Undercover - Blood Bonds is a new Time management series from SQRT3; it plays the same as all Gamehouse TM. The story is about Vera, a journalist investigating the disappearance of her sister Lilly. The police got involved and searched the crime scene, where they found Lilly's blood, but Vera refused to believe her sister was murdered; the prime suspect, of course, was her ex-boyfriend. It starts nicely with lots of suspense, but the twist was expected.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3123097557

I like GH gameplay; there are 60 stages, which are pretty straightforward and repetitive. Some mini-games were challenging to play with a mouse; they are meant to be played on the phone as you keep dragging and dropping things.
The music was interesting at the beginning. I liked the opening theme, but when they used the same one in the loading screen and each stage, it became extremely repetitive and annoying.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3132902425

I've encountered a couple of problems in one of the stages, Smokin' Wheels. When you start pouring the beer and waiting for it, you can't click back on it because other things or characters hover around it; I kept missing picking up the beer unless I clicked on it multiple times.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3132901618

Pros:
+Beautiful graphics.
+Interesting story.
+Steam achievements.

Cons:
- Needs custom mouse cursor (Sometimes you can't see the default small system cursor when the stage is busy)
- Most mini-games are designed for touch screens, not a mouse.
- You can't pick items if characters are around or covering them.
- No Steam Cloud.

The cutscenes and the characters are interesting; I kept playing while wondering how it would end. However, the ending seems to hint at another series season. The story is interesting if you don't mind an open ending.

𝐹𝑜𝑟 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑒𝑤𝑠 𝑐𝘩𝑒𝑐𝑘 𝑚𝑦 𝑐𝑢𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑜𝑟 𝑝𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝐹𝑒𝑒𝑛𝑎'𝑠 𝐶𝘩𝑜𝑖𝑐𝑒

Follow IndieGems for more reviews like this one.

This games story wasn't awful, but it was...different. The female main character was a bit annoying, I believe there is a second one (may not be on steam yet (or at all) because of how it ends). The tasks we're not hard, I did find myself forgetting to find the "item" each level.

I recommend it, especially on sale. It's not bad, just not great either!

Approximate amount of time to 100%: 9h
Estimated achievement difficulty: 3/10
Minimum number of playthroughs needed: 1
Is there a good guide available: You don't need a guide
Multiplayer achievements: No
Missable achievements: No
Grinding Achievements: No
DLC-Only achievements: No
Speedrun achievements: No
Time-gated achievements: No
RNG-achievements: No
Does difficulty affect achievements: No, you can play on the easiest difficulty and still unlock all the achievements
Unobtainable/glitched achievements: No

A new series from SQRT3 and GameHouse! I love the setting of this one, it feels a bit like Twilight/ Vampire Diaries. In one setting the main character has a gothic look, and it looks so good on her :D. It has some vampire clichés but that is totally fine and I'm already looking forward to the next game in this series :D

I find this type of time management game in which you complete orders so much fun. I'm not always a fan of the mini-games but I understand why they are there. That says nothing about the mini-games in this specific title, they were fine but the time limit just gives me a bit of stress and you can kinda see that they might work better with touch controls. So if you have a Steam Deck, this game might be better on the Steam Deck than with a mouse. It doesn't have the checkmark but I tested it a little bit on the Steam Deck and it seems to work fine. It is that I already had started the game on my pc and it doesn't have steam cloud, otherwise I would have kept playing on the Steam Deck.

The achievements are what you can expect from GameHouse's games, no missable achievements and when you just unlock all diamonds on each level and watch each clip then you should be totally fine. I love that I can play carefree through this game and just enjoy the rush of completing the orders as fast as possible.

I was excited to play the story of this game, it looked really intriguing and it did disappoint me. My expectation was for a better story, the characters wasn't interesting at all and let alone all the spelling errors in the dialogue is an indication that the game wasn't polished enough. The ending didn't indicate much and if there will even be a follow up game, I didn't enjoy the whole concept of working in clubs as a bar lady. Sure some of the scenery was alright, but I hated the club Inferno due to the weird fountain bleeding chocolate from an angels eyes. I was hoping for a better story, that Vera was a werewolf fighting the vampires to save her sister or that she had an ultra super power that made her stronger than the vampire queen or whatever. But all we got was a journalist that works in bars to get so called leads to find the missing sister, just so dull to me. The achievements are easy to obtain and overall just not worth the buy in my opinion!!

Undercover - Blood Bonds is a time management game developed by SQRT3 and published by GameHouse. You take on the role of Vera, who has returned to the city where she and her younger sister Lilly once lived. Vera hasn't heard from Lilly in a long time, and as she returns to the apartment they once shared, Vera finds it trashed along with a huge blood stain on the floor. Fearing the worst but not trusting the police to find out the whereabouts of Lilly, Vera takes it upon herself to find her and discover what happened to her. That's the basic gist of the story, and I'll end my story synopsis here to avoid spoilers and all that.

As for the gameplay, Undercover - Blood Bonds has 60 levels, and you can choose from among three difficulty levels: easy, normal, or hard/expert. As you play through the levels, you can earn up to 3 diamonds for attaining the maximum score as you serve customers. There are various mini-games, too. Also, you can earn an additional diamond for finding Vera's notebook (the equivalent of the mouse in the Delicious - Emily games) as well as one more diamond for the extra task given in each level. Diamonds are used to purchase items for Vera's investigation board as she looks into Lilly's disappearance (purely for cosmetic purposes). There are Steam/in-game achievements as well although no Steam trading cards at the time of this review.

