This is a review copy. I will buy a gift copy for a friend to support the game.

I beat the game in about 1 hour and even though I liked the mood, I wish you focused more on the perspective of the main character because when the game ended, there was not enough nuance to her character, and I also think we did not accomplish much to improve her situation. For me, there was something missing in the narrative and I am not sure how to articulate it perfectly, the only side of her personality I experience is her reacting to the situation, and because she is in distress her actions are more instinctive, you never gave me a chance connect with her on a level that is not specific to her confusion. It's not that I didn't want to help her, but because everything I get is surface-level, I feel like the plot was somewhat pointless, it's almost like you gave the character nothing to do, she was and still is in a similar situation.

If I can try to put it in a constructive way, there should be at least a few more moments of reflection that are not just moving the plot forward, I actually wanted to explore her mind and maybe have a few moments that are not just her trying to get away, give me something personal about her so I can care about her fate. Pretty much all I see from her is confusion and anger, which is supported by the context, but I still need something more than her reacting to the situation in the most straightforward way. I normally don't like flashbacks, that said, I think it would have helped if I knew that she has something to fight for.

On that note, the game has several endings, however, because I feel like I ultimately could not change her fate in a significant way, I also get no closure with experience. I think if you added a few more panels with each ending just showing her fate after that, that would be more satisfying for the reader. Otherwise, I am like okay, it really does not matter from her perspective, and if it's not the case, show me, so I can see that I helped her somehow. All of the endings were connected to the last choice in the dialogue, as far as I can tell there are no major story forks, although there are some optional achievements.

As far as the gameplay, there were definitely a few puzzles that just felt a bit redundant, the old "adventure logic", all these games have them, but you still want to keep it immersive by not having the character solve silly things that don't need to be solved. I didn't find them difficult, and the addition of hotspots helped a lot, I also like how you can select them with a mouse so I don't have to press the button. The art was the best part of the game, in general, I like how you would present the panels, as well as the coloring. The only thing I didn't care for is the choice of the locations. Also, I wish it had more locations to navigate, just more variety.

Another strange thing that happened to me early on, the game had some odd sound effects in the music that I felt were too distracting, so I disabled the music. However, the rain effect and the wind were on a different slider, and I feel like that ambiance alone was perfect for the game, I wish that was the default, just the sound of rain in the background works very well for the mood. The reason I didn't like the song was because there would be things like drums in places and I felt it didn't belong there when I was in a suspenseful situation solving puzzles.


(+) The art panels and the way you would place them was done really well, I especially liked the coloring, but I wish you picked a different theme for the locations so you could work with a more interesting environment, or at least find a reason to force interesting scenery into the game.

(+) I liked the ambiance of the rain and the wind you did for the game, but I didn't like the soundtrack because of those random instruments, you want to pace and change the music to match the mood, not just have a song playing over with odd layer changes.

(+) The game has a few different endings, although they are very basic, and can be explored from the last dialogue choice.

(+) I wanted to like the character, I wanted to help her, but you also didn't give me enough context, everything is so surface level. Like if I help her, what does it do for her because of the context, and this is something that you did not answer.


The story - I wish you found a few moments to explore the character outside of her just reacting, you didn't give me enough of a reason to care, sure she is hurt and confused because _______ so I want to help her, but that is pretty much all you get. I felt like the endings needed a few extra panels to see what happened to her. You also chained your endings from the same dialogue window, you want to branch them out a bit earlier so there is more decision-making, which creates exploration and replay value, as well as curiosity and not just making a 30-second to-do list at the end.

Music - the ambiance alone was really good, I actually played the game with no music because the sound of rain was more enjoyable than the song. This is subjective, but I would say when you find a song for the scene, make sure there are no effects that don't match what I see on the screen, I should not be randomly hearing a drum layer or some darkstep.

Puzzles - this is not a big issue, all games have some game logic, but when you design a puzzle, try to make it feel like it has a practical application for the character, almost the entire game I was thinking, why would I do that when I could do this instead. Honestly, if it's a problem with the scope, it might be easier to just make a visual novel, probably would work better for what you doing, and would give you more time to do more content.

Locations - even though I liked the art in the game, I wish you either picked a better location or expanded on the first locations with a more interesting one. Maybe a silly thing to complain about, but I don't exactly get excited about exploring some broken old rooms.

Overall Thoughts: 6/10

Overall I think you focused on trying to make something suspenseful, but I felt it was lacking substance, there is not actually enough in the story to care about what happens, everything is surface-level, you get exactly what is shown, and the situation for the character as far as I can see, is about the same from start to finish. I am not sure what I should feel in the end, I felt like there was no closure or even point in following the story, we start with a situation that should not have been a thing, and we resolve nothing. If you gave me like another 20 minutes just exploring her mental state, and just a few more panels for the endings, I think I would feel a lot better about it.

Short and simple. Really pretty art.

Nothing too outstanding or anything, but it was entertaining enough.

I'll keep an eye on future games by these devs.

