Orwell: Keeping an Eye On You

 PC
User Score
7.3

Mixed or average reviews- based on 141 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 91 out of 141
  2. Mixed: 27 out of 141
  3. Negative: 23 out of 141

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  1. Fyxhcl
    Nov 3, 2021
    4
    Orwell is a "reading game" in which you are a government agent and spy to certain people in order to prevent their crimes.

    You play the game by using Orwell, a software that lets you visit websites, spy on conversations or inside the computers of the people. Checking this things, you'll find pieces of information related to your suspects, and dragging the text representing the    Orwell is a "reading game" in which you are a government agent and spy to certain people in order to prevent their crimes.

    You play the game by using Orwell, a software that lets you visit websites, spy on conversations or inside the computers of the people. Checking this things, you'll find pieces of information related to your suspects, and dragging the text representing the information to the other side of the screen will insert the info into the characters sheet. Filling the sheets as much as possible should be your goal, and by doing that the game will progress.

    What's disappointing is the feeling of lack of choice that is present from the start to the end. You're guided in the game by an "helper", a guy that does not have direct access to Orwell. He will tell you what to do all the time, the pages to read will appear to you one by one and you'll have zero agency on what to read and what not. Until you submit the right information, no new data will appear, and when you will, only one or a few new pages/conversations will be available to read. The guy pop-up (that looks like a tutorial but stays until the end of the game) will appear almost everytime you submit some new info, most of the time just to make some useless and annoying comment. The only way to make impactful decisions goes against what is explained by the tutorial guy at the start: you're required to collect as much as true information as possible about the suspects, but sometimes the right choice in order to influence the game is to hide them, that's counterintuitive.

    It's somewhat interesting to understand what happened and who's really the bad one (probably the only thing that made me finish the game), but if I decide to play a game about spying on people, it's really annoying that since the first chapter the game revolves around the concept that spying on people is bad and that my (limited) choice is about being a good Orwell agent or sabotage it. So it feels a bit forced and too obvious.

    Special mention to the italian translation: while it's said to be amateurish and not official, it is so so so bad that I wonder how can that come as default. Many words are just typed wrongly (and they become different words), entire phrases don't make sense, one page is in Finnish (at least I guess that was Finnish) and often the characters nicknames are translated differently depending on the page. Horrible.

    Is there also some good to this game? Well, a bit: the interface is neat and while limited, it's nice to jump on the various screens and collect information, reading inside the characters documents or private conversation is fun, and let you wish you had more freedom in doing that.

    I don't advice spending much money on this game, but if you're curious to see how it plays grab it on sale and you might spend a few hours investigating for Orwell, but you'll end up disappointed by the game structure, that seems interesting and full of potential, but end up being just an almost 100% linear reading game in which you just click on the info waiting to see what will happen next.    … Expand
  2. natanfk
    Jan 23, 2017
    0
    Horrible mess. How do I hate to see games that could have been so good turned into COMPLETE CRAP. It's a tutorial until the end where you have no idea what to do. Terrible game.
  3. dajhorn
    Sep 2, 2017
    0
    A reading game that is slow, boring, and lacking the story or characters of a good book. Orwell might be hero fantasy fulfillment for bureaucrats and paper pushers that accomplish nothing in their actual lives. Too clever by half to have any kind of general gaming appeal.
  4. shadowofforms
    Dec 17, 2016
    4
    I like the idea and graphics but after playing a few minutes with so many pop up tutorials I cannot stand them any more.

    It's not actually that fun or innovative.
  5. sazosteam
    Oct 8, 2017
    0
    This is NOT a game in any sense of the word! Firstly, it should be classified as a visual novel, since all you do is read a story. Secondly, there seems to be little in room for choices. You simply follow a guy who asks you to read something, he highlights basic information and you drag and drop those highlights from one side of the screen to the other.

