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. apokalipto
    Sep 1, 2023
    10
    Very good game. I enjoyed playing this game a lot. I strongly recommend this.
  2. breakingb0x3s
    Aug 17, 2023
    5
    A pretty little waste of time.

    This is a story driven point and click adventure game. You play the role of one side of an investigative team. You act as an information provider of sorts using a government system to find "relevant" information on approved individuals. The art works is solid, and the music through the game matches the tones trying to be set, although the transitions    A pretty little waste of time.

    This is a story driven point and click adventure game. You play the role of one side of an investigative team. You act as an information provider of sorts using a government system to find "relevant" information on approved individuals. The art works is solid, and the music through the game matches the tones trying to be set, although the transitions for some of the music is abrupt and assumes you are reading as fast as the text is scrolling.

    The story can take a few different routes but is strongly set to specific story beats, which is fine, games like Disco Elysium do this as well and proves that concept can work. The big difference is, this game does not allow you to explore the themes, or characters any way you want. There's a huge lack of creative solutions, it's either provide the highlighted information you deem relevant or don't, unless the game stops until you provide something.

    There's no way to end a day early or even really make a "wrong" decision as the game will highlight conflicting data and while it is supposed to point out the contradictions, it does so in a very rigid and inconsistent way, which makes me believe the game would have benefited without having it in at all.

    With all that said you'd assume this is a bad story, and I think it's a mediocre one that takes a very hard stance. The characters presented are mostly believable, some are definitely written as extreme examples to get the story to flow the way the writer(s) wants things to go. However, instead of letting the player toy around with the system and experiment with different possible outcomes (as could be seen with games like Papers Please or even This War of Mine) you can make minor changes to a pretty set outcome.

    It has been stated before and I will agree, the game constantly feels like a tutorial. Instead of letting you just investigate, your assigned agent (handler if you will) constantly chimes in on what you submitted to sway you one way or another on each decision (that you can't change). This made me think less about what I was submitting and more trying to isolate what I needed to submit to get the next story beat. Earning achievements might be a reason to revisit if you aren't put off by the story, but those only seem available on Steam at the moment. (I received a free copy through Epic's weekly free games recently)

    I won't spoil details or twists, but there's little replay-ability as trying to load your finished profile only activates the closing cut scenes you earned through that play through. Meaning you'll have to start a new profile each play through. The game has it's moments and I don't think it's overpriced, currently at $10 on steam and $15 to get this and it's sequel Orwell Ignorance Is Strength. I think it is worth a play through and probably better experienced than watching a play through online, however, I will also point out for the same price you could get Papers, Please which while not having the same pretty graphics or modern feel, does a much better job at handling a "Big Brother" themes presented.

    Pros: Solid artwork, decent characters, decent music, short (story should only take a couple hours to complete once), interesting premise

    Cons: Lack of exploration, Overbearing at times, System and logic sometimes contradict themselves, overall poor execution.

    For those of you who may still be interested, the sequel states to have additional features that may address some of my criticisms in this review, I might even be willing to try that one out some time, however I will go in with much lower expectations.    … Expand
  3. moomoo1068
    Aug 14, 2023
    8
    Orwell did a fantastic job of depicting the reality of such a system and its potential consequences. It is also a great allegory for government and corporate overreach. I would recommend this game to anyone who enjoys problem-solving and critical thinking both inside and outside of Orwell.
  4. 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
  5. HydrophobikFish
    Jun 9, 2023
    8
    Its a short and unique detective game that has a clear and concise point to make. it isn't long, it isn't complicated, but it is engaging and sells a unique game premise.
  6. DreamOfHero
    Mar 24, 2023
    5
    Nice game, could have been a little gem, instead...it could have used some more storylines, maybe intertwining them with the main one, some more characters to investigate, or some mini-games that went beyond the simple "gathering information to compile the file" (like, I don't know, encrypted files to decrypt or devices to unlock, etc.).

