Asemblance

I rate Asemblance 2.5/5. Almost mediocre. This extremely short, first-person psychological thriller/mystery game is only a semblance of a mediocre game.

Paying homage to great or impressive things does not automatically make one great and though this game is genuinely creepy in places, Asemblance ultimately feels a bit pretentious and vaguely unfinished. It feels like someone might have set out to make a longer, deeper game but then failed to do so and instead messed with the game’s ending to artificially increase playtime so they wouldn’t be embarrassed by trying to sell what is actually a 2 hour game for 8 USD.

+ No bugs. The game ran fine.

+ Pretty good graphics though Asemblance’s environments aren’t intrinsically that amazing, as they entirely consist of an industrial area, a small wooded area, an office, an apartment and a basic space scene.

+ Good sound.

+ Good voice acting.

+ Appropriately creepy and fitting music but I wouldn’t want to listen to it by itself. The tracks are all quite short.

+ It’s only 8 USD. Asemblance might still be worth it if you get it during a sale for 50% off or more.

+ Really, really creepy in places. This game is best played late at night. The increasingly tedious ending puzzles cause the creepiness to totally dissipate though.

+/- References/pays homage to cool stuff (like Solaris and 2001: A Space Odyssey and this game vaguely reminded me of The Stanley Parable (except Asemblance takes itself extremely seriously) but it doesn’t really do anything meaningful or deep with the stuff it references. It simply exists in the game as a reference. It doesn’t comment on them or critique them do anything which makes you view them from any kind of very different perspective. The attempts at homage go nowhere. If the game had been longer and had more content maybe it wouldn’t have seemed like such a collection of nearly dead-end references to other, better works of art.

+/- True, this game has multiple endings but most of them are either false-endings (which encourage you to start from the most recent checkpoint and try again) or are nonsensical. The “true” ending is difficult to achieve even with the help of Youtube walkthroughs and, if you are bothering to watch such a walkthrough, why bother going through the tedious trouble of actually completing the game yourself once the mystery has been spoiled? None of the endings are very interesting or satisfying anyhow, not even the super-secret, walk through the back of the door, post white-shift ending. I’m happy Asemblance has multiple endings at least but there are much better ways to integrate multiple endings into a game. The way these endings are handled don’t cause them to greatly increase the replay value of the overall game.

- Asemblance tries hard to pretend to be non-linear but beyond the ability to go back and see rooms you’ve already seen, the game design itself is still quite linear. Saying this game is non-linear would be like saying any game is non-linear because of the ability to physically move from one room to another and back again (perhaps life in my house is non-linear because I can go to my kitchen and back!).

The plot of Asemblance is actually extremely linear. You do each action the game allows you to do (solving obtuse puzzles which involve zooming in on different objects) to get a pre-ordained result (a new puzzle area) and you do this repeatedly until you arrive at the late point in the game (which will come sooner than you think) when it becomes possible to get any of the different endings. Each ending is gotten by solving a few extra puzzle-steps beyond getting any other, easier-to-get ending. It’s not quite as straight-forward as choosing door number 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5, but it’s very close to that. The “doors” in Asemblance are a bit more confusing to walk through. It’s like a book with multiple (increasingly tedious) epilogues, one after another and you can, of course, stop reading anytime.

- No subtitles.

- No way to rebind keys.

- No detailed graphics options.

- Nearly no options of any kind.

- If you don’t bother to get the final 2 tedious endings (but instead watch them both on youtube like I did), this game really only lasts about 2 hours. Asemblance might have been pretty good had it been longer, with more content and had been psychologically/intellectually deeper. There’s a vague plot here about loss and grief but there’s nothing that even hints that there will ever be a way out of that sense of loss and grief. Maybe the game endings were supposed to represent that but they fail to do so.

This really should have been a demo instead of a full game. The game only consists of a couple of small set pieces and can be completed in less than an hour. There really isn't much of a story just some cryptic dialogue and lore left among the tiny environment. I really wish steam would vet their releases a bit to avoid these type of titles being shown in my discovery section.

It's a minor recommendation at the moment for walking sim/first person puzzler fans. The visuals, music, and voice acting are all great. The puzzles are alright. This may or may not be more worth a purchase if you plan to play the follow up Asemblance game. Probably best to wait for a sale regardless, as the game isn't very long.

