So I just recently played and finished a point-and-click adventure game called Dead Synchronicity: Tomorrow Comes Today, developed by Fictiorama Studios and published by Daedalic Entertainment (the same guys who made Edna & Harvey, Deponia and The Whispered World). The plot of the game is that you play as an amnesiac waking up in a savage post-apocalyptic world where morality no longer holds any meaning and a plague is spreading that causes people to exhibit precognition and a capability to communicate with the dead, plus the victim literally dissolves in its final stage. As you progress, you piece together what happened to you and this world, find out what exactly the “Great Wave” and the “Dead Synchronicity Point” are, and try to find a cure for the “dissolved”, all whilst being haunted by random visions of the world warping around you and an unknown woman’s voice trying to guide you towards... something.

Finishing this game got me to think again about plot, setting and character investment. At first, I found myself interested in where the story was possibly going to go after it ended (this game is supposed to be the first entry in a planned trilogy) but, thinking about it again, I found that I was feeling somewhat emotionally drained by the setting and characters. Now, I don’t expect a grimdark story to have at least one “skipping through flowery meadows” moment or characters so likable you want to marry them. However, about a few hours into the game, I had a hard time mustering any kind of investment when nearly every plot development negated my reasoning to still hold onto the hope for a ray of light in the story. This feeling could be linked to my will to find a positive future in everything and everyone, so this could be something entirely my fault and I’m just a little squishy softy. Then again, another game you may have heard of called SOMA, despite also being post-apocalyptic and harboring the same grimdark philosophies, still managed to give me some form of investment, even though there weren’t as many characters alive or present. Again, I’m aware that this is only the first part, but even the cliffhanger ending gave the impression that there’s nothing left to hope for anymore, even when there’s still some unanswered questions remaining. For what’s supposed to be a trilogy, that doesn’t give me a whole lot of reasons to want to know where the story’s gonna go. This is kind of funny, considering I gave up on the Deponia trilogy at that same point (tho’ for a different reason entirely... *grumblegrumbleRufusgrumble*).

So, did I like the first part of Dead Synchronicity? Well, even after looking past the admittedly crude art style, limited animation, and okay voice-acting, I wish I could give a straightforward answer to that. What I can say is that this game is very much grimdark and, if those kind of stories are your thing and you don’t mind the simplistic presentation, maybe you can find some enjoyment in it. Just know that things won’t get any brighter at any point.