Gamedec Reviews
Gamedec is half of a good RPG and falls far short of its tantalising premise.
Gamedec is a cyberpunk RPG driven by its story and decisions. There's no combat, just you using your crime-solving skills to progress. Every choice you make carries weight.
It's a refreshing, original take on the cyberpunk genre, but in a game that relies so much on conversation, Gamedec's jargon-y dialogue soon becomes a confusing mess.
Gamedec is the kind of game that calls back to a much simpler kind of RPG. You won't find any creative combat systems or instances of killing god with the power of friendship here - this is much more akin to a point-and-click adventure game with loads of dialogue to get through. If you have a particular love of science fiction or cyberpunk in literary form, you'll find plenty to enjoy here; if you're into RPGs for crunching lots of numbers and fighting cool foes, you won't find much. If you think Gamedec sounds like your kind of thing, we'd definitely suggest giving it a try. Aside from occasional graphical glitches and dialogue non sequiturs, Gamedec does a great job of achieving what it sets out to do.
Gamedec is very much focused on its setting, story and investigation-based gameplay, which are for the most part properly executed.
Review in Italian | Read full review
GameDec does right by the cyberpunk genre by using it as a backdrop to an excellent detective story. The series of virtual worlds makes for a diverse range of environments, filled with characters that all have their own unique characteristics and motivations. The lack of a fail state raises the stakes, and makes it important to learn the ins and outs of dialogue and deduction. Though some bugs and missing functionality can make it rough around the edges, GameDec is still an overall quite enjoyable experience.
Most cyberpunk games focus on the flotsam and jetsam of the environment, the strobing lights, the economically stratified world, the gadgets and imagined technologies. Gamedec, in contrast, reminds us that fundamental human passions and personal failures will probably endure well into whatever advanced future comes to pass. Gamedec has a lot of interesting ideas and mechanics, and its hardboiled- detective-in-the-22nd-century story is a great premise. Either the developers had ambitions beyond their ability to deliver, or maybe the game just needs a few more passes with the random orbital sander to smooth down the rough edges, but in its present state Gamedec’s flaws definitely detract from an otherwise intriguing experience.
Gamedec is based on a neat idea, that in some ways similar to Beautiful Desolation, but the game sadly crumbles under its own ambitions.
Review in Russian | Read full review
amedec was a nice surprise: a cyberpunk detective story with a progression system that rewards intuition and perseverance without holding the player's hand. The dense network of questions and answers, together with the different endings available, guarantees robust replayability.
Review in Italian | Read full review
I want to fully endorse Gamedec, and up to a certain point I do, but I would be remiss if I didn't mention the radical shift in the game's focus. Up until then the investigations are mysterious and fun, telling a legitimately interesting tale. After it the game feels like it goes into hyperdrive, not stopping until the credits roll. If this universe is ever revisited, I would hope there would be more investigative stories and less weird color-coded mazes. As it stands then, Gamedec is best described as a promising title with uneven execution.
Gamedec's writing is sterile and boring, and it's a shame, because even with a structure not as perfect as the one at his disposal he had some potential. As it is, the game struggles even to carve out its own space in a landscape where it is difficult to find such titles. The direction, however, is the right one: with some more care Anshar could in the future get to pack a good role-playing game sui generis. Gamedec, unfortunately, is not that good RPG.
Review in Italian | Read full review
GameDec is a point-and-click cyberpunk adventure set in a dystopian world, You make a living by discreetly investigating crimes, mysteries, and transgressions in the vast sea of alternate realities to which most humans retreat. It provides a fun mechanic for dialogue junkies who find joy in solving the big puzzle.
Gamedec is an interesting and constantly evolving cyberpunk RPG.
Underneath its flaws, Gamedec is a truly unique game that I could spend 30 more hours in.
Underneath stability problems and bugs lies one of the most ambitious games I've played, bringing a tabletop game level of choice to RPG enthusiasts. The rich story and excellent writing delivers in a huge way...if you can get the game to cooperate.
Even with some refreshing concepts related to investigations, Gamedec stumbles owing to uninteresting plot points, bland characterization, unclear systems, and pesky bugs.
Gamedec doesn’t seem to know the benefits of the phrase “less is more” and instead of trusting in the beauty of the world it created, stuck its fingers into too many narrative pies. What is left is a pie full of so many ingredients that it’s hard to tell what the flavour of it actually is; it’s tasty and looks good, but you may be too full to go back for seconds.
Give Gamedec a chance if you want to experience something different in the isometric RPG genre. We got an original cyberpunk creation, a well constructed experiment that may not look or sound the best but allows you to become a detective spending his time conducting investigations inside videogames. And that's cool.
Review in Polish | Read full review
A really grappling and interesting experience for any cyberpunk or Disco Elysium fan. In many ways, Gamedec is a love letter to this genre of games and stories, while keeping some of its less than stellar qualities both narratively and gameplay-wise. While the Switch port could be frustrating to deal with, the convenience of being able to pick up the game like a book and read through it was a really unique experience that I kind of wish more visual novels adopted.