I bought this game on a sale based on its interesting premise. However, it feels like a graphics-focused tech preview for a game that should have been larger in scope, in terms of environments you can go to as well as gameplay. In the first 20 minutes or so you still have a sense of mystery, wanting to figure out what is going on, but after that things get incoherent and the only way to progress is by randomly visiting the same few environments over and over again until you stumble upon the right order of actions, zooming in on things until things change without a logical explanation. At this point I decided to leave it at that and finish it by looking up a guide. I'm glad I've done that, as it is pretty much required if you want to find out what you need to do to truly end the game.

In general, I don't have much to complain about for this game. However, I don't have much to rave about either. As I try to choose to recommend or not, I find that I wish there was a middle choice. The game had nice graphics and the environments were fun to explore. I really appreciated the details the game creators put into the office and other environments. You can zoom in on objects and a lot of the paperwork in the office show narrative of what the protagonist was working on or another example is that the book spines in his home reflect what our character would read. These small details make the world feel real and really set the tone. However, the lack of locations and very what felt like to me random triggers to progress kinda slowed the game down. At times I was just randomly spamming the e button on everything to try to get something to trigger. Those type of moments in a game really slow the story down and take the gamer out of the experience. Another criticism is that there is a sequence when you are going through many portals in a row which physically triggered me. I have never gotten motion sick from a game before, but this new experience will remind me of this game. Overall, I would say it's.... fun/alright, but I don't think many gamers will find that they can look back and describe the story in a years time. A bit forgettable. Which is a shame because I think there are some very nice bits. Now, I hate to leave a game criticisms without suggestions to make it better. One, before the game starts add a screen about basic controls. Make the gamer feel empowered to interact with the environment. Two, maybe add a tab functions with a list of important memories/clues. Three, add one more environment to the story maybe one really involving the kid to help build more emotional gravity to the story line. Cheers!

Interesting gameplay, exciting story with a fascinating scientific background and nice twists and a short but intense gaming experience but I was disappointed of the endings. Those endings I could achieve didn´t explain much and the last ending was exasperating. Nevertheless a "Thumbs up!" for the innovative idea and story.

Well, I wouldnt recommend it to buy at full price. The game is imho to expensive for the content it provides. However, its a cool experience and further it is beautiful to look at. I'd say get it in a sale.

Pros:

• Extremly beautiful game
  
• Somehow "cool" game
  

• Extremly short game
  
[*]Imho expensive game in relation to content

Beat this game 3 times in a row. Its very short but the story is well done. Mutiple endings are always cool to figure out how to get and was a nice way to do it. A little short for full price though, wait for it to be on sale then def give it a try.

Great game! I don't understand the negative reviews at all. The game is really interresting with deep meaning. I (think) I had almost played one cycle of many. I'm curious what happen next time. If you like the stanley parable, then you should try this :)

The game starts off very interesting, and if by the time you read this it is cheaper than $5 then give it a go. However, if you are someone who likes to FINISH a game completely, get far away from this one. I don't think I am giving anything away here, *POSSIBLE SPOILERS* but the game has multiple endings. The final one is nigh impossible by mortal man. Even with guides, videos, and far better gamers than I at my disposal I was unable to see a final ending on my machine. Fuck game designers who think it's ok to make a game fun and interesting right up until the end when they decide to make finishing it near impossible.

From publisher/developer Nilo Studios comes their mid-2016 effort, Asemblance; a psychological horror/thriller adventure title that has been released for both PC and PS4. According to the store page, this release is the "pilot episode of a mind-bending franchise", so it looks like these will be episodic releases. Little is known about this indie developer, but this does seem to be their first venture into game creation. With that being said, Asemblance is a decent effort, but it lacks severely in almost every aspect imaginable.

According to the store page, you are in an experimental machine designed to simulate memories, and with no recollection as to why you entered in the first place, you are attempting to escape. At the very beginning of the game, you are thrown into a darkened room with a flashing red light while sirens blaze in the background; an AI voice greets you, and begins to walk you through a 'personal evaluation' that consists of one question. From that point onward, you will uncover three locations that you can travel to via the memory machine, in order to search for clues as to what you're even looking for. Asemblance does a terrible job in trying to tell the story that it houses, and even reading the long, jargoned notes scattered around the office location does little to convey even the most minor of plot points.

