One of the worst games I have probably played in the past year. Easily the most "meta" point-and-click puzzle game of all time, and it's horrible for it. Extremely shallow and short.

The game just throws random passing references about Franz Kafka but isn't really much about him or his themes. It just brings up certain details or pieces of his work, like Metamorphosis, but does not make anything sensible about all of this. The whole experience is just random absurdity for the hell of it, and it's not even "fun" absurdity.

The plotline is almost non-existent, as said above. The dialogue is just awkward and boring, and in fact takes up probably 50% of the game time or more, given how slow it progresses, and you having to click specific bubbles as they pop up across the screen.

The other 50% of the game is a collection of "puzzles," but I'd even say half of those are not real puzzles. A good chunk of them simply involve randomly clicking around the screen until you find something you can interact with that might not seem obvious, then bashing in multiple attempts to get some event to occur.

Very rarely are the puzzles intuitive, and most don't give you a sense of accomplishment or an "Aha!" moment, but more so make you wonder "What the hell was the developer thinking?" Just because the game is acting like it's focused on Kafka doesn't make any of this better.

Earlier I said it is short, and I really mean it. The first attempt took me less than 1 hour, and I decided to rush through it again to see how much actual "content" exists. If I immediately canceled most of the dialogue as it showed up, it only took ~20-25 minutes to get through the entire game again!

Honestly, I think the developers are selling this over the art style and some fake sense of dedication to Kafka, when really there's almost nothing worthwhile in this creation.

The thing about puzzle adventures is that the player and the creator have to "click", sharing a common logic. There's nothing more satisfying than moving to a new location in an adventure game and having something weird pop up at you, feeling that warm rush of a eureka moment. Catching the end of the line that needs to be unravelled, discovering a discrepancy, and consequently solving a puzzle is incredibly satisfying.

Unfortunately, none of this happened with me and TFKV. Almost every single puzzle felt esoteric in a bad way, offering zero clue as to how to move forward and zero satisfaction upon solving, demanding trial and error at best or just waiting for a hint to pop at worst. Heck, in some cases I used both hints and they helped me none! (Like in the WWI puzzle, where I quickly realized that shapes meant letters, but had no clue as to what word I was supposed to spell.) I get it that the puzzles in TFKV are supposed to make one think out of the box, but to me, they ended up being just... random.

"Random" is perhaps the word to describe TFKV. The game tries very very hard to throw surreal imagery at you, but, while the visuals are very lovely and well-executed, I'm not sure how placing a level in the Black Lodge is supposed to make the game more interesting. I mean, yeah, I've seen Twin Peaks too... so? What was the point of this reference?

And, of course, the Franz Kafka aspect. Going in, you have to keep in mind that TFKV is colorful, light-hearted, and has a dog sidekick. Any references to Franz Kafka's work are purely superficial and pop-cultural. Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily—there's nothing wrong with shifting genres.

Just keep in mind that this puzzle adventure game about Franz Kafka has very esoteric puzzles and has little to do with Franz Kafka,

This is the kind of video game where players either fall in love with the art & narration style and the absurdity, or you cannot see anything more than just a random collection of strange and quick puzzles.

Despite what many would think, ‘The Franz Kafka Videogame’ is not an adaptation of Kafka’s works but more like a game that feels like as if a contemporary Kafka created it. His trademark surrealism saturates through every layer, from plot to puzzle design.

From a technical aspect, this one is exactly like mif2000’s previous video game project, Hamlet: a touchscreen-friendly puzzle game that relies solely on interacting with scene elements. Its unique selling point is the so outlandishly Kafka-like solutions that would make even early 90s adventure games look sane in comparison.

Some players will absolutely love this surreal approach, while others will see nothing more than a bunch of disjointed and short puzzles. Therefore, definitely buy this if you enjoy pure weirdness, but if you do not, then it is unlikely you will find any entertainment value here.

