TL;DR: Lots of potential but completely fails to deliver anything fun or meaningful.

In the first 10 minutes you'll have fun exploring the booth, but once you realise how little there is to actually do it gets old really quick. A lot of things can't be interacted with in any meaningful way. There is lots of food you cant open or eat. Lots of books you cant open and read, lots of cassette tapes you cant listen to, lots of tools you cant use for anything.

There are several characters but the game fundamentally comes to a full stop if Valerie dies or stops being your friend so you need to kiss her ass the entire play-through or the game just ends. Other characters and their stories are forgotten and abandoned. Time basically stops if anything bad happens to Valerie and game-play is over. And the music stops as soon as that happens, so its not even fun to just chill in the booth once the game ends.

The story is really short regardless of how you play through it, I managed 3 endings in 3 hours, thats including messing around and experimenting with stuff in the booth.

The demo for this came out a long time ago and is more or less as good as the full game. Waited over a year for this, followed the devs on socials and kept an eye on the game waiting for it to come out expecting there to be more content than I saw in the demo and was incredibly disappointed.

Would not recommend wasting money on this.

KaiSco's review says it all. There is so much potential here that doesn't feel fully realized. The atmosphere and especially the music are incredible, but it feels wasted on something that amounts to little more than a demo. Valerie is not the most likable character but I was still hoping for more closure from her and the protagonist's story; the reunion referenced in their conversations, interference from the army or cult, ANYTHING! I would love to see the events of the evening developed further. Strange happenings that allude to the missing girl, items that are obtained by solving puzzles that end up not doing anything, so many things that feel incomplete. It seems like the developers had other ideas that weren't fully implemented in the final game and what we are left with are just remnants of what could have been.

I’ve got mixed feelings on this game. I enjoyed the semi-interactiveness of almost everything in the booth, but like another reviewer said, 99% of these items are useless. Objects act extremely weird. For example if you want to watch a VHS tape you have to throw it in the VCR. I even threw it once against a wall and it somehow landed in the VCR. No way to stop the playback or eject the tape if you put the wrong one in.

The story is fairly interesting, but I really grew to hate Valerie and didn’t care if she survived or not in the end. I can see where the branching paths come in as a choice I made did come back at the end.

The end game is weird as well. Once you’re done with the story, you’re still in the booth. It doesn’t go back to the menu screen, but I guess that gives you time to throw around more items. There’s no real sense you’ve completed the story. You just hit escape and go back to the menu when you’re done.

Will I be replaying this game again? Probably not. From what I remember of the demo last year, it’s basically that plus multiple endings. Get this on a deep sale if you’re interested.

I really like this game. It's like firewatch with a security booth spin on it. The voice acting is amazing. The songs (especially some of them) are truly amazing. And copyright free?? This is any streamers dream. I had a lot of fun and can highly recommend this to the gamers out there who don't need flashy chase sequences and jumpscares or lots of action, but are instead looking for a real game about interesting people with an amazing atmosphere that really pulls you in. Every note, every radio prompt, every little doodle builds up something in this world. Needless to say I loved it. If you like firewatch you have to try this one!

So before I go on this largely negative (hopefully) constructive rant, let me say that most games are only so disappointing because there's so much potential, you see the vision, but the game just squanders it and now you're just left with an incredibly shallow and unimaginative experience.

So the gameplay. It's a choose your dialogue adventure where you are leading your friend to safety. It's literally just a dialogue option and most of your options are pretty cut and dry. Supportive, quippy/snarky, professional, and just a chill dude vibe. The other "minigames" are barely minigames and most of them are pointless. So you'll have to "manage" the power. You literally hit two buttons and input a 4 digit code. The way it's done makes you feel like maybe you'll have to manage answering the radio, dodge threats, AND manage the power, but nope. It's literally an annoying inconvenience more than anything else. There's a little side story and a neat little way to explore the booth, but ultimately it doesn't really lead to anything you'd care about. I read all the journal entries and just couldn't care less. It's several pages of tropes "oh something weird happened today...nobody believes me...I'm onto something big here" etc etc. The other mini games are basketball (like Phasmophobia's lobby) and word search. While these are things you might find in a security booth to pass the time. You'll sit there and play around with it, but it's really a poor excuse for engaging gameplay because there's literally nothing else going on. The game misses the opportunity to add some weird happenings outside the security booth. Things that make you double check what you saw/heard or kind of just keep you off balance in terms of maybe there's something out there. Nope. It doesn't do that either.

