Tem uma história interessante, no máximo. Nada de espetacular. A ambientação e arte são boas, mas a gameplay em si é terrível. Não consegui manter a lealdade de todos os personagens por detalhes minúsculos e insignificantes, além de ter escolhas extremamente chatas e superficiais, que não podem ser evitadas ou mudadas, independentemente do que você fizer no restante do jogo, que por sua vez, é curto.
Esqueci de escrever a review antes kk
Esqueci de escrever a review antes kk
For a novice studio this is sublime. A marriage between a visual novel and a management game that never completely sets in either genre and masterfully combines both to elevate its narrative. I’m a sucker for the ambiance The Pale Beyond is trying to reach, but I think that I’m also harder to please in this regard (I don’t like the book that would come to your mind if you were to think about this setting, for example), so, believe me when I say that this game is well written and very much well thought out. While the expedition is never pleasant and things go wrong pretty much from day one, you can definitely feel tedium, coldness and hunger mining your crew’s sanity and morale. You see them having their own interests and personalities, and you see them slowly letting them go as survival becomes not the most important thing but the only thing that matters. Some of the late game moments are haunting, not because they are super dramatic, but because they are not. There’s not enough energy for drama and confrontation when you haven’t been eating or sleeping well for three weeks in a row.
The only thing holding this game from being a true masterpiece is that, while an experience like this should be hard for what its narrative is trying to convey, I think is a bit harder than it should, prohibitively hard even. I can imagine people not finishing it despite being hooked by it, so that’s a bummer. It’s a hard line to establish, so I kinda get it.
The only thing holding this game from being a true masterpiece is that, while an experience like this should be hard for what its narrative is trying to convey, I think is a bit harder than it should, prohibitively hard even. I can imagine people not finishing it despite being hooked by it, so that’s a bummer. It’s a hard line to establish, so I kinda get it.
I cant help but compare this to Frostpunk.
Two management games about shepherding a small group of survivors through bitter cold. The same resources to manage, those being food, health, morale and especially heat.
And yet what they're about could not be more different. Frostpunk is a game about how the health of the few pales in comparison to the health of the many, that sacrifices must be made. In The Pale Beyond, the two are interlinked. Everyone has their role to play, nobody is expendable, nobody is truly replaceable. Every loss is a tragedy that can cascade into the doom of the whole. We get through this together or we don't make it through at all.
Docking half a point because there's a wonderful piece from the soundtrack that isn't available anywhere for love or money.
Two management games about shepherding a small group of survivors through bitter cold. The same resources to manage, those being food, health, morale and especially heat.
And yet what they're about could not be more different. Frostpunk is a game about how the health of the few pales in comparison to the health of the many, that sacrifices must be made. In The Pale Beyond, the two are interlinked. Everyone has their role to play, nobody is expendable, nobody is truly replaceable. Every loss is a tragedy that can cascade into the doom of the whole. We get through this together or we don't make it through at all.
Docking half a point because there's a wonderful piece from the soundtrack that isn't available anywhere for love or money.
Absolutely phenomenal, didn’t expect much going in but i left with love in my heart. Genuinely just a golden game, my only complaint is i couldn’t romance all the amazing characters
This review contains spoilers
The Pale Beyond is a good game, but not a great one. It has a solid narrative, excellent artwork, and well realized characters. The game suffers from incongruity between its narrative and the mechanics of the game, on both a small and a large level. Overall I found it to be worthwhile experience - an experience that didn't overstay its welcome.
During Act 2 Grimley plays an insulting song about you, and a large part of the crew joins in. Grimley has been the staunchest detractor of your captaincy. One of the options to deal with this is to smash his accordion. At first the game gives this action the weight it deserves: several members of your crew are demoralized, your status in the eyes of several important people in the crew goes down, and Grimley's loyalty tanks to a near unrecoverable low. However immediately after this event, you can speak to Grimley normally, and he'll act like nothing is wrong. The game offers you opportunities to speak to important characters at the end of each week, and depending on your dialogue responses you can gain or lose loyalty. Grimley's weekly dialogue is entirely unaffected by you smashing his accordion- no anger is present at all. You can even gain loyalty from him in this conversation. This conversation is entirely the same no matter how you resolve the incident. This is the mismatch between the narrative and the game's mechanics at a smaller level. You make decisions that should be quite impactful, but have zero effect on things that they clearly should. On a larger scale there's a mismatch between the grimness of the situation you're placed in and the actual difficulty of the survival management. In short, its far too easy. I did play on normal, and I highly recommend playing on hard for a better experience, although I can't speak to how much better it'd be. But for my playthrough things were far too easy, and it did take away some weight from the narrative.
