Indies for the weekend

What never was

This is probably the first game I've played, not just in this article series but ever that is set in only one location. At least that's as far as I can remember. What Never Was sees you playing as Sarah, who has come to her grandfather's house to do some cleaning in the attic since he has passed. Sarah's grandfather was an adventurer however and during his lifetime he managed to pick up a few interesting artifacts. By exploring the attic and reading through the various journal entries laying about a story will unfold which will tell Sara about her grandfather's travels and his findings. It's a charming adventure that doesn't overstay its welcome together with some excellent voice acting and nice visuals, it's well worth seeing it through to the end credits.
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Summerland

You play as police detective Matthew who seems to be in some kind of limbo. It's never explained what it is but it seems to be some sort of crossroads for our protagonist. Here he is contacted by The Judge who leads Matthew through a series of trials which consist of various events in Matthew's life. In between these trials, Matthew will make a couple of choices to help The Judge decide whether Matthew is a good or bad person. What this will lead to in the end is up to the player to find out. The game is played from a first-person perspective and there aren't any character models to look at. The people you interact with all look like some kind of ghosts and in this sort of setting it works considering that Matthew is reliving his memories. Even still this doesn't take away anything from the game especially given that the voice acting is brilliant. I don't know if these were professional voice actors or not but given that the game is free on Steam, it feels highly unlikely. I can't stressed enough that the voice acting might be the best aspect of this game.

The questions that this game poses are of such a nature that one questions one's ethics and morale. It makes one wonder, how far one would go to protect the ones they love and what they would be willing to do. Even though the predicament our protagonist finds himself in is severe, I did find it a bit superficial since it felt like it was mainly there to make the player question their actions in such a situation. There are several solutions to the problem that Matthew ended up having but even still, one can't help but wonder if they would have acted differently in the situation Matthew found himself in. If for no other reason than to take a break from shooting or stabbing things in the face, give this one a shot.
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