It is a delightful game, very charming- although the duration of roughly three hours does leave you wanting more, especially since the Kickstarter took quite a bit. I would also say that the game doesn't quite squeeze as much juice out of its premise as one might want- the relationship between J and Oscar never quite manages to establish the level of rapport that you will find with, say, Joe and Rosa Blackwell in the Blackwell series (a comparison that is inevitable due to the ghost-buddy-detective genre) and their points of interaction are rather sparse. This misses out on a lot of good potential meat, although I can understand how writing dialogue for the poet with a golden pen and an acid tongue might have been a daunting prospect.

My experience was relatively smooth, with only one bug rearing its head but not impeding my progress. For all that it is a rather slim offering that feels more like the opening chapter of an episodic series than a standalone game (there are some loose threads that don't resolve and an entire larger plot that looms in the background but doesn't quite manifest by the time the curtain falls), it's an enjoyable experience and I'd recommend it, with those considerations in mind.

The artwork, the soundtrack and the story is amazing. However, the gameplay is very limited. I've played almost two hours and mostly all I do is click to advance the dialogue bubble. It is almost as if reading a comic book. The choices in the dialoges are very limited and I feel that they have almost no effect on the direction. There was a great potential for a good detective game and I see that it's been mostly wasted.

The game is short and the artwork is quite nice. Sadly, the game play is unpleasant. Movements are slow, with needlessly slow fade effects between the scenes (including changes as simple as someone arriving or leaving). Fade to black, wait a second or two, fade in. When you're stuck and trying things, this gets very tedious. Compiling clues is also not very intuitive and sometimes amounts to guesswork (or I'm just not getting it). The whole thing is very linear, so it's basically a game of guessing what are you expected to do at every moment. Scenes have little to no objects to interact with, which just adds to the feeling that you're just watching a slightly interactive cartoon.

Jennifer Wilde: Unlikely Revolutionaries is an excellent Point-and-Click Adventure game set in 1920s Western Europe. Clearly inspired by Jazz Era literature and influences of the time, this game does an excellent job at establishing mystery and intrigue.

Art:

The art-style is breathtaking - clearly showcasing the passion and attention to detail that the team had when crafting this game. This holds true to the UI which manages to present as non-obtrusive and immersive in the case of the journal/case-solving segments.

Additionally, the stunning backdrops of Paris and many of the other locations in and around Jennifer Wilde: Unlikely Revolutionaries really help to immerse you

Lastly, the cutscenes and general mise-en-scene is spectacular. Once again you can tell how much passion has gone into this project.

Gameplay:

The general gameplay loop consists of talking with other characters and gathering evidence to paint a better picture of the incident that occurred - whether it be finding an item, completing a puzzle, or solving a murder case. You'll often find yourself jumping between many different locations and finding creative ways to solve a puzzle.

Other Notes:

Jennifer Wilde: Unlikely Revolutionaries is very short at around 3 hours of game time. However, each of those hours was spent thoroughly enjoying the game from it's brilliant art-style and UI, to the well-crafted story and game mechanics.

Conclusion:

Overall, Jennifer Wilde: Unlikely Revolutionaries is absolutely worth picking up. I have never been a massive fan of point-and-click adventure prior, but this game has certainly ignited my interest in the genre. Great work @Outsider Games, you all did an excellent job. Looking forward to your next big release! :)

The good:
+ stetting (1920s Europe)
+ charming characters (especially the two protagonists)
+ interesting game mechanic (journal)
+ gripping story (more than a simple murder plot)

The neutral:
O Black and White (it’s an artistic choice)

The bad:
- short (3 h, I wanted more!)
- no synchronization
- almost no sound (where is the Jazz that was promised?)

Conclusion:
If you like atmospheric point & click adventure games, you’ll like this one.

Very pretty but short mystery heavily reminiscent of the Blackwell games (*looks at Wilde* hmm, wonder why), got stuck on a few parts where I didn't think to try using new knowledge on a "dead end" or when I misread a number, but overall pretty fair as far as difficulty goes. Definitely worth a play!

The review was originally published on Indie Game Picks [indiegamepicks.wordpress.com].

The ghost of the famous Oscar Wilde collaborates with an assertive woman in a side-scrolling Point and Click Adventure full of intrigue, which is based on and looks like a comic!

The subject of this review comes to Steam about six years after Wailing Heights, the debut release by Outsider Games. Jennifer Wilde: Unlikely Revolutionaries had a Kickstarter campaign at the end of 2017. It was funded, but didn't succeed in reaching the stretch goals that would allow the studio to add voice acting, text in languages other than English and develop console versions of the game.

Jennifer Wilde: Unlikely Revolutionaries is based on the first issue of the comic book series Jennifer Wilde, created by Robert Curley and Maura McHugh, drawn by Stephen Downey, co-founder of Outsider Games, and published by the Irish company Atomic Diner. Maura McHugh and Stephen Downey worked on the development of the game as well.

Jennifer Wilde: Unlikely Revolutionaries shares a similar comic book art style with Wailing Heights, but the obvious difference is that the graphics during gameplay and in the cutscenes are in black and white, staying faithful to the origin of the game. The characters are elegantly designed, the backgrounds look beautiful, detailed and atmospheric. The arrangement of objects and people on layers creates a sense of perspective. The dialogue choices, which drive the story, appear in speech bubbles.