    Furthermore, I noticed that selecting irrelevant    Nice game, could have been a little gem, instead...it could have used some more storylines, maybe intertwining them with the main one, some more characters to investigate, or some mini-games that went beyond the simple "gathering information to compile the file" (like, I don't know, encrypted files to decrypt or devices to unlock, etc.).

    Furthermore, I noticed that selecting irrelevant information doesn't give you a penalty, nor does it lead you down different paths, and this is a shame because it could have provided much greater replayability.    … Expand
  7. pcapinheiro
    Mar 2, 2022
    10
    Muito legal. Voce consegue obter bastante informacoes sobre os suspeitos, inclusive dados conflitantes, tendo que decidir quais os mais relevantes para a investigacao. Quando voce pensa que estah fechando a historia por tras das acoes de um suspeito, uma nova evidencia muda tudo.
    Empolgante.
  8. 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
  9. 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
  10. kezzyhko
    Sep 6, 2021
    8
    ‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍
  11. SimoneGhetto94
    May 6, 2021
    7
    Short game but pleasant overall that allows you to spend 5-6 hours in a very "light" way in terms of gameplay but committed in terms of "ethical" implications.
    The game looks like a normal "guided" detective game but then after the first few episodes its ethical and social implications emerge.
    I particularly enjoyed chapters 3-4. At times it may seem a bit too driven and even if there is    Short game but pleasant overall that allows you to spend 5-6 hours in a very "light" way in terms of gameplay but committed in terms of "ethical" implications.
    The game looks like a normal "guided" detective game but then after the first few episodes its ethical and social implications emerge.
    I particularly enjoyed chapters 3-4. At times it may seem a bit too driven and even if there is a sense of "freedom" in the investigative choices, the ending remains quite scripted on 2-3 different choices.
    Overall recommended.
    Gameplay: 6/10
    History: 8/10
    Duration: 4-6h    … Expand
  12. Aladdin718
    Mar 28, 2021
    8
    An unique take and game mechanic. I don't want to give anything away but definitely worth a try one afternoon or weekend.
  13. Sepherim
    Jan 20, 2021
    7
    Orwell es, sin duda, un videojuego muy interesante. El punto de partida es que nos contratan como investigadores en La Nación para resolver unos atentados que tienen lugar en nuestro primer día y para ello ponen a nuestra disposición el programa Orwell. Este lo que hace, básicamente, es acceder a las redes sociales, páginas webs, y otros elementos digitales para extraer información, hacerOrwell es, sin duda, un videojuego muy interesante. El punto de partida es que nos contratan como investigadores en La Nación para resolver unos atentados que tienen lugar en nuestro primer día y para ello ponen a nuestra disposición el programa Orwell. Este lo que hace, básicamente, es acceder a las redes sociales, páginas webs, y otros elementos digitales para extraer información, hacer perfiles y agregarlos. Al hacer esto, vamos juntando las pistas de lo que está ocurriendo, y avanzamos una historia que se va desarrollando con cada día de juego ante nuestros ojos. Es un juego cortito, de hecho da la sensación de que se acaba cuando está llegando a su mejor momento, que con su peculiar estética consigue transmitir muy bien las sensaciones de que estamos observando una sociedad real desde un panóptico digital.

    Un apartado gráfico interesante, un apartado sonoro algo escueto pero que cumple en parte (aunque se nota que el presupuesto en este sentido era muy limitado) y un juego con algunos bugs pero ninguno demasiado grave, cierran más o menos un juego sin duda recomendable. Un 7.

