Orwell: Keeping an Eye On You

this game is actually so fun i deserves more recognition. i bought it when it was on sale because it reminded me of killer frequency and not for broadcast (great games check those out) but i would GLADLY pay 20$ for this.

Orwell is literally one of my favorite games of all time. As a point and click puzzle narrative adventure, the dystopian world it paints is really interesting. It puts you right in the seat of someone working within a government surveillance system, and the parallels to real life are chilling.

The game tackles the themes of government control and spying against there own people, in a way that feels both immersive and unsettling. You have to investigate people with almost no oversight, digging through chat logs, websites, and personal data, presented in beautifully designed 2D interfaces that feel just like the internet we use every day.

The gameplay revolves around finding and selecting highlighted bits of text. You decide which ones to submit, shaping the story as you go. This leads to multiple endings, where you can either side with the government or help those you're investigating. And, of course, there are tons of clever Easter eggs referencing the real Orwell.

It's a short but incredibly well crafted game, and I can’t recommend it enough.

story is kinda thought-provoking and the good thing is that the conclusion is your call
nice read!
(oh yeah, avoid this if you dislike reading)

As a George Orwell fan, I adored this game I think it is a great showcase of many of the themes Orwell wrote about in 1984. The use of terms from the novel and the overall concept of government interference and supervision are utilised well. I am always for a good choices matter game, and its fun to see what way the story will go depending on what information you choose to disclose. It's also interesting to be the one spying, working for the government, another similarity to 1984.

I do have one issue, and its the inability to speed through text. To get all the achievements you need to go back and replay chapters, and even on full speed the text message and call speed is slow. It would be nice if you could speed it up, as it can be annoying waiting for it to finish.

Otherwise, its a fun game that doesn't take too long to complete. I am excited to play the sequel.

This game gave me quite the unique experience. It's sorta a "Choices matter" type of game where you get to decide the ending. I honestly wish I paid full price for it I thought it was that good. I can't really describe the experience and I think you would really just have to play it for yourself to know that.

I liked it a lot. Definitely some clunky UI, the inability to skip forward or load an episode makes it impossible to replay. A few glitches where it switches to a tab you didn't click on, or won't show the preview of a datachunk when you hover on it. Wish I could poke through the world a little more! It just isn't worth it though. I bought it for something like 2.50 and it was well worth the price.

I really don't think I can recommend this game. Instead of actually investigating it just highlights bits and pieces of information for you to drag over. But on top of that, lots of critical information isn't able to be recorded until the game recognises that it's important. All the characters are incredibly unlikable. Sometimes the government assistant can be really dumb.

An interesting experience with a fair bit of outcomes not only for the ending but certain key events as well.

Side note: I imagine this is what its like to be a wagie at Blume in the Watch Dogs universe

Very interesting game, where you need to figure out what is going on with a "terrorist" group vs a "orwellian" style government where you are on the inside of the government and using a tool to survey the public and invade their privacy.
Very interesting topic and choice of gameplay to explore it.

Only real complaint i have is that replaying the game and getting all the different endings for the characters are a pain in the butt. Wish there was some easier way to do this. The game itself took me around 4-5 hours the rest was just speedrunning through the game to get the different endings/achievements. So yeah it's not a long game but it feels perfect in it's length if you just want to play through it once, and live with whatever choices you made, if not it becomes a bit of a chore.

Still recommend it though.

Okay. I cannot even begin to get into how good this game is. It is AMAZING! Great storytelling, intuitive gameplay, actually fun, and very interesting! It deserves to be recognized. It's awesome down the very last moments.

A very good idea for a game, fun when thinking about it. In action, the game is a mess. I have no obligation to care about any of these characters, and the game is so poorly made I had to get walkthroughs to find simple, tiny pieces of information that are practically irrelevant. I was hoping for a fun, papers-please type of gameplay. Instead I wasted 3.9 hours on a headache of a game, one with cringey dialogue and little valuable story that relies on the characters being stupid.
Overall, 0/10, boring and frustrating game. Go play a good detective game that will make you actually care about the characters, like Disco Elysium.

great story and interesting plot. Lot's of reading though. Could use some dialogue

A investigative game where you click on every blue box you see. meanwhile an investigation is probably happening god knows you aren't investigation it tho. luckily the manager mansplains the investigation to you after every third click

crazy lore drops makes you consider what data to collect by prying into people's privacy

very god game yippie

doesnt let u actually investigate. more like a mindless click and drag where u dont have to understand anything and just loooking for the already highlited clues.

