What's the game? What's in it? What do I do in it? Do I need to be prepared for skill-based minigames? Jumpscares? What kind of Horror does it contain?

I have many more questions, and yet the description tab tells me nothing. The trailers aren't much better.

So I went to the developer's website and the game's page on Steam—something I shouldn't have to do—to determine whether this is worth spending my money on.

Steam's about page is identical. The website says this:

"Marissa Marcel was a film star. She made three movies. But none of the movies were ever released. And Marissa Marcel disappeared. "

That's... not much.

More questions do appear though: It seems to be an FMV title, like your previous game. Would this be accurate? How much of the game is simple gameplay, and what's the ratio of gameplay to cutscenes?

Of course, there are trailers. But story-wise they tell me nothing new, and gameplay-wise it tells me that I play the game by clicking on the actress' face which... causes the image to zoom? And sometimes they change? Also, you explore by match cut... which is why the images are changing? I think? And there's a semblance of a UI in one of the trailers? It goes by way too quickly, so I can't tell if that's a UI or not.

Here are the tags on the GOG page:

"Story Rich, Puzzle, Exploration, Dark, Point&Click, Horror, Open World, Visual Novel, Realistic, Emotional, Choose Your Own Adventure, LGBTQ+, Hidden Object"

Puzzle? What kind of puzzles are there? Exploration? Open World? How is that handled in an FMV game?

All I know is a very, very brief summary of the plot. That's it. I think the description tab is for more than just the text you get on the reverse side of a DVD case. I would be completely OK with this, positively excited even, if there were some explanations on the game itself and how it's supposed to play. The Description tab should contain more, including descriptions of the game itself. If I hadn't watched the trailers I wouldn't know I'm supposed to "Explore by Match Cut". Also the trailers don't tell me it's a horror game. Is it even?

Do I have to buy this to find out more? Because that seems ridiculous.

Maybe the best FMV game ever made—It's entirely possible. Maybe it's so good that it will be remembered for centuries to come. Maybe the directing and cinematography are so beyond excellent that the likes of Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick rise from the dead to give it the standing ovation it deserves. Maybe the gameplay is so good that the developers are given complete control over EA's resources so they can make more pieces of art like this.

Maybe. Just maybe.

And it'll stay a maybe until that atrociously brief and non-descriptive description continues to be so, because otherwise who's going to verify the quality of the work? Surely you don't expect people to just spend money on something so unexplained? That'd be like throwing money into a pit in the vain hope of seeing minor improvement in your life—so no thanks, I already pay enough taxes as is.

Less than 1000 characters, 17% of which are just "█". Only 162 words, four of which are "you don't want this". Gee, way to hit the nail on the head!


TL;DR: Please give us an actual description of your product.

1) Don't expect that the devs will read your post here - you might have more luck if you'd ask on Steam but they don't even have a discord and don't reply much to any requests. Unfortunately this was the case as well with all other games from these devs ...

2) If you are aware how the other games from Sam Barlowe (Her Story / telling lies) worked it would help you a lot since this one is not very different. All games from Sam Barlowe are working the same way so far. In short: there is a story told in several tiny videos and your goal is to unlock as many of those as possible to figure out what the story is about. Since you won't be able to unlock those videos chronologically you will have to fill in blanks with your imagination until you finally managed to unlock the missing piece .. often your expectations will be subverted when this happens and there are a lot of twist and turns if you get a story told in that kind of way. You think you know who the person in a certain clip is? Guess again, the context of other clips might tell you that the person in fact was disguised, or a twin or whatever ... you think the interview is real? Might as well be a clip from a TV-Show the character is watching but without the context you won't know ... these are just a few examples. In general these games show that you don't know much if you don't have all the information which is fun in a certain way if you like storys and story telling. These games (with IMMORTALITY included) are much more narrative experiment than they are usual games as you know them ... does not make them less fun though.

So how does gameplay work in IMMORTALITY exactly? At the start of the game it will show you all clips available ... those clips are from three different movies and many rehersals ... those clips might also hide some surprises depending on the way you'll watch them. Anyway ... the virtual player to play these clips gets broken right at the beginning and so you will have to use an old movie watching tool and start with just one single videoclip which you can pause at any moment. Several things you see in the clip can be clicked on and if you click on a certain person or object the system will search for another videoclip in the database that has the same or similar object in it (example: you click on a cup and the system will unlock another clip which has a cup in it). This way you go from clip to clip, unlocking new clips. You have also the option to watch those clips in different speeds or even backwards ... like i said, the way you watch them might uncover surprises. So no - no mini games and I doubt there are many jump scares at all (I am just 2 hours in and so far I was just watching clips and unlocking other clips ....). I also would not expect any puzzles - these aren't just the type of game - these are mostly atmospheric and narrative. Regarding GOG tags ... they never managed to add proper tags so I would really forget about those. This is NOT a visual novel AT ALL (even though you are watching a story) and it is also not a true hidden object game ... yes, you might miss some objects you can click on if you don't watch closely ... but these are still no HOGs. If you like movies, FMV games, narrative games and interesting story ideas and don't mind mostly watching videoclips in several speeds and direction with minor gameplay in general - go for it.