    I have played through a few    This is NOT a game in any sense of the word! Firstly, it should be classified as a visual novel, since all you do is read a story. Secondly, there seems to be little in room for choices. You simply follow a guy who asks you to read something, he highlights basic information and you drag and drop those highlights from one side of the screen to the other.

    I have played through a few chapters and was bored at that point. The story does not develop. You are spying on very boring people and there is no subtlety at all!

    Severely over hyped and pretentious!

    Very poorly programmed and NOT optimized...This little visual novel uses about 1.2GB of memory and takes forever to load a game (80 secs). In fact, upon loading, its fake browser acts like a 14.4k modem. All this game does is display images and text, so I cannot believe it takes as long as it does to load and uses THIS much memory. I have built complicated business analytic solutions which process terabytes of data use less memory.    … Expand
  6. godder
    Aug 13, 2023
    1
    First of all, unless the games story ends in some morale that gov spying is pure evil it abuses the name Orwell to suggest that spying is good and needed to prevent terrorism. Some propaganda nonsense and quite the disgusitng irony to name a game after Orwell to let players to what he was exactly against.

    So on to the "game". I have not "played" that far, got it for free on EPIC. Can    First of all, unless the games story ends in some morale that gov spying is pure evil it abuses the name Orwell to suggest that spying is good and needed to prevent terrorism. Some propaganda nonsense and quite the disgusitng irony to name a game after Orwell to let players to what he was exactly against.

    So on to the "game". I have not "played" that far, got it for free on EPIC. Can you actually loose? I have seen somone write that the game is basically a tutorial till the end. All you do is drag thing from right to left. What happens if you upload to much meaningles info like the favorite color of a person you are spying on, besides getting scolded by the "tutorial guy" who seems to be our handler througout the game. The highlight so far was a list of courses and I could thoretically read all but I needed to pick a specific teacher from the list instead of reading though all ... this is not a game, its more like a visual novel. And its boooring.    … Expand
  7. Lord_Volta
    Feb 10, 2022
    2
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. This game wants you to sympathize with domestic terrorists.

    I'm not kidding. Orwell introduces you to a small circle of "quirky" friends through unorthodox means and then slowly reveals that they bombed a plaza full of people. Why? because they don't like the security needed to prevent them from bombing another venue.

    Instead of trying to stop these hypocrites, the game tries to manipulate you into letting the terrorists off and sabotaging your own employer. There is a literal moment where the hipster girl who orchestrated the bombings says "I'm so sorry, I didn't think anyone would get hurt!" like an underage teen drinking beer after school.

    I don't understand the mental gymnastics that went into this bad joke.    … Expand
  8. Tomicsavo
    Feb 5, 2020
    4
    Good idea, however I didn't like it.---------------------------------------

Awards & Rankings

80
#80 Most Discussed PC Game of 2016
41
#41 Most Shared PC Game of 2016

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
77

Generally favorable reviews - based on 17 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 14 out of 17
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 17
  3. Negative: 1 out of 17
  1. Games.cz
    Feb 14, 2017
    90
    Orwell is both minimalistic and generous piece. Try out the role of an official in a state that degenerated into ‘spy-o-cracy‘. You'll see how easy it is to control a society dependent on the Internet. The idea and gameplay are perfect.
  2. RPG Fan
    Jan 18, 2017
    86
    With such a compelling tale and well-crafted characters, it's easy to look past the fact that gameplay solely consists of absorbing information and choosing to pass certain things on. Though there are no random puzzles to solve, the main puzzle for the player is clear: are you willing to let a government do this to its citizens? Where are the boundaries of freedom of speech and privacy in such an interconnected world? Is it more important to guarantee the safety of all by being paranoid, or to ensure that everyone has the right to be innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt? If asking difficult questions and finding a way to your own answers sounds like a good time, Orwell is the game for you.
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  3. GameStar
    Jan 16, 2017
    85
    If you are willing to read a lot, Orwell can send shivers down your spine when working as a profiler.
    Read full review
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