Martial Law is a simple game but has a good story and blend of comedy and seriousness. The game play is basically you moving along the street and making choices about situations and people you encounter. There are faux choices in that some will end the game right there and then. I will also say that some choices are vague. For instance one person who stops you to take part in some old habit you had given up ends up with you waking up in the snow bank and a game over but I have no idea the old habit that got you there. I suspected drugs or alcohol but I read elsewhere that it was simply a debate that turned ugly. The text was vague and didn’t shed much light. The game does a good job of telling you little tidbits about Polish history from the 80’s from stores to customs and culture. The core story itself is also pretty heartwarming and it is nice to see a strong positive father figure in any media format. The graphics are pixel style but done well. The buildings; objects; and people have some detail to them. It isn’t a technical wonder but has a good style and shows why I am hard on pixel graphics games that are blurry and just look bad. The music was also fairly well done as well. The game’s opening scene auto scrolls the text instead of letting me advance manually but luckily after the opening scene this gives me control.

I played Martial Law on Linux. It never crashed and I didn’t notice any bugs. You can’t manually save. There are auto save points though but the game never tells you when they occur. There is also only one save slot that gets overwritten each time. There are no graphics options at all although the game does seem to use v-sync and recognize my refresh rate. Performance wise the game ran fantastically although with the visuals I am not overly shocked.

Game Engine: Godot
Graphics API: OpenGL
Disk Space Used: 139 MB

GPU Usage: 0-28 %
VRAM Usage: 1129-1226 MB
CPU Usage: 1-12 %
RAM Usage: 4.1-4.3 GB
Frame Rate: 139-165 FPS

Overall if you want a heartwarming story and to learn a little about what 1980’s Poland was like I would recommend Martial Law. I finished it in nineteen minutes and even though it’s free it was worth at least $5-10 had they wanted to charge.

My Score: 8/10

My System:

Intel i5-12600K | 16GB DDR4-3000 CL15 | XFX RX 590 8GB Fat Boy | Mesa 22.3.6 | Garuda | Mate 1.26.0 | Kernel 6.2.6-zen1-1-zen

Martial Law is a simple game but has a good story and blend of comedy and seriousness. The game play is basically you moving along the street and making choices about situations and people you encounter. There are faux choices in that some will end the game right there and then. I will also say that some choices are vague. For instance one person who stops you to take part in some old habit you had given up ends up with you waking up in the snow bank and a game over but I have no idea the old habit that got you there. I suspected drugs or alcohol but I read elsewhere that it was simply a debate that turned ugly. The text was vague and didn’t shed much light. The game does a good job of telling you little tidbits about Polish history from the 80’s from stores to customs and culture. The core story itself is also pretty heartwarming and it is nice to see a strong positive father figure in any media format. The graphics are pixel style but done well. The buildings; objects; and people have some detail to them. It isn’t a technical wonder but has a good style and shows why I am hard on pixel graphics games that are blurry and just look bad. The music was also fairly well done as well. The game’s opening scene auto scrolls the text instead of letting me advance manually but luckily after the opening scene this gives me control. I played Martial Law on Linux. It never crashed and I didn’t notice any bugs. You can’t manually save. There are auto save points though but the game never tells you when they occur. There is also only one save slot that gets overwritten each time. There are no graphics options at all although the game does seem to use v-sync and recognize my refresh rate. Performance wise the game ran fantastically although with the visuals I am not overly shocked. Game Engine: Godot Graphics API: OpenGL Disk Space Used: 139 MB GPU Usage: 0-28 % VRAM Usage: 1129-1226 MB CPU Usage: 1-12 % RAM Usage: 4.1-4.3 GB Frame Rate: 139-165 FPS Overall if you want a heartwarming story and to learn a little about what 1980’s Poland was like I would recommend Martial Law. I finished it in nineteen minutes and even though it’s free it was worth at least $5-10 had they wanted to charge. My Score: 8/10 My System: Intel i5-12600K | 16GB DDR4-3000 CL15 | XFX RX 590 8GB Fat Boy | Mesa 22.3.6 | Garuda | Mate 1.26.0 | Kernel 6.2.6-zen1-1-zen