You play as Detective Michael Stone, a grim, hardened investigator. He arrives in the town of Pineview to help the local police solve whatYou play as Detective Michael Stone, a grim, hardened investigator. He arrives in the town of Pineview to help the local police solve what they and the locals believe is a murder-suicide involving a young couple that recently moved to town. The Sheriff is all but ready to deem the case solved to help put the town at ease in the lead up to a major festival happening next week. Stone believes there more to this than meets the eye and alongside a young, empathetic officer Amy Blunt, you’re tasked with discovering the truth about what really happened.
Rainswept flips between two stories: one explores Chris and Diane’s relationship development and the other revolves around Detective Stone trying to solve the case while also battling some demons from his past. Chris and Diane’s relationship starts out as a classic love story. Meeting because of mutual friends, outside and away from the noise and grandeur of a big party, a night lit up by fireflies and paper lanterns. They take a spontaneous trip to some secluded island only to talk for hours under the night sky. Chris even manages to convince Diane to sneak out of her parents’ home and run away with him to Pineview after sneaking into Diane’s home buy climbing up the drain pipe. Along the way however, it starts to become clear that there are some cracks forming in the relationship. “You don’t know me, Chris. when you do… you won’t like who you’ll find.” was a pretty eerie line that stood out to me and in hindsight, offered up some pretty serious foreshadowing. I won’t spoil much else, but the game goes to some dark places with Chris and Diane’s relationship, to the point where their arguments become so vitriolic and toxic I found myself saying “Yeah, you know what, a murder-suicide is probably what happened here!” As much as they apologize and try to make amends after every fight it’s ultimately for nothing.
Detective Stone’s story is where the core gameplay loop revolves around. You explore the town of Pineview, collect evidence from the crime scene, talk to the locals about the murder case, discuss next steps with your partner and interview any witnesses or suspects involved in the case. Don’t expect to put the pieces of the puzzle together and solve the mystery yourself; reaping the benefits or suffering the consequences of what that entails. The game effectively does all of that for you. There also dialogue options presented to you throughout the game, but don’t expect it to influence the story in any way.
As you progress further in solving the case, it becomes increasingly clear that Stone is dealing with the mental fallout of one of the worst moments of his life. His wife had died while he was working a case and he feels responsible for her death, believing he put her in danger. Visions of his dead wife haunt him, first at night when he tries to sleep, but then bleed into his waking hours as well. These visions and feelings of guilt become so overwhelming towards the end of the game, it effectively inhibits Detective Stone from being able to do his job properly. The apex of this being when he baselessly accuses a suspect of being the murderer during questioning before suffering a mental breakdown. Despite suffering some major setbacks, Stone still manages to solve the case. However, this is where my biggest gripe with the game comes in; the conclusion of the case felt like it was reaching a bit.
The art direction is beautiful. Certain scenes in the game are beautiful composed. The backdrop of Pineview’s main street area is made of up of colourful, simple geometric shapes. The character design is a bit more of a mixed bag. While the flat colour and simple forms fit of the characters’ body fit with the overall motif, the character’s proportions feel a little bit strange. Their faces are mostly a blank space save for 2 small black dots that represent their eyes. There were a few scenes where the characters were trying to convey some pretty heavy emotions, but instead, just stared blankly at the screen because of their rudimentary facial features.
On a technical level, I did experience some issues with the game. When I was investigating the crime scene, Detective Stone’s walk cycle locked up and he proceeded to glide around like he was on rocket skates. Trying to exit out of the Notebook is a bit finicky at times.
There are also issues with some of the character animations: the walk cycle is incredibly janky. It’s very clear they tried to loop the animation but couldn’t get it to work. In fairness, