Kona

A walking simulator that goes nowhere.

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.
  

• 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.

It's an ok games. Nothing to write home about. It would have been way better if it was longer, more challenging, and didn't have so much stuff to carry in the inventory. You find some cool stuff but quickly find out it's for nothing. I would say don't waist your time. But then again it doesn't take that long to go through this game.

this is a good walking simulator

Boring and bad optimization.

Kona is a solid detective game with a very small open world to explore. Kona's atmosphere is somewhere between playing Red Dead Redemption and watching Fargo. I didn't encounter any game breaking glitches or issues with Kona. I had a good time exploring and seeking out the side quests on a second playthrough. I would offer a recommendation that when doing side quests, do NOT wait until it gets dark. You'll have a lot simpler time doing it all during the day. Kona doesn't offer a ton of replay value outside of trying to 100% the game since it will likely take you two playthroughs to accomplish that (it can be done in one). Kona offers little in the way of combat. Your primary enemy is the cold with the occasional wolf pack causing you some trouble. Overall, Kona is a good experience and if you're a fan of detective, open world, and short stories then Kona is going to be for you. I'd give Kona a 4/5.

I bought this game because I liked the winter atmosphere. (Not knowing it's horror, lol) I thought that this game was just survival or simulator, but this is much better than I imagined. I love everything, from the character Carl to the narrator to the story to the map, everything. At some points, it's confusing, but I think that it isn't a big problem, as you can see from a playthrough. Even if the game is old, and I don't know how many people will see this review, I recommend this game with all my heart.

Super fun, challanging and all the good stuff :D

Controls are clunky (especially driving), long loading pauses (I have it installed on an SSD), and the survival mechanics are not fleshed out at all. Not worth 15 dollars that's for sure.

Great game, recommended

VIve le Québec libre

5.5/7 блин !

For a game that costs as much as the hit arcade game for the Xbox 360, Hydro Thunder Hurricane, this game is amazing!

It's easier to survive harsh winter than to open doors in this game but overall it was an ok experience. I would give it a solid 6/10

Kind of a mixed bag for me. When you start you're told to go to the General Store, and as a result you pass a lot of other buildings. The map doesn't name places or show where you've been so it was very hard to keep track. I think I wasted about 30% of my play time just backtracking up and down the map. Driving was a bit finicky and unfortunately it doesn't feel like *I* solved, but rather that I just gathered all the clues and therefore it is solved.

But, had great atmosphere, excellent survival mechanics that weren't overbearing, and might be a good buy for mystery fans.

I bought it on the whim just bcs it looked cool, and man it did not disappoint. the controls, VA and the way the atmosphere was set was perfect. it was definitely a walking sim but still entertaining. The story is cool, music is iconic. and sometimes it was genuinely spooky. to get all achievements it was a little hassle but not too hard.
-1 point because French people.

8.9 Caribous out of 10 Wolves

Kona is the kind of survival game I can enjoy. It has a lot of similar features as other survival games but it doesn't take them to a masochistic level. You have to manage inventory weight, cold, stress, and health but at no time was I pulling my hair out dealing with them. The story is very well done although I do think it could have done a bit better of explaining it near the end. Despite that I really liked the direction the story took. I think that the fact the game doesn't have a stated goal is good and bad. The game usually did a good job at letting you know what things need to be done without listing it on the screen or having a quest marker. I found the journal to be fairly useless at keeping track of things though. The map was great although it would have been nice if it listed which places you had visited. The graphics were decent but not spectacular. Nothing from object detail to clothes, faces, etc were mind blowing but they were not an eye sore either. I will give a shout to to the fact that your footprints in the snow stay a while. Many games don't go through the trouble to even have footprints in the snow. The sound effects were very well done. Everything from the sounds of feet crunching on snow to the sounds of doors, the truck, the snowmobile, etc were all great. The music was decent but repetitive. The game did employ invisible walls a couple times which is a cheap way to block your path. Other times they properly find good reason why you can't go somewhere so not sure why they didn't other times. I found it a tad weird that you can't view the map while driving the snowmobile while you can in the truck. I've never driven a snowmobile before so maybe this is realistic.

I played Kona on Linux. The game never crashed. I did notice a couple minor glitches such as weapons going through Carl's body and shrubs going through the floor of the truck. Nothing major though. The game has an FOV slider that goes from 65-90, an AA toggle, a v-sync toggle, two AO settings, and twelve other graphics options. Performance was great with the exception of the game having the odd micro stutter. The frame rate never dropped low but for a second or so the game would stutter. It didn't happen often enough to ruin my experience. I will also say that the game took way more horsepower than expected given the graphical detail. The game has a manual save system but the game doesn't load you back to where you saved, it loads you to the last location your non manual save occurred such as a cabin or fire. The manual save does save progress and inventory though. There is only one save slot but the game does allow you to have multiple different game files if more than one person wanted their own play through.

Game Engine: Unity
Graphics API: Vulkan
Disk Space Used: 2.9 GB
Input Used: Keyboard and mouse

Graphics Settings Used: 2560x1440, motion blur and depth of field off, everything else on highest or turned on, 90 FOV
GPU Usage: 35-86 %
VRAM Usage: 3459-4672 MB
CPU Usage: 17-41 %
System RAM Usage: 5.7-8.6 GB
Frame Rate: 134-165 FPS

Despite the little nitpicks I have with Kona it was a highly enjoyable experience that I recommend. It had good mechanics and a good story. I finished this play through in four hours and fifty five minutes. I paid $20 CAD for it when it originally came out so the current price of $16.94 CAD is more than fair for what you get.

My Score: 9/10

My System:

Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Gigabyte RX 7800 XT 16GB | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | Artix | Dasharo 1.1.1 | Mate 1.28.2 | Kernel 6.10.10-artix1-1 | Mesa 24.2.2-arch1.1 | MSI G2730QPF 2560*1440 @ 165Hz

a hidden gem. good story and (mostly) fun puzzles

If you're up for some exploration and mystery this game is for you.

I both really enjoyed and was disappointed with Kona. I agree with reviews saying it was a lot of build up for the end to be rushed and everything thrown at you at the end. I didn’t mind the slow pace throughout because I felt it matched the atmosphere. I would have continued slowly but once it was nighttime I felt like there was suddenly urgency. I wish I felt like I had done any of the figuring out rather than everything being told to me. The spooky vibes were 100/10, loved loved loved. I found it really difficult to drive because everything went white. A mixed bag overall. I would still recommend it if it’s on sale.

This is one of the coziest cuddley games except it definiely needs more people in it! Because it's such a cold snowy desolate game, you feel isolated throughout, so it would be nice to actually communicate with, meet or talk to other characters, even if via radio like with Fire Watch and Rachel Foster.

I love the open map which you can explore pretty much at will and how it makes it seem very non-linear.

My complaints are that I wish it were less whited out everywhere! This becomes tiresome quickly, especially while you are travelling. Sure we get it, we're in the great white north during snow and blizzards, but it makes the navigation unbearable at times. While driving the snow mobile we could really use the map! While hiking, we could really use at least a compass or mini-map.

Every once in a while, the game will freeze to have another part of the map load. I guess it's better than a load screen. There is no hint system whatsoever. With such a big open world and large scale map, it would be nice to have at least some direction. But I really did enjoy the mystery and overall game and world that it's set in. Oh and please make a warp feature! This is one of the best and coziest games I've played. It makes me want to cuddly up with a nice warm blankie, cup of coffee and bowl of soup!!!!