    Si queréis un análisis más social y político: http://tribulaciones.es/orwell-vigilancia-en-la-sociedad-del-siglo-xxi/    … Expand
  14. bergcamp101
    Aug 17, 2020
    6
    Very unusual yet interesting and immersive game. This is definitely not a 10/10, but it really worth playing.
  15. Chubac
    Jul 12, 2020
    9
    This game successfully achieves what it wants: making you paranoid of surveillance and online presence. Other than the few bugs I encountered this is a perfect game.
  16. Jonneeyy
    Mar 30, 2020
    8
    Kein Spiel für Action Fans, aber ein Spiel für jeden der spannende Geschichten und bockschwere Entscheidungen liebt.
  17. PanMrkvicka
    Feb 12, 2020
    7
    Cool little indie game that questions your morals and such. Maybe too short and could have been better if there was more content.
  18. Tomicsavo
    Feb 5, 2020
    4
    Good idea, however I didn't like it.---------------------------------------
  19. NightGeisha
    Apr 12, 2019
    8
    Orwell is hard to describe but it a very enjoyable experience!
    In Orwell, you are the investigator that is using a "Big Brother" look-a-like tool to investigate a series of terror attacks.
    Is a game of choices and your analysis of the suspect and events can allow interesting outcomes, that so many times make you feel that you are not playing for the good guys. Is a curious approach    Orwell is hard to describe but it a very enjoyable experience!
    In Orwell, you are the investigator that is using a "Big Brother" look-a-like tool to investigate a series of terror attacks.

    Is a game of choices and your analysis of the suspect and events can allow interesting outcomes, that so many times make you feel that you are not playing for the good guys. Is a curious approach about digital privacy and the invasion of it, the pros and cons, and what would you do if you had "the power".

    An awesome experience that I fully recommend.    … Expand
  20. FrostyFeet97
    Sep 13, 2018
    10
    This game is absolutely awesome, The story, the way you create the story is absolutely outstanding. You can do anything you like you can be good or bad thats on you. Remember Orwell is watching.
  21. Fireantus
    Aug 22, 2018
    8
    Orwell delivered more than I asked for. It's short, but that's not a problem for me, for I am exactly in the market for short, story driven games. The decision matters to a nice degree, which was a really fun thing about this game! I really felt after two full finishes that doing different things brings out differing outcomes (even if the main story, of course, remain intact).

    It's a    Orwell delivered more than I asked for. It's short, but that's not a problem for me, for I am exactly in the market for short, story driven games. The decision matters to a nice degree, which was a really fun thing about this game! I really felt after two full finishes that doing different things brings out differing outcomes (even if the main story, of course, remain intact).

    It's a fun game of picking up puzzle pieces to assemble a bigger picture and deciding how the picture will look in the end. It has neat music, solid characters, surprising amount of suspense and is a very good purchase for anyone looking for a Single Session game with some thrills to it.    … Expand
  22. dg51829
    Nov 20, 2017
    9
    I really love this game. I originally got the game because it was relatively cheap. I fell into a pit of four hours of a gaming non-stop. I couldn't stop till I had finished. I was engaged in the story and with the characters. Sure, they weren't perfect but if you think enough they are three dimensional, for the majority of the characters at least. It actually managed to evoke feelings.I really love this game. I originally got the game because it was relatively cheap. I fell into a pit of four hours of a gaming non-stop. I couldn't stop till I had finished. I was engaged in the story and with the characters. Sure, they weren't perfect but if you think enough they are three dimensional, for the majority of the characters at least. It actually managed to evoke feelings. The first time around it hit me like a brick, what had I just done? Though i was just wanting to give data to help the program twists it into all sorts of things I didn't mean. I didn't want the game to end. I wanted the story to continue. I highly suspect the sequel isn't going to give me that closure I want. My only compliant is the comments every single time I collected data, I just wanted a certain person to shut up so i can do my job without being interrupted. If there was a way to turn that off I would. Give me a short tutorial then let me go at it and make my choices without feeling like it was a never ending tutorial to the end where all your choices pretty much limit your choices. It also glitches sometimes depending on choices you made where you can't move forward, that is always so irritating. But it's worth buying and is very thought provoking. If you have any background in government or psychology it's really interesting and eye-opening. Hello Milgrem's experiment on a bigger and very real scale.… Expand
  23. robly
    Nov 10, 2017
    9
    Really innovative take on a detective game. It plays like a really flash, atmospheric, choose-your-own adventure. The story is really engaging and exciting, with many twists and turns. It's not hugely difficult, but you are often presented with moralistic choices and dilemmas. What you upload to the system can really sway the outcome.

