First-Person Investigator: Virginia Gets A Demo
Do the Twin Peaks twist
It's been ages since we last visited the Twin Peaks-inspired-ish first-person vignette 'em up Virginia [official site] but whoa hey hello, here's a release date and a demo out of nowhere. The demo is about twenty minutes long, offering a taste of life as a '90s FBI agent investigating a missing child in a small town and answering basic questions like "Okay but what is it and what do I do?" That is now answered for me and so I'm quite looking forward to its full launch on September 22nd.
It's 1992 and a boy has gone missing in the town of Kingdom, Virginia, see, and you play one of two FBI agents on the investigation. Your investigation flits from scene to scene without connection, a bit like Thirty Flights of Loving but with less non-linear trickery. It's the scenes that would make it into a TV show, you? As the black bars framing its screen would suggest, it's definitely going for a televisual/cinematic feel.
It's quiet. Characters don't speak. Everything is (quite nice) body language, action, and expressions. Your clothes make nice noises when you move.
But what do you do? In some scenes you can wander and poke at a few key items (a few - it's not Gone Home nor is it trying to be) before finding the trigger to advance events. In others you're rooted to the spot but can still rummage a little. In others, you can only look around. Some things just happen. The important point is: you can look down and see your body and arms and legs and everything.
It's quite a pretty game too. Nice style. Very nice first-person animations.
You can download the demo from Steam. I like it. I'm interested in getting to know the characters. I want to see more of what happens. I like the slight supernatural tinge. Some of the scene cuts are really nice. I like the music. I want to bust those dang teens from the gas station. September 22nd it is.