Разработчик: Rose City Games
Описание
Inspired by the emotional storytelling and thrilling action of anime and indie gaming, The World Next Door follows Jun, a rebellious teen who finds herself far from home in the magical and mysterious world of Emrys. As she encounters a colorful cast of otherworldly creatures, Jun must learn to rely on her new friends to get back to Earth before time runs out.
In The World Next Door, players will find an addictive mix of immersive visual novel elements, powerful storytelling and lightning-fast puzzle battles. Learn for yourself why The World Next Door was nominated for the 2019 SXSW Gamer’s Voice Award, selected for the 2019 Indie Mega Booth PAX East Showcase and awarded numerous accolades/nominations for Best Action-Adventure Game.
- Journey into Emrys, a magical world brought to life with anime-inspired characters designed by Lord Gris
- Play as Jun, an adventurous teenager, who must use magical runes and the help of her friends to defeat opponents and find a way home
- Cast spells by activating magical runes in fast-paced, real-time combat that mixes the fun of puzzle-combos with action gameplay
- Immerse yourself in a supernatural story with branching dialogue and reputation systems that affect your relationships with characters in the game
- Focus on the story while still enjoying the gameplay using Assist Mode
- Challenge your friends in the lightning-fast Versus Mode
Поддерживаемые языки: english
Системные требования
Windows
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- OS *: Windows 7 64 bit
- Processor: Intel H81 core i3 4130T 2.90GHZ (dual core)
- Graphics: Intel HD 4400
- Storage: 2 GB available space
Mac
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- OS: Sierra
- Processor: i5
- Storage: 2 GB available space
Отзывы пользователей
Horace rules
“The world next door” is indie game, that is offering interesting idea for a story. In it, there is a magical world, that can be reached by a portal. Few of people each year can visit that place after winning a lottery. I really like the stories that focus on magical worlds, witches and spells. So naturally I gravitated towards this story. It offers so much potential to create great universe. However, it all falls flat because the plot feels rushed and it ends abruptly without any proper conclusion. Important question that the game asked, are left unanswered or added as an afterthought in the subtitles screen. Characters offer potential, however it’s not used, because they feel one dimensional and flat. They have backstory, but it’s not developed properly. It’s simply ignored by the author and it feels upsetting, because it seems that, it was made so on purpose to get us interested in implied sequel.
The game mechanic, especially the fight one feels very junky and can be at points very frustrating, because you keep failing, which is caused by things, that are not your fault. You keep locking on invisible walls and the spells, that should work just don’t!
Not all of this game is bad. The visuals of this game are very high quality and I can tell, that there was a lot of effort put into them by skilled designers. The characters are expressive, interesting and full of emotion. They captivate players with their intriguing designs. Backgrounds follow this idea with some of them being simply stunning and others being cute and following the “cosy vibe”.
Similar idea fits the audio side of the game. It’s well made and good enough to not make the story less enjoyable.
That being said, I unfortunately can not recommend this game. It has so much potential, but it is wasted, because of the focus of developer on creating sequel. First part of the game is also important! That is, what will encourage the players, to try the new parts not making lacklustre story, that is just an up-sell for a game, that doesn’t even exist yet.
Rating for this game is 40/100 Therefore not recommended!
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I somehow managed to play this game in one sitting. I don't know that it was intended to be played like that, but for what it's worth: I was sleeping on this game for several years and I'm glad I finally picked it up, It was so worth the $10. The combat was interesting and fun.
Also, the few little puzzle sections they had outside of combat were fun.
This is a beautiful, story-driven game that is perfect to play over a weekend. The match-3 style play is engaging and fast-paced, and each shrine holds different enemies with distinct mechanics worth learning in order to proceed. I appreciated the short side quests and different dialogue/text choices which fleshed out the characters and world, and was pleasantly surprised to learn that there is a little extra content for those who are interested in finding all that Emrys has to offer.
I do want to note -- there is no chapter select, and quitting out during dialogue does run the risk of shifting you forward past that dialogue, with no way to return. I unfortunately discovered this by encountering a save state bug on the final day that caused me to have to replay the game for the outcome I wanted, but luckily I had been planning to do that anyway. This was the first game put out by a small but amazing development team, and if that's the worst issue I have to contend with on a first title (not to mention the game is already so engaging I didn't even mind), that's absolutely incredible. Cheers!