The three locations grow tiresome after a while, as you will do a lot of traveling back and forth between them to try and progress to the next "phase" of the game. These "phases" are activated by simply zooming in on an object and waiting for the environment around you to shift time. Overall, the experience only lasts about half an hour, fourty-five minutes tops, even while obtaining all 4 endings. It's worth adding here that the most convoluted ending to even get is a waste, as it doesn't have any sort of narrative whatsoever.

Psychological horror is excellent, it's a true art form and a delicate craft; Asemblance is nowhere near a psychological horror title, but rather it should be classified as sci-fi if anything. Do not delve into this game expecting to be scared, or even to have a tingle sent up your spine; it's a very brief walking simulator at best, at worst it's a waste of half an hour, and to put it bluntly... it's just plain boring. As mentioned prior, the storytelling is atrocious, the locations are too few, the environments are plain, and the endings aren't worth the effort they require to unlock. The only thing this release has going for it is the fact that it is well optimized. Even at the sale price of $4.39 CAD, Asemblance is not recommended by any means, your time is better spent elsewhere.

Rating: 2.0/5.0 - It's not awful, but it's not great.

Asemblance is a single-player psychological thriller.
The player finds himself trapped inside of a machine, "A machine built to simulate memories".
Your task is to explore different scenes to get informations to help your character’s memory in order to progress onto the next memory.
The graphics are not stunning but still good.
The voice acting is well done.
Asemblance is really short but there are different endings to unlock. I played overall 3 hours and saw all endings.
The endings are not completely satisfying but still Asemblance manages to be a very intriguing and atmospheric sci-fi story.
It is a short unique game, you should consider to give it a try when it is on sale.

Sounds 8/10
Graphics 6/10
Gameplay 5/10
Atmosphere 7/10

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i like unconventional games (The Stanley Parable!), and i wanted to love this one. Especially since the beginning was well made. You have no clue what happens, but there's still some guidance in the first minutes. However this gets worse, and until the end you get no feedback or information about what's actually happened and what you are supposed to do to advance in the game. You keep visiting the same places and search for new clues by trial & error. It's like the early Point & Click adventures where you were supposed to scan each pixel on the screen. But this time, the same rooms over and over again, each time anything has changed. To me this felt utterly tedious and boring, and without walkthroughs i wouldn't have reached any endings. If you expect any sort of enlightenment at the end - you are not supposed to, as the developers said this was only the first episode. At the end of this episode i'm still pointless what story or message the game is trying to tell, and i'm completely uninterested if and/or how this will go on.

This game is a bit of a mindbender.

When I bought the game I thought it would be a long game, in terms of gameplay, with lots of puzzles, story and walking.

What I got was a short, and again, mindbending game that plays on the concept of entering your dreams past tense.
The game has story, and I found it interesting. It wasn't a books worth of story but it's certainly something you could make a book out of.

The game is stunningly beautiful, it looks extremely realistic.
The voice acting is good.

Now, why do I not recommend you purchase this game?
Because to complete the game, to actually do all of the story you need to either be literal genius or you have to look up a guide.
You can't figure the puzzles out casually, well, some you can but I'd say 30-40% of the game requires you to be very smart to figure out, and the last 10% requires you to be extremely smart, or that you watch a guide.

This is a though one, because I enjoyed the game but it doesn't feel right to me that I NEED to look up a guide to complete the game.
And the game isn't long in terms of content, it is long, for the person who doesn't use guides, in terms of doing the same thing over and over until you finally figure it out, and to be honest the reward isn't that great considering time invested.
The reward is an achievement and a sigh of relief, "Finally... I got it." and then you get a bit worried as you find out you're missing 1 last achievement.

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Short, confusing, atmospheric. This is what I'd call this game in just three words. The atmosohere this game creates is absolutely overwhelming, especially the extremely stunning music in the game is still stuck in my head. Though, it is a bit short. There are multiple endings of which some of them are incredibly hard to find out how to get to. I was not able to figure everything out for myself and had to look up a guide. Nevertheless I highly recommend this game, it left me with an incredibly overwhelming impression. And let's be honest, what can go wrong for just 10 bucks, right?