A brilliant thrilling masterpiece. forgot time and day while playing this.

I like it.

Really easy to get into. Loved it, will probably play the 2nd part tomorrow!

Orwell is a unique game-play experience. Reminds me of Person of Interest, but with a spin of its own on it. YOU control what information is fed to the investigators. In the end the choices can seem a little binary, but the pacing of the game is short enough that it doesn't grate too much- short, sweet, and knows when to call it quits.

And they absolutely do a few of my favourite characters dirty. As it should be.

An intriguing story with an engaging play system.

Just a lot of fun that got me thinking.

jorjor wel

When my only real complaint is why isn't there more, that's not really a problem. The fact the writing and score make a text-based story compelling and chilling enough to keep me glued to my seat shows how well written this game is.

Kinda dull. Zero need to actually think about your choices, you just scroll around all available documents to click all highlighted keywords. If you see a contradiction, you pick something just to get extra-context later to see you've made a mistake, but cannot rewrite a dossier. But in the end of the day, nobody cares, so why should you...

**SPOILERS!**

I give the game 3/5 stars. Highly enjoyable and entertaining but I can't give it 5/5 because BRUH, how did I manage to get all the terrorists BUT ALSO *MYSELF* arrested????! LMAO. You have no choice but to investigate everybody or the story doesn't progress!! (so it doesn't feel like you really have "choices"), but the one time you ARE presented with a choice, which is to either to keep using the government spyware to investigate the suspected terrorists or investigate your own boss (Catherine DelaCroix, who runs the spyware) because you think the government might actually be behind the attacks, you get arrested and the game ends. So everybody I was spying on still got arrested, but then I also got arrested???

i enjoyed this. the closest thing to lurking into someones phone / computer. topics on ethics. if u like 1984 the novel youll like this

Quite an interesting and enjoyable game but would it have killed them to hire some voice actors? Would definitely have made it more immersive and less tedious watching the call transcripts run on the screen.

Great game, cool way to explore the modern implications of a "big-brother" type government.

Honestly love this game and it's sequel. Something about the layout of everything tickles my brain, and I think this game would resonate with anyone who enjoys using critical thinking and research skills. It's not overly complicated or hard. Overall, a nice relaxing but intriguing game that is worth giving a shot.

This is a fun and interesting game of an investigator looking into phones, pictures, contacts, computers, etc,etc. You are following a group called Thought who is anti-security measures but doesn't even know the scale it really exists on. You, the investigator, are collecting information on the members of this group that would link them to bombings. But not is all as it really seems. The mechanics of this game are interesting as you collect data chunks. The story is thrilling and I def recommend it to anyone who likes choices matter games.

A good game, the premise is very interesting and the mystery has enough depth to it.
My only gripe with it (and this contains slight spoilers to the game mechanics) is that you sometimes get stuck, having chosen to withhold a bunch of information. You would like for the story to continue, yet you need to provide more information to the system. You then do it semi-randomly until something sticks, undermining what you chose to withhold. I get how this would be hard to change without, and it might be a skill issue on my part, but it was the only thing I did not like as much.
Overall great game.

Acting as a sort of Big Brother VN version of Deathtrap Dungeon, you are the "villain" behind the screen of a dystopian (?) surveillance project. I add a question mark beside the "dystopian" descriptor, because in a fairly surprising subversion of expectations, the group of people you are watching are every bit as awful, shallow, annoying, and at least in a couple of cases, actually dangerous and crazy as to justify using such a program.

In any other hands, this game would have the government you're working for be up to unspeakable acts beyond justification and the collection of rabble rousing, blue haired agitators you're investigating would be perfect, selfless angels, with maybe a few thin personal flaws to give them the pretense of being attractively tragic and interesting. In this game, however, they are every bit as annoying, shallow, self important and deluded as the ones that currently exist IRL, complete with being pilled out on a pantry's worth of anti-depressants and rife with anger management issues and savior complexes.

