Californium

Weird.

This is a "yes" with a LOT of asterisks next to it... It would be 100% recommend if it were given an update and some love after launch.

To start with the good:
- I enjoyed exploring the game, and unravelling the story.
- Cool take on a hidden object/walking sim game
- Quite satisfying to solve the puzzles
- Philip K Dick references all over the shop! :)
- Such a brilliant unique art style and premise! I really did sit going "how the heck did they do that" at times.
- The world created, and seeing it through the lenses of each reality absolutely nailed the PKD science fiction approach, it was awesome seeing it in an exploreable environment.
- I'm thrilled this game exists and couldn't put it down.

And now for the less good things that could definitely have been fixed:
- Made my relatively beefy PC struggle with frame rate and cranked my fans up to full... for reference, I can play GTA V at 60fps without an issue.
- I needed a guide to do some hidden object puzzles, as quite a few were things I had found, but I just couldn't get the icon to appear without vanishing when I turned to click on it. I was using the guide as a "yes, you did find it, try standing in this really specific spot and looking at this angle" (sometimes this still didn't work and I'd end up doing weird things to make it work or reloading the level)
- Needed to reload at a really climactic part of the game because the thing used to progress the level.... didn't actually appear until I reloaded. Kind of took me out the game a bit having to look that one up.
- One of the achievements is flat-out broken (talk to all NPCs) - people tend to edit their save files to get this achievement.
- You slide down stairs when standing stationary on them (I'd imagine this is quite an easy thing to fix depending on how movement is handled)

So... all in all... I paid £0.67 for a really fun evening! Sure I have some hang-ups about how nice a patch would have been to resolve the things that irked me, but... even at £6.00 I'd have not felt cheated. I had a blast. :) Admittedly I'm a massive Philip K Dick fan, and love his books, but I'll be coming back to this more than once I think. :) You can see the conflict I have, as technically no probably not a great experience for people... but I had a ball. :)

Californium is a good adventure game with a great story, a weird ambiant and some colored deisigns. For his low price, I recommend it!!! ❤️

It is a trip

Two times in the span of an hour I paused the game and accidentally restarted the level when I wanted to just unpause. So that's enough of that game, lol.

“Strange how paranoia can link up with reality now and then.”

Good idea, bad execution, great art.

The thought behind it is kinda "dickish" but the gameplay was "dickish" as well. It plays so horribly I was just frustrated instead of involved. Bug when I fell down through nondimension without barrier forced me to repeat last chapter didn't help as well.

i didn't find issues with controls like others have. i enjoyed the experience of finding and solving visual puzzles.

Great inspiration, cool art style, and horrific game play. Maybe you can stick it out for PKD, but I can't.

A finnicky investigate-em-up that's as fleeting as it is one-dimensional. You can finish it in one sitting and while I'm a fan of shorter games I still wouldn't really recommend it as no matter how much it tries it simply isn't interesting.

You can find plenty of other titles that manage both narrative and gameplay mechanics far better such as Firewatch, Stanley Parable, Soma, Edith Finch and Gone Home just to name a few. Play those, skip this.