About a week ago, GOG had a sale themed around the end of the world. It's 2021, global warming is recognized as a huge issue, so I decided to go out and buy some of the "climate apocalypse" games to see if they're any good. ~~(writing game reviews, now that's praxis!)~~

Get ready, this is gonna be a long one. I completed 3 games: let's start with the worst one and go up from there.

/*The Great Perhaps*/ - Linux

I hate this game.

/*The Great Perhaps*/ a short adventure game with a time-travel twist. Your character gets the ability to time-travel, and arrives from the future into the present world, to warn humanity and prevent a catastrophe. A bit of a cliche plot, but there's room for cleverness in there. Unfortunately, this game is not clever at all.

I don't want to rant for too long, I'll just say this:

The story sucks. There's a completely meaningless plot twist at the end, as if the writer wanted to seem clever, but they couldn't actually come up with a proper ending.
The gameplay sucks. The time travel mechanic is never fully explored, because your actions in the past never influence the future, so the puzzles are boring. The non-puzzle "action" sections are even worse.

There is also a bug which may prevent you from progressing. I had to look at a walkthrough which explained how to work around it.

4/10*, do not recommend this. At least it was only 3 hours long and cost me less than 1 dollar.

/*A New Beginning*/ - Windows/Wine

Link to image

/*A New Beginning*/ is a much higher-quality adventure game, but still has a lot of flaws which prevent me from enjoying it. Let's get the good parts out of the way:

The art is pretty good.
The puzzles are very clever, perhaps maybe too clever for me, because I've had to use a walkthrough on more than one occasion. However, the solutions always make sense, so you won't need a guide if you're smarter than me. (too bad I'm not smarter than me...)
The main character has a good amount of personality and a backstory.

Sadly:

The voice acting is really bad. The lines are delivered completely out of context, so in scenes which are supposed to be surprising, the characters will sound completely emotionless, or vice-versa. I actually chuckled a few times because the tone was so wrong.
The plot is not perfect. It starts out too slow, and the plot twists at the end are kinda incoherent. It is good enough to make me invested, but it's a bit hard to enjoy.
Occasional glitches, which don't ruin the game, but it is surprising to see that many glitches in a point-and-click game.
A New Beginning can be quite preachy. It recognizes that global warming is a large, systemic issue, and that it requires societies and people to work together and rethink our relationships with the world, and all that. But still, there are moments where the game makes fun of individuals for being "lazy", for not recycling, or liking cars too much, etc., which just feels condescending and does not address the root causes of all this.

There are a few moments where the game pokes fun at the main character when he starts to sound too much like Greta Thunberg, which helps keep the game relatable to normal people. But I feel like it doesn't do it enough, and so overall the game really fits the "overeducated preachy liberal" stereotype.

I want to like this game, but it's only a *6/10* for me. Recommended, but very flawed.

FAR: Lone Sails

Windows

Link to image

Now, this game is interesting!

/*FAR: Lone Sails*/ is a unique platformer, where you use a large vehicle to explore a big post-apocalyptic world. The vehicle works either through steam power, or (if the weather conditions are right) via sail. I guess you could call it solarpunk, or post-steampunk.

You spend your time either maintaining the steam powered engines, or just relaxing and enjoying the beautiful atmosphere while sailing. Occasionally, you'll run into an obstacle, so you'll have to stop, explore the area, solve a few puzzles, and open a path for your vehicle to progress.

The game has no dialogues, and the story is told purely through (beautiful) visuals, sorta like /Journey/. The story's message is clear but does not hit you in the face.

8/10*, it's not a very exciting game, but with a 3-hour length, it's a unique and relaxing experience.

Sadly, I couldn't get it to work with Wine, so it's the one game among the three here that required me to boot into Windows.