I was actually quite shocked at this development, considering the "modern audiences" presentation that this game and its sequel give off; the character portraits you can choose from in both are allergic to White people and the art style throughout is comprised of hideous, polygonal corpo-art. But if you are interested in busting leftoids, who are rarely represented accurately in this medium, or indeed at all, give this game and its sequel a go. The "mysteries" aren't terribly interesting, as they mostly revolve around made up political disputes between blandly named stand in's, but there is some catharsis to be had in sending loud mouthed, Hot Topic "punk rock" brainlets (not to mention the group's couple of older academics and lawyers of dubious ancestry who act as organizer and funder) a candy-gram from a SWAT team.

pretty fun but i think it's unrealistic how many straight people are here

To safe guard the public from terrorism, the government installs cameras and surveils the public through a secret Orwellian network. Enraged by the erasure of public privacy, a small group of misfits decide to save the day... by performing acts of terrorism, murdering innocents with bombs. Quite the vicious cycle. As the network's operator, you pick and choose what to put into the database, thereby choosing who gets punished throughout the tale. If you like narrative tales and playing God, this is a game to play.

Honestly, this is a very much worth it experience. Your actions have consequences, and often even if you think you made the same choices as in your previous play-through, then think again, you haven't. Sometimes even a single datachunk can change how characters react to you, or what happens to them. I love it!

and god is the dramatic irony so tasty, especially as it starts to dwindle slowly away...

Interesting concept - great characters and fun gameplay. It's a short game but the price is reflective of this so not a huge issue.

The game it self conceptually is pretty intriguing and interesting, but unfortunately it is let down by the millennial core conversation and socials postings of the characters you investigate at the beginning. Although it is accurate, listening to Ms Watergate and her associates is enough cringe to make a grown man want to blow his head smooth off. I haven't completed the game yet and maybe another day I will

A great game! I just finished my first playthrough and really enjoyed it! I love the gameplay and especially the story! The music is also really good, I really like how it gets more "intense" when you find something important. I also love the moral choices you have to make throughout the game, especially at the end.
I highly recommend this game to anyone who loves games with a good story.

Such a good game; a bit short : but for its price, content and mind changing lore defenitely worth playing.

Great story. Didn't see that plot twist coming. Great game overall.

It has some good ideas, but there's a lot that makes it really confusing. Some of the conflicts make no sense, it's unclear which details in the texts are relevant to the cases, the UI can be annoying and cluttered, and the game only takes notes about characters rather than events or timelines. I don't know if I'm just bad at the game, or if the game is just bad at explaining how to play it properly, but it wasn't enjoyable either way. No Case Should Remain Unsolved does pretty much everything better.

I think I liked it. What makes the game good is how much you can interact with everything.

Moral of the story: update your Facebook privacy settings.

Bought it cause I'm into Orwell and dystopian stories and such. Was very disappointed. You click on a page and either look for the clickable blue text or waste your time and read it and get immersed like I did. To put it simply, boring. But I stuck with it and gave it a shot. What really grinds my gears is the yellow text. It is supposed to be "contradictory" statements, but is anything but.

For example, the first woman you investigate has two posts that "contradict" each other where in one post she calls another woman her best friend and in the other she gets mad at said woman. THAT. IS. NOT. CONTRADICTORY. IF ANYTHING, getting frustrated and having strained relationships with friends is extremely common. But you can only pick one making the story that she either "hates the woman" or "is her best friend" instead of the simple truth that she is her best friend AND they get into fights as can be explained later by the woman being off of her meds.

If you're someone who doesn't like this type of game, you won't enjoy it so don't buy it. If you do enjoy this type of game, you'll likely be disappointed like I was and won't enjoy it, so don't buy it. Not worth even at a sale.

Great game, with HUGE replayability. Highly recommend, the game play is smooth, interactive and the story is very engaging.

Really cool and chill. If your job involves a lot of social media, or reading text, I understand why you wouldn't wanna play this. Otherwise, cool experience. I'll probably get the DLCs too.

Awesome Concept, Fantastic Storyline and the mechanics are fantastic. But it has a tremendous letdown,

It is far too linear, with you constantly having your hand held by an adviser the entire game. This takes away any real thought or deliberation on who to target and in sorting out contradicting evidence. Because the game basically makes it idiot proof and forces you along at pace rather than giving you a challenge it can be finished in only a few hours. Its such a shame, the game is a brilliant concept with a great UI and story, but by making it so assisted and unchallenging the experience is ruined.

I would love to see an investigation style game like this, but for a more mature audience and truly challenging

Amazing storytelling. This game is enjoyable intriguing and thought-provoking. Definitely a story worth being part of.