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Unavowed

Developer / Publisher: Wadjet Eye Games
08 August 2018
Unavowed - cover art
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72 Ratings / 3 Reviews
#826 All-time
#35 for 2018
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Title
It's an interesting decision to allow you to choose your gender in a point and click adventure game, but it means they decided to cut the voice acting for the main character (rather than recording two sets). You also get to choose a choice of backgrounds which gives a different intro to the story, although these scenes are brief. The Director's Commentary cites Dragon Age as an inspiration. Unless you replay the game, you will be missing out on some content.

Another way the game branches is that the game is split into several missions (Brooklyn, Staten Island, Chinatown, Wall Street, The Bronx) and some can be played in a different order. You gain new characters when completing some of these, and you choose 2 companions in each mission (and can't be switched until the next mission). This means you will miss out on dialogue and some optional content.

Your companions have abilities which give you alternate options of solving the puzzles. You start off with Eli and Mandana. Eli is a Fire Mage so can set fire to objects, and perform "Fire Reading" which allows him to view any object that he knows has been burned. Mandana is half jinn and half pirate and can detect when people aren't truthful, is strong and agile, and excels with a sword. Logan is a Bestower who can communicate with ghosts with the help of his Spirit Guide Kay-Kay. Vicky is a cop who can use a gun so is not as interesting, but can be quite useful.

Your party of characters is a group called the Unavowed who aim to stop evil (kinda like a
Men in Black organisation), so investigate demons and anything paranormal. Your character was possessed by a demon and committed a few murders. Once you are relieved of the possession, you join the Unavowed with the aim of tracking down the demon.

In each scene, there's a lack of things to interact with which makes puzzles very easy. Instead of having to right-click to inspect, you just hover. There's no "look at", "use", "pick up" or anything like that. It's as streamlined as can be. Maybe it is too streamlined. The cursor clearly shows what is important: blue is move, white is pick-up, red means you can't interact, or if it is a character then red means speak for some reason. I found myself just ignoring everything and just clicking on things that had a white icon. You can hold the right-mouse button to highlight the appropriate hotspots too, so you never have to look at anything irrelevant.

You normally have a couple of items in your possession at any time, which means it's quite obvious what to do with the objects. Many sections are purely driven by dialogue rather than items anyway. It seems more story-driven or aimed at players unfamiliar with the genre.

I think there was a Backwell game which was criticised for having many password puzzles, and Dave Gilbert is at it again here. It doesn't seem very realistic when so many passwords are "easily guessed" passwords like DOB, pet name etc with no numbers or special characters to make them harder to brute force. There's a couple based on riddles too which could frustrate some people.

2 puzzles involve causing water to overflow using a cloth. I’m not sure how fast something will overflow when a cloth is permeable. One of those instances is near the start of the game, which you could argue is actually one of the most complex puzzles.

If you aren't sure where to go, you can ask your companions. They don't drop strong hints to the solution but do tell you a general place or person you should be focussing on.

There's a big plot twist which is a bit mind bending when you then think back to remember if the character acted consistently with this new information.

If the start of the game was influenced by Dragon Age, maybe you could say the ending is like Mass Effect 2. If you have saved the demons throughout the game, you can summon them, and if not, you use your party members to progress in each room to get to the final showdown. It ultimately doesn't make a difference, because you face the end solo; but it gives you the illusion your choices matter, and you are working as a team.

It's set in the Blackwell universe, however ghosts look way more evil, and you are told they are geist (poltergeist). Later on you meet the ghost Kay-Kay who is nice-natured and drawn just like she is in the Blackwell series. So it seems like only geists have this new evil look. Then there is a scene where you see human spirits and they are rendered like the geists and not like a nice spirit; which might be an oversight.

Compared to other Wadjet Eye games, this is a step up on visual clarity. It looks like it was designed for widescreen and the visuals are a bit clearer.

I really enjoyed the concept and the characters, so it works well as a visual novel, but then as a point-and-click adventure - it's not great.
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CaptainClam 2023-11-30T22:45:19Z
2023-11-30T22:45:19Z
3.5
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Title
Competent story in an intriguing world
Urban fantasy, despite being a prominent genre often explored by the contemporary writers, never caught on in the videogame world in quite the same fashion. Cult classic Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, despite having been made all the way back in 2004, to this day remains one of the few widely recognizable examples of the setting mixing the imagination of canonical western fantasy with the sprawling, contemporary cities of today. Your boss is a vampire, your coworker a werewolf, and the man selling hot dogs is a half-dragon - a situation often explored in whatever books I read as a child, and yet rarely seen in videogames.

