Kona

Finally a game where my flashlight doesn't eat its batteries in 2 minutes!!
11/10!!
But seriously: A very nice detective game with paranormal elements.

A great detective story game with an even better atmosphere.

I can't recommend this game. The performance of it is so bad that it ruins the enjoyment for me.
The lag is terrible, and then the random loading screens between zones of the outside map really kill off immersion.
It does have an interesting storyline, but it's very dependant on what is essentially fetch quests without the quest giver. You're just finding most the time, random things, that you shouldn't really need to move the story along.
I feel like the game could have been a lot better than what it was. It feels too janky and too empty.

Overall I'd say it's a 7/10 game but my own experience was a 4/10 for these reasons.

I love Survival Games. Especially the winter kind, I have 2k+ hours in The Long Dark.
I love mystery.
I love walking sims.
This game shouldn't be able to miss me, right?

And yet, it did, by a lot.

The Survival aspect is so dialed down, that I'm not even sure, I'd give it that tag. I'm fine with less or different. But I've seen Skyrim mods, that did it better.
Oh hey, you're stressed and therefor can't run? Smoke a cigarette, drink a beer, it will calm you down and let you run longer. Oh, that's bad for you health? No worries, chug down some pain killers. And that's all of it!

The Mystery and Walking Sim aspects, too, were a miss. The way they built the mystery was simply not very engaging and honestly uncomfortably convoluted. Look up Everybody's gone to the Rapture, to see how it's done properly.

The narration was so artificial, so forced, it wanted to sound nonchalantly, like The Stanley Parabel, but it came out sounding like clunky tiktok AI.

And still, the whole time I played it, I somewhat still planned on giving a recommend. It's not for me, that's okay. I probably need to split my narration from my survival. Its not the devs fault, their approach is not for me.

Until I saw the Wendigo. The big reveal was teased, well spoiled even, very early. It was bad exposition. I hoped for more to the story, a big Oh shit! or Aha! moment, but there simply wasn't. (Go to Murdered: Sould Suspect for that). So what was left was subpar survival, in the dark, that suddenly became even more linear than it was before. All the little side quests they had on the main map just vanished. Like they ran out of ideas and/ or money.

When I still hadn't uncovered quite a chunk of the map, I turned left and suddenly [spoiler ]there was the Wendigo [/spoiler]. And it was just bad. It lagged so much in any kind of creative, interesting, not to mention respectful approach - it was just a joke, a cheap [spolier ]white walker with antlers[/spoiler], supposed to invoke something, I guess, but it was just embarrassing to watch.

An article I read ages ago flooded back into my memory. It's called The Wendigo is not yours for the Taking , you can still find it in the way back machine. You should read it. As should have had the devs.

Overall a cool game (literally) that was fun to play.

I liked the easy survival mechanics. Smoking a cigarette to calm your mind and run longer. Haha, yes! Walking around the woods, finding cabins, camps and stuff you need to survive (like beer of course). All this while revealing a murder mystery was quite fun.

But also with quite a few drawbacks. I didn't like the old voice of the narrator and the way he spoke. For example, when you find documents, the narrator immediately starts going further with the story, but I had no time to read it first - unfortunately many games of this type do that. Most of the time I would prefer to just have no narration and that the story reveals with found items and clues.
There were also quite a few bugs - especially concerning the journal. If you don't follow a certain order, entries are often no longer made, even if you find the corresponding clues. Very irritating, as you keep on searching.
Then there was that abrupt ending. It was somehow unsatisfying. Imo it would have been much better if you had freed the beast, it thanked you and disappeared, it became day again and you had the option to continue exploring the area to find everything that was still there.
I would have loved much more of the exploration aspect, which was the best part of the game. If you're into exploration and story driven games like "The Vanishing of Ethan Carter", this might also be for you.

Spent about 20 hours on it and got bored eventually. Didn’t even finish. Game mechanics are clunky as hell. Just flipping through the endless pile of "found documents" will drive you nuts. Surviving the game? Easy peasy. At least, I didn’t find it challenging. Guess you’re supposed to crawl through every inch of the game world, scavenging for useless, yawn-inducing hints about Quebec/Canadian/Indigenous lore that unlock more of the same garbage.
It’s steeped in identity politics with a splash of French (Quebec, naturally) nationalism. Sponsored by the Canada Media Fund—pro tip for the future: steer clear of anything these clowns touch—so, of course, it’s laced with peak Canadian wokeness. One gem you’ll stumble across? The freaking Communist Manifesto. Give me a break. Then there’s the flip side: another sermon about noble natives and evil white folks. But wait—turns out not all whites are equally villainous. English whites? Pure evil, the root of all badness. French whites? Eh, not so bad, apparently.
Anyway, total waste of money. Not that I’m raging—snagged it for just CAD 4.49 + tax.

That Was Awesome Detective Game In Canadian Cold Wilderness It's Little Hard At Some Places But If You Think You Get Past Obstacles And The Freedom To Move I Enjoyed The Most

Good game. Interesting enough story and storytelling, not much handholding. Some gameplay mechanics are annoying, but the game is short enough so it doesn´t really matter. Good game to recommend for a few bucks i got it on sale.

A "walking sim" with an absolutely terrible narrator and ugly graphics. Did not finish beyond first hour.

I've tried playing this game many times and just can't stand it. I usually love walking sims and defend a lot of them that gets criticism, but this... this is really bad.

I was scared the whole time 10/10

For being political

Amazing game. The gameplay can be a bit chonky at times but the story and atmosphere are creepy yet enchanting.

took a little while to get into it, but once i did it was wonderful

I haven't played anything for years, but I grew up with adventure games like Gabriel Knight and the Police Quest and the Tex Murphy series. I can no longer remember how I found out about Kona, but I'm glad I did, as it reminds me of those games. I like the driving, as rudimentary as it is, and the atmosphere of the game. I'm really looking forward to playing the sequel once the Mac version is released

Regarding the game, there is a fair bit of going to places to pick up seemingly random things that sometimes leads to inadvertent puzzle-solving. There was also a puzzle that I couldn't figure out and had to use a walkthrough to solve. I wonder if I missed a step somewhere because I still don't know where the answer could be found. And the final scene was irritatingly difficult and took me a dozen tries, which also reminded me of games of yore. Here I also had to rely on the walkthrough to confirm that violence is not the solution!

I just started playing this game a few days ago. So far I am really enjoying it. Driving the truck or snowmobile is a little annoying as I such as driving games. The mystery and problem solving is great. The narrator's voice reminds me of a TV show i watched a while ago, I want to say Unsolved Mysteries?

Really good mystery horror. Short and impactful with fantastic atmosphere. Pretty good payoff but the horror aspect is a little shallow so don't go in expecting a full on horror.

This game is a surprisingly cozy game. I expected more horror and dark elements. It's mainly just an exploration game with a few stories to explore about the various characters. I didn't play the story in the right order, which made it a bit confusing. If you really enjoy following the mystery of a game like this, definitely follow a non-spoiler guide that will keep you pointing in the right direction.

I'm sure others have said in their reviews, but the controls can be a bit clunky. Driving is pure misery. But once you get a coat you can walk pretty much anywhere. The ending was abrupt and frustrating and I did look up a guide to tell me where I was supposed to go and how, but that was a tiny part of the whole experience of the game.

Despite some little complaints, the game is fun and chill. Very atmospheric, great music, lots of mysteries to explore. Definitely recommend.

What A good Gamess

its fun

I'm really liking Kona so far! The narrator is hilarious at times and I just love the funny comments that you come across while playing. The funny notes about items you inspect is also great. I loved the story of The Long Dark so Kona caught my eye when I saw someone online playing it. I love the mysterious story and being able to search houses and figure things out. If you like searching and a good story, this game may be for you.

It's good for what it is

Achievements are not working :-( finished game in 3 hours and nothing.

This game is worth playing if you love rural detective tales with a constant narrator. Despite a few weak elements, including the ending, the overall experience was deeply immersive. The vibe is perfect for the winter.

I'll start with the strong elements:

The detective fiction and visual storytelling aspects are excellent. It holds your hand a lot more than e.g. Painscreek, including such features as a journal which automatically updates with important details and conclusions and a narrator which often gives you a good idea of what you need to be doing and if you have fully revealed the clues in a crucial area. You spend a lot of time out in the snowy wilderness, so the game throws you a bone by giving you the occasional animal prints to follow which usually lead you to a nearby point of interest such a campfire or trash pile. Despite all this, it feels like it gives you some space to solve the clues at hand from letters, object placement, etc.

I'm reading some complaints about the narrator, but I found him enjoyable, like Carl (the protagonist) is trying to keep himself in high spirits while isolated in a blizzard. When you take the hard boiled detective outside of the gritty cityscape, maybe he lightens up a bit, gets into the spirit of the place, like Dale Cooper.

The rural Canadian wilderness is gorgeous, sparse, and lonely. Your narrator is your only regular companion. Has that Painscreek/Dark Souls/Bioshock feel of a town that has just recently undergone a minor apocalypse, or perhaps rapture. While I'm on the topic of comparing the vibe to other games, you may get a whiff of Remedy's Alan Wake (not quite Twin Peaks, maybe from lack of characters) and Control (okay this is specifically because of the location cards and their sound effect).

There are some aggressive wolves from time to time, and the game offers you a nonviolent solution in the form of steaks if you feel bad about shooting innocent wild beasts who don't know any better. Considering how many times I've followed their tracks to find my way, it feels like there's a kind of kinship which makes shooting them feel unnecessarily cruel. I mean, what do you expect to be at the end of a set of wolf tracks? Not their fault you followed!


Now for the weaker elements:

The music is pretty good, and the only reason it's here in the "weaker" section is because there is simply not enough of it. There's like three tracks that repeat, either on the radio or as part of the background music. Would have been nice if different radios were tuned to different stations to give you a bigger variety. Fortunately, most of the time is spent listening to the soothing sounds of wind and snowfall.

A minor quibble I had was that there is a set of objects in the game which, when approached, cause a high pitched noise and visual distortion to appear. Given the psyche meter and my experience with other horror games with a Sanity function (Amnesia: Dark Descent, Eternal Darkness, etc), I had assumed this was an indicator to stay away and avoid looking directly at it. In fact, the game wants you to do the exact opposite: Go straight up to the thing and look as closely as you can!

Despite the frequent references to caribou, including what is apparently a kind of French Canadian alcohol mixture, you never actually see a single caribou, or really any other animal except wolves. You hear plenty of creatures in the trees and bushes, but nothing ever appears. Somewhat understandable given you're out in a blizzard, but I would think at least a caribou or two would not go amiss, considering there are wolves about and they probably eat something besides the contents of the village's trash cans.

The "survival horror" aspect of the game feels like a system put in place for gameplay that never occurs. I don't know if there was a greater variety of NPC types planned, but ultimately you end up with far more materials than are ever necessary. If you load up your truck with logs and are pretty diligent with exploration, you will likely end up with far more matches, firestarters, and other materials than you could ever hope to use by the conclusion of the game. Between ammo and steaks, you are unlikely to find a need to resort to any of the melee options. Go ahead and stow that heavy axe away. You probably won't need most of those first aid kits either. Cigarettes are mildly useful to a point, but your psyche meter drains at roughly the same rate as your heat and recovers as you get warm, though only up to like 60-70%. Keeping it topped off beyond that is usually unnecessary as it will almost immediately drain again once you step outside and only seems to affect how long you can sprint, which isn't very long even at max. It affects your aim slightly, but nothing is fast enough for this to matter and you can comfortably use your ironsights with time to spare. Heat is the only thing you actually need to manage, but there are ample heat sources in every house and cabin, with campfires dotting the wilderness for your convenience.

Now the actual negatives:

The weakest element by far in this game is the appearance of the supernatural. This begins to appear quite early, immediately outside the General Store where you begin the game proper (after what can be thought of as the tutorial and intro).

**What follows may be considered //Spoilers//, though I will avoid any particular revelations about the case and the ending as best as I can.**

Initially, the supernatural elements appear as a kind of secondary case, and if this had continued this way, it would been a fine addition to flesh out the lore of the region. Unfortunately, this supernatural element quickly overtakes the central mystery case as the dominant plot. Your character has a variety of "visions" which can reveal anything from a clue to entire events in the recent past, which feel a bit like they are undercutting the game's own detective element. Rather than solve the clues and find the solution, you watch the vision reveal secrets. Sometimes you will end up in impossible places and even the normally loquacious narrator doesn't bother to comment on this fact. It's unclear if your character has a particular "power" or if this is a more or less universal experience from encountering this mystical thing, as only one note mentions having had similar visions. Ambiguity isn't an issue, especially when it comes to mystic visions, but the problem I have is that these visions are, themselves, a "solution" to certain "puzzles". By the last leg of the game, the murder mystery is resolved as almost a second thought through - you guessed it! - a vision, making your ultimate destination on the map quite moot.

This is seemingly where a lot of people's complaints are coming from in the negative reviews, so I will end with why I still think it's worth playing despite this.

The game's ending is a fairly quick linear sequence with almost no way to get lost off the beaten track and zero puzzles whatsoever to solve. It feels simultaneously like an afterthought and as a way to get an exciting "epic" ending out of an otherwise slow-paced game, like it's a reward for making it to the end. By the time you get to this point, though, you have probably experienced the vast majority of the game and, hopefully, enjoyed that time up to this point like I did. In my opinion, too much emphasis is placed on "endings" as making or breaking the enjoyment of a game, show, etc, but I argue that some of the greatest works had either weak endings or none at all. Consider Firefly, Lodge 49, Rome, or any other show that was cut down before its time. Consider anime like Kemonozume which are essentially perfect right up until the director seemingly does not quite know how to end it. I urge you to not let this small element of disappointment negatively color the greater enjoyment you just had.

actually a good game but they almost ruined the game with some basic things. inventory managament is not practical and too much delay between items. useless vehicles. when i press the shift character won't sprint . i have to press like 4-5 times sometimes 2 and i tried with full health, warm and sanity but still same. that was very annoying. i almost forgot. that narrator was testing my patience. he s keep talking even when you find a document! i'm trying to read the document but narrator keep intervening. but overall i liked so my review is positive.

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A walking simulator that goes nowhere.

Kona is an often recommended title for fans who played Firewatch and The Painscreek Killings. Unlike those titles, however, I could not tolerate more than 4 hours of Kona.

It starts off fine enough. You're a private investigator meeting a client, when your client is found dead. You're then left wondering who in town is the murderer as you methodically visit each residence while everyone's mysteriously vanished. This is reminiscent of Painkscreek Killings, where you'll have a foreboding feeling you're being watched as you traverse hours on-foot and on rare occasions by car.

So what does it get wrong? First, the lonely isolation is ruined by an annoying narrator who sounds like they're from the Stanley Parable. This narrator often cracks jokes, making light of situations. Even during a jump scare moment when the lights go out, the narrator feels a need to comment. In games like this, things are better left unsaid. Sometimes not even the game knows whether it wants to use the narrator; inspected objects may instead overlay text on in-game geometry, leaving the player confused whether the narrator broke or whether they need to look around for floating text.

Another issue plaguing users is a visual performance bug impacting frame-rates when the player strafes left and right. I'm reviewing this on a good desktop rig with a RTX 4090, Intel i7-10700k OC'ed @ 4ghz, and 64GB RAM yet despite the fps at 350+ the fps hitches when strafing. Using V-Sync and other graphic options didn't fix this. Multiple users on Steam have reported the issue, yet the issue remains unfixed. This is absurd for a game primarily about navigation.

Speaking of navigation, your character can't sprint long distances. Okay, fine, but there's also no stamina meter. I'm beginning to think this game hates me.

Good news though! There's a survival system in this game! Bad news, it's just a marketing ploy. The survival elements hardly matter. Just light a fire when you need to get warm, smoke a cigarette for your sanity, take a medkit when hurt, done. Basically, when outdoors, treat the game like a mini speed-run and you'll do fine. Just don't light every fire you come across, or you can't complete the game due to a lack of fire matches!

Too bad the inventory management is also convoluted and messy. It over-utilizes a radial wheel menu for everything, made awkward by the game having a weight limit to inventory, and simply annoying when navigating tons of documents.

An absolute mess of a game. Kona doesn't treat the player's time with respect, the narrator is unnecessary, the interface is confusing, and the survival mechanics are hollow. At least it has me excited to play Kona II because now I need to know if the developers learned from their mistakes.

Final score: 3 out of 10

Kona is a great game to play during the summer heat—it’ll make you feel nice and cold.
The blizzard effects are quite realistic, though they can be a bit frustrating at times, as they significantly reduce visibility.
While the atmosphere is immersive, the music could use a bit more variety. It feels like you're always hearing the same tune, no matter whether it's from a record or the radio

Detective Carl Faubert spends most of his days investigating unfaithful husbands and minor disturbances, so when a rich industrialist asks him to uncover the source of vandalism at his mines, he agrees readily. However, an unexpected crash results in him awakening to find the Northern Canadian forest covered in a sudden and drastic frost storm. Upon finding his client dead in the empty town, Carl must fight against the harsh blizzard and the dangers hidden within it as he seeks to uncover the truth behind the dark history of Lake Atamipek.

