Born Punk is a solid attempt at a classic-style point-and-click adventure game that unfortunately falls flat in execution. A full review is below, but the summary is a firm 5/10; interesting world-building and occasionally fun puzzle solving, marred by overly clunky design and delivery, resulting in a game that simply cannot get out of its own way long enough to let the good parts shine through.

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The puzzles frequently stray into the realm of abstract logic Sierra adventure games were infamous for. Many puzzles require the character to have specifically observed an item before they will acknowledge its properties, leading to the unfortunate situation of a character explicitly declaring using an item on an object will not work when that is in fact the correct solution to the puzzle. One particularly egregious problem is deriving the password to the concert hall, where the player is directed to look at the dialogue box while a hint is provided elsewhere on the screen. As there is no reason for the player to expect a hint to be where it is, or even on the screen at all, the fundamental design of the puzzle is counter-intuitive. This is unfortunately not an isolated incident as the solution to many puzzles is either not well telegraphed or in direct contravention of game mechanics players expect to find with no indication this is the case.

The inventory is somewhat inscrutable, which compounds the puzzle design problem. A great number of items you can collect are never used for anything. While maintaining red herring items is a staple of adventure games, over half of the items you pick up in the game are useless, resulting in a bloated inventory for the sake of it. This is further frustrated by the poor logic design of the puzzles making all the items seem viable as nothing is ever used in a straightforward manner.

The plot is interesting but fumbled. Several plot points are very bluntly foreshadowed, only to be completely abandoned. Several character arcs are woven into the story, only to have no narrative relevance or payoff. The main characters themselves are actually interesting and fun characters, but the conclusions provided are neither satisfying nor logic. Several bits of set dressing and secondary characters are indeed fascinating and the game takes time to deliberately set them up as interesting tidbits... and then completely avoids ever exploring them save for in the optional game lore text dumps.

The ending, as indicated by the achievements, results in the respective characters having their "essences" either lost or saved, however there's no clear indication of causal link between actions and result, making it hollow and empty to have "saved" a character (since you don't know how or why anything you did affected that outcome). Subsequently, the ending feels stilted and disjointed from the entire narrative arc of the game.

Overall, the game is a story and experience I very much want to like, but which suffers from numerous counter-productive design choices which break the vibe of the game. It would certainly be possible to recover the game as it exists now, but it would require an extensive rebuild of the progression and systems.

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Set in Bornholm in 2155, an island situated in the Baltic Sea, controlled by The Conglomerate, a consortium responsible for developing the space elevator which dominates the skyline, and the economy.

Society is split up between the rich and poor, where sophisticated androids have their own place in the community, whilst others roam the streets desperately searching for power cells to prolong their existence. Humans embrace technology with artificial implants and even have talking pets!

Born Punk is a retro, science fiction, cyberpunk themed point and click adventure, where we take control of three characters who have been possessed with some kind of entity. We follow each one’s path separately and finally work together to uncover the mystery behind the possessions.

https://youtu.be/Xv3ZyVkZcgI

Born Punk is a real mixed bag. On one hand it has wonderful visuals and sound, with some superb voice acting and atmospheric scenes, but the story felt disjointed and flat, and the puzzles were not enjoyable or engaging.

I usually gauge games by how they made me feel, and although there were times when I laughed, and felt entertained, they were outweighed by the times I felt frustrated or bored. I struggled a bit with whether to recommend this or not, but ultimately, it just fell on the negative side.

From the very beginning of the game, there were moments of frustration. The inventory and lore are controlled by the mouse wheel and it took me a while to get used to bringing up the right one. I would have much preferred just going to the bottom of the screen for inventory and top for lore. The inventory seems to disappear just when you don’t want it to and when you select an item to use on something else, if it's not successful, the item disappears and you have to bring the inventory back up again. It just felt really clunky and unintuitive.

On numerous occasions, I was stumped and had to consult a walkthrough. You learn a lot about the game by being stuck and learning the solutions. Most of the time the reason I was stuck was due to either bad mechanics or illogical solutions. For example, when you get dialogue choices, it is really not obvious that you can scroll down and see more. I thought all the choices were there in front of me, but consulting a walkthrough revealed there were more options hidden by a feeble and disguised down arrow.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2821815132

Puzzles are often annoying and seem very fragmented. You will find yourself moving from one part of the city to another again and again. There is no fast tracking of any kind, no map or screen hopping, and some scenes are long enough for it to feel frustrating, especially when you trudge all that way without success, only to turn around and have to walk all the way back to the exit again.

Sometimes, characters can only speak when they are situated on certain points of the scene, so if you send them over to examine something, they often need to return to reply. On a couple of occasions, the character was actually in the way of the puzzle solution which made it very difficult to navigate the scene and solve it. Then there is the odd puzzle that just feels badly designed, like the nightclub scene, with confusing instructions. There are still some nice puzzles which felt logical in nature, but some stood out like a sore thumb and marred the experience.

