Gamedec - Jail time for cheats

What do we know about the Polish game maiden? The Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077 immediately come to mind, but they are not the only ones who are rich. Poland is full of talented designers, programmers and writers. And now we are going to talk about these three professions together...

The neon world of the dystopian future

The world of Gamedec is based on the novels of Polish writer Marcin Przybylek. According to the author's idea, in the XXII century the line between reality and virtuality will be finally erased. The gap in wealth classes will be so huge that the poor will live in slums, and wealthy people - in skyscrapers one kilometer high. However, the rich do not live in a humid utopia here either, they have to make do with synthetic happiness in virtual worlds.

Wearing a virtual reality helmet, you can immerse yourself in any game of your choice with all the sensations, while your body will be supported by an artificial life support system: it will both feed a pill with vital elements, and not let your limbs atrophy.

Of course, the new niche generates new types of fraud. Thieves, extortionists and even murderers run rampant in the meta-universes. To kill a person, it's enough to break control with his avatar. Then the poor guy can neither "play" nor escape to the real world. Roughly speaking, the person falls into a coma.

Of course, the new crime generates new methods of fighting. Game detectives make sure that there are no cheaters in the meta-universes. So-called Game Detectives clean up abusive opportunities in virtual worlds: making sure teenagers don't hang out in adult worlds, calculating robberies, and preventing Internet trolls who try to kill an innocent user for fun.

Unlike ordinary players, game detectives have more rights: the guardians of the law have a pass where they will not let an ordinary civilian, detectives have access to the source code of the meta universe and can even use weapons.

Detectives are feared, respected, but not loved, so to meet one in your favorite game is a bad sign. And that's the kind of detective we play as.

A rare genre with an interesting background

Gamedec belongs to the rare nowadays RPG genre without a combat system. That is, the entire game is tied solely to the dialogue: the player does not pump the levels of the character, and the suspended language.

After creating a character with some simple customization, we are thrown into the headquarters, from which we will go to the game worlds. Behind the window in Gamedec there is a surprisingly futuristic city of Warsaw City, and here the player has to visit the quests in a more recognizable surrounding: here you have a world of "clicker" "fun farm" with loot boxes, and a world reminiscent of Red Dead Redemption 2, and the guild in an MMORPG old tricks, when Lineage II lived its golden years.

Every game world has its own dark underbelly, which we have to find out. Gamedec is not shy to bitch about the gaming industry, mock negligent treatment of game design by developers, greed to make more money from donations. But that's not the point...

The main emphasis is on the wagering role and a varied passing. The word "RPG" in the genre is listed for a reason. Progress depends on how our protagonist behaves: being rude, extracting information and emotionally terrorizing suspects in every possible way, you get points for rudeness, dissolving hands and destroying suspects morally; sympathizing, supporting and entering the situation, you become an experienced psychologist and a trained empath; twisting and manipulating, easily outwitting less insightful commoners and achieving the desired results contrary to morality.

And all this without any shooting or fighting...

Then our detective gathers all the found clues together in the "Chambers of the Mind", as it was in the Sherlock Holmes series of games, and closes the case.

Interesting "on paper" but with rough edges in the end

With unprecedented potential in concept, Gamedec manages to convey this concept trivially. How varied game worlds our game detective could get into is beyond description. Instead, the player will have to settle for a few video game archetypes spelled out in clichéd molds.

We could have been immersed in a space opera world, in an alternative nineteenth century dieselpunk setting, but instead we only see how the game industry is represented by people far removed from it. Since Gamedec is an indie project with a small budget, the game was supposed to bribe the player first of all with its originality, but there isn't much originality in the game. Even the ability to identify cheaters in the meta universes could have been turned into a separate story filer, but instead we get a number of standard abilities: get some money, open a locked door or disconnect the player from the online. Demanding that the developers of Gamedec reveal all the charms of the setting is reckless; the game is good for its budget. But why the game has so few creative approaches to implementing ideas is an open question.

Closer to the middle of the game you will probably notice some balance flaws. All dialogues are implemented in the form of a ring with a choice of lines. Often there are four lines, as many in the game as there are character progression branches. Each branch is responsible for certain human qualities: ambition, persuasion, stubbornness, friendliness, etc.

Sometimes in the dialogues you have to choose not the answer that you would use if you were a detective, but the conditions of the skill tree dictate their terms. For not liking the answer you get more points.

But what Gamedec deserves praise for is the fact that you can't figure out all of the outcome options on the first playthrough on any of the quests. You gather the clues, make your own conclusions, and rely solely on your own deduction. This approach would have raised the replayability many times over, if not for...

...Bugs and flaws. Yes, they can be found in Gamedec. Sometimes because of the bugs you have to replay quite a long moment in the game. There aren't many bugs, but they do spoil the experience. At the release, players also noted problems with the localization.

Was the game a success?

Despite its flaws, Gamedec is one of the most beautiful isometric top-down games and one of the most interesting mock-ups on the subject. It's low-budget in places, sparkling humor in places, and sometimes you don't want to go through certain episodes. Mixed impression - this is not the reason why the game is worth a squint; however, for those who do not like to read a lot, it is not worth recommending Gamedec. There is a lot of text, the lion's share of the narrative and gameplay is tied to it, so you can't just sit back on the couch with a gamepad in your hands and mindlessly press the buttons here.