KONA is a detective survival game, where you investigate a deserted Canadian village where modern civilization and historical folk life meet in a tentative and hesitant clash of ideas. Travel through a land with a history far older than the village upon its land. The village manages to feel appropriately sized, not too close that the wilderness feels non-existent but not tediously distant. Each location also feels realistic, with houses feeling lived-in. Just exceptional atmosphere.

One of my favorite things was the multiple realistic instances of key items. If you need a hammer to proceed, you don't need to find the single hammer in the entire village, but simply need to find a garage or a workshop.

There are a few gripes
- The investigating. There is little deduction for you to actively do. Your journal is filled as you progress and collect documents. Some of the entries are a little too terse and disconnected from the previous entries, and despite being given a camera, it feels underused in the journal.
- The radio station. While each major location has its own distinct atmospheric music (awesome), the radios scattered in the houses and your truck seem to play five or six 30 second bits.
- The documents tab. Your document inventory is on a dial, and sorted by the order you pick up them, resulting in ending the game with ~45 documents squished onto a single wheel in a messy order.
- The world advancement. After a certain point, the world changes. After the final vision is discovered, the world shifts to night unexpectedly and permanently, making backtracking through the village a little annoying .

Overall, easily a 9/10 walking simulator, 7/10 for a detective game. Great story and atmosphere, wish there was more game interactivity.

A great mix of survival / walking sim / and point-and-click adventure elements. Kona has a very strong sense of place, immersing you in the time and setting of a remote 1970's Canadian town. It also has some of the best depictions of cold weather that I've seen from any game. Your desire to stay out of the elements and next to a warm fire comes through the screen really well. Using your truck as an item inventory stash is also a great idea which makes things feel a bit less "gamey". The puzzles and mysteries are well thought out and stay well away from moon-logic solutions. The whole experience takes less than 10 hours, even at a leisurely pace, and is very enjoyable to wonder around in, discovering the town and its story. The end comes rather suddenly, but it plugs directly into the sequel, so you can keep playing if you enjoyed yourself. Kona is worth the very reasonable full price, and doubly-so when it is on sale.

For Steam Deck users: Make sure to manually lock the game on a single Proton version, as it does not support Cloud Saves and may lose your progress during automatic Proton updates.

I bought Kona on sale at a deep discount so hate to leave a thumbs down review. I wish Steam offered an "ambivalent" option for cases where players have no strong feelings either way.
I liked the setting, graphics, and general quality of this game. The "feel" of trekking in Canada in the winter was achieved well.
Unfortunately, almost every minute of gameplay for me was spent in frustration of handling tedious actions that should have never even been a significant part of gameplay.
This game was a missed opportunity.
I wish the developers had spent a little time getting some feedback on their UI choices and gameplay mechanics, as well as the main script.
Complaints:
The inventory interface is not good. Using a wheel of choices doesn't work when you get beyond 8 or so items. There's no good description for what the item even is, other than a tiny icon, and item selection is extremely difficult when using a controller.
Driving a vehicle shouldn't be so hard. The acceleration is either 100% or 0. You spend most of your time traveling between locations in an annoying jilted manner, constantly hitting the breaks and running off road and into trees. Honestly, this game would be better implemented without vehicles at all.
Searching through houses is too tedious. You spend half of your search time opening and closing drawers that 90% of the time are completely empty. Cabinets and drawers should be eliminated from this game as well.
The few "gopher quests" in this game are very disappointing. You build up an inventory of numerous items only to find out you don't ever use most of them. And when you need to combine items for a specific "puzzle" it's inscrutable what items you need, and inexplicable as to why you can't use better suited items in their place. You will have to do an internet search for a cheat/walkthrough to figure out how & where to find the few keys items required. I don't enjoy games that are so inscrutable you feel the need to turn to online help in order to progress. This is unfortunately extremely true for the final boss battle.
I also wasn't a fan of the 3rd person narration throughout the game. It was tolerable, and something different from the norm, so it wasn't horrible; but the concept could've been improved upon in any number of ways.
Lastly, the main storyline was fine for a weak videogame, but the end resolution was extremely disappointing given the buildup to it. There is no "detective" aspect to this game, you're simply led linearly down a storytelling. You have no chance to guess what the mystery is. Only at the end is it all displayed for you in one big cutscene. You have no control over the outcome, and no ability to deduce anything during play. This game is more of a tedious, passive walkthrough of a weak "campfire ghost story".