    It is almost an art piece, a commentary on the    Really innovative take on a detective game. It plays like a really flash, atmospheric, choose-your-own adventure. The story is really engaging and exciting, with many twists and turns. It's not hugely difficult, but you are often presented with moralistic choices and dilemmas. What you upload to the system can really sway the outcome.

    It is almost an art piece, a commentary on the modern rush towards total surveillance we see in politics now. I felt totally creeped out for most of the game, and I believe this is Orwell delivering exactly what is intended.    … Expand
  24. 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
  25. TitaniumDragon
    Oct 8, 2017
    8
    Orwell is an investigative game akin to a visual novel. You play as The Investigator, someone whose job it is to use the powerful Orwell surveillance system to solve crimes – or in this case, solve a particular crime. You see, a bomb was set off in Freedom Plaza in The Nation, killing three people, and it is your job to try and catch the bomber before they can kill anyone else.

    You    Orwell is an investigative game akin to a visual novel. You play as The Investigator, someone whose job it is to use the powerful Orwell surveillance system to solve crimes – or in this case, solve a particular crime. You see, a bomb was set off in Freedom Plaza in The Nation, killing three people, and it is your job to try and catch the bomber before they can kill anyone else.

    You start out with a single person of interest – a young woman who left the Plaza shortly before the bomb went off. She was a protester who had been arrested for attacking a police officer, but who wasn’t prosecuted for it due to lack of evidence. It quickly becomes clear that not all is as it seems, and it seems unlikely that she personally was the bomber – but she has past associations with a group known as Thought, an anti-government group which often engages in extremist rhetoric. But are they really the sort of people who would kill people? Or are they just innocent bystanders coincidentally caught up in the investigation?

    Orwell is a very ambiguous game, and it is precisely this ambiguity which really makes the game work. Thought is upset about living in a surveillance state, but it is clear from your perspective as The Investigator that the system is designed to be humane in many ways – the investigator passes on information to someone else, whose job it is to analyze the data. You cannot investigate people who aren’t targets – unless someone has been designated as suspicious by actual data, you cannot collect data at all them, nor are you allowed to go snooping through their things. But if they are a target of interest, you have nigh unlimited authority to go snooping. And while the state is clearly a bit authoritarian, it is also clear that the system works – crime has gone down, and you can catch several criminals over the course of the game who really did do bad things. The person on the other end, who helps to determine whether or not the data is really indicative of wrongdoing, is a genuinely nice person who cares about people and who urges you to collect more data. The leader of The Nation appears to genuinely be trying to help out neighboring states.

    But all of this is muddied with the ambiguity of the fact that not everyone in the government is nice, and the general sinister nature of your surveillance. Your actions do have consequences, and it is clear that if you made the wrong decisions, you could potentially feed people bad data and get people put in jail – and the choice of whether or not to feed people bad data, and the impression you leave the government on people, is dependent on what data you give them.

    The game, thus, is a combination of an investigation and a moral choice system – you are not only investigating who might be the bomber, but also deciding what is and is not relevant, what should and should not be part of the investigation, and you have the power to wrongfully put people in jail or put people in danger. The very simple gameplay of choosing what pieces of highlighted information to put into a database from various documents, webpages, emails, and phone and text conversations thus takes on a great deal of weight, and makes you think about what you’re doing in a very different way from other investigatory games, as you think of it not only in terms of true/false, but also whether the information morally belongs in the hands of the government.

    The game’s gameplay also shows how a system like that can lead to paranoia, as you see people engage in a lot of extremist rhetoric and it is easy to jump to conclusions and morally convict someone in your mind who didn’t do anything worse than complain, as well as how easy it is to prejudge someone in the opposite direction as well, making you think more positively of them than they truly deserve. And it puts stress on the player as well – you cannot take back your actions, so if you incorrectly present someone as a dangerous criminal, you can’t fix it and have to live with the consequences.

