. You can practically taste and smell the richness of this delightful game of darkness.
Your masked character is introduced as an outsider, sneaking around and listening to the events of the party to figure out why there is a time loop...that repeatedly kills the guests.
Peeping through keyholes and eavesdropping on conversations, you slowly uncover a bit of the mystery one room at a time. When you understand what's at play, you'll then be able to manipulate the environment to save a doomed guest. You'll then gain their ability to further your investigation.
From room to room, down numerous hallways and through secret passages, up to the second story and down to the basement, you make your way around the mansion hoping to end this dreadful nightmare of a wonderful party gone wrong.
However, only at the end do you realize who the real murderer has been all along...
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1174 Produkte im Account
7 Reviews
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583 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 19.09.21 06:29
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241 Produkte im Account
85 Reviews
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464 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 20.08.21 03:02
I think it's best to go in knowing only that.
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281 Produkte im Account
7 Reviews
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587 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 16.07.21 02:55
Only after I played it did I realize that this was made by the same team that did Rime, which made a lot of sense. Both games have a lot of heart and leave an impact on you as a player.
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789 Produkte im Account
18 Reviews
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500 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 14.07.21 11:31
4/10
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167 Produkte im Account
20 Reviews
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772 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 07.07.21 00:14
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59 Produkte im Account
10 Reviews
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351 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 02.07.21 22:54
Characters are really likeable, and i'd say all of them are worth saving.
The requirements are pretty low as well, and the price is not too expensive, so if you get the chance to, definitely play this game.
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405 Produkte im Account
1 Reviews
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526 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 02.07.21 16:52
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273 Produkte im Account
4 Reviews
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457 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 02.07.21 00:18
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770 Produkte im Account
56 Reviews
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629 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 30.06.21 06:35
The first half of the game is a lot of build-up, and a lot of mystery-solving, and it seems clear it's gearing up to throw one last challenge at you combining everything you've done so far. I saw it coming. I started taking notes- who goes where, who dies when, where I had to be and for how long to prevent every murder and solve every mystery at once.
Except the game never throws that challenge at you. It doesn't even let you TRY to do it yourself for kicks.
So I'm quite disappointed. The game's not bad, it's got some neat moments, and I see what its story was going for, but it just didn't hit the mark.
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2113 Produkte im Account
20 Reviews
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940 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 27.06.21 20:08
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78 Produkte im Account
14 Reviews
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658 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 30.05.21 05:47
Ten guests are attending a masquerade at the titular casino-mansion, unaware that the staff have meticulously plotted out a horrible demise for everyone. With the intervention of a mysterious apparition, you become aware of the time loop and set out to save your friends from their never-ending cycle of death. However, you are unable to directly interfere with anyone, and must instead sabotage each murder attempt behind the scenes. This requires exploring the mansion to find useful items, spying on people through keyholes to learn their routes throughout the day, and eavesdropping on their conversations to discover important secrets.
Whenever the time loop resets, you'll begin at noon in front of whichever clock you last interacted with. Most items, such as keys, will be returned to wherever you found them, though information you've gathered, such as secret doors and the locations of the guests and staff, is retained and recorded on your map. Every scenario plays out exactly the same every day, giving you all the time you need to find a way to break the loop and save each guest. When you do, you'll gain an ability that allows you to access more of the mansion and/or uncover more secrets. Although their life will only be spared on that particular iteration of the time loop, you'll still be one step closer to ending the tragedy at the heart of this mystery once and for all.
But that doesn't mean your quest in the murder mansion will be absolutely dreary and depressing - quite the opposite! Every room is filled with stunning detail and gorgeous setpieces, to the point the mansion feels like a real place where people live and play. Each wing of the building has its own beautiful soundtrack that gradually grows in drama and intensity as the murder in that area approaches, then shifts to a more melancholic version once the deed is done (special mention to Tequila Belle's vocals in the music halls). There are also some audio and visual cues during the day, like a bell tolling or lights flickering, that become especially chilling once you learn their significance and experience them again on every loop afterward.
It's beautiful, it's tragic, and it's a joy to play from beginning to end to beginning to end to beginning to...
Truly a masterpiece among mysteries.
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282 Produkte im Account
7 Reviews
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465 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 28.05.21 03:56
Its not the most complex puzzle game, but it is fun and can be very challenging sometimes.
The art is amazing, and a specific part of the story blew my mind away!!
A really good game, if you like puzzles and adventure games, this is a must buy!!