I will not be playing Kona 2 given its description. It's too bad; the game engine and presentation showed promise, but simply failed to deliver any fun. Completing this game was a frustrating exercise in tedium for me.

I enjoyed playing Firewatch, and The Fidelio Incident, but was mistaken in thinking Kona would be similar in any meaningful way.

eh its kinda mid fr... wouldn't play again and had some fun and intriguing moments but nothing that stands out.

For a solid 12 hours I loved this game and thought for sure I'd be posting a positive review and recommending it to any fans of atmospheric, slow burn detective games. Then the ending happened. By far the most rushed, poorly thought out and disappointing ending to a game I've played. Everything leading up to it was stellar - but on a dime the game completely changes into a very poorly handling first person shooter and does away with all the evidence and clue building you've been enjoying for 10 or so hours and shoehorns an ending in your face that you feel no agency for whatsoever. I've never seen a game destroy everything it had been building to so abruptly and I can honestly only imagine that the ending was rushed so the game could leave Early Access. I can't believe I'm saying this but this game doesn't deserve your money. What a waste.

It is more of a thriller game rather than horror. It is solid tho, nice storyline and good ambience.
Liked it overall. 9/10.

It was a fascinating story, one that seriously freaked me out in the end.

it's alright

I bought the game because I liked the atmosphere of a snowy little village with a mystery to solve and I have got what I paid for. Story is engaging and gameplay has few bumps but overall I had a good time.

Kôna – in Cree language it means snow. Fitting name for the game taking place in Northern Quebec, in the midst of abnormal snowstorm.

You play as a detective hired to solve a case of vandalism - unfortunately, when you finally arrive at your destination, you discover that instead you have to unravel the mystery of a multiple murder, not to mention that something is lurking in the blizzard.

✅

• The plot is surprisingly good, with several unexpected twists that change the perception of the investigation and the current situation.
  
  
• Believable, well-designed locations (village + surrounding areas).
  
  
• Collectibles, diaries, notes, tell their own stories about the villagers and the relations between them.
  
  
• Light survival mechanics - body warmth management and FOV limitation due to weather.
  
  
• You don't have to kill the wild animals you encounter. There are 3 mechanisms you can use to deter them from attacking you.
  
  
• Secrets.
  
  
• Soundtrack. Quebecois rock by CuréLabel.
  
  
• Achievements are tied to the game and encourage completion with an additional restriction.
  

😐
Inventory size – we should be able to upgrade it.

❌

• Game looks dated nowadays.
  
  
• The model of the main antagonist is ugly - this follows from the previous point, but it certainly won't evoke in you the emotions it was supposed to evoke.
  
  
• First Nations members appear, play their limited role and disappear. Pity that it was not deepened somehow.
  
  
[*] Ending feels forced and rushed.

Chill detective investigation game with some exploration.

Enjoyed the atmosphere
...and driving that dirty old truck and snowmobile around.

Incredible atmosphere , immersive and good gameplay mixing survival mechanics along with detective stuff.

Then why did i give this game a bad review? REALLY bad sense of direction.

The game starts off incredibly well you're a PI on your way to meet your client but you get into a car crash on the way and wake up to the whole place filled with snow. From now on you follow clues leading you to one place to another solving multiple cases. That is until you get to a certain point. The leads just end there and you're left wondering where to go and what to do. At that point i just pulled up a guide/started visiting random places on the map completely just breaking my immersion.

Maybe the game supposed to be played this way instead of following leads from one place to another and instead you just visit random places and find clues but it just didn't sit right to me or maybe i missed something although the narrator did confirm that there was no clue left to find. Even with the guide up i just kept saying "why would i go there? There is nothing leading me towards that place" etc. etc.

What could be an amazing experience ruined by lack of pointing in the right direction.

I'm not sure how to review this without spoilers. I wanted to like this game so much more than I did, but wow. There are three Cree characters referenced in the game and they are the only characters without names. The mystery very quickly becomes about a wendigo that has exactly zero correlation to actual Cree mythology. We get that this is offensive, right? Not having a single one of the Cree characters actually named is such a sign that you shouldn't be using a frequently mangled (and mangled again here) Cree monster as the cornerstone of your story, and yet.