Aside from that, the biggest complaint I have is Valerie. Your "friend." Valerie has to be the most unlikable, obnoxious, self centered friend out there. Like you really do just have to praise her and validate everything she's feeling without any regard to your own feelings in order for her to feel like you're friends. Like right off the bat, she's badgering me about me not telling her I want to leave. I just met her and I'm in trouble with her. Why on earth would anyone like this person? No fun banter or heartfelt moment, just immediately into a fight. Just the worst. She's in danger and she's hounding me every step of the way, I really couldn't care about what she's going on about. There's even a point where she's going on about her love of science and spouts jargon at you and says "oh what I'm I telling you this for? You don't know what that is anyways" and it's like the writer for the game should've thought "right...why is this even in here? it's meaningless dialogue that's not moving any story forward or establishing any kind of history that wasn't already there" Your antagonist can be super unlikable, but your friend/supporting character should be someone you are motivated to keep safe.

Overall I think this game asks for way too much for way too little. It's a game that doesn't really go anywhere and the most fun you'll have is the hidden mini game on the terminal and the word search. Everything else is so shallow it just seems like it could've used a lot more time fully developing some actual gameplay mechanics. Which is a shame, because there's certainly something here, just nothing worth spending time on.

I played and refunded the game, because it is baffling to me honestly.

Played the demo at last year's steam fest and I understand now why it was literally only 5 minutes long - because the whole game can be competed in 60. Without rushing, mind you. Surely there are some other endings but it is not worth to keep playing for them.

The entire premise of the game is not used at all. You being in a guard booth outside the facility means absolutely nothing. Nothing happens out there, nothing matters what you do outside of answering the radio (and being nice to your "friend" or it's game over). KaiSco really hit the nail on the head.

The game doesn't even have a proper ending. When you did your thing a VHS tape spawns on the table and that plays the credits. Tragic, this could've been cool as ♥♥♥♥ because the idea is creative. Execution is so terrible, its unreal though.

As an actual security guard, this game is 100% accurate

Been excited for this game since I saw the demo last year and feel a little let down, and I think that ultimately comes down to a lack of interactivity in the game. It feels like there really aren't that many outcomes to the story and the things you can do in the security booth are fairly limited.

The gameplay loop of managing the map/computers/radio is intriguing and stressful initially, but once you've got a handle on it or you're playing a new shift you don't have to really focus on it and move on to killing time in the booth with the 'pointless' tasks. I think this is what really leaves the game feeling shallow.

Sure, you can do the word search, you can lick a battery, and you can smoke a cigarette and then eat the butt; but you really just run out of things to do/interact with pretty quick. The space is too cramped and too many items don't actually do anything to hold your interest long.

I think conceptually this is a fantastic idea and still serves as a solid proof of concept. I think this gameplay loop with more varied mechanics and set in a larger scenario (a small office with different computers/electrical breakers/etc could give a player a lot more to engage with. Finding more ways of interacting with the most mundane items would give players plenty to mess with.

There's a ton you can do with the scenario that's been developed! I would also say personally the tone of the game was not what I was expecting at all, I figured this was going to end up being way sillier or leaning more into the horror aspects. It really feels like "Firewatch with higher stakes"

There are very few things to do outside of the main storyline, if you don't kiss Valerie's ass and protect her the story grinds to a halt and are stuck in "sandbox" mode in the guard booth (at least with the new patch it tells you, instead of you feeling like the game bugged out). The "branches" in the story are easily guessable from the achievements after you beat it once, and after a couple playthroughs I have no desire to explore them further.

There are no ending cutscenes, or any cutscenes at all. You're stuck inside that tiny guard booth, every puzzle in there is of no significance (I like the extra lore from the memos, but that's it), the main story is extremely short.

Valerie is extremely annoying and very toxic, and given the whole plot relies on her, the game suffers. With a different script for her the overall plot would've been fine.

Even for the low price it's just too barebones, that combined with Valerie means a no from me.

Interference: Dead Air left me a very sour taste, sadly.

I:DA is about a security guard who has a friend at a research facility nearby, and as you get to talk with her you begin to uncover some secrets while also trying to do your duty and not die of boredom.

The concept introduced is really cool. The way the setting is set up lends itself to some excellent storytelling, and while that is somehow exploited, I feel it wasn't done to its maximum potential. There are so many mechanics that the devs could have used to further emphasize what was going on... Or so many more things that the player could have discovered that would further expand on the lore, what is happening, or even have an effect on the character.

I don't want to spoil the story for those who wish to play, but you are basically playing as a passive listener, and sadly that stays that way throughout the 2 hour experience (which honestly could be done much faster if you realize when it's over). Once again, this could have been exploited in so many ways that you are really left hanging, waiting for more to happen.

Maybe this was the purpose of the devs? To just... leave things to be? But as a game that is focused on the story so much, it leaves a very sour taste in your mouth, even if you do everything right.