You need to examine everything with the RMB as this will add lore (if you're interested to read it) but also reveal crucial information needed to solve puzzles. This isn't really explained at the start, leading to more frustration, but needs to be done. Often, there are quite a lot of things to examine, revealed by using your LMB.

There was hardly any inventory combining. I can only think of a few occasions when this was needed, but I was left with quite a few objects in my inventory which were never required.

I would advise that you try and play Born Punk in as few sittings as possible, and close together, as there is no function to remind you of what has happened previously or what your objectives are. Typically, you can usually ask a character and they will repeat important conversations but this hardly ever happened in Born Punk and there is no diary or objective hints to prompt you. There are also times when you need to remember conversations as they will be crucial in answering questions at a later point. There is never any option to go back and refresh your memory though; you are locked into it without any escape and if you get it wrong you are penalized and have to find another solution. Some of the puzzles were designed to have more than one way of solving them for this very reason, and usually in detriment to gaining an achievement I guess, as I only got a quarter of them.

Out of the three characters, only one was interesting, and I must say that Grandmaster Flash was one of my all-time favourite characters in this genre. He was absolutely hilarious and superbly acted. I really looked forward to his scenes as they injected some welcome humour into proceedings. The other two were a bit boring with conversations going on for far too long with uninteresting subjects. There were some interesting peripheral characters though, which added a lot of entertainment value.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2823109385

The story fell flat for me I’m afraid. It never felt like it ever got going and I can’t remember any truly dramatic, tense or awe-inspiring moments. The game is quite droll and light-hearted in nature which is in stark contrast to the downtrodden, crime ridden environments, with the frequent wails of emergency vehicles and the gloomy atmosphere. It wasn’t a good mix, and often felt out of place. The only savior being Flash, who’s poor social standing and survival instincts warranted the humour, which was often delightfully black and sarcastic. There’s quite a lot of lore, but it is only discoverable by examining objects or characters, and then it is up to you whether you want to read through it all. Some of it was interesting but it felt detached from the story and just supplementary.

The presentation of the game was outstanding with some gorgeous visuals and sound effects, creating a heavy but quite gloomy atmosphere. Scenes were alive and not static and every character was distinctive and superbly voice acted. Different environments were interesting and I often marveled at how the scenes were constructed and the way the pixel graphics created ambiance.

Born Punk is aesthetically pleasing with some outstanding visuals and excellent voice acting throughout.
There are some genuine comical moments in the game, especially from Grandmaster Flash who is almost worth the entry price alone, but for every plus there seemed to be a minus and the presentation just wasn’t enough to save this game from mediocrity unfortunately.

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If you're an avid Point & Click enthusiast, you most likely recognize Born Punk. Its Kickstart page managed to reunite almost 1K backers, tremendously helping the production of this futuristic indie title.
Demos have been floating around since late 2019 with different builds showcasing considerable positive improvements. Et voilà!, the time is finally here and Born Punk is 100% ready and hitting the stores today. Is it what fans expected, though? Let's find out!

Set in what once was a peaceful touristic Danish island, Bornholm stands in 2155 as the first Corpo-independent state, and a beacon of technology, reflecting both the supreme power of mega corporations but also the extreme poverty in its slums.
Life is not easy among outdated androids roaming without a purpose, mercs searching for jobs at every opportunity in a highly unstable netgrid, and on top of that, 27M citizens trying to break free from corporation control.

Born Punk is a fun game and doesn't take itself too seriously, nor should you. It delivers quite a dose of humor, even within adult topics. With a laid-back attitude, a lot of references and Easter eggs, this cyberpunk-like adventure builds a world with care and attention, especially when it comes to the lore. At any given point, you can access the PDA to read all sorts of new information as you progress.

Smart character development, agile dialogues and available astute choices are some of the major points you can expect in the narrative. Manages to deliver fluid interactions, interesting events and an overall pleasant story, even more so, if you're into the "cyberpunk" atmosphere. It's a highly well calibrated adventure that progressively motivates one to continue its main story.

In Born Punk you’ll play with three different characters, and that really surprised me positively. I really enjoyed how the whole group became a team, regardless of their own personality and self motivations. I would spoil away too much by detailing further, so let me just say there is no doubt a lot of creativity behind each character. Enough so, they’ll grow on you.

When it comes to gameplay, it's a classic Point & Click to its core, with simple mechanics and logical puzzles. Characters can interact with objects as well as collect them in the inventory. The logic behind using them isn't very complex, and most of the time I found myself over-complicating things.

Thankfully, you'll quickly learn the way of its approach, and in no time you'll easily realize your goal. Some may say there are a wide range of items to interact with, where admittedly, 90% of them are not directly related to the game’s progression. I for one love how much characters can have their own opinion regarding the most common items, so it’s right up my alley.