Kafka was anything but random, but this game sure is.

It seems that the creator of the game had no clue what Kafka is really all about. Sure, there are plenty of absurdities in the writings of one of the best authors of all time, that one might find random, but they are grotesque and unsettling, they will make you feel insignificant, helpless and powerless against the weight of the system. They serve a purpose.
Here everything is just random without any real purpose. What's the deal with the monkey-detective? Or the astronaut, that we never see again? Random things just happen and we're done with them for ever. The whole game seems completely amateur and lacks focus. You can't just pass that as Kafkaesque, it doesn't work that way.

The story has very little to do with Kafka, except that the protagonist of the story, named simply K. is involved in events that are beyond his own control and tries to find the way out of it, which is Kafkaesque, I must admit. There are some twists and turns, but overall, not too much of a story at all. Stretched over 4 chapters, the whole script probably took no more than 2 regular pages, including the dialog. The events don't connect to each other much. Random things just happen and nothing really makes any sense or has any purpose.

The characters are non existent, even the main protagonist has no personality whatsoever. I have hard time to say anything else about any of them, because there is nothing to say. There is a dog, fallowing K. for some reason.

You might think that this is a short game and a single person effort, so how much of a story and character development I should expect?
But short games, and even games that were made by a single person can be good or even great games: Milkmaid of the Milky Way is a great example, Gemini Rue is a single person effort, while not exactly short, Fran Bow was developed by a team of 2, I'm yet to play The Darkside Detective, but I've heard it's great. The thing is, I bought this game because I knew it's short, I love short games. If I have just one evening a month, that I can spend point-and-clicking, there is nothing better for me than a 2-4 hour game.

Sure, short, small team games might not have it all, maybe the story is not so interesting, perhaps puzzles are somewhat weak, but there must be something that makes them worthwhile. I could forgive a lot if there is at least one aspect in the game that stands strong. In fact, I wouldn't mind anything that's wrong with this game, if puzzles were half decent.

But the puzzles in this game are downright annoying! They have absolutely nothing to do with the game itself, they are just a very amateur way of dragging this game longer than it should have been. Of course, the number sliding puzzle has to be in there, how else are you going to show your lack of creativity? Here is an idea: instead of creating some real puzzles as obstacles to overcome, why not simply depict going somewhere as a board game that has nothing to do and doesn't tie in any way with the rest of the game?

Most of these puzzles can be solved simply by clicking and dragging things around. There are no complex puzzles, all of them will have hints in the same screen that you're in. In fact, you're unable to walk back, so you're always on one screen until you progress. There are no inventory or items to make things more interesting. Sometimes you might not know exactly what you're supposed to be doing, but just click enough things around and you'll get there.

Other times, I failed to find the logic behind the puzzles whatsoever. Sure, there were hints for most of them, but they still made no sense. There was a puzzle with a toy monkey, you drag the string, the monkey plays the drums. Notice the number on the hat and play the drums to represent that number. I get it, but in what way does that make any sense? Why would there be something when we played the correct sequence? It's just random and it really started to pissed me off.

The newspaper ad and train puzzles seemed like simple brute force puzzles to me. Perhaps I just wasn't looking hard enough, but it looked like there's all there is to them. The signature puzzle made no sense. Why would hitting X not print the X, but rather part of the letter K?! The first lock puzzle, made absolutely no sense as well, there was an obvious clue for the number, but there wasn't any clue for what those letters represent. And to think of it, why does the lock have the number that represents the combination printed on it?! It's just very very lazy.

Other than great looks, this game has not much to offer. The story feels rushed and out of focus. The puzzles are just lazy, uncreative, unimaginative and sometimes felt plain annoying. There are no characters worth mentioning, the story is weak and the twist at the end is just lazy too.

