AR-K Free Download [License]

AR-K Free Download [License] >>> http://imgfil.com/1aub8a

About This Game AR-K is a classical point and click adventure with an updated twist. IMPORTANT:This pack includes episodes 1 and 2 of AR-KAR-K: Gone With The SphereAR-K: The Girl Who Wasn't ThereEpisode 3 is now available on Steam!AR-K: The Great EscapeAlicia Van Volish is a former cop and current journalism student who wakes up after a one-night stand with a terrible hangover and a lot of questions: How much did she drink? Did she really take that guy home with her? What was his name? And what, exactly, is the Golden Sphere, the mysterious object that seems the source of all Alicia’s woes? 7aa9394dea Title: AR-KGenre: Adventure, IndieDeveloper:GATO STUDIOPublisher:GATO STUDIORelease Date: 21 Jul, 2014 AR-K Free Download [License] Utterly, amazingly, BAD!Only played it to the end (if following a guide from beginning to end can be called "playing") only because I had already bought the third chapter, which people seem to like.Actually, chapter 1 is not THAT bad, just some puzzles are illogical. But, chapter 2... Oh!!! That's a new level of craziness! Completely wacko, illogical to the 10th power!!!!! Alicia pokes fun on you on the first chapter for combining everything with everything, little did she know that you would have to do this on chapter 2.... There are two types of games I really hate to review: criminally mediocre games that you can't really say anything interesting about and games like AR-K, a game that has a lot of heart, but is like a busload of burning orphans careening off a cliff; a terribly executed, tragic waste of potential. Update Within the day, I was contacted by one of the developers to tell me that they read my review and are working hard to make sure the next episodes live up to expectations. That's great to hear! By actually talking with me about my criticisms it reflects very well on AR-K's team and gives me even more reason to hope that it might come together and I can recommend it to everyone. The review remains the same for now, but those interested in the community behind a work in progress may find that here. Back to the review How shall I start to explain the trouble that is AR-K? I know. Look around your computer and try and find a belt or length of rope. Just trust me. I'm going somewhere with this. Got it? Okay, now fold it in half, grab it firmly by each end and pull it taut. Now rapidly move your fists inward and outward. The flapping movement you are seeing is quite similar to how the main character's mouth moves in the first episode of AR-K; outside of cutscenes, anyway.You might think this is a minor gripe and adventure gamers have always had a knack for looking past poor and peculiar graphics. And you'd be totally right. But I'm only pointing out one teaspoon in an ocean of technical issues and bad presentation. The volume of the spoken dialogue hasn't been normalized, there are a couple of misread lines, the subtitles have been poorly edited, you can't save on your own initiative or have multiple game files, the voices of characters are prone to change once or twice (probably artifacts from old voice actors), there's been some weird scaling when characters interact with each other, it took me about fifteen minutes to figure out how to get items from the inventory screen to interact with objects in the world, and the English localization has a few wrinkles. That isn't even an exhaustive list.Alright, alright. So that's all really quite terrible, but like I've said, we're fans of point and click adventure games. We can forgive any kind of presentation in the name of good puzzles and and a good story. Let's start with the puzzles then. So, you've got an object on a high shelf that you want to get, a length of rope, and a large-breed dog. What do you do? Obviously, as an adult of average physical ability and a functioning brain, you ignore the rope and dog and climb the shelves, get a nearby box to stand on, or you just wedge your arm behind it and push it over. But you're playing an adventure game so you're probably already conditioned to ignore logical brevity and will do exactly what the game expects you to do: combining rope A with dog B. That's a puzzle in this game I found intuitive and logical and solved within seconds of its presentation. So, dear god, what kind of anti-backwards madness-dimension logic must be employed for me to call this game a completely illogical mess that demands a walkthrough?Well, let's examine one puzzle from episode one that I like in theory, but was so horribly implemented it was unsolvable. In AR-K, you play an investigative journalist and there was a puzzle based around you asking other characters about a policeman so that you could create some sincere-sounding flattery to get him to help you. That's a totally awesome thing for a game about an investigative jounalist! However, the hints you actually get don't correlate to the actual dialogue options you're presented with during the flattery, at best. At worst, they're totally misleading. For example, you're meant to get his first name from a bulletin