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188 Produkte im Account
6 Reviews
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408 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 17.05.21 02:56
It does achieve a lot of what it set out to do. The vegaspunk setting and aesthetic is very unique and alluring, the solutions to its puzzles are inventive and use the time-looping system cleverly. Information is delivered in small, intriguing batches, being able to see events from different perspectives is novel but enjoyable and the game is surprisingly successful in its dark, ironic sense of humour.
The game was severely let down, in my opinion, by four key issues that really flatten the overall experience and hold it back from being a genuinely brilliant feat of clever writing and design.
Firstly and most immediately, the solutions to stopping the murders are too simple in that too often they are to be simply found through exploration of the mansion rather than solved by the player's own ingenuity. All of the creativity happens on the developer's end and none of it on the player's.
Only one of the six main murders I can say that I had to make significant inference from the information I was able to gather to solve the murder. Most of the murders I got past simply by being thorough, checking every room of the area, interacting with every object possible and tailing every character extensively across several loops, until I was effectively handed the answer on a plate, given the keys to progress rather than EARNING them. This made solving the murders shockingly unrewarding and I was often merely glad to have gotten past the tedium of exploring the previous section over and over again rather than proud of my accomplishment. Moreover, there were several times I came up with legitimate, logical ways I could stop the murder, but the game had no lenience, it was only interested in the answer the developers decided on. I think a game like this that respected the player more could be extremely rewarding and fun.
One reason I think for this is that the game is far too short for its gentle difficulty curve to ever reach the point where it became challenging in an interesting way. There are only six murders to solve, one of which is a short mission more akin to a tutorial for the game, and while it certainly had enough content for it's thankfully cheap asking price, the ending (which was itself very underwhelming) felt abrupt, like the second half of the game had been cut from the game.
Lastly, the interconnected nature of the events in The Sexy Brutale are a well of untapped potential. The few times that elements of different murders do leak into one another they are incredibly intriguing and compelling. It was a massive shame to discover that, in the end, all of the murders are largely cordoned off from one another. They are corralled into their own small areas of the manor in which only things pertinent to those murders occur. So strong was this effect, that I thought the ending was going to be a challenge to save ALL of the guests in one loop using convoluted, clever and efficient movement through the mansion but this crescendo never happened. Once you solve a murder the game quickly moves on, never for that character and their subsequent deaths to be relevant ever again. The ending instead, is a long and dull section, at the end of which we get a half-hearted attempt to have an emotional payoff to a narrative that is not present throughout any of the rest of the game.
I didn't hate The Sexy Brutale. It has some fun moments and reveals and you might enjoy it more than me if you like the aesthetic, sense of humour or are a fan of exploration and mystery in games. Being as cheap as it is, it may be worth your investment if you fall into this camp strongly, but ultimately it failed to properly deliver on its premise and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone not already entirely sold on the concept.
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148 Produkte im Account
26 Reviews
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712 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 20.04.21 20:40
Very cool puzzle game. Its puzzles are more about exploring the world and discovering clues than in solving difficult problems, making it relatively easy. This is actually quite an achievement for what is essentially a point-and-click adventure! If you recall some of the older point and click adventures had random nonsense you couldn't figure out. This one is logical at least! A+
To give an idea of length, I completed it in 11 hours, that was taking my time, exploring, but also not being a completionist and wanting to find every single unlockable. So the decent content in other words. The experience is varied and does not feel too padded out - I rarely found myself getting bored.
The music is very catchy, themed to each sequence / area and timed to suit exactly when significant events in the game occur.
Decent writing and a quirky, highly varied, and detail-rich game world round off an altogether enjoyable experience.
9/10 would recommend.
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554 Produkte im Account
44 Reviews
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533 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 08.04.21 09:20
That said this didn't really get in the way of my enjoyment of the game, the controls are very simple so not being able to rebind wasn't much issue. I think there are things they could have done to improve the experience, which are hard to get into without spoilers, but for example more freedom in how you explore the mansion earlier on, letting you decide which puzzle to approach first might have been more exciting.
But the story is written quite competently and the atmosphere is nice and it's fun to wander around the mansion getting lost while you think about what you can try next to move forward or to find a clue. I really liked the game!
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73 Produkte im Account
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Verfasst: 19.02.21 06:22
The only real cons for me were that the game is rather short (8 hours of intense play and investigation), and there are some minor performance issues in certain areas.
