Yesterday

Un juego raro, peculiar incluso para Pendulo Studio. Su estructura narrativa no es lineal, es decir, va del presente al pasado y del pasado al presente, todo ello para poner en contexto al jugador sobre el personaje principal, Yesterday.

Es una aventura gráfica point and click, con aspecto moderno, pero anclada a la jugabilidad clásica. No necesariamente malo, eso depende de lo que quieras encontrar en este juego. Su historia, aunque intrigante y misteriosa, es corta y no dura mucho más de 6 horas.

Si buscas una aventura gráfica como las de antaño, este es tu juego. Sin ser extenso, que va directo al grano y se reserva algún que otro punto de giro en la trama. El personaje de Henry, entre todos, es el más interesante del elenco, que tampoco destaca por su cantidad y buen tratamiento.

En conclusión, un buen juego que cumple con lo que pretende su género: contar una buena historia.

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Review by The Adventure Library - all about point and click adventures
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Strange supernatural story about a sadistic multi-millionaire and his immortal victim. Quite short, but with a few decent puzzles, a funny martial arts teacher in a Himalayan monastery, good visuals and a hint for a sequel at the end. Guess I should play Yesterday Origins now.

Conclusion:
The only nude scene is censored in the Steam version.

So cheesyyyy... but it's ok :)

Yesterday is a fascinating experience. It feels like I’ve engaged with a remarkable creation that few truly appreciate. While it has its share of awkward moments and rough edges, the quality surpasses expectations. Staying true to the game’s essence, I must say that yesterday was enjoyable, though it flew by too fast!

Yesterday is a point-and-click adventure that boasts impressive presentation, graphics, and animations for its category. The narrative is engaging, featuring well-developed characters. However, the gameplay can be somewhat clunky, even by genre standards. Aside from cutscenes and dialogue, the focus is primarily on locating items, combining them, and using them correctly, often with solutions that can be a bit obscure. Additionally, there aren’t any significant puzzles to tackle.

The game is relatively short but offers multiple endings, including one that is hidden. It seems that some content was censored, and certain major language translations are missing. Despite my slight disappointment, it’s not a bad game overall. I would recommend it only during a sale or as part of a bundle, especially for fans of the genre.

Yesterday is absurd. I feel like I just played someones masterpiece and barely anyone knows what these people achieved. Don't get me wrong, it's still super janky and awkward at times, but this stuff is better than it has any right to be. First however, to keep in theme with the game...

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FLASHBACK

I only vaguely remember how I got to know Pendulo Studios: I was looking at cheap games online and had always had an interest in adventure games. The game Vertigo caught my attention, because of the link with the film, and I looked up the developer on Wikipedia: a Spanish studio called Pendulo Studios. Charmed by their story of humble beginnings and passion for the medium, I made it a goal to try and play all their games (especially since the earlier ones frequently went on sale for less than 1 euro). I started out with their breakout hit Runaway and was convinced I understood their style: janky, weird and absurd stories without any depth but with a lot of heart.

Next I started with the sequel to Runaway, but it felt very similar and I noticed how my energy started to wane. The goal of playing all games by this studio quickly moved to my pile of canceled personal projects.

But during my initial plan I had been a bit enthusiastic: I had also cheaply bought one of their later games... Yesterday. As I have recently been going through an extra intense adventure games phase, I decided to give it a go...
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This game has the same jank and weirdness as their previous games. The dialogs are often ridiculous and some scenes don't make sense... But this game also does so many incredibly smart and innovative things I can barely wrap my head around it:
- Super engaging non-linear storytelling
- Incredible use of comic book style imagery during gameplay segments
- Fixes so many annoyances of adventure games: hotspots, hints, quickly fading the character to the target location instead of having them walk all the way...
- An incredibly complex story that actually kind of makes sense and is well constructed
- Puzzles with realistic solutions. One time I didn't believe a solution would work in real life, looked it up online and was even proven wrong!
- Packed with memorable scenes and beautiful environments
- Extremely high pace with zero filler

Runaway I liked because of the weirdness and the jank.
Yesterday I admire despite the weirdness and the jank.

60/100

A decent experience for a thrifty price. This game is a simple point and click adventure with the unusual treat of good attempts at story and characterization. I think the story itself might have been best served as a graphic novel for its linearity and also because it feels a bit incomplete. With gameplay functioning on logic, any off-the-cuff elements that betray the atmosphere of a certain location or puzzle always lead me to think that something was lost in translation, or could have been done a little better.

On the technical side of things this game lacks polish. It is palpably low budget but decently crafted, with pleasantly drawn scenes and minimal 3d graphics. The music is quite good, but unfortunately does not loop properly. This leads to awkwardly quiet moments as there isn't much in the way of diagetic sound.
I was amused and never frustrated. But I was left feeling that a little extra development in the story, characters, and an extra few puzzle locations would make this game classic. You're welcome to try it.

Yesterday was a lot of fun, but it passed too quickly!

It has its moments but overall it's too short, random and the further it got less captivating it became.
Art and fast movement is great and made the game less painful to go through, but what it led to wasn't really worth it, at least when it comes to the base endings, as the secret one is fun especially the Torment part.
Most likely the worst Pendulo game

I got this on sale for about sixty cents (part of a bundle), and I think that's a fairly good deal if you like point-and-click adventure games. Still, this game is mediocre at best. The major flaw with this game is the story -- it's rather bizarre, the events doesn't flow naturally, and most of the characters are flat as a pancake. There's a lot of puzzles, but most of them involve finding and combing objects in a manner that isn't always intuitive. In the end, I found myself more bored than engaged. Still, the graphics are decent, and it's a nice way to kill an afternoon (it should take about 4-5 hours to finish). But you can do much better than this -- any title by Wadjet eye games is worth a look. 5/10.

Took me around 3,5hours to complete. Nice game if you love Point and Click Adventures.

Nachdem ich Runaway von Pendulo gespielt und ich Yesterday zufällig im Sale entdeckt hatte,
wollte ich das für 0,79€ einfach mal anspielen.
Gute Story - recht kurz (wie gesagt, ich war nach ca. 3,5h durch) - aber auch ein wenig herausfordernd :)
Die Grafik ist auch ok. Wenn man Point-and-Click Adventures mag - einfach mal testen - bei unter nem Euro kann man nichts verkehrt machen. Bitte beachten - Steam liefert euch keine Deutsche Sprachausgabe - aber dafür gibts von Fans - wie immer - einen German Patch.

To get German language - Sprachpatch für Deutsche Sprache:
https://www.compiware-forum.de/downloads/file/466-der-fall-john-yesterday-german-patch/#versions

Game is very old and you can tell. But it's definitely a more positive experience out of all old point & click games that I've played so far.

I enjoyed this story a lot and it was fun and quirky at times and the macabre story drew me in after the first twist in the story. It reads like an amnesia story and that's what's so wonderful about it. You get to find things out as you go along.

Puzzles aren't too complicated and you get an option for a hint if you get stuck. This game takes about four hours to complete so an evening of entertainment is there for the low price of under five bucks.

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Enjoyed this.

Pretty good. Dark and funny at the same time. The puzzles are not hard, and you cannot fail.

It's a correct game, it's very silly from time to time but overall the game is interesting. It could've been so much more but it's fine

A bit too short - played it through in 5 hours with all endings

The story did not really catch me and I found the different timelines a bit boring to play. To me the game feels like just rushing through - probably that's why I cannot really recommend this game.