Wendigo aside, the core mystery being genuinely a hunting accident is at best an odd choice. The game seems to be trying to avoid conversation with Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women as a crisis and a movement, and when the entire game hinges on the covered-up murder of a Cree woman, that's a pretty indefensible choice.

The controls are janky as well, but the gameplay isn't really the issue here.

I realize this is weird coming from me, but this game as a whole would have been much stronger if the supernatural element was entirely removed. I really hope that the team has learned from the mistakes this game made and made some more intentional choices in their next game, but I'm not optimistic.

Decent mystery game in the tradition of the Wind River movie!

trust me, I'm a canadian, this sort of stuff just happens some times, but usually I don't hire a detective, I run and hide. which doesn't always work out the best

The Kona games are honestly the best story games I've ever played. The attention to detail in the story-line between both games is perfect, and they flow into each other very well. Can't wait to see what Parabole does next.

A very good little game. It is short, but packed with a really interesting story and ways to go about exploring and investigating it. I would not really describe it as a survival game, nor would I describe it as open world. There is a very small, but very filled, area in which you can explore. I also don't know if I would call it a detective game. I mean, I suppose it is technically all of these things, but in a very, very light way.

It is basically a walking sim, where you need to make sure you stay warm, and if you go off the beaten path, you need to make sure you have some sort of item to kill or ward off wolves. There was no real trail to follow, clues found did not give you any kind of concrete: well, you need to go over there now. I basically just explored all the houses, all the cabins, tried to find as much stuff as I could, before I walked into the end game. You can tell when you are about to enter it.

I had seen other reviews that had longer hours put into them than my play time, so I just assumed that you would be able to go to part of the city in the end. No. It is just the relatively small starting area. I was shocked when I stopped playing and barely had 6 hours in the game. Sure, you can replay it if you want to find every single crossbow bolt, or every talisman, etc. etc. But in the end this really has no impact on the ending.

As someone from Northern Canada, the look and feel of this game was quite on point. As someone currently going through a brutal winter right now, this game made me feel quite at home. I don't speak French personally, but it all seemed quite authentic and well done. I love playing games set in Canada, I don't often get the chance. The atmosphere and music of this game were really on point. The sound effects (other than the noises the wolves make as they are from a stock sound library, or just ripped from the Rat-Hounds from Underrail, I don't exactly know) were pretty good, and it all helped to really immerse you into the setting.

In the end, despite the fact that this is a really good game, it is still very short. Again, if you aren't treasure hunting, or even looking to find all the clues as to what happened, you will not get a lot of time out of this game. I got it during a sale, I suggest you do to; that is the only way I would recommend this.

Finished it in one sitting.
The game and atmosphere are incredibly engaging.
If you liked Outer Wilds, you'll definitely enjoy this. It has some shortcomings, but overall, it deserves your time.

The "snowmobile parts" mission is so poorly designed. you walk around like a moron looking for a gascan and keys for the snowmobile for hours.... nothing is intuitive or makes sense.
Why is not the gascans in the garagearea with the pump? why is the keys not in the house? its so dumb.
This is making me go crazy like the poorly designed games in the 90s where nothing made sense so you just had to explore for days intill you could find this one thing :P

But other than that 2/5 game poorly optimized game with a calming narrator voice.

P.S i really tried giving this game a fair chance... why is it so hard to make stuff logical or intuitive when you are walking around in a state of flow... but instead you get interupted by poorly made missions that just stops you on your track.

Not totally sure on the ending, might need to revisit, but the game itself is great.

Cool game!

Best game to exist.

A decent walking-sim, exploration-adventure with some nice assets that bring an authentic Quebec experience, such as French language voice acting and cultural references. But not for the $15 price tag. The gameplay and storyline should have been tighter for that price. Most of the locations have few meaningful gameplay objects or story elements. I never felt that I had obtained a clue that prompted me to go somewhere specific. I just wandered around, exploring a mostly empty game map, which - like I said - was a decent experience.
The user-defined tags used on the steam store are misleading. The lack of story signposting does not make this an "open world" nor a "detective" game. Just using campfires as savepoints does not make it "survival". Not sure how much the developers get involved with setting those tags, but the screenshots and videos also imply these gameplay elements are present. I looked at the Kickstarter page which sure says "survival-adventure game". Sorry but that sort of game store deception rubs me the wrong way.