I hated playing game. I've worked in a warehouse, and been in dire financial situations, and this game captured the emotional experience of working in one perfectly with the oppressive horrifying nature of a capitalist cyber punk future.
I hated how oppressively claustrophobic the Hud was. I hated how Penny was contently just there at all times, watching, judging, and the unconsented (or at times barely consented) access she had to every part of me. I hated how I could see my bank account looming in the corners at all times like a weight around my neck. I hated how real the sense of bleek hopelessness was over being forced into a situation I felt like I had no control over, and how it felt designed to never let me go. I hated how everything came down to money or time, and how much control Penny had over allowing me both.
This was a nightmare, and hated every moment of it. It may be one the best horror games I have played in memory.
However, as incredible as the game is it is still in a slightly unpolished and buggy state. I was able to play maybe 30 minutes before I had to take a break from the anxiety, but when I came back to resume my save, the game refused to launch properly. I got the "made by unity splash" screen, and then a dead screen. I also had difficulty with the aspect ratio. I have a sizeable monitor, but when I launched the game it came out in a window and the bottom tenth of the screen was cut off. I was able to drag it up into my second monitor and set the game to full screen but was unable to change the resolution. I suspect that this may have something to do with why the game wouldn't launch a second time, but I don't know. Or maybe Penny didn't like the way I was playing and said no.
I desperately hope the game can be fixed and a resolution option added, because I both need to and dread playing more. Evil AI is a played out trope, but there is something so genuine and terrifying about Penny. I need to know how this game resolves and what her actual goal is for the player, and if she truly is malevolent or just simply simulated interest over cold indifference. So many questions and I need answers.
I want to highly recommend this game, I just hope it will be updated after the jam is over so I can complete it.
Viewing post in Model Employee jam comments
Thanks so much for writing about your experience and giving us your bug report. Sorry about the screen resolution bug- due to the time constraints of the jam, we weren't able to test on as wide a variety of PC setups as we'd have liked. We'll be patching the game throughout the month as we find and fix bugs like this.
In the meantime, you can try resetting your install's settings so that the game will launch and run in the same state it initially did- from there we'd recommend you play Fullscreen on a 1920x1080 monitor or in Windowed mode on any larger screen.
You can find Model Employee's local Settings File in:
C:\Users\YOURPCUSERNAME\AppData\LocalLow\Nth Circle\Model Employee\NaninovelData\Saves
If you delete Settings.json, the game should reset all resolution, text, volume and screen size settings upon launch, and you should be able to play normally from there.
Thanks again for taking the time to write about this issue and how our work affected you. Have fun playing!