Jessika - Tritrie Games investigative title review

Jessika - Tritrie Games investigative title review

There was a period, not too distant, in which a very particular investigative title and until that moment unique of its kind, was incredibly appreciated by the community, not only for the game mode proposed, but also for the intimate story told. It was Her Story, developed and edited by Sam Barlow, who through a computer and recorded videos of police interrogations, made us investigate thoroughly and discover the various vicissitudes of the protagonist, which led to her death. There are several titles that then appeared in the videludic panorama that exploit similar mechanics, including Barlow's Telling Lies. To join the waltz this summer is instead Tritrie Games, an independent German firm based in Cologne, which with Assemble entertainment as a publisher he proposes to the world public Jessika, a title that marries exactly the same mechanics, but with a new story and a couple of goodies in tow.



A father's regret

Convinced that there is something underneath, something wrong, and details that don't add up, Jessika's father wants to investigate thoroughly and find out what's behind her daughter's death. However, we will not play the latter, but a boy / girl who was hired to dig deep into the girl's data, taking advantage of hacking skills. As expected, our task will be precisely to reveal the hidden truth, armed with laptops and starting from what at first looks like a recorded video diary before suicide. Hypothesizing and investigating, piece by piece we will then go to reconstruct the story of the girl, from early childhood to adolescence, with all the good and bad moments that have distinguished them.



Our friends and colleagues will also be on our side, who through the "Wizzap" chat (which clearly recalls the well-known Whatsapp) will keep in touch with us, helping us, exchanging opinions on what we will discover, but also to talk about more and about the less. Clearly we will be in direct contact also with the girl's father, who we will inform about everything we will gradually come up with. We will then alternate research and answers at a fast pace, and where each video seen can open a small exchange where we can also choose (in a non-influential way) which answer to give.

Jess in Kam

The naked and raw gameplay does not differ much from what we have already tested with the titles mentioned a little while ago: through a system of keyword (here in the form of a hashtag) we will carry out searches, and some videos will be found that correspond to this word (but which is not necessarily found within the video itself. All videos, without exception, portray Jessika in first person, who tells herself and by recounting his experiences, he will slowly provide us with clues to delve into his personality. The biggest difference compared to games of the same genre, is that the story itself will not be too complicated or intricate, in general. less cryptic. To overcome this problem, which would have made our investigation too easy, a feature has been inserted concerning the video protection level: even if with the corresponding keyword, many of the files will not be playable sa immediately, and will be unlocked automatically only once we have seen other specific ones (or a number of them). A simple one was used to recognize them classification by colors, and in order not to lose the files found but not yet playable, it is possible to mark them with a star and insert them in what is in fact a “folder” of important and / or favorite files. It goes without saying that even with this small introduction, the game is extremely simple, and can also be completed in scarce three hours.



A meager victory

Unfortunately Jessika, despite the excellent intentions and the deeply sensitive issues that are dealt with within the game, you lose a lot in two or three characteristics that should ultimately be the strong point of a production of this type. First of all, a title that has something of an investigative must be intriguing, intriguing, not boring, and above all push the player to press their brains to come up with their hypotheses. However, in this, Jessika succeeds only in part: a good attempt, especially if we are talking about a team of only 3 people who took care of everything, but unfortunately he was unable to push the proposed idea all the way. So here we come up against a pattern too easy to search for files, a disarming ease to guess the keywords, one predictability background of the events that risks losing interest in the story, e a very short overall duration of the game.



Other strong doubts in the game concern the aforementioned possibility of making choices: if on the narrative level the acting holds up (almost only if you play in German, due to an annoying anti-synchro between video and English audio) and the actress who plays Jessika manages to be particularly convincing in some clips, on a playful level we find ourselves in front of a dull title, where even the aforementioned multiple choices are reduced to nothing, and with the icing on the cake of a somewhat trivial ending which discards the idea of ​​a multiple ending (we also played a second run trying to change the choices, but it won't help).

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