    How humane the system is – and who is in the right and wrong – is a complicated question that the game ultimately doesn’t answer for itself, but which the player answers via their actions throughout the game. Like “The Lady or the Tiger”, the way the player responds to the story really reflects as much on the player’s own evaluation of humanity, and how they weigh the risks and benefits of a system like that. Rather than being preachy about how evil the system is, the game also shows why people might like a system like that and want it to be implemented. It is perhaps the most even-handed presentation of the subject matter I’ve seen, and it achieves this by putting the player in the seat of someone who might be a part of such a system and showing just how ambiguous the system can be and how much power they wield, both how dangerous it can be if misused but how beneficial it can be if used appropriately.    … Expand
  26. aditya1101
    Oct 5, 2017
    6
    Cool, casual indie game that gets into some cool themes and has a unique way of putting across its message, but not deep or interesting enough to deserve a higher score.
  27. 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.
  28. thecowofbeef
    Aug 19, 2017
    7
    The game presents an interesting, if somewhat overly simple set of mechanics to the player, allowing for the illusion rather than the existence of choice. Whilst some actions do have consequences, most players will just be uploading information as soon as it appears, especially in the early game. Whilst the game does probably think that it's cleverer than it actually is with its literalThe game presents an interesting, if somewhat overly simple set of mechanics to the player, allowing for the illusion rather than the existence of choice. Whilst some actions do have consequences, most players will just be uploading information as soon as it appears, especially in the early game. Whilst the game does probably think that it's cleverer than it actually is with its literal Orwellian references (see title) it does sometimes revel too much in its own sense of smugness over what the developers no doubt thought were biting social comments. Never-the-less, Orwell manages to provide a novel gameplay experience, enriched by the lengths the game goes to in order to immerse you in its story, like sending you emails in the real world. Worth checking out if only for the chance to see a different approach to storytelling.… Expand
  29. Magnethead
    Jul 28, 2017
    9
    Orwell is one of the most interesting games I've played in a while; it's well thought out, the game experience is smooth and natural and the core elements are solid. It's arguably not a game for everyone but it's a fantastic achievement, that should be beyond doubt.

    So who is it for? I guess that's the core question for an indie, niche production such as this so let's get right to it:    Orwell is one of the most interesting games I've played in a while; it's well thought out, the game experience is smooth and natural and the core elements are solid. It's arguably not a game for everyone but it's a fantastic achievement, that should be beyond doubt.

    So who is it for? I guess that's the core question for an indie, niche production such as this so let's get right to it: Orwell is for the player looking for a contemplative, narrative-driven challenge that you can play on your own time. If you like unravelling a mystery carefully, if you like narrative driven games or if you really like surveying people, then this is definitely for you. Who's it not for? It's not for players looking for explosions, fast-paced action or who don't like to read. You read in this game, quite a lot. It's not like reading a novel but expect reading.

    In Orwell, you take on the role of an analyst who's trying to unravel a terrorist plot using the governments newest super-surveillance tool, Orwell. The system highlights 'datachunks' in POIs internet activity, chat activity, phone activity, anything really, and it's your job to decide what information is pertinent and what isn't. You build files on suspects while you slowly expand the network of POIs and what you choose to include is what decides the 'system's' attitude towards groups and individuals. Of course, the question soon beckons; should you be doing any of this?

    As the story moves forward, the player is confronted with many choices and they have real consequences for the story, not merely symbolic ones. Furthermore, while the system highlights important information, some decisions can only be made accurately through the players own memory and deductions from text pieces that at the time perhaps seemed inconsequential. It's a game that rewards the player for keeping up and thinking for themselves.    … Expand
  30. Klewer
    Jul 22, 2017
    7
    It's a nice little game, you can read what you like in to it about government monitoring etc. The actual game is pretty solid, looks nice, and the impact you can have on the outcome is quite good. Just feels like there could of been a little bit more there in terms of how it turns out or the impact you have. Worth a look though.
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Awards & Rankings

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

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
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.
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