Now that I've gone over the story and gameplay, I'll move onto my critique. I'm a big fan of these time management games by GameHouse, and this latest release on Steam is no exception. I liked Vera as the main character and getting to follow her on her investigation into Lilly's disappearance. I got to discover some backstory about Vera and Lilly, and it's obvious that these two are very different in personalities. (This explains why Vera ended up going back to her hometown while Lilly chose to stay in the city.) Vera is great as a main character although definitely not perfect. She's a bit too stubborn at times, and she isn't the greatest at maintaining relationships. (It explains what happens later in the story although I won't spoil it.) There's a wide cast of characters with varying personalities, and although Undercover - Blood Bonds is mainly a time management game, it clearly has story. Speaking of the story, I enjoyed that this is a mystery, and there's definitely some dark, unsettling things that are happening. Spoiler: If you like vampires, then yup, you should check this out. Also, the ending is left on a cliffhanger, and I really hope that the developer will make a sequel to this because otherwise, I'll feel that some story parts are going to be left unresolved, especially when there's a bit of hope left.

Regarding the gameplay, I found it smooth for the most part. The only issue I had was with one of the mini-games, which required me to click and drag parts to their correct place. For some reason, the mini-game wouldn't register that I put items in the correct place although I eventually found a way to fix this. It seems that the mini-games are very picky about exactly where items should be placed. Since I bring up the mini-games, another issue I had was that there was no immediate explanation on how to successfully complete them. You have to click on the question mark icon in order to get an explanation, but if you're a novice at these games, this won't be obvious. However, the main gameplay itself, where Vera (or whoever the playable character is) has to serve customers, runs well. I had no issues unlocking all of the achievements.

In regards to the art, the style is the usual one that GameHouse has for its games, which suits Undercover - Blood Bonds well. I like that fun, slightly cartoony style with the use of bright colors (but not overly bright since the story has more of a darker theme compared to a lot of other GameHouse games). There are a variety of locations, and I liked the background art and the sprites as well as the animated cutscenes. Regarding the music, there are a few tracks which suit the tone of this story well. They depict that mystery, investigative feeling, but there isn't a lot of variety. However, because of the nature of this game, I think the lack of variety is excusable.

Overall, would I recommend Undercover - Blood Bonds? If you like time management games by GameHouse, especially the ones like Detective Jackie and Parker and Lane, I'd say that this is worth a try. GameHouse continues to release wonderful TMs and this one is no exception. I really hope to see a sequel to this. For the asking price, I'd say that it might be a good idea to wait off for a bit of a sale (maybe half off) since it took me a little less than 7.5 hours to complete the game and get all of the achievements. However, I do think it's totally worth getting, and it has great gameplay with a very intriguing, dark story. ^^

Flying free and writing reviews solely for The Introverted Gamer.

This is type of game that is a neutral between yes and no for me. The story is pretty neat, not obvious and the ending is really unexpected, not your typical cliché one. It also leaves a cliffhanger for a sequel, which is really good. But the thing goes down on the gameplay side with the boring and repetitive objectives, by that the gameplay became pretty boring for me, was playing just for the story itself. I hope there's a improvement on the next game at those aspects. Hopefully the levels are pretty short. Also collecting the notebooks are ridiculously easy, as they are in a fixed spot on the map, unlike the previous gh games where you had a quick fraction of time to get the mouse.

Undercover - Blood Bonds is the usual SQRT dish that consists of time management levels combined with a story that is told in the beginning and end of each level.
If you watched the trailer you will all ready know that vampires are involved.
The story is some kind of Mystery Crime Drama.

The story was interesting enough to let me almost finish the game without interruption.
Let´s see if the second part will live up to the first part if it will be released.
Yes this means you will once again get a big "to be continued sign" at the end.
However the core of the story gets resolved never the less.

I wasnt sure at first because of the non sympathy for the main chararcter and of the supernatural side of this TMG but it turned out to be pretty cool. The style and the ambience is very different from most RMGs and the mechanics are different as well. This game relies on the skill of the player and there is no way of making patrons more calm or make them give a bigger tip. The switching of the playable characters, and of the scenes after 5 lvls, the different kind of the lvl collectible and the missing of bonus lvls make this game different as well. I really liked the soundtrack of this game, sadly its not available on steam (if someone knows the source please let me know). The achievements were easy to get an the lvls not too hard. All in all a pretty cool game with a different mood and the little different kind of mein char. I can recommend this game

its hand in had style with the barbarous games. I love it.

I like the supernature part of this game, vampires are always fascinating! Asmodel is so beautiful!
I think maybe the characterization of Vera could be given more depth as a truth-finding journalist. And yes, finding notepad is a little too simple and boring. Get back our animals! (But no roaches, thanks, though I know they like creeping in bars)
I also want to see vampire hunters in the next game. Hope they will get a chance to distinguish themselves.
The best element of the game is the soundtrack. The BGM in Bar is so good that I literally stop playing a few times just to listen its music lol