Visually, Born Punk delivers a top 2D pixel art, with incredible little details everywhere, and it's pretty faithful to the preview images available here at the store, so if you like its style, you'll enjoy the overall presentation. The only issue I found with it was the size of the subtitles, being too big. Other than that little detail, it fits quite well within the game's style

If you're in some retrowave synth tunes, Born Punk nails it pretty well. There's a range of themes that easily pleases any fan out there and matches the genre really well. The main dish, however, is the fully voiced characters. Everyone has an impressive voice over by what appears to be a talented and professional cast who fits really well in the role. Without the voices, and the subtitles being extremely big, I would really have a hard time with this one.

Born Punk is a solid Point & Clicker with a campaign away above the 20 hour mark, maybe even more if you try to overcome all obstacles without a guide. The same can be said for those who love to check every piece of information and dialogue. The Australian studio absolutely hits every spot in this adventure, making it as pleasant as it can be for anyone looking for a classic title. Fun, original and an absolute blast with meme references, intelligent humor and satisfying gameplay.

This is not a completely terrible game but it makes too many mistakes.

- Had to restart the game two times from the beginning because of game breaking bugs
- The story is confusing, hardly anything gets explained and to top it of it ends in the middle of it.
- Solving puzzles hardly ever felt satisfying
- There is quite a lot of backtracking in the last quarter
- Randomized maze and without any reason
- Painful music puzzle also Hip-Hop = Pain

This game has it all

No moonlogic
Control multiple characters
Hilarious, well written and fully voiced dialogue
Incredibly talented voice acting
Multiple solutions to puzzles
Fantastic story
Great soundtrack
Very charming and gorgeous pixel art

Started out promising. Unfortunately that didn't hold. It starts out with the strongest stuff. You begin playing as Eevie, and you get a sense of the world through the interactables and a few simple puzzles. Cut and dry but effective. Then you get some good characterization with her supporting cast like Hussar and Klump. It's pretty by the book but is working well. Then you find yourself controlling Mira who has a whole different thing going on. Initially this is ok too, because the situation she's in is intriguing and the perspective during her first segment is handled interestingly.

But then... then we go to Grand Master Flashdrive. And I won't mince words: I can't stand this character. Here's the easiest way I can explain it: ever see the second Transformers movie that had the two robots that came across as really racist and everybody involved in the movie tried to blame everybody else for it? He sounds exactly like them. There is a reason suggested for why he's like this, but that doesn't make it any less grating. And to make matters worse: his entire first segment has zero to do with the story. But they decided to introduce him anyway, so not only are you dealing with a mind-numblingly annoying character but it's not even clear why you're being made to do it.

Unfortunately the design started to degrade from then on even after I got control of Eevie again. Or maybe it was just that the GMF segment annoyed me so much that I became way more aware of issues I'd given a pass to initially, I can't be sure. But it certainly felt like there were more unintuitive solutions for things, and the dialogue started to come across as very overwritten. Not the little things said when items are described, that was largely fine, but the times that characters interacted. I found myself repeatedly thinking "ok, I get it, why are we still talking over the same points?"

The plot isn't bad, but it just wasn't good enough for me to keep putting up with the annoyances. Maybe I'll check a letsplay to see where it goes, but even if it's great I don't think I'll regret stopping my playthrough and just looking it up.

Intriguing story in a dystopian world with very well drawn characters and charming (and weird) NPCs. We have 3 playable characters and real choices for the path we go

I loved the weird plot, as well as the variety of choices, which make every playthrough different (not all, but a wide part of the game). There is a lot to discover, in dialogues or just by clicking on signs or other parts of the environment so called Lore comes up and we can learn more about this world, in which we are.

Highly recommended - don't miss this experience !

I really like this adventure game. Especially since it is not completely linear with all puzzle solutions.

With that said, there are some minor annoyances.

Just having 6 save game slots is very limiting for a PC game title, and over course of the game, I was forced to override many of my old saves. This IMHO is unacceptable for a PC game of this age and would only make sense if it was an old-school floppy disc game, where all saves need to fit on a single disc, and not in today's age of large SSD storage.

Also, the only clue what each of the saves was is its blurry image, since there was no way to see the timestamp when the save was made, so I often needed to guess which of the saves is the most recent one.

As for other gripes, early in the game (drink selection from the fridge), I was stuck since I did not realize that the dialog choice selector can be scrolled down, due to it perfectly showing exactly 4 options on the screen. There needs to be some way for new users to easier figure out that it is scrollable since I lost several hours here trying to figure out why I was stuck.

Despite this criticism, as I said, these are minor annoyances, and the main meat of the game is very good. So it is definitely a recommendation from me. But I hope that devs can fix some of these minor annoyances in a future update.

"Born Punk" is a worthy attempt at creating an old-school point'n'click adventure, but it fails: too many quality of life features are missing, the game is a bit buggy, and the story ends abruptly.

Has some potential but the char sprites are muddy and indistinct, puzzle design is extremely linear and there's a game-breaking bug 1.5 hours in that can force a restart. The bug has existed for over a year and nobody seems to care to fix it. I can put up with the first two things for a good story, but not the third.