One cause for that could be how resource-intensive it is to create an interactive modern day environment by itself, more so with the addition of fantasy elements. I still recall a lot of disappointed voices lamenting L.A. Noire's uninteractive prop-like city. Taking on contemporary era as a setting unleashes a river of expectations on the player side, and usually it is only the biggest AAA studios that dare take on the challenge. (VtM:B actually surpassed the problem in a clever way, by picking the nighttime as the time of the action, meaning that most of the places were closed and people asleep) Adventure games however, with their linear and rigid structure, may allow themselves a lot more freedom in how they design their spaces. Limited interaction with environment is a given in the genre, and the protagonist voice saying some kind of variation of "I have no reason to do that!" surprises and (usually) disappoints nobody.

Adventure game is a logical conclusion for any studio balancing ambitious worldbuilding with sparse resources and capabilities. Unavowed, fully aware of that, plays to the strengths of the genre to deliver an engaging vision of alternate-reality version of contemporary New York. The game presents its story through a series of self-contained episodes connected by an overarching plot, with every new development leading to a series of revelations like a string of handkerchiefs pulled out of magician sleeve. Enormous, intricately designed world slowly reveals itself.

In a dramatic fashion, opening scenes rapidly introduce the premise of the game. The protagonist, created in an RPG-esque way through series of choices concerning the backstory of the character, joins the titular society of the Unavowed. Unavowed are a secret international organization devoted to the protection of the mundane society against supernatural threats (pretty much like a fantasy version of the Men in Black), with the ranks open to members of all backgrounds, human and non-human alike. Main objective throughout the entire game is catching the demon that possessed the protagonist before, leaving a trail of bloodshed in their wake. Most episodes lead the player to unravel intrigues weaved during the demon's rampage through the districts of New York, and then find a way to amend whatever damage or injustice is revealed.

Every mission starts with the player picking two members of the Unavowed they want to be accompanied by. Each level can be finished with any combination of the party members, with the puzzles having alternate solutions and new paths opening depending on who the player brought along. For example, while one of the team members might be able to get the code to a locked door by magically recreating a destroyed letter, another might find it out by interrogating a ghost. An unusual thing in the context of it being a point-and-click game is not just how the puzzles might be resolved in many different ways, but also how the player is often set against some kind of moral choices. Even though they usually come down to killing or sparing the main supernatural being of the episode, none of them are no-brainers where the evil and good choices are immediately obvious.

A common complaint about the game is that the puzzles are too easy. My personal opinion has always been that it's better for these to be too easy (unless they reach the triviality of Killer7 [キラー7] puzzles that feel more like artificial playtime pumps than actual puzzles) than too hard, but it still needs to be pointed out that the puzzles are indeed very straightforward. Pixel hunting pains are alleviated with an option to highlight all points of interest on a given screen, but the game does not inform you of such - I only learned about it after looking up a guide online after being hopelessly stuck on one of the puzzles (it turned out that two shelves in a cabinet are actually separate interactibles)

It's not the puzzles that make this game what it is. Apart from already mentioned intricate worldbuilding, two key ingredients make the compound work - characters and story direction. The former is mostly through the key members of the Unavowed: a fire mage Eli, and a jinn warrior named Mandana. They both have a well-rounded set of motivations and personal values, interesting backstories, and slowly reveal new aspects of their identities as the game progresses. However, like a counterweight, the two supporting members of the organization are never developed to the same extent, being defined mostly by one or two key characteristics and shallow backgrounds. They are not bad characters in any fashion - just unremarkable.

The plot of the game is developed in a deft fashion. Every separate story is a slow, tense buildup to a satisfying reveal, connecting all the threads the player managed to unearth during their investigation. Most of the twists actually caught me off guard, expounding the ability of the game writers to come up with genuinely clever and subversive plots within the constraints of the genre.

