''Tales of the Neon Sea'' is an

adventure video game An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an Interactive storytelling, interactive story, driven by exploration and/or Puzzle video game, puzzle-solving. The Video game genres, genre's focus ...

developed by Chinese studio Palm Pioneer. It is a retro-styled pixel-art game in a

cyberpunk Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a dystopian futuristic setting said to focus on a combination of "low-life and high tech". It features futuristic technological and scientific achievements, such as artificial intelligence and cyberwa ...

setting.

Gameplay

The goal of ''Tales of the Neon Sea'' is to walk around in search of clues and solve a series of

puzzle A puzzle is a game, problem, or toy that tests a person's ingenuity or knowledge. In a puzzle, the solver is expected to put pieces together ( or take them apart) in a logical way, in order to find the solution of the puzzle. There are differe ...

s and

brain teaser A brain teaser is a form of puzzle that requires thought to solve. It often requires thinking in unconventional ways with given constraints in mind; sometimes it also involves lateral thinking. Logic puzzles and riddles are specific types of ...

s. Players assume the role of Rex, a hard-boiled detective, to investigate a case. The protagonist is forced to use mechanical prosthetics due to injuries. He can use electronic eyes to scan objects and analyze corpses during investigation. In some scenes, players will control the protagonist's assistant, William the black cat, to enter areas inaccessible to Rex to explore or collect items.

Plot

Set in a

neo-noir Neo-noir is a film genre that adapts the visual style and themes of 1940s and 1950s American film noir for contemporary audiences, often with more graphic depictions of violence and sexuality. During the late 1970s and the early 1980s, the term ...

metropolis A metropolis () is a large city or conurbation which is a significant economic, political, and cultural area for a country or region, and an important hub for regional or international connections, commerce, and communications. A big city b ...

where humans and robots contend with escalating tensions and mutual distrust, the storyline follows Rex, formerly a veteran police detective accepting random jobs as a

private investigator A private investigator (often abbreviated to PI; also known as a private detective, an inquiry agent or informally a wikt:private eye, private eye) is a person who can be hired by individuals or groups to undertake investigatory law services. ...

to make ends meet.

Development

The game was successfully crowd-funded through

Kickstarter Kickstarter, PBC is an American Benefit corporation, public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York City, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative project ...

in 2018.

Reception

Upon release, ''Tales of the Neon Sea'' received mixed reviews by users and critics. On review aggregate ''

OpenCritic OpenCritic is a review aggregation website for video games. OpenCritic lists reviews from critics across multiple video game publications for the games listed on the site. The website then generates a numeric score by averaging all of the numeri ...

'', ''Tales of the Neon Sea'' had an average 61 out of 100 review score with 13% approval rating based on 8 reviews. The game received "mixed or average" reviews according to review aggregator

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

Accolades

In 2018, ''Tales of the Neon Sea'' won the award for "Excellence in Visual Art", and was nominated for "Excellence in Narrative" and "Best Game Grand Prize" at IndiePlay China Independent Game Competition. The game won the awards for "Most Innovative Game" and "Best Game Design" from Indie Prize at Casual Connect Asia 2018. In 2019, the game was nominated for "Visual Excellence" award at BitSummit.Announcing the BitSummit 7 Spirits Award Nominations
. bitsummit.org

References

External links

* 2019 video games Android (operating system) games Single-player video games Kickstarter-funded video games Crowdfunded video games Video games developed in China Cyberpunk video games Neo-noir video games Science fiction video games Windows games IOS games Nintendo Switch games Xbox One games Xbox Series X and Series S games PlayStation 4 games Zodiac Interactive games