Friendly Facade

"Friendly Facade" is an indie mystery visual novel that is taking some inspirations from games like "Danganronpa", but is fundamentally different. For the current price it's sold at, I'd definitely reccommend this game. It's still early access, but chapters are getting uploaded quite regularly. Currently (up to day 5), about 7-10 hours of gameplay are available - depending on how fast you read. So yeah, 16 study participants take place in an isolated research study by a famous company and experience some rather interesting days. Each day includes some kind of minigame, which are quite fun and consist of (actually) meaningful choices that influence character relationships and your ranking. However, note that since there are 16 participants, some characters are more, and some are less fleshed out. The game is mainly linear and thus decides when to give you backstory of characters - you don't really actively choose which character to explore, which is one of the weak points of this game....

I personally really enjoyed this game! It's a good character-driven mystery VN that I personally found intriguing, especially with how things ended off when I finished playing (I got to the end of Chapter 5). If you're interested in structured death games like Danganronpa I think this could scratch a similar itch. There are some pretty big key differences, but if I was going to summarize my thoughts it'd be that. Now, I think it's important to note that this game has a slow start. It takes several chapters to ramp up and focuses on interpersonal conflict. I think this works well for the game, but definitely don't be expecting any bloodshed right off the back. This game slowly builds up the feeling of things being "off" while fleshing out the characters and their relationships before things really hit the boiling point. This is something I actually really like, since it allows the characters to go into the death game portion of things as acquaintances rather than complete strangers. It...

Honestly, so far it's engaging. The art style is...different. I think it's not everyone's cup of tea but...I actually like it. There's something kinda messed up but satisfying about something drawn to give off airy/sweet childish vibes turning out to be sinister that really gets me. The characters are all interesting--much like other 'survival / death contest' type visual novels, we see the emergence of strong personality types meant to fill various niches. Alex is the intellectual, William is the arrogant leader, Maggie is our kind/ordinary protagonist, Rain is the 'rebel,' but a few characters don't quite 'fit' niches easily, like Mason and Calvin, who both seem to fit the 'goofy madman' role. I don't think I've played far enough in to get to the especially 'bad' parts. But because of that, I can tell you that I see the foreshadowing--I can tell the game will get dark, because it's laying good groundwork. There's fractures/betrayals over 'small' stuff at the very beginning, which ...

(SPOILERS). I just finished day 2 and I think that the game was very fun, it felt as if I wasn't being punished too much for mistakes and that it has repeatability if you choose too. I enjoyed the plot and some of the characters are really fun to interact with. I think some of Maggie's relationships are a little forced example: Finn... :) and some of the results also feel like i'm being pigeonholed or feel too predictable. I did really enjoy the mystery aspect, and especially Blake's character, in addition the weakness files are a great aspect but I think they were given away too quickly. Overall this was a game that my girlfriend and I enjoyed playing together and Rain is the best character no cap #teamgoth #teamgirlypop #Williamsucks :).