Well... while Tacoma lacks in some aspects, it surprisingly exceeds in others.

The setting is space-faring late 21st century, exploring an empty moon orbit station as a contractor. Main source of info is the environment and Augmented Reality recordings, most of the information is given through the AR logs while some unspoken details - although not hidden - can be found through notes and other items.

Honestly the writing isn't bad but it's not much to speak of as well, it takes a stage painting a world of post late capitalism. Currency has fallen, everyone's hurting for money, the corps are trying to screw over people and bust unions.
Nice themes, but the details aren't grounded. All our conceptions of modern geopolitics are irrelevant, not one country we know have been spared from being broken down into stupidly named unions, Confederates, etc... Those bodies are irrelevant other than character ID issuers, but it breaks the suspension of disbelief. Characters are somewhat archetypical with their lame quirks, I felt more attached and interested in the onboard AI more than any of them because ODIN - The AI - has the best writing and depth.

The soundtrack rarely shows, other than an obnoxious diegetic band one character really loves. Visuals are alright for the setting, usual sleek space design language.

Tacoma's best performance is in indirect storytelling, rummaging through the rooms and offices conveys more depth about characters and the world, both aren't that deep but the execution was nice.

It isn't a bad game or even boring if I'm being honest, but I've personally grown tired with this style of narrative and loop. For someone else, this could be a great experience, so hop on if you're still interested in trying it.

Videogames have taught me that every job on a spaceship no matter how relatively mundane is almost certainly going to end in your doom.

If you do not enjoy dialogue heavy exposition and sedate storytelling this game will not offer you much sustenance. Fortunately, I do.

It’s well trodden territory but the plot and atmosphere are executed well, it simply lacked some of the sharper writing of the developer’s previous outing ‘Gone Home’.

Tacoma is a wonderful little game from the devs of Gone Home where you explore a space station & uncover the stories of the previous crew in holographic recordings. Each recording depicting ensemble or concurrent solo scenes, a rewind mechanic to watch it all, the color coded silhouettes & plenty of environmental storytelling elements all develop the characters in such a minimalistic but deeply engaging style to create a lovely story. Also, a small detail I loved: whenever the protagonist needs to write something or initiate a command on the holographic operating system, they use sign language instead of a floating keyboard and it looks incredible.

If you have played a space mystery game
You already played this
I find this to be one of the games in poor narrative storytelling genre.
I don't think it's clever it's been a clone over and over (see Fort Solis)
I love great narrative storytelling games this is the type of storytelling we see way too often with just higher production values.

Tacoma is a very weird but unique type of video game, there really isn't any gameplay but the story and narrative can make up for that. The set up for the game is sort of confusing but also pretty cool, I like the set up as a whole and I think it works well. I also actually like some of the characters, you get to know these holograms pretty well and most of them are pretty unique, my favorite was the dad who was asian. Overall the game isn't really super memorable but the story was good and even tho the ending was pretty bad I still had a decent time. 5/10

Reviewing every game i've fully completed #74