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423 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 16.02.21 14:06
Once I finished, I was reminded a bit of how I felt when I finished Undertale: the gameplay experience was all a bit strange and oftentimes simple but creative and interesting, however, the story reveal at the end gets you right in the feels when you're really not expecting it. You're left feeling like you just experienced art.
Plus the soundtrack is so good!
If you can pick it up on sale, it's worth experiencing :)
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Verfasst: 05.02.21 23:16
The Sexy Brutale game is about an extravagant party hosted by an enigmatic Marquis which didn't turn out to be the luxurious event the guests expected. The anonymous staff of the mansion are systematically killing the masked guests one by one, and if that wasn’t bad enough, every time the clock hits midnight the time goes back and the entire process is repeated in a continuous, deadly cycle.
You play Lafcadio Boone, a priest who is conscious of this never-ending masked ball and able to remember each loop's events, a gift given to him by a bloody mysterious woman. Your goal in the game is to learn the schedule in order to change it, tracking each guest's movements around the house and finding some way of avoid their death.
Each guest you save from the murderous staff members gives you a new power and grants you deeper access into the labyrinthine mansion. This can be done because of the fact that each time you rewind the clock to relive the same events, you owns a bit more information on how and when the murders take place, and how to stop them.
Once you understand how everything works. You realize which items to pick up to solve the puzzles, which doors to go through and when, or even when a murderer’s victim will enter the room. Finding that rhythm feels incredible and its a delightful experience.
The game also counts with some collectibles to look for and Steam achievements as well. Although are fairly simple in themselves. They are unlocked for solving every murder and finding some secret areas.
All in all, The Sexy Brutale's world is a wonderful place in which to immerse yourself. Story is so good, it feels really tied and each victim you encounter award you with a grand sense of accomplishment that will encourage you to continue through this gory adventure. Moreover, puzzles are fun enough, though they’re never precisely challenging.
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283 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 01.02.21 18:22
Graphics: 10/10. I love the art style they went with. Each room is beautiful and has character, and there's real depth to them. The colours, lighting, even the paintings on the walls REALLY add to the feeling and ambience of each situation and puzzle. The NPCs look good and there's evident attention to detail to every aspect of them. Even the way each character moves gives you more insight into them as individuals.
Sound: 10/10. Full marks isn't nearly enough to convey how much of a highlight the sound design is. From the sounds that indicate something (read: death) is happening in the mansion elsewhere, to the superb, unique OST that smoothly sets each scene- I can't fault it whatsoever. I even like the menu music (a rarity for me, since the only other menu music that has really caught my attention in recent memory was from DOOM).
Story: 9/10 . The overarching story was fantastic without a doubt. You really sympathise with each character (or at least, actively WANT to save them) and each rescue feels rewarding. The game does well to tempt you to go further down the rabbit hole to find out the truth of it all, and for that- well done.
However, I can't give the game full marks because I feel that some elements are perhaps a little clichéd. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but some moments are a little anticlimactic because of it. I feel like a couple of the rescues were a bit short/quick to solve compared with some of the other rescues which required [spoiler] multiple resets & backtracking [/spoiler] to accomplish.
Despite this however, everything just fits together so perfectly, like an intricate puzzle, and solving it was an absolute joy.
Gameplay: Challenging yet fun.
Playtime: 4-8 hours. I completed the game in just under 5 hours, but I'm certain I haven't found everything to find quite yet, and I'm sure there are still a few surprises left in store, especially now that I understand the plot.
Difficulty: The game is pretty good at pointing you were you need to go, but otherwise its up to you. You'll need to explore each segment thoroughly and plot NPC routes if you want the best chance to solve puzzles.
Bugs: None that I saw.
Value for money: Get the game. At its current price of around £12 GBP it's not a bargain, but its a fair price.
Wait for a sale if you have to, but if you like puzzles with a fun twist- get this game.
Streamability: Absolutely streamable, though I would say there are some scenes that may cause discomfort. To be fair you're trying to PREVENT these scenes, but there you go. I'm certainly going to be streaming this when I play it through again (shameless plug????).
TL/DR: Pretty much everything about this is good- get it.
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406 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 31.01.21 17:56
First of all, the characters never actually respond to any actions you take. Everybody follows a predetermined path and, besides (sometimes) changing a single line of dialogue, the other characters will never adjust their behavior according to other changes in the manor.