Overall though I found the narrative to be good. The character portraits do a great job of portraying their personalities and evolution over the course of the game. The cast of the characters is good, although a few can feel a bit one dimensional. I found the ending of the game to be quite satisfying, and there is room for a large amount of variation in how things play out, which I was happy with. The game is relatively short, which I thought was a good thing, because it kept things like the survival management from overstaying their welcome. Overall I enjoyed my time with the game, and I'd feel comfortable recommending it to fans of narrative-focused games. This is especially good as first release by Bellular Studios, I'll be looking forward to trying what they release next.
During Act 2 Grimley plays an insulting song about you, and a large part of the crew joins in. Grimley has been the staunchest detractor of your captaincy. One of the options to deal with this is to smash his accordion. At first the game gives this action the weight it deserves: several members of your crew are demoralized, your status in the eyes of several important people in the crew goes down, and Grimley's loyalty tanks to a near unrecoverable low. However immediately after this event, you can speak to Grimley normally, and he'll act like nothing is wrong. The game offers you opportunities to speak to important characters at the end of each week, and depending on your dialogue responses you can gain or lose loyalty. Grimley's weekly dialogue is entirely unaffected by you smashing his accordion- no anger is present at all. You can even gain loyalty from him in this conversation. This conversation is entirely the same no matter how you resolve the incident. This is the mismatch between the narrative and the game's mechanics at a smaller level. You make decisions that should be quite impactful, but have zero effect on things that they clearly should. On a larger scale there's a mismatch between the grimness of the situation you're placed in and the actual difficulty of the survival management. In short, its far too easy. I did play on normal, and I highly recommend playing on hard for a better experience, although I can't speak to how much better it'd be. But for my playthrough things were far too easy, and it did take away some weight from the narrative.
Overall though I found the narrative to be good. The character portraits do a great job of portraying their personalities and evolution over the course of the game. The cast of the characters is good, although a few can feel a bit one dimensional. I found the ending of the game to be quite satisfying, and there is room for a large amount of variation in how things play out, which I was happy with. The game is relatively short, which I thought was a good thing, because it kept things like the survival management from overstaying their welcome. Overall I enjoyed my time with the game, and I'd feel comfortable recommending it to fans of narrative-focused games. This is especially good as first release by Bellular Studios, I'll be looking forward to trying what they release next.
Interesting high stakes visual novel with light management. You really get to care for the characters, through lots of tense situations. Really enjoyable, though dog lovers beware.
The Pale Beyond hat mich emotional wirklich komplett abgeholt und auf eine Abenteuerreise voller Höhen und Tiefen mitgenommen.
Das (für mich) unwichtigste vorneweg: Der Gameplayloop ist gut gelungen. Das Verwalten der knappen Ressourcen sorgt dafür, dass man das Gefühl der akuten Notlage glaubhaft spürt ohne dass es zu frustrierend wird. Im Endeffekt ist es für mich aber nur ein Mittel zum Zweck um die Immersion des Abenteuers zu erhöhen.
Die Geschichte ist durchweg spannend und die Crew ist gespickt mit tollen Charakteren, die einem ans Herz wachsen und so die ein oder andere Entscheidung noch weiter erschweren.
Besonders in den letzten 3 Akten nimmt die Geschichte unglaublich Fahrt auf und hat mich so an den PC gefesselt, dass ich diese zweite Hälfte des Spiels in einer Sitzung durchgezogen habe.
Und dann gipfelte die Spannung in einem Moment, der wirklich herzzerreißend war und mir die ein oder andere Träne entlockt hat.
Damit ist "The Pale Beyond" das Spiel, dass mich emotional dieses Jahr bis jetzt am meisten mitgenommen hat. Allein dafür verdient es schon einen äußerst hohen Platz in meiner persönlichen Liste, doch dann kommt auch noch dazu dass die tolle Geschichte mit einem kompetenten Gameplayloop abgerundet wird.