LOOKING-GLASS HOUSE
Somewhere around 90 minutes in I’ve quit with the sole purpose of checking out that developer’s other titles and perhaps adding them to my wishlist. In the end I’ve decided against doing so, since they were not my cup of tea genre-wise, but it obviously indicated how much of an impression The World Next Door had made on me in such a short period of time.
It just feels so warm and cozy. There’s that innocence and sense of adventure hanging in the air. And the characters are made with an astonishing amount of imagination and are also extremely likable. ALL of them. They feel like a real bunch of teenagers and not what a studio of 40-year-old plus French developers imagine a kid should be (Yes, I’m looking at you, DontnoD). The game also has its own language, mostly consisting of single words exclaimed to accompany the written text. I’ve always loved when a game does that. It just indicates a little extra care and effort on the side of the developers*. These simple utterances are also voiced so flawlessly. Quite impressive how much meaning can be conveyed over what is, more or less, a single grunt or hum or another such onomatopoeia. The game’s sense of humor is on the spot, and I’ve kept catching myself grinning at the screen for more or less the entire game. Finally, there are plenty of choices during the conversations – they feel nice and help develop the protagonist, even if they only have marginal impact on the story.
The side quests -with the three exceptions - are extremely simple. Usually involving walking a screen or two and interacting with a person or finding an item and bringing it back, which happened to be perfect since it only gave me the reason to get to learn more about the characters.
Finally, the overarching story has a moment or two when it gets a bit more serious, but it never gets particularly dark and the conclusion (even the secret ending – achieved by completing a certain lengthy quest) is visible from a mile away.
THE QUEEN’S CROQUET-GROUND
Crawling now. Each of the dungeons has a unique mood and style. They are simple, short and mostly linear but there are some missables every now and then. The battles rely on the mostly unchanged match-3+ mechanics with enemies and the player constantly moving on board and attacking each other. Surviving most of these encounters is basically effortless, the main difficulty stemming from some of the battles happening on narrow planks making it difficult to avoid the enemies’ attacks and shape the player’s own spells. There were only two or three such spots throughout the entire game, which doesn’t make it a major problem.
I’ve had an issue with the dash. While it does make the protagonist move quickly from one spot to another, it does not provide any invincibility frames. Even worse, if the enemy starts its melee attack animation, the hit is going to land no matter how far the protagonist gets away by the time said animation finishes. Took me a few minutes of getting used to it.
THE LOBSTER QUADRILLE
The music is definition of chill – indie stuff. It’s not particularly memorable but it properly complements the events happening on the screen. Also works perfectly in the background of activities outside of the game like, for example, writing this mini review.
WAKING, SHAKING and WHICH DREAMED IT?
In the end, it’s a short, simple and relaxing game.
I’ve absolutely loved the World Next Door’s universe. There are only a few locations and characters, but all of them are memorable and charming. Even those who appeared in the end-game credits for a mere few seconds, looked like they could have interesting story arcs of their own.
What I’m trying to say here is, probably, that I would not mind a full-fledged 100-hour plus roleplaying sequel happening Next Door, eh devs?
* And, as weird as it may sound in the context of love and effort being put into the process of game creation, I’ve seen (heard) this particular phenomenon happening first in a Ubisoft production, can you believe? Rayman 2 actually, some 25 years ago.
** Titles for the paragraphs come from the Alice’s Adventures and Through the Looking Glass.
As always, do with what you read here whatever you wish and as always
Try to have a wonderful life
It was amazing. Unique combat system that I didn't see in similar games which revolves around match 3 altougth I expected there will be more types of attacks than just black hole, fire ball or slash. It has pretty challenging enemies that each of them needs different approach. There are very adorable and cool characters with nice designs which implement unusual set of colors and the story and the lore is very good and I wish there was like continuation except from the end credits.
Really enjoyed the game.
Дополнительная информация
| Разработчик | Rose City Games |
| Платформы | Windows, Mac |
| Ограничение возраста | Нет |
| Дата релиза | 23.01.2025 |
| Отзывы пользователей | 80% положительных (167) |