Second, the puzzles themselves are simple and boring. None of the murders actually interact with the others such that each your knowledge of events in areas you're already familiar with will never be useful in solving the next murder. In effect, preventing each of the murders is never more complex that interacting with one or two items in the area. The greatest challenge you'll face is mustering up the patience to wait for several minutes, standing around doing nothing, as you wait for another character to say or do something so that you can finish the puzzle (Because despite characters following a predetermined path, nobody thought to include a way to fastforward through things you've already seen).
As much as I like the premise and absolutely love other games in this genre, The Sexy Brutale never came close to reaching its potential and, in the end, left me disappointed and unsatisfied.
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279 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 31.12.20 13:19
One of the puzzles I did enjoy but the rest was just a bit meh. Also, took four hours to finish. I wasn't rushing.
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463 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 29.12.20 06:55
The design, dialogue, music, atmosphere, etc all land really well, I think, but behind all that, the mechanics are extremely shallow. You're supposed to be a time traveler preventing murders by repeating the day until you find a set of changes you can make to keep everybody safe, which is such an exciting concept, but... what you actually end up doing in this game is all one-step solutions to the problems. There's no fiddly chain of consequences that you have to keep in mind, or any interactions between the people you want to save that you have to untangle. You just watch the person/couple die, see what killed them, and then restart the day and interact with the hgihlighted yellow objective object and they're saved. In every case, the *murder* was more satisfying than whatever I ended up doing to prevent it.
There are some gestures at stealth mechanics, you're not actually supposed to be in the same room as people. But it takes so long for it to start hurting you, and you have such a massive health bar when it does, that really you can just ignore it completely. There are some extra abilities you get along the way, but they're only used for getting into new parts of the mansion, and backtracking to pick up more of the playing cards, never as a way to solve a puzzle or anything.
If you're fine with essentially just exploring a mansion, spying on murder plots being carried out, and then preventing them basically as a formality, this is actually a pretty enjoyable thing, but if you were hoping for a game, with anything to do other than follow the marked objectives and eavesdrop on some people, you'll have to look elsewhere.
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347 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 19.12.20 15:52
If you're interested in exploring a new world for a short time, I give you a hearty recommend. If you can get it on sale that's nice, but isn't that true about every game anyway?
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Verfasst: 26.08.20 19:22
The gameplay is relatively simple, feeling like a stealth / walking simulator / puzzle mash-up Metroidvania game, where you sneak around the mansion undetected, acquire new abilities which allow you to (re)explore further, and solve puzzles in the form of events that you have to figure out how to alter.
I really enjoy endings like the one in Sexy Brutale, where it brings everything full circle and connects the missing pieces.
My only beefs with the game, which are rather small, are that you can't rewind time slightly if you mess up while waiting for a certain event / time, and the game not telling you which playing cards you're still missing (which was a pain to figure out, even with the help of the handy Steam guides on how to do so).
Overall, a fun experience which I would recommend to anyone interested in puzzle-based mystery games.
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400 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 24.08.20 00:39
If I could find a way
I'd take back those words that've hurt you and you'd stay -Cher
Pretty little game, with a beautiful ending, and a ton of puzzles 10/10
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321 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 13.08.20 12:11
This is really one of the reasons why I always praise indie games: they have some power and some fantasy that no one ever saw in some AAA.
This is really a III, triple I, indie game. Play it.
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292 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 10.08.20 02:27
I love mind-twisting mystery stories—stuff like Zero Escape and The Hex, or this game's aesthetically spiritual literary cousin The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. The Sexy Brutale follows a man who's stumbled into a real Majora of a situation in a glittery casino-mansion called the Sexy Brutale. Every other guest is being brutally murdered on a clockwork schedule, but you can rewind time to throw a wrench in the works and make for a happier outcome. As a connoisseur of the mindbender, Sexy Brutale definitely punches with the greats of the genre, looping through a twisty mystery that kept me guessing til the end.
What keeps Sexy Brutale from being truly sexy is that the puzzles themselves decidedly did not keep me guessing. All but the last couple were disappointingly easy—I prevented Murder 2 by mistake through sheer adventure game object poking, before I even witnessed the death I was trying to stop. It's not exactly a Hitman level; most deaths can be solved in 1 to 3 easy puzzles and none of them match the brilliance of the premise until Murder 6 or so, but by then there's maybe an hour left in the game.