Guiding the story is the idea of how the affections, attachments and loyalties constitute the identity of a person. We see these presented in many different forms, every one highlighting a different axis of how one grounds themselves in whatever environment they function. We see it take on a mask of a familial love, affinity for some kind of place, devotion to some kind of an idea or a group or as a profound appreciation of some aspects of human activity. However, all of these reveal themselves in their deteriorate forms as well, as raging obsessions pushing the actors into ruthlessness of the state where everything else but your fascination disappears from the horizon of visibility. We see the characters as being in the state of a constant pursuit - it is not enough to find some kind of ground once and then settle there. Worldview of a person is under constant pressure from the outside environment, forcing one to constantly reaffirm themselves in face of the peril and challenges of life. Sometimes, every anchor establishing the stability of life disintegrates, and it's at these moments of immense anxiety that one is at their most vulnerable. That is the guiding idea behind the main villain of the game. They are a person with no foundation that could anchor their being, and it is a want to escape the constant anxiety and dread that makes them do horrible things just so that they might have a shot at creating a place where they might finally feel grounded and safe. I believe that is what makes the characters of the game relatable. Ultimately, almost every single one of them is in state of constant pursuit, and even the ones who seem to have a well-established value system are faced with doubt and a need to reassert their ideas when faced with some kind of tremendous event endangering their worldview. What are you supposed to do when the sense of duty you always treasured so much leads to a death of your beloved person? How do you react when the pursuit of artistic expression, that was always so important to you, results in a self-destruction of the individual?

Unavowed won't entice you with clever puzzles nor stunning visuals. The music is unremarkable, and the environments, while not being an eyesore, are nothing to write home about either. All of these are placed there to let the most important happen - a fascinating vision of a world where magic creatures and modern day city meet, and a captivating, endearing story slowly unraveling itself through the characters, places and situations you find all throughout your journey.
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Margaritea 2023-02-12T01:38:22Z
2023-02-12T01:38:22Z
4.0
4
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Unavowed is the first game I've played from Wadjet Eye Games and I'm instantly a fan, this is one of the best point and click adventure games I've played in a long time. While the gameplay is not very groundbreaking, it draws very much from adventure basics such as picking up items and using them on things and talking to people with dialogue options, the game features a very immersive world and characters with so much personality.

The game creates its own fantasy version of New York where spirits are taken over and you and your crew (The Unavowed) are there to put a stop to it. The game will have you exploring several parts of New York and try to solve the mysteries of the weird things happening, and slowly unveiling part of the bigger picture of the whole thing. The whole storyline is excellent and I really enjoyed the dialogue between the characters (which are fully voiced), Eli and Vicky in particular have always sharp and sarcastic replies. I think the game really does what an adventure game is supposed to do, and that's really draw you into the story and the characters. For each area you are able to bring 2 characters with you, and they all have their own special thing they do, so depending on who you bring they are different ways of resolving the areas. The game will also throw at you key decisions that will affect later parts of the game, and this also results in the game having several different endings.

I've really enjoyed my time with Unavowed, it's just the perfect length and doesn't overstay its welcome. I'm now interested in the other games they've made (and published) as I feel this continues the tradition of point and click adventures but also creating really interesting worlds, assuming their past games being as good as this one. Highly recommended, top notch vintage Adventure game.
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diction 2019-10-20T23:16:37Z
2019-10-20T23:16:37Z
4.0
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Catalog

willoverdoseonmusic Unavowed 2024-03-07T13:06:16Z
2024-03-07T13:06:16Z
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
ZachGM Unavowed 2024-02-17T04:39:42Z
2024-02-17T04:39:42Z
3.5
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
jake84 Unavowed 2024-01-28T23:30:43Z
2024-01-28T23:30:43Z
4.0
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
macius Unavowed 2024-01-19T04:41:25Z
Windows / Mac
2024-01-19T04:41:25Z
4 /5
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
JulienCaulfield Unavowed 2024-01-13T00:41:10Z
2024-01-13T00:41:10Z
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
Maroja Unavowed 2023-12-26T02:00:34Z
2023-12-26T02:00:34Z
4.0
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
MentalMsuic Unavowed 2023-12-21T21:39:53Z
2023-12-21T21:39:53Z
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
mellors Unavowed 2023-12-14T20:44:32Z
2023-12-14T20:44:32Z
2.5
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
steinsohn Unavowed 2023-12-09T21:02:44Z
2023-12-09T21:02:44Z
3.5
1
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
notNSANE Unavowed 2023-12-06T03:32:52Z
2023-12-06T03:32:52Z
3.5
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
CaptainClam Unavowed 2023-11-30T22:45:19Z
2023-11-30T22:45:19Z
3.5
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
Pryn7 Unavowed 2023-11-28T06:20:12Z
2023-11-28T06:20:12Z
4.0
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
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