board where various people have left posts. Now, the names on the board include three of the four choices you have in the dialogue and absolutely none of the bulletins suggest character traits specific to an officer or to anything else you've learned about him. In fact, the closest logical leap I could find is that one of them mentioned a feature of the specific area he was patrolling, so I assumed that must be the one. Nope. So to solve the puzzle you have to choose one of four dialogue options correctly four times. The game will not tell you which you have gotten correctly and none of your hints are better than my example. Oh, yeah, and in episode one you can't cut off dialogue you've already heard (at least I couldn't find a way).That's exceptionally awful. And it's doubly bad, because that's such a neat idea poorly done. But it's not the worst. Actually, episode one wasn't too bad. There was one other highly questionable moment that I only solved by clicking everything I had on everything else for long enough to get a result, but only that dialogue puzzle sent me to a walkthrough. Episode two, though.... Did I somehow kill your family without knowing it, episode two? Is that why you tortured me so? The first half was perfectly logical (well, dog-rope-shelf logical), but then there's a bit with a rat, and a trap, and you have to shoot it, and you have to... and you have to *rocking back and forth while crying*. And then you're taking exams for some reason!? WTF!?Okay, so the puzzles are half okay and half unsolvable moon logic. That does not a good adventure game make. But, hey, we've still got the story, right? It's a noir thriller, with the cartoony charm of Sam & Max, and it's set in space - the best setting! There's no way this could be bad, right? Well, hmm. It's okay. Episode one starts off with a good noir hook involving a mysterious MacGuffin and ends with the uncovery of a sinister plot, a betrayal, and ominous forshadowing. I even like the simple touch that we're playing a female investigator under the influence of a "homme-fatale" in a typically masculine genre. However, episode one is just a lot of screwing around on a college campus with very little movement in the story. It also doesn't help that the main character is kind of rough around the edges and performs some unlikable deeds. And it's not so gut-bustingly funny that you can forgive the character's misanthropy like with your Sam & Max. That said, episode two fixes all of those problems. The plot thickens and things happen. The protagonist actually appologizes for, say, maiming her mostly helpful roommate. And, most importantly, a disembodied narrator is introduced that only the protagonist can hear. There's some wonderfully funny lines between them and the narrator is able to voice our concerns with the protagonist's actions and manners.The narrator is also supposedly there to give you hints, but these are as helpful as the aforementioned clues with the policeman puzzle.So we've got a badly designed, technically messy game with a story that's all over the place. No, I can't recommend this game. I really wanted to. If you had told me last week that I'd be playing a noir-themed adventure game in the style of Lucasarts or Telltale set in freaking space, I'd have said, "Yes! All of this! Melt it down and inject it right into my eyeballs!" I want AR-K to be the video game equivalent of the underdog kids in an 80s sports movie, where after a synth music montage with a robot, the devs crank out an adventure game that beats down the big bully Triple A teams that give adventure games wedgies. Maybe it still can be that. There are still two episodes that haven't been released and episode two was mostly an improvement over episode one. In recent history, Tales of Monkey Island went from a mediocre first half to an adventure worthy of its pedigree. I'll keep an eye on AR-K's upcoming episodes and maybe I'll have the good fortune to erase my work here and tell you how badly you need to play this game. For now, though, I wouldn't.. Strange game. I enjoyed it though. Point and click adventure game with a few annoying little things like not being able to skip dialogue you've heard before and the main characters tiny legs and thigh gap in the artwork and she does do some pretty messed up things to advance the plot but overall I did enjoy it. It is definitely an intriguing story line and I can't wait for the last episode to come out I will be buying it. Overall for this one? 6.5\/10 a not disappointing start with the potential to be a really good overall story.. Every game has it's flaws; well, most of them do anyway. This game definitely isn't an exception. The big one is this: some of these puzzles are just not at all intuitive; and if you absolutely refuse to use any guide then you might end up walking away from the game in frustration. I'd definitely wish the game was a little better about the puzzles' being intuitive.In episode 1, it's that clues are really vague and don't really tell you what you need to know... In episode two, some of the puzzle solutions are even less intuitive, but the developer