By design, there's a lot of waiting around for stuff to happen while you flit between rooms—you can't stay in the same room as a guest, so it's a lot of spying through keyholes and counting down the hours in closets until it hits the fan. But fortunately the waiting doesn't get too grating, as looking around the mansion for collectables and knick knacks fills the time. Funnily enough I ignored a lot of that—what I enjoyed most was following characters around, letting overheard conversations in hushed tones really fill out the world's background. It's a great example of the kind of passive storytelling that's only really possible in video games, letting the player piece together the plot on their own.
You can also pass the time jamming to the fantastic pseudo-electro-swing soundtrack—it's really what brings together the whole 1930s Agatha Christie vibe, plus it's catchy as hell.
So yes, I'm a little cooler on The Sexy Brutale than some, but it's still worth playing for the story alone. The puzzles miss the mark a bit, but the actual moment to moment storytelling is great for anyone who likes a proper mindscrew in their mysteries.
Technical Corner: Install Sexy Brutale on an SSD if you have the option, the game had some serious hiccups when loading between rooms on my HDD before I moved the install.
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Verfasst: 15.07.20 01:23
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Verfasst: 04.07.20 07:32
One of the best of the year it came out!
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343 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 03.06.20 02:33
spoiler filled review
[spoiler] the story is really the most lacking party as it pulls a lost at the end and exclaims that it all was just a dream of our player character, but it's really just a excuse for a fun puzzler experince
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Verfasst: 30.05.20 03:44
During that time you can wander around the mansion, which slowly opens up for exploration, while peeking on characters, examining interest points, picking up and using items. Time shenanigans can be jarring, so I expected an overwhelming mess, but actually, every rescue operation came to be contained in a limited area, so I never had to deal with too many variables at once. Besides, you can't get stuck, have an ability to fast-forward or rewind time as many times as you like and a map that features plenty of useful information. All in all, contrary to my expectations, Sexy Brutale panned out to be not as much fussy as relaxing, emotional and deeply atmospheric. Might even seem slow to some people.
What really got me good was how the game's lighthearted, mocking tone neighbors its dark humor, gruesomeness and poetic cynicism. There's something about this mix of cuteness and violence that plays my strings without fail. A cuddly elephant policeman beating you to death in Little Big Adventure, the wacky looks and sadistic undertones of Ecstatica, everything about Sanitarium - the combination is unsettling and lifelike. Look at the funny little bears! They'd ignore your screams while eating you alive at the earliest opportunity. Or take my own cat who eagerly slurped my blood from the floor when I happened to cut my foot open. What I'm saying is that saving these doll people was quite a contemplative experience.
My curator
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832 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 18.05.20 14:45
The game is played out over a period of 12 in game hours from noon to midnight with each lasting about a minute and at the end of the 12 hour period the clock resets. During this time the guests play out a fixed set of movements from room to room and interactions with the other characters that result in their death. As you are unable to enter a room at the same time as the guests and servants you will need to stealthily observe their interactions to gain the knowledge that you need to save them and gain access to new areas. Although the mansion is interlinked, each new area you gain access to has its own distinct theme and set of events to explore. As you navigate the mansion there are also collectable playing cards and guest invitations to gather. While largely superficial they do add entries to your journal to deepen your understanding of locations and characters.
Although graphical options are scarce the caricatured style looks good and creates a distinct visual style for each of the mansion's areas and guests that works well with its whodunnit theme. The game runs smoothly with the only occasional stutter as you transition from room to room.
All in all the Sexy Brutal is a unique game that does a good job of creating intrigue to drive you on to solve the mansion's mystery and is well worth your time.
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Verfasst: 22.04.20 16:19
The Sexy Brutale is an opulent mansion-slash-casino owned and operated by the shadowy Marquis. He’s invited a crowd of his closest friends and associates to join him for an evening of entertaining diversions, and also death. Turns out none of the guests are destined to survive their visit, and the ominously-masked staff are more than happy to help usher their charges on to the afterlife. But one of the guests, Lafcadio Boone, is informed of the situation by a distressingly sanguine woman and given the tools needed to save everyone. You must guide Boone through the halls and chambers of The Sexy Brutale to undo the many grisly murders about to take place there, and luckily for you, you have plenty of time.
After a brief intro chapter that fills you in on the details of your circumstances, you start your mission at noon on the day of the murders. Events proceed all across The Sexy Brutale as they are destined to do, with guests and staff moving about, talking with each other, and being horribly killed. Boone’s special position in the drama does not allow him to interact directly with anyone; the strange masks that everyone wears react very unkindly to his presence in the same room, unless he is hidden. But what Boone can do is peek through doors, hide in closets, watch cameras, and otherwise spy on the events of the mansion to piece together exactly what is going on. All of the character locations and important details are marked on your map, along with a time slider that helpfully keeps track of when things happen where.