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a night at the watermill is a really short 1st-person point & click escape room adventure, won't even take an hour. absolutely not worth the asking price but it's done well enough, so something to contemplate during a sale.

you find yourself at the eponymous location in the middle of a storm, gotta get out and hopefully recall who you are, the usual fare. there are a bunch of locations, even a few choices and 3 endings, plus an inventory. items can be combined and inspected, the inventory hidden. can't die or reach a fail state and don't have to replay the whole thing for different endings because there are autosaves and manual saves, both with multiple slots and one of the autosaves is before the final choices.

active cursor, shows item names on mouseover, as it should be, and an iffy hotspot indicator is also in place. click to reveal them all for a second instead of it being a toggle, for a longer period or until the button is let go. the script would've been half as long without all the unnecessary ellipses. use a comma or a single ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ period.

it was made with the renpy engine, supporting visual novels, porn on otherwise, since who knows when. it's not the first point & click to utilize it, spacenet is another neat one, for instance. it also means basic functionality, including all the saving goodness mentioned above, is intact if not perfect. separate volumes ('voice' is for the occasional text display sound), resizable windowed mode, a couple of languages, text speed setting that still doesn't make it instant in every situation. credits are unskippable, always with the ego, but settings and saves can be brought up anytime, so you can load or quit instead of waiting.

I picked it up at full price on day 1 because these guys didn't have to be taught about basic point & click functionality that's been around and expected for decades. sure, comes with the engine, but it only shows the importance of an educated choice. not that it's flawless but much better than many lazy point & clicks these days. putting that aside, 4 eur is way too much for it, and putting that aside, it's an enjoyable if brief escape watermill game. still, it should've come with the soundtrack and the artbook at this price.

💗 This game was gifted to Indie Therapy for review.

a Thrilling point-and-click story of a girl who wakes up at a watermill at night during a crazy thunderstorm. With no memory of how she got there, who she is or why her ankles and wrists have contusions on them, you are tasked to figure it out. As you go forward the girl starts to have flashbacks of what happened and little by little the story unfolds.

The artwork is very great and very well made, it has amazing atmosphere and it will keep you on your toes from start to finish. The soundtrack is very complimentary to the thriller feel of the game.

There is a couple of different endings in the game, but those endings are mostly dependent on the final choice you make or if you have a specific item in your inventory. The endings were interesting, but they weren't really all that exciting sadly. I honestly would have enjoyed them a lot more if there were multiple choices that affected those endings, rather than just one final choice.

Either way, the game is very well made, really interesting, and I really enjoyed it. Would definitely recommend it for others!

+

• interessanter Art-Style
• Mini-Rätsel
• spannende Kurzgeschichte ( Crime | Psychologie )
• einige Erfolge
• unterschiedliche Endings

-

• kurz

Würde gerne eine Fortsetzung dazu sehen!

____________________________________________

+

• interesting art style
• mini riddles
• exciting short story ( Crime | Psychology )
• some achievements
• different endings

-

• a little short

Would love to see a sequel to this!

A Night At The Watermill is an excellent point and click horror adventure where you must piece together the nights events while dealing with the horror of the situation you find yourself in. It has multiple endings and two protagonists.

Pros
+ Gorgeous Visuals
+ Fun Scares
+ A Somewhat Predictable but well crafted story with multiple endings
+ Just The Right Length (about an hour/90mins for everything)
+ While some puzzles are a little obscure you won't be stuck for long

Cons
- Some puzzles suffer from adventure game logic
- Story "is" predictable

This is a fun little point and click that deserves your time and energy for fans of the genre and for short spooky stories. 7.5/10. A great product for a small team.

A short thriller with logical puzzles and a gorgeous comic book art style with bold colours. It has typical quality-of-life features for a point-and-click such as a highlight button and the characters will hint at the solutions through their inner monologues. It does have mental health cliches, so I found the plot to be predictable. It subverts the horror to be more grounded and psychological. Although there is one jumpscare that got my sister! It's clever to start off as the woman, so you're immediately concerned and empathetic for her confusion and fears. When the point-of-view switches to that of a man a few minutes ago, it all clicks together and you hope when they both meet, there will be an understanding reached. I got the good ending, and you'd have to go out of our way to get the bad ending, but it does have a satisfying ending. Would love to see more from Neon Tales, which just seems to be two people so far, Thekla Barck (story, game design, graphics) and Thomas Klein (programming and audio).

A cute point-and-click with a decent story, but only about 30 minutes of content.

Short adventure game that still manages to tell an interesting story.

A girl wakes up in an abandoned watermill. She doesn’t know who she is or what happened, all she knows there’s someone out there trying to get her.

First thing I have to point out is that I was pleasantly surprised by the game’s engine. It’s well-known for creating most indie visual novels, but this game changes it so much that I had no idea it was even possible to do something like this.

Although the game falls in the adventure category, the gameplay is streamlined and hassle-free. As always, you play with a mouse to comb the screen for hotspots. Objects highlight when you hover the mouse over them, but you can also click on a hint that reveals all available hotspots on a screen. Since the game is very detailed and beautifully drawn, there’s almost no hunting for hard-to-see items.

This is a small game, so the place you get to explore is very limited. It only has a couple of screens that are packed with items. When clicking on them, you will either examine or pick them up. Items are used the same way as in any other adventure game. You need to pull them from the inventory onto a hotspot or combine with another.

The game can be finished in less than one hour. There are several endings, but you can get them easily if you save before the final decision and simply reload to see them all.

If there was a neutral option, instead of straight up and down recommended/not recommended, I'd choose that. It's not that I'd go out of my way to advise against playing this game, but I wouldn't really say, "Yeah, totally worth it!" either. For me, the biggest pros are the art style and atmosphere. Cons were the characters/lack of substantial backstory. At this price point, I can't gripe too much about the playtime (40mins first run through) but aside from chasing achievements, replaying doesn't seem likely in my future.