Das (für mich) unwichtigste vorneweg: Der Gameplayloop ist gut gelungen. Das Verwalten der knappen Ressourcen sorgt dafür, dass man das Gefühl der akuten Notlage glaubhaft spürt ohne dass es zu frustrierend wird. Im Endeffekt ist es für mich aber nur ein Mittel zum Zweck um die Immersion des Abenteuers zu erhöhen.
Die Geschichte ist durchweg spannend und die Crew ist gespickt mit tollen Charakteren, die einem ans Herz wachsen und so die ein oder andere Entscheidung noch weiter erschweren.
Besonders in den letzten 3 Akten nimmt die Geschichte unglaublich Fahrt auf und hat mich so an den PC gefesselt, dass ich diese zweite Hälfte des Spiels in einer Sitzung durchgezogen habe.
Und dann gipfelte die Spannung in einem Moment, der wirklich herzzerreißend war und mir die ein oder andere Träne entlockt hat.
Damit ist "The Pale Beyond" das Spiel, dass mich emotional dieses Jahr bis jetzt am meisten mitgenommen hat. Allein dafür verdient es schon einen äußerst hohen Platz in meiner persönlichen Liste, doch dann kommt auch noch dazu dass die tolle Geschichte mit einem kompetenten Gameplayloop abgerundet wird.
I really thought I’d like this game - I like management games, the story seemed intriguing. Sadly, after few hours of play it started to feel a bit monotonous, then I ran out of important resource with no idea how to get it and the game ended. A very quick google search did not help either and I suppose I don’t care enough to go through it all over again anyway.
I was gifted my copy of this game from the devs. I'm not a visual novel or strategy game kinda guy. However, I genuinely had a lot of fun playing this game for the few hours I did play. From what I played I think folks who love games of this genre would really enjoy it. Abandoned only because it's not for me.
The Pale Beyond falls short because of three main reasons. Firstly, while the way the game presents itself with markers scattered across the current map at the time is fine, navigating it is sooo cumbersome even though it shouldn't be. Secondly, the save tree system doesn't work in a narrative game, with no easy way to skip all the talking. Thirdly, there isn't any feedback on how you are managing the resources, meaning that you could have already lost the game in week 15 or something but only find out until you're at week 24 hours later. I think there is a good game underneath all the dirt (or should I say the ice?) with the great concept, art style and setting, but the whole "game" part seems very lackluster.
This game is currently in the Humble Choice for December 2023, and this is part of my coverage of the bundle. If you are interested in the game and it's before January 2nd, 2023, consider picking up the game as part of the current monthly bundle.
Sailing into the frozen south to find a mysterious wreck.
The Pale Beyond starts with an interview for the main character to join the interviewer’s crew as a first mate. The game is played in a slow story-based style where players have to make choices but also those questions will make the player think a bit about their character. The game says that decisions will change the crew, their opinions of the player, and their morale. There are also several resources that players will have to balance between food, fire, and the aforementioned morale. The game moves at a brisk pace but there’s probably a lot more to discover after the first hour.
At the same time, this does seem to be very story-heavy. I’m not sure how much each decision will matter, and the game pretty much forces most of the important choices in the first hour. It’s likely just holding the player's hand but as usual, this is a game claiming “choices will matter”, and the question as always is “how much”. It seems the gameplay is more about staying alive than necessarily changing the ending, but that’s also where the challenge will lie.
Pick this up if you like a story-based game. Parts of me were thinking about Return of the Ober Din due to the language and an experience on a ship, but that was more of a puzzle game and this is more of a narrative. Still, something is intriguing about this story so far so it’s possible I’ll play much more.
If you enjoyed this review or want to know what I think of other games in the bundle, check out the full review on or subscribe to my Youtube channel: https://youtu.be/FzxvEceV60k
Sailing into the frozen south to find a mysterious wreck.
The Pale Beyond starts with an interview for the main character to join the interviewer’s crew as a first mate. The game is played in a slow story-based style where players have to make choices but also those questions will make the player think a bit about their character. The game says that decisions will change the crew, their opinions of the player, and their morale. There are also several resources that players will have to balance between food, fire, and the aforementioned morale. The game moves at a brisk pace but there’s probably a lot more to discover after the first hour.
At the same time, this does seem to be very story-heavy. I’m not sure how much each decision will matter, and the game pretty much forces most of the important choices in the first hour. It’s likely just holding the player's hand but as usual, this is a game claiming “choices will matter”, and the question as always is “how much”. It seems the gameplay is more about staying alive than necessarily changing the ending, but that’s also where the challenge will lie.