This is of key importance, because at the stroke of midnight, everyone is dead and the drama ends. To avoid this, Boone has a helpful pocketwatch that rewinds time back to the start of the day. Therein lies your gameplay loop: figuring out how each murder takes place, and what indirect actions you can take to stay death’s hand. You’ll take on the murders in linear fashion, due to the new powers you get from each solved scenario and the almost metroidvania layout of the mansion. This also leaves the mansion cleanly divided into areas that mostly keep all the clues and relevant tools together. It’s a fun place to explore regardless, due to the chunky, colorful art style, detailed descriptions, and diorama-style presentation of rooms. Plus there are loads of secrets to find, like playing cards and invitations, that help fill in the story cracks.
There are a LOT of story cracks to fill in, mind you. The tale that unfolds as you follow the trail of murders is an intriguing one, but never dips very deeply into the lives of any of the victims. Only the last murder reveals anything about the overall story, and I must admit it’s one of my least favorite narrative twists but it works fine here in retrospect. Picking up the secrets is almost mandatory to reach any deeper connection with the story, but honestly I found the gameplay and core mystery interesting enough to keep me hooked on their own. The early murders are quite easy to solve (I solved the second one entirely by accident, before knowing the causes of death even), but they do get more complex and more dependent on using your time powers and additional abilities smartly by the end.
I didn’t expect to get so wrapped up in The Sexy Brutale, but once I started I was compelled to see it all the way through. I do think a lot of it is the striking presentation and art style, and just as much of it is in the little world you have to explore here. You’re limited in the first hour or two but once you start finding the secret passages and additional powers, the mansion opens up and plumbing its mysteries becomes a whole new level of compelling. Stronger storytelling would have helped in what’s ostensibly an adventure game, but I’m still quite happy with what’s there. I daresay fans of puzzles and mysteries will be pleased with The Sexy Brutale, especially once the mansion’s true eccentricities reveal themselves.
Did you enjoy this review? I certainly hope so, and I certainly hope you'll check out more of them at https://goldplatedgames.com/ or on my curation page!
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519 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 04.04.20 09:13
Would I recommend it to anyone? Not really. It's not a bad game, but I can easily name 50 games in the same genre and price range that are more worthy of your time.
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784 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 02.04.20 12:45
reliving the same Saturday afternoon (Groundhog Day anyone?) trying to save the guests of a masquerade party from brutal murders while putting the pieces together to understand what the heck is going on in the mansion and...
won't spoil anymore ;)
-----
Puzzle-adventure game con una trama avvincente, uno stile grafico particolare ed un'ottima colonna sonora:
si rivive lo stesso sabato pomeriggio (qualcuno ha detto Ricomincio da capo?) cercando di salvare gli ospiti di una festa in maschera da brutali omicidi mentre si mettono insieme i pezzi per capire cosa diavolo sta succedendo nella villa e...
basta spoiler ;)
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26212 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 10.03.20 15:30
The game is neither hard nor long, but the mechanics are well executed and the story is weird enough to be compelling the player until the end.
On sale this might be worth a look to anyone into some casual puzzles and time manipulation games.
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316 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 15.12.19 13:44
Great story, interesting puzzles. Music was OK. Stealth was at casual level, which is fine since then the focus is on the puzzles and the story. What would have really improved the game is voice acting, instead there is a lot of text to read. This deficiency doesn't break the game but it does hold it back from being something more. (That and the strange naming choice - this game is like PG13 level.)
Worth it at full price. Definite buy at a discount.
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303 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 10.12.19 12:16
I love when games come with new concepts like this, but unfortunately The Sexy Brutale’s puzzles are a mix between easy and moon logic. The overarching story is ok, but you’ll end up not doing much puzzling but mostly reading (which is not necessarily a bad thing).
Rating: Groundhog Day without any groundhogs.
https://pixelloot.com
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673 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 17.11.19 06:15
Art Deco meets Groundhog Day meets Saw (without plot black-holes)
In short, the result of this bizarre hocus pocus mix-up is phenomenal. Despite the game's title it does not feature sexual content of any kind nor implies it even. An unfortunate choice of name if you ask me because it invokes many bad expectations (cash-grab, weak content, poor gameplay, etc.) but in contrary it offers rich audio visual experience with superb writing to boot. I can't help but to wonder what heights it might have reached with a better name.