1921. The beginning of the game finds us in a small apartment in Paris playing as Jennifer Chevalier, a young artist embracing a rather boem lifestyle. Jean Chevalier, her father, a man who served as a doctor during the recent war saving lives, pays her a surprise visit after a long time. They arrange to have lunch at the trendy Maxim's restaurant the next day.

The lunch never happens though, because Jean Chevalier gets killed by a car on his way to Maxim's. Jennifer is not convinced at all that this was a terrible accident, as the police believes, and she starts searching for clues to prove otherwise.

She finds an unexpected ally very soon in the face of the long deceased Oscar Wilde, who had met her father decades ago. Jennifer is the only human being, who is able to see and talk to the ghost. The two of them exchange thoughts about the facts related to the case, the past and the present of the society, the worlds of the living and the dead. References on the famous writer's plays are there and Oscar Wilde doesn't lose opportunities to express his sophisticated and revolutionary back in his era points of view about life, human behaviour, prejudices and art!

The young woman and the ghost travel from France to London and then to Dublin -locations with great significance in Oscar Wilde's life!- dealing with friendly, secretive or dangerous people and spirits. Their investigation leads them to reveal the secret past of Jennifer's father at the end.

We control both the characters. Switching from Jennifer to the ghost of Oscar Wilde and vice versa in order to use their special abilities is easy and necessary. Our immaterial friend bypasses obstacles, passes unnoticed by the living and interacts with lighting sources. He can't carry objects though!

As I wrote before, Jennifer is an artist and she sketches illustrated notes as the developers call them. She keeps her drawings, clippings, letters and small objects in her notebook. This is the inventory! By clicking on the sketches, we get helpful hints about them.

I kept for last the key gameplay mechanic that differs Jennifer Wilde: Unlikely Revolutionaries from the majority of games of the genre. Putting the drawings in the right order and sometimes combining them are among the ways to solve puzzles and push forward the interrogation of the NPCs. In the pages of the book, we also find the maps we need to fast travel from one place to another and the list of our quests.

Jennifer Wilde: Unlikely Revolutionaries is an eye candy, but it offers more than beautiful visuals! For about four hours, I was smitten by the plot and its interesting gameplay.

I initially gave this a negative review due to mistaking a bug for just awkward controls. After completing the game I’m leaning more positive but I’m still rather lukewarm on the game. Ultimately the biggest problem this game has its utterly breakneck pace; scene transitions can be sometimes be utterly jarring and confusing, none of the characters are allowed to breathe so you barely get to know them, and the game’s tale of 1920's supernatural espionage isn’t allowed to shine due to this compression. Really I feel like the game’s stakes should have been smaller. I’m reminded of the Blackwell Legacy, which is of similar length to this game but in that duration Rosa and Joey were so well fleshed out as characters. Jennifer and Oscar Wilde lack that chemistry and camaraderie. Gameplaywise it’s unremarkable; some of the puzzles are awkward like one of the opening puzzles where you just sic the cops on some random schmo just so you can go the lunch and the controls are a bit weird in that to switch between Oscar and Jennifer you have to click and hold on them. It does get better as the game goes along but the gameplay never really stands out. Really the best thing about the game is the art. To conclude, I don’t regret backing this game, but I still really wouldn’t heartily recommend it. It’s just kind of a meh game in a genre where you can do a lot better, like the aforementioned Blackwell series.

A wilde Oscar appears: The Game.
The art is really charming and the developers really did try something new with the tired genre when it came to clue collecting and assembling, which makes it that much harder to criticise the game for falling short in everything else.
The biggest elephant in the room is Oscar Wilde himself. He easily overshadows everyone else no matter where you put him and it does no service to the writing when he is the cleverest thing about it. Even then he speaks in his own quotes making him more of a broken reflection. He appears suddenly and inexplicably at the beginning, seemingly as a surprise even to the protagonist as to why he is specifically the one to insert himself into the narrative. There is a flimsy justification in the dialog, but honestly there is only one true reason - the writers just really like Oscar Wilde (And why wouldn't they, he is fabulous) and the faster you accept that the more likely you will be to enjoy the rest of the story. Suspend your disbelief extra hard. Beyond the clever quotes he will be just looming over you like an avatar of authorial appeal. The most loquacious ghostly pokemon. You won't be creating any sort of rapport with him as a protagonist.
His presence does establish the story as a queer one at least. So do we do crime? Do we at least eat hot chip and lie? We travel a couple of countries trying to find out why our dad is dead and there is a paranormal conspiracy going on, but it won't be explored in any detail. Comparisons to Blackwell series immediately invite themselves, except those are all cheaper, fully voice acted and tell a way more complex story, whereas here we don't make it far past the premise. Jennifer doesn't encounter adversity in any significant way, she just comes to the right place to make the plot happen to her.
Overall this feels like a demo for a bigger and more interesting game and the potential set up by the fantastic art and Oscar Wilde's presence leads only to disappointment.

Great wee adventure game. Wonderful, unique art style and writing. I would highly recommend.