Unfinished - An Artist's Lament

This is a difficult game for me to review. Unfinished is an interesting short game. You play as an unfinished drawing who wants to be complete. The game serves as an effective metaphor for the creative process in general: everyone who has tried to create something, be it art, writing, a game, or whatever, can recognise the story this game tries to tell. The art style is great. All hand-drawn, and it stays this throughout. The art is accompanied by soothing music. The narrative is told through voice over -- sadly no subtitles -- that is clear, if at a little low volume compared to the music. Gameplay wise, you walk through white, empty environments to find body parts (different legs, different bodies, different heads), all of which give you enhanced abilities. As you progress the levels become more... drawn. Unfortunately Unfinished is hard to get in to. I was stuck at the first real puzzle for far too long, since the game didn't make it clear at all that I could swap abilities in m...

Before anything else, let me say that I wanted to like this game. I'm an artist myself and have studied both illustration and animation. I was honestly expecting to connect with this concept. Sadly, my artistic senses were offended more than anything. I feel bad for saying this about any other artist's work, but this is also one of the few Steam purchases I deeply regret. Like the title says, it's unfinished. Not even in any artsy way. The only lament I experienced from this game was that of my wasted money. Maybe the idea was good at some point, but the mechanics feel broken, and navigating the world is terrible, which really just killed the experience (hence my very short playtime on record). I went into this hoping for a short, thoughtful, story driven experience, but instead I was apalled by bad coding and environment design. Simplicity can be great; I knew what the game looked like from screenshots, and I was still expecting to like it. Instead, it felt uninviting and badly plan...

This game is short... about 30 minutes long, possibly pushed to an hour if you have a difficult time with the mechanics. It is not really even a game. It is a walking (and bouncing) simulator where you hear an artist complain that he is out of ideas and that people do not like his work, all while you try to wander over to a pencil. That's it. There is no story, there are no enemies, and there are just a couple of puzzles (if you count stacking blocks as puzzles). You do get a few power-ups, but they are difficult and clunky at best. I will say this though: I did enjoy the music.

An interesting concept executed poorly. Maybe the game's content would have fared better as a visual novel or an adventure game. I appreciate what the creators were hoping to depict, however having it be this extremely slow-paced platformer kills a lot of the immersion and momentum to bother getting into it.

Simple but effective, and pretty much aimed at artists. If you're in the business of creating things, it's quite easy to relate to the story being told. There's a few "I know that feeling" moments, and that's really what the game is designed for I think. It's not going to blow your mind with indepth mechanics. Not a Hardcore platformer etc. But if you're having an artblock, feeling a little down on your skills or whatever? Yeah why not, it's cheap, give it a go.

So true. There is a lot of stress and efforts to put into one creative work. Some people don't value artists and just want them to finish their work early for their own good. Long ago I supported cracked games, but since I learned about all the hardworks from the game developers, like now, I buy the games instead of downloading a cracked game. Luckily, I found steam. Steam sales a lot of games at reasonable prices. Remember, if you support a creative work, don't copy paste or reupload the work to somewhere else. You can see people reupload someone else's videos and images illegally. Mostly in Facebook that allowed copyrighted content to be posted with minor changes. I really like how YouTube prevents copyrighted materials. Their system is really supporting the creator of the creative works.

I really wanted to love this game, I love the concept. The concept and art sold me. However, I couldn't stomach the incredibly slow walking speed of the character. You're forced to walk incredibly slow, and it doesn't seem like any consideration was given to the physics of the character- how it moves, specifically. Just flat, boring, WASD walking through miles of endless white. And you don't really jump either- you select a "bouncing" power up and bounce constantly to get over obstacles. I did not find this mechanic fun or intuitive- just annoying and slow like the walking. Great concept and art, frustratingly slow and plain controls. I didn't want to force myself through the boring process of moving my character around to getting the final message or metaphor of the experience- I just wanted it to end.

I enjoyed this game. It's short but I think if it was too long it would start to wear out its welcome. The art is great and it was cool playing a game about the creative process.

A neat little game with a fun premise. I'd love to see a fully fleshed out version that really explored the design space. Really wish there was a tutorial or something, just a bit more guidance, and a less awkward/unintuitive control scheme (especially when playing with an xbox controller). Little more than what I might have been inclined to spend on a game of this length, but I think I got the same amount of enjoyment out of it as an equivalent fast food purchase. Make of that what you will. Tentative recommendation.

Not worth your time.