This is a second consecutive game I picked up from late TB's YouTube review (after Punch Club) and it raised my expectations even more so I've left it for last of the two. It's an isometric 3D adventure puzzler, involving heavy NPC spying (no interaction allowed) to acquaint one self with their daily routine, while being stuck in a time loop of replaying the same day over and over until you eventually learn enough to be able save 9 NPCs from certain death. All of is happening inside a beautiful and sizable art deco Mansion (called The Sexy Brutale) consisting of some 150 rooms, give or take.
Before going further let me just mention few important technical details that are poorly documented:
[olist]
Moving on, one in-game day lasts 12 hours (~10 mins real-time) and you have a nice antique stop watch on the HUD telling you everything you need to know. During that window you'll be observing what other 18 NPCs are doing (9 guests and 9 staff) while avoiding being seen yourself. Though repercussions of being seen are easily avoided. In fact I don't even know what happens if you do get caught because in my 11 hours long playthrough I wasn't caught once. It's even practical to just run past NPCs who are too slow to react anyway.
Each NPC you observe gets mapped to your in-game map during the observation time so it is considerably easier to plan your routes. Game usually does it so once you learn the optimal route it is the fastest and safest one. This is also a tell-tale sign of the best possible gameplay design btw. It will take some 2-5 days before you fully explore what that is happening with a single particular NPC event and as you save one, new parts of the Mansion unlock where another needs to be saved. There are many hidden passages in the Mansion to reduce travel times which is nice and very rewarding when discovered.
I kinda expected a full blown tactical mess and information overload right from the start (and kinda hoped for, lol) but no, new events are dropped on your laps in timely fashion with each Mansion section initially being a self contained section that later merges with the rest of the house. So no excessive chaos for you obsessive compulsive control freaks. Each section has some 10-20 rooms tied to the event taking place.
Gameplay mechanics wise, your starting abilities are: spying through door keyholes and hearing movement in adjacent rooms. You have your standard inventory and multiple objects interactions, while also being able to safely hide in closets to better spy on the whole room for when the time comes. This way you get information about where does each NPC travel to, at what time, pick up important information from their plentiful dialogues, and how and when will NPC get killed. Your objective is to interrupt that process. Once saved, you do not have to save that NPC again (thank Christ) and can freely ignore his routine.
With each saved guest you acquire their ability (better stop-watch capacity, better hearing, ability to interact with ghosts, break glass, lockpick, and full room scan) that expands on the starting mechanic and allows for more complex and varied puzzle solving. Greyson & Redd situation being my favorite one and by far Saw-ish.
I will give an example shown in starting Tutorial because it is difficult to get an idea from just reading theory. First guest is getting killed at around 4 hours, in the Chapel, with a single shot shotgun. In the next day you discover a fake blank bullet which you can put in place of the real one inside the gun. You also discover where the gun is (on the same day if you're lucky) and perform the ol' switcheroo before the killer enters the room to pick it up. Then you watch the event again but this time with a different outcome. It's pretty neat and more so as events get more complex, sometimes involving four NPCs at once (2 guest & 2 killers), over vast array of rooms.
You can track your progress via very practical menu, where you also track various collectibles, one of them being a whole deck of 52 playing cards scattered around the Mansion. You can unlock NPC info, room purpose info and stuff like that. Most useful is very beautifully drawn and detailed map. It's rare you can tell which room is which just from looking an in-game map but here is pretty easy to orient yourself. It's also the place there you can artificially move time slider and observe NPC you tracked move around on the map. Pretty damn neat!
You can advance time to 4 PM or 8 PM if you get tired of waiting for certain events that you missed in earlier days. Or set your day to restart in another location (room). Both can be done next to one of several in-game clocks to make your trips shorter (and is required skill later on).
Game features wonderful music throughout and sets the mood just right. But not a single voiced line of text. You'll get pass that soon enough once you realize it's not really needed. At least you have very nice stylized dialogue clouds the likes you see in comics, only better. You can skip most of the text by clicking.
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It's a beautiful game very worth your time, almost on a verge of being a little masterpiece, but it has some quirks. What I disliked the most is you can't skip the long ending cutscene, just before making the final decision that creates a fork in the ending. 10 mins you can't simply wait out and go brush your teeth or something because you must click occasionally. Second is lack of proper time advancement. No fine-tune manual control at any time. The code exists but can only be executed in lesser capacity and in fixed places. Lastly, I expected at least one Mansion-wide complex NPC saving event - the culmination of everything learned up to that point. A true test for your wits before savoring in the final ending sequence. But alas, it was just another hit-prevention in another small part of the Mansion like the previous ones were. Bummer.