I rarely write reviews, and even more rarely do I write negative ones, but I feel like I need to put my opinion out there.

The thing is, there's a lot of potential to this game. It's atmospheric, the narrative (such as there is) is well constructed and implemented, there are plenty of intriguing elements. But there's just nothing of substance in the gameplay. There are no real puzzles, no real mysteries to solve or challenges to overcome. There's plenty of information to be gleaned from a diligent exploration of the game's tiny play area, but progress (again, such as there is) depends either on interacting with the incredibly obvious interactable objects or on incredibly obtuse and specific actions, neither of which create any sense of satisfaction.

I bought this game in part because it was compared to the absolutely brilliant TV show Black Mirror, but that's not a comparison that is going to put Asemblance in a good light, largely because it highlights the differences between interactive and non-interactive storytelling. Asemblance highlights the ways in which interactivity actually hampers storytelling, as it lacks the satisfaction and enjoyment of more dynamic games, but also lacks the pacing and deliberate, artistic construction of a good TV show. The story in Asemblance is basically pretty good (although it's no Black Mirror, and some of the presentation is a bit amateurish), but even a much better story would not be able to sustain my interest while I was wandering from one area to the next and back again, trying to find whatever I'd missed in order to progress.

If this was significantly cheaper, it'd be worth the purchase, just on the chance that there might be something in it that makes it worthwhile for you personally. And as a wannabe game dev myself, I know how hard it can be to hear that the product you've poured your heart and soul into isn't worth the cost of a meal at KFC (or whatever your local fast food venue of choice may be). But there's just not enough here, either game or narrative, to justify even that.

Short, flawed, and undisputedly unique. Asemblance isn't especially polished but there are ideas in here that are really worth seeing. What it lacks in personality, it more than makes up for in a number of surprising moments, and its chase for multiple endings becomes a real fun way to pass an evening.

I more than got my $10 worth out of it, especially with the last ending still being uncovered by the community. I can see the lack of polish being a real downer for some but if you can look past it, there's something really cool on offer here.

I had been pretty hyped for Asemblance for a while, basically ever since I found out about it. The day of its release, I began to fear that I had overhyped myself and that I would be let down. I couldn't have been more misguided. Although the base game is relatively short, the graphics and psychological "puzzles" (for lack of a better term) make the $10 price tag an easy sell, and the depth of the "end game" (once again, for lack of a better term) still has me searching for answers. There are multiple endings. I will continue to play through this game to find the answers and understand the story in its entirety, even if it drives me insane. I am over 6 hours into this game and I am still missing 1 ending. Looking forward to future episodes like this!

Asemblance is a great puzzly atmospheric story game. It actually reminds me a lot of The Stanley Parable, if you've ever heard of that; the game is based around finding all the different endings, some harder than others, and the game cannot be fully enjoyed without detailed analysis and reading in between the lines. However, unlike The Stanley Parable, the game does not have a set of several straight-forward endings; even the easiest ending to find is layered behind nonlinear puzzle solving.

The game has a great atmosphere (I would describe as more suspenseful than scary, to anyone who's worried about that) and an enigmatic, engaging plotline that drove me forward and motivated me to find all the endings, no matter how long it would take.

Here's how the puzzle solving works, by the way: you are given several maps to work with. At any given point, there is typically a place you need to go and something you need to do, which will usually result in a clue as to the next place to go and the next thing to do. Except it's twenty times more confusing than that.

If it isn't obvious at this point, the game is more story-driven than gameplay-driven, so if you aren't someone who likes that sort of thing, don't but this.

Overall, I think Asemblance is a really great work of art. Ten outta ten. Great job.

Oddly moving sci fi game. It doesn't rely on startles but definitely has some uneasy moments. Nice self-awareness throughout (AI voice nodded at with a 2001 reference).

I haven't yet found all the outcomes but have very much enjoyed it to this point. I hope that the final stages of the narrative aren't too frustratingly obtuse to come across. Even if they are and I give up looking, thumbs up from me.