Sense: A Cyberpunk Ghost Story (PC) Preview

Sense - 不祥的预感: A Cyberpunk Ghost Story is supposed to be a point-and-click adventure with a little bit (for the time being) of Chinese-flavoured paranormal activity thrown in. Unfortunately, instead of scary, the mood of this 10-minute ride leans more towards the low key mysterious side of the scale, and as such, doesn't manage to show what the end product will feel like, which is a shame as the developer cites Fatal Frame and Clock Tower as major inspirations.

The same goes for the gameplay portion of it all. It will undoubtedly be a point-and-click adventure, but of what kind? Will it have puzzles to solve? Will it be required to gather clues by talking to people? Will it include something that doesn't belong in the genre, like, for example, RPG-like turn-based battles? Hard to say, as the heroine of this ghost story, a young Faye Valentine-meets-Motoko Kusanagi called Mei-Lin Mak won't do much in here.

Moving from one area to the next is extremely simple. Take the final corridor, for instance, where the only things that you can interact with are a locked door and a small pin - can you guess how to open the door? In conclusion, this mostly cares about offering a tiny bite of its narrative style, which, for the time being mostly relies in brief, show-not-tell cut-scenes in the form of comic panels, and a couple of character interactions with people that don't really have much to say… or, at least, something relevant.

And yet it manages to be somewhat immersive, despite the titanic room for improvement, as it looks and sounds pretty good, although the sound section is kind of poor for the moment. Needless to say, the target group of Sense are cyberpunk fans, as Neo Hong-Kong is dark, filthy, bright, and colourful in equal measures, and its citizens range from bums with cybernetic implants to unapologetically hyper-sexualised gals with big, round, bouncy, and juicy… err, upgrades.

Yes, Benjamin Widdowson can draw, and, even at this very early state, everything looks great - here's hoping that the final release won't be an eroge, though, as most of Top Hat Studios' productions usually are. Will the visuals be enough to help Sense as it enters the realm of Kickstarter? Sadly, no. It looks pretty, but the developer must soon provide something more than that if it wants its creation to succeed. This humble cyberpunk aficionado crosses his fingers…