Why? Nothing technical atleast. It's probably because the puzzles are not logical, or better said, not logical in the average mind. To understand that, you have to vaguely know who this Kafka is, because I certainly didn't know.
Wikipedia: 1883-1924 (Austria) novelist/short story writer. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It typically features isolated protagonists facing bizarre or surrealistic predicaments and incomprehensible socio-bureaucratic powers. It has been interpreted as exploring themes of alienation, existential anxiety, guilt, and absurdity.
Aha, so only people familiar with German literature would have known about him.

The puzzles are indeed very surreal, normally I find that frustrating, but since it's the theme of this game, I didn't really mind. The game offers a hint after three minutes, and a second one after five minutes during each puzzle. Most of the time you can't really solve it without the hint, but it's nice to give your surrealistic facets of your mind a try.

Because this is a short game, I recommend a playthrough through this nonsense. The drawings aren't bad, neither is the music. I wouldn't call this a masterpiece, but atleast now I know who Franz Kafka is.

64/100

NB: I did three full playthroughs for the achievement 'unaided', but I can't seem to get it. If anyone knows what I am doing wrong, tell me please! I didn't check the hints, made sure every scene was finished within three minutes. I seem to be the only one with this problem, so it must be me...

Hello Friends! So i beat this short surrealistic game. This game is about some of the books related to Franz Kakfa. So..the game is very surreal. At it's heart, this is nothing more than a very difficult puzzle game, but there are alot of easter eggs giving credit towards Franz Kafka's books. For example, many of the levels actually hint at his books. Anyways, here is my pro/con list:

PROS:

-If your in the mood for surrealism, this is the game for you.
-Some of the puzzles are very hard core. I find difficult puzzles to be a good place to flex your brain muscle.

CONS:

-The game is too short.
-If you don't like puzzles, avoid this game.

Just a small puzzler game with Franz Kafka book influence. I enjoyed the puzzle aspect and the surrealism. I recommend this for the fact the game is a puzzler that is surrealistic.

NOTE: I just wanted to say a friend gave this to me as a gift and would like to thank them personally.

That was shortest and most strange journey i ever had in any game... thank you Franz Kafka, may your spirit rest well :)

I wouldn't call it especially brilliant or memorable, but overall for its price and length, I think it was a reasonably enjoyable diversion. As a side note though, if you are looking for a similar style "flash-like" puzzle/adventure game (separate screens, little or no inventory, etc), I would recommend Rusty Lake: Roots as a more solid offering.

The saying " don't judge a book (or in this case " game" ) by its cover" is the first thing that came into mind when I played this. The cover and title made me curious. But once in game the curiosity quickly dissolved in nuisance .

There is just no no cohesion, no story and little to no logic. The game seems to consist of random fields, totally unrelated to each other. No clues on where the story goes (was there a story?) or what is expected. I love puzzle games. But there has to be some logic to it. No glue to stick it together. Also it is very short, which I was actually glad about.

Idea is good, execution not. But in case the dev reads this..... I do believe in further development. Learn and progress:)
It is not a totally lost cause... just a no for this game:) It misses storytelling. Every screen felt like I skipped the story and went straight to the last page of the book. just ..incomplete. and unclear.

The game proposes a series of highly original puzzles with unusual solutions lost well beyond absurdity, a few good design ideas and beautiful environments. All are unfortunately far outweighed by everything else.


Indeed.

Creativity is obviously most welcome in a game of this genre, but this is so confusingly unconventional it creates a wholly unrewarding experience. Solving the puzzles becomes guesswork, often with no indication as to what is expected, while trying to figure out which parts of the interface are actually interactive.

That most actions are unique makes learning and improving impossible. Reaching the end only feels good in knowing that the antagonizing experience is over.

• Original playful art style
  
• Pleasant music
  
• Extremely short

• Unreasonably non-intuitive puzzles
  
• Unsatisfying trial and error
  
• Long and useless intermission
  
• Romero for no reason

This game genuinely left me feel bitter and disappointed. Decidedly not worth its price. I wouldn't even replay it for free.