#hq version of this drawing is finally out 😭

[hey-sherry]

Sherlock Holmes The Awakened Demo Thinky Thoughts

A bit late, but I wanted to share my first reaction to the Awakened demo! This is essentially an expanded version of what I wrote on the FW discord, with screenshots edited to look nicer for tumblr. I will do a separate post on the extra stuff that is normally inaccessible without Ansel. [Extra stuff post here]

So: spoilers ahead + keep in mind that the game is darker and moodier, I edited some of the screenshots so that they are clearer on tumblr/mobile view.

Sweet sweet concept art, gorgeous intro music, yay! The main theme is atmospheric and dark, giving me very slight vibes of the Sarif HQ track from DX:HR... I mean this in a good way, not in a “they copied it” way. It’s that sort of nostalgic ambience, but deeper and darker. One day I’ll stop drawing parallels to Deus Ex, but today is not that day.

The intro cinematic is pre-rendered and really good; I liked Sherlock's narration and the implication it's all in Watson's/players' hands now... He sounds more authoritative and distant than in CO.

I really liked the visual with the fly caught in the cobweb.

I did not expect this! It's a really fun title sequence and wow, we’re being thrown straight into chapter 3. I too thought it would be London but this is great 😄

WATSON!!! At this point I’m thinking, “Oooh we're gonna play as Watson, they probably don’t want to show Sherlock just yet, I know someone who's gonna be very happy about this o,o” (ahem hem, @lucere-aeresta​) I like long dialogues/cinematics so this intro was a treat. I'll have to replay of course but it felt very satisfying to see a chunk of the story here and be introduced to the new characters. There’s a lot going on!

The receptionist

Dr. Gygax!

You can walk around a little and talk to a couple of NPCs. There’s this easter egg - it’s a Lovecraft easter egg (thanks for figuring that one out, Lucere!) The paper itself is straight from Cordona. :D

You cannot pick this letter up, but the message is very clear. May be a clue in the final game.

Who’s there...? BTW this is the exact face Sherlock gives Jon when he plays the guitar too loudly in the CO seance scene :D

OH NO. LMAO! This had me in stitches, and of course I lied. Nice American accent, you dork. The subsequent journal entry essentially saying "Watson tried to act, I guess" gave me a chuckle. I tried!  So hard! And in the en-- moving on...

Here’s how the journal looks like now. The clues have updated icons and you can toggle to sort them by type (document, conversation, item, etc.) or the order in which you found them.

So yeah, Sherlock shows up in disguise and a terrible American accent, says the iconic “Guten day,” and then he gets sedated because Watson cannot lie to save his life.

Of course. OF COURSE. Now I know someone who's going to be a bit disappointed we don’t spend much time as Watson, but that's not me. 😂 My first thought -> they heard us cry and wail about the stubble and said "We're gonna make you beg to have the stubble back" Ok, ok, you win. I'm sorry. 😭

(insert half an hour of zooming around with Ansel instead of playing the damn game) This is how the game levels look when you go out of bounds!

Found some of you in the back! And in the cells! :3 (There’s a wall with photographs of the Kickstarter backers, and a row of cells with names and custom faces - although you cannot see the characters very well at this point.)

Right, I should play. The lockpicking puzzles were fun, but I'll admit I found both of them extremely easy. But I am a seasoned adventure game fan and it's a nice little thing to do for that feeling of escaping the cells. The “Mycroft” (custom) difficulty setting does let you change the puzzle difficulty, so we are probably going to face a bigger challenge in the finished game. The settings don’t make a difference in the demo, though.

SHERLOCK. NO. PUT IT DOWN.

PUT THOSE DOWN OH MY GOD

So yeah, I think it’s safe to say he’s a full blown addict by now. Vogel, what have you done?

Ran into the guard three times, got a game over 😎 Confirmation that yeah Sherlock is still afraid of water! I bet he's gonna love the trip to America and boating around the swamps. What could go wrong.

FYI, there's a guard that you need to figure out how to get past. It's not a sneaking sequence, but you need some items. If he notices you 3 times he rings the alarm, and the game reloads

At this point I'm having fun just investigating stuff and admiring the new journal etc., it's all very nicely designed. It's awesome that we can sort evidence by type now! The mind palace facelift is so good and feels more involved than before.

Back to the game... I SQUEALED!!! 😄 duhhh

And again! Two back to back CO references, yay ♥

Well I am a smart detective and deal with the guard with my brain and not my fists. Time to yoink all of his clothes. Where did his body go? We don't ask such questions around here...

HEEEEEEEEELLLLLLL YEAAAAAAAH

ANSEL PHYSICS RESET MY BELOVED ♥♥ never fix this please never ever

(cue another photoshoot) 

The biggest tease in all of the demo: THAT EXCLAMATION MARK. Let... me... see... outfits! 😂 Lovingggg the updated outfit screen, so happy there's some gorgeous lighting in there. It looked kinda bad in CO.

Okay, back to playing the game! I LIED, more photoshoots as the inmates scream, cry, and wail all around me. Sucks to be them, I guess.

Okay, Gerda! I LOVE her new design, and her voice actress too! She was so great.

Gerda is the second inmate that we meet. She wants her friend Heidi back and until then she will not talk. The first inmate that we meet is Mauricio Napoleon, it is just a short but entertaining conversation/cinematic. We don’t talk to him any more in the demo.

He does that lil smile as she spits the worst threats at him, it's glorious

Something something Silent Hill 3 (Gorgeous!)

I try to play the mountain goat in every game and the absence of the jump button will not stop me

So I didn't take screenshots of the quite meaty gameplay surrounding getting Heidi back and figuring out what's going on, so here's some thoughts: - The updated crime scene investigation looks fantastic! The smokey green aesthetics are fitting and everything is much clearer than it was in CO. I like that we can see how many variations there are for each 'node'. The only thing I'm not sure about is the first person perspective - Sherlock's close focus mode - because I had trouble seeing what's different in the variations, and sometimes the models would push me back a little bit when they loaded. I'd move away from the node just by trying to see things and had trouble re-positioning... not a great deal of trouble, of course, but it is a downgrade from SHCO. I think the 3rd person mode like with Jon in CO works much better. This is my biggest criticism of the demo. - There was a tad too much running back and forth just to seemingly fetch a few items... this may be polished further, I don't know. It gave me old adventure game vibes where you kinda run back and forth for a few small things lol. - I wished we could use the items more directly and/or assemble things, not just have them as text in the inventory... but I understand that making a new puzzle feature may be too much work at this point - The "three clues" dialogue confused me for a moment, but so it did in CO as well so this may be a ‘me’ problem 😂 I keep forgetting that there are 3 different questions to answer, not that I need to present 3 accurate clues... hahah. - The darker overtones are soooo up my alley! When I figured out what had happened to one of the people in the casket... ooof anyway, time to find and assemble Heidi!

Him <3

Awww, isn't it cute?

BUT IT'S WRONG

Oh so wrong 😂 I did NOTTTT expect this ahahahahhhh Hands down the best part of the demo The mental health aspect of the remake was what had me a little worried, but you know what, I think it's gonna be fine 😂 Heidi is one bad bench, and Sherlock just ACCEPTING he's now talking to a demonic doll and making the most of it is just chef's kiss Love, love, love. We're all mad here.

I unlocked a reward, and what a sweet one it is! Sadly, you cannot change your clothes in the demo. The updated physics make his chain and bag go bouncing like crazy, haha.

And thank

you

for reading! Feel free to send me an ask if you have any questions.

[helga-grinduil]