Pick this up if you like a story-based game. Parts of me were thinking about Return of the Ober Din due to the language and an experience on a ship, but that was more of a puzzle game and this is more of a narrative. Still, something is intriguing about this story so far so it’s possible I’ll play much more.
If you enjoyed this review or want to know what I think of other games in the bundle, check out the full review on or subscribe to my Youtube channel: https://youtu.be/FzxvEceV60k
Loved it up until the final act. A little frustrating when you fail and have to revert weeks at a time, repeating all the story content each time. I do wish the non-specialist crew were fleshed out a little more, though that would be hard to account for since they can very easily die as part of the core challenge of the game.
The Pale Beyond was an emotionally gripping tale that didnt quite stick the landing in a few key ways. It's a survival/management game with a narrative focus, and its strengths are in presenting the player with situations that appear stressful but are navigable with good planning. I say "appear" stressful there because personally, I found the game to be too easy on normal difficulty, which undermined the narrative. It really seemed like the game expected me to get to the end with half my crew dead and the other half disloyal, but by the end of it I had only one death and all but one of my officers remained by my side. If you're experienced with management type games, I'd probably recommend playing on hard mode for the best narrative experience.
The narrative itself is solid but it's held back by a few key aspects. You play as Robin Shaw, first mate in a doomed expedition to the South Pole. It's a compelling tale, and the characters' speech gives strong vibes of 18th century adventure novels - "Treasure Island" especially springs to mind. In terms of minutia, the game's writing is quite solid. All of the major characters have solid dialogue and there are plenty of small pockets of excellent writing woven throughout the various characters' small conversations with Shaw. The overarching narrative, by contrast, feels a little sporadic. My impression is that the goal was to take a streamlined approach, cut out the fluff from the story and focus on the big dramatic moments. This works well enough early on, when there are enough periods of management and milling about with the crew that it's not really noticeable. This facade wears thin in the latter half of the game, though, as the connective tissue of management fades into the background and the story becomes a series of set pieces strung together by little to no other elements. The ending was compelling, if a little frustrating. Without spoiling anything, it ends with a partial fourth wall break that feels awkward, but at the same time I cannot call it ineffective because it did spark some imagination in me.
Beyond the aspects already listed, the game is very well put together. The visuals are often stunning, and the music and sound design work incredibly well. I found the way that portraits changed in difference scenes to adapt to the new environments to be quite endearing. Overall it's a solid game and one that I do recommend, though it's nowhere near perfect. It's definitely enough that I'll keep my eye on the future works of this team and its developers, though.
The narrative itself is solid but it's held back by a few key aspects. You play as Robin Shaw, first mate in a doomed expedition to the South Pole. It's a compelling tale, and the characters' speech gives strong vibes of 18th century adventure novels - "Treasure Island" especially springs to mind. In terms of minutia, the game's writing is quite solid. All of the major characters have solid dialogue and there are plenty of small pockets of excellent writing woven throughout the various characters' small conversations with Shaw. The overarching narrative, by contrast, feels a little sporadic. My impression is that the goal was to take a streamlined approach, cut out the fluff from the story and focus on the big dramatic moments. This works well enough early on, when there are enough periods of management and milling about with the crew that it's not really noticeable. This facade wears thin in the latter half of the game, though, as the connective tissue of management fades into the background and the story becomes a series of set pieces strung together by little to no other elements. The ending was compelling, if a little frustrating. Without spoiling anything, it ends with a partial fourth wall break that feels awkward, but at the same time I cannot call it ineffective because it did spark some imagination in me.
Beyond the aspects already listed, the game is very well put together. The visuals are often stunning, and the music and sound design work incredibly well. I found the way that portraits changed in difference scenes to adapt to the new environments to be quite endearing. Overall it's a solid game and one that I do recommend, though it's nowhere near perfect. It's definitely enough that I'll keep my eye on the future works of this team and its developers, though.
This review contains spoilers
I got to the point where the expedition was so FUBAR that I had to shoot all the dogs, and I still got a game over on the following cycle. Then the game said I could go back to previous weeks to change the outcome, but I didn't want to go through the same dialogue and morality choices trying to figure out how to keep things from falling apart. It didn't help that the story wasn't what I was expecting, I was hoping for some mystery and adventure in addition to the nature survival, but that's all there was.