STONE

Review

It happens to every single one of us - you know that time when you wake up with a pounding head that was self-inflicted by rather strong beverages from the previous night - the feeling of having a few lead balls bouncing all around inside your skull when you move around. The worst is when people start talking to you . . . then you have the amazing combination of bouncing balls and echoing voices within your cranial cavity!  Not a pleasant feeling, to say the least.  This is exactly what happens to a Koala detective named STONE, but on top of that, he receives a phone call from an unknown number telling him that his partner, Alex, has been kidnapped!

Stone is an adventure game with a degree of choice matters, developed and published by Convict Games, where you play a koala private investigator who is looking for clues as to what happened to his partner before his alleged kidnapping.  

The game consists of 6 chapters, including an epilogue.  As Stone wakes up, pretty much half stoned, he finds out from an unknown caller that his boyfriend, Alex (or Chookie) has been kidnapped.  The first act is pretty much following the story and identifying which objects or characters to interact with within each scene. You can’t miss them, as a pink ball will be obvious over each of the characters and items.  As you move through the game, you will speak with other characters within the five available locations on the main map. Stone will be able to choose to be smooth or tough in the way he communicates with other characters, which add a bit a replay-ability in this game.

The story itself is a bit out there, to be honest, and probably not for everyone. However, the dialogue is quite good, and they have managed to not only make the characters Australian native animals,  but also to capture some Australian slang, which is always really fun to hear. It will take you between 2 to 3 hours to complete your first playthrough, and you might want to give the game another go to see how the story will shape up by choosing different ways of communicating with the other characters when prompted. Stone will recall some of the good times he had with Alex, which is primarily watching movies. You’ll be able to watch these movies throughout the gameplay, or you can go to the Orion cinema and watch them when you want to. The length of these movies varies between 7 to 95 minutes and they are pretty interesting. You can always terminate the session by pressing the key E.

The graphics are very well done, the soundtrack is great, and the story is interesting, to say the least. I must say that I was expecting a bit more of interaction than what the game offers, but it is what it is.