thought it could solve that by adding a narrator. You can ask the narrator to comment on quests or items, but in some cases he'll have nothing to say and in others it kind of remains vague. What's worse though; "asking the narrator" takes you out of the flow of the game, it's not fun and it's the wrong solution for the problem of the first episode.So, that's the big problem with this game... But despite that I still recommend it. Why? Well, the game has a ton of "charm". I really like the visual style, the voice actors\/actresses are good, the game has a really good sense of humor, the characters are fun and all different, it has funny references and the short videos are well placed, humorous and don't take too long.Heck, you know what? In a lot of aspects, this game reminds me of Day of the Tentacle. If you're not familiar with that game, it's one of the best classic games in this genre. The fact that this game (AR-K) reminds me of DOTT I think is indicative of the great atmosphere this game creates with it's scenes and characters.I might not recommend this game if it were an expensive game; but let's be honest. The game is cheap enough that, even if you don't like it, it doesn't hurt the wallet too much. Personally though? I really enjoyed \/ enjoy this game (am currently playing through episode 3).. I actually played this for quite some time, even though Steam apparently stopped counting after 0.4 hours. As much as I wanted to like this game and get into the comedy side of it, I just couldn't. I came into the game expecting a point-and-click adventure like my childhood game Grim Fandago, maybe I was aiming too high. I didn't really find much of the witty comments or any of the jokes that funny, I actually only remember giggling once in the game. Obviously this is a personal opinion of the game, some people will like it, some will not. Cannot recommend a game that relies on comedy, but is not funny.. Fundamentally lacking in fun. The graphics are painful and dated, the controls are a slog; using items in the inventory can be frustrating when trying to apply them in appropriate areas. The plot itself is extremely short and contrived. For an adventure in a science fiction space station, dealing with cover-up mysteries and police politics, everything boils down to petty revenge and an unfortunate one-night stand from an aggravating protagonist (who does not have the redeeming value of being written in a compelling fashion). None of it compels significant interest or a need to keep playing, save maybe to get your money's worth from this game. There have to be countless greater point & clicks on Steam.. I bought these 2 chapters on sale. It was less than a dollar so I can't complain that I got what I paid for for chapter one at least. Chapter 1 feels like it was a broken game. The How To menu was kinda broken and there also this fetch quest that initially asks for 4 items but when you ask the npc again, he ony describes 3 to you so I forgot completely about the fourth. Also, some items have descriptions, some items just have names, and some don't have any at all other than an image in your inventory. Chapter 2 starts out with an introduction of a new character that directly says its function to clear up the confusion of the first. This chapter breaks a lot of the fourth wall and I guess that's appealing, but I would much rather they go back and fix what was wrong with the previous chapter rather than make this one about mocking their old mistakes. Chapter 2 wasn't bad. It functions the way a point-and-click should with concistent interface and the right amount of hints. The only reason why I don't recommend this is because chapter 1 was bad. I see other reviews comment on the story, but I say the story is okay. If you don't mind struggling through a bad beginning to get to good part, be my guest.. Fortunately this game has its third chapter (The Great Escape) which is brilliant! I really recommend it! Instead these chapters 1 & 2 I played after it and I feel my Saturday wasted. Game is quite frivolous and puzzles were finally incredibly silly so I ended up looking for walkthrough. There were also some difficulties using an inventory and asking about items; it's not told what they are, or that narrator's subtitles run quickly past. And why the soundtrack is N\/A? But I'm happy this game serie stayed alive.. The puzzles are awful and make almost no sense, I used a guide because I wanted to see the story but the story is also not good.The main character tries to come out as smug and clever but she is just a really horrible and irritating person.. Strange game. I enjoyed it though. Point and click adventure game with a few annoying little things like not being able to skip dialogue you've heard before and the main characters tiny legs and thigh gap in the artwork and she does do some pretty messed up things to advance the plot but overall I did enjoy it. It is definitely an intriguing story line and I can't wait for the last episode to come out I will be buying it. Overall for this one? 6.5\/10 a not disappointing start with the potential to be a really good overall story.