The Red Strings Club by Deconstructeam (Cyberpunk Game) | Fashionably Late Game Review
Welcome to Fashionably Late on MindMine. This where I size-up games from 2 or more years ago. I’ll share my thoughts on core aspects of different titles with the goal to either introduce to your next favorite game, help you avoid a bombshell or reignite some nostalgia.
Today, on the Catwalk, is The Red Strings Club by Deconstructeam.
This is a narrative adventure game set in a cyberpunk world of hacking, cybernetic implants, and mega-corporations. One such corporation in this world is Supercontinent Ltd., which creates implants to change how humans experience and attempt to gain control over their lives. Little do the users of these modifications know Supercontinent’s true intentions.
In The Red Strings Club, you’ll step into the shoes of 3 different characters:
- Donovan: a non-modified human who runs The Red Strings Club
- Brandeis: a modified freelance hacker and associate of Donovan
- Akara-184: an advanced android formerly owned by Supercontinent
You’ll learn how these three have been strung together by a common thread, discover the true intentions of Supercontinent and decide what to do with that information once its discovered.
The visual style gives vibes of a 1990’s side-scroller point-n-click game with a great moody cyberpunk edge. The overall design provides a sense of something familiar and yet different. It makes it easy for a player to start playing and understand what they’re seeing while also having them realize there’s something more underneath it all.
One of my favorite artistic choices is the visual juxtaposition between some of the settings you visit in the city and The Red Strings Club itself. Many of the settings have a cold isolated feel to them while The Red Strings Club brought in natural warmth. This works so well as The Red Strings Club is a place where people come to escape the world that they feel caged in. Also, considering Donovan is not only the owner of The Red Strings Club but also an information broker, it’s a great way to help patrons feel relaxed enough to talk.
Overall, the design was well-thought-out. It works to provoke specific emotions from the player, assists in enhancing themes within the story and provides additional insights into a character (or characters).
The gameplay experience feels like a full body of work surgically brought together. You have the point-n-click elements that get you experiencing conversations and exploring environments. You’ll also interact with several mini-games that are either their own section of the story or directly woven into the narrative pieces. These mini-games assist a character in obtaining something important to help you progress. As choice is a massive part of this game, your choices and how you go about the mini-games will impact your overall experience.
Deconstructeam did a fantastic job of creating these mini-games around the situation and character at hand. An example is when you play as Donovan and you’re attempting to extract information from a patron. You’ll have to craft specific blends of drinks that hit on different psychological and emotional aspects of that character to get them to spill the information you need. Though, as mentioned before on the impact of choice, if you choose unwisely, it could lead you to lose vital information.
To me, the crowning achievement in these mini-games is how they get you to ponder and question your own life based on the themes of the game. A great example of this is when we play as Akara-184. The player is pulled into a Supercontinent facility and must craft implants for customers. You’ll sit at something akin to a pottery wheel and mold the implants with three different tools.
Thanks to the well-crafted hypnotic soundtrack and the creative simplicity of the work, I took on task after task until realizing the impact of what I was doing. I was creating modifications that would be inserted into a human-being to change who they are and how they experience the world. And though this sounds empowering, it could also have severe consequences. This got me thinking about how we disassociate the task at hand with the final impact of those actions. Do we stand-up against what we don’t believe in or disconnect ourselves from the hand we have in it. Or do we truly have a choice in the matter?
The story is engaging and deep, with plenty of twists and turns. There’s also a strong replayability factor to the game thanks to the impact your choices have on characters and plot-points. The character development is well-done and adds gravity to how you go about specific interactions.
So, what are my final thoughts on The Red Strings Club? After reaching the conclusion of the story, I initially didn’t know what to feel as I was so lost in thought about it. For me, this is strange as I usually have a strong reaction one way or another. After some time though, I realized that my reaction showed how well-crafted the game is. Throughout the entire playthrough, The Red Strings Club challenged me to think about aspects of life and then held me accountable for the choices I made based on that thinking. If this game didn’t get me to start thinking as critically as it did, reaching the end would’ve been for nothing.
Links:
https://www.gog.com/game/the_red_strings_club
https://store.steampowered.com/app/589780/The_Red_Strings_Club/
https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/the-red-strings-club-switch/