I wish the puzzles were more complex, involving manipulating more objects than just one or two. As it stands most of the time will be spent gathering info by spying (over 90%). While the dialogues are great, more focus could have been places in players actions. For instance the second event I solved by accident without knowing why I did what I did or who was it that I saved. Only later by passing through the area numerous times did I understand. Fortunately it got a lot better from there.
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Despite these tiny faults game is a daring attempt at something original. I can't say I ever played anything remotely like this before. Attention to making every aspect feel aesthetically pleasing, gameplay functional and purposeful is remarkable. It should be rewarded in millions of sold copies and rightfully be mentioned in the same sentences as Minecraft, Braid, Terraria, Celeste, and so on. Would you kindly fix that, people?
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Verfasst: 06.10.19 14:50
I went into The Sexy Brutale pretty blind and didn't know much about it. That was a good way to start, frankly. This is an adventure game where the goal is to prevent the murders of guests in a hotel. You have to walk around this hotel and figure out how someone is getting killed, perhaps who did it and figure out a way to prevent it. You have one day to do it and that day resets over and over again. Some progress is lost but any major milestones are saved (like saving a guest). Oh, and you can't talk with the guests because....well, spoilers would be an issue in explaining why. But you have to avoid the guests as you'll be in trouble if they see you. There's a deeper story behind these deaths but that would be a pretty large spoiler to put into a review. As you prevent these murders, you'll get new abilities from masks which will help you solve the next murder or unlock a new mystery. It's all pretty well done.
The mechanics are pretty simple and there's no sequences where button mashing or anything like that is required. So there are really three things that make/break a game like this - the presentation, the story and the puzzles themselves.
Presentation
The art, graphics and sound in this game are top-notch. This game has a particular art style that I truly love, rich in color and effectively conveying any given area. No two areas in this game look the same which is great for a game walking around a mansion / hotel. Without better art and room design the game could have become quickly tedious if areas looked too similar and in most cases (the Casino being the rare exception) the rooms are all distinctive. Objects are clearly shown and there's no pixel hunting here. The sound are perfect. Glass breaking, gunshots, ghostly sounds...they are all spot-on and there's never really a question about what any given sound means. The music gets a bit redundant at times but it fits the game, the setting and the tone. This game gets top scores in Presentation.
Story
This is where spoilers would abound but let me say that the story is good. Not great, but good. The story didn't have any deep impact but it was more than adequate. It's not Life is Strange but then again it's more of a puzzle game and less of an interactive story anyway. Needless to say, I found the story packed enough of a punch to matter. I don't truly know all the characters but I do care about them in some small way.
Puzzles
Let me start off saying that adventure games were never my thing. I got bored with the original King's Quest back in 1984 and the genre has always been a bit of hit-and-miss for me. I find the puzzles in most games to be nonsensical and too obscure. I also have found that in my old age I have less patience to try to bother figuring these out. I got some puzzles myself but as the game went on I relied on a guide for quite a few of them. There's one, in particular, that is absurdly difficult that I could have spent 5 frustrating hours trying to figure out and still probably wouldn't have gotten it. I'd say the puzzles in the game were of uneven quality.
Time Played
Note that I have 4 hours in the game. If I were pulling my hair out trying to solve some of the more obscure puzzles I probably would have doubled it - but halved my fun playing it. YMMV on this point but you won't get more than 8 hours or so out of it unless you want to go back in and find all the collectibles for achievements. I don't.
Flaws / Bugs
I've already mentioned the flaws with the obscure puzzles and the story could have been a bit deeper. Beyond that there's nothing else to mention. I encountered no bugs at all while playing and the devs deserve kudos for that.
Conclusion
The Sexy Brutale is a good game. It's not a genre-breaker so that people who don't usually play adventure games will fall in love with this one. It's a good, strong example of the genre with great presentation and a compelling-enough story to see you through it. Recommended.
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Release:11.04.2017
Genre:
Puzzle-Adventure
Entwickler:
Tequila Works
Vertrieb:keine Infos
Engine:keine Infos
Kopierschutz:keine Infos
Franchise:keine Infos
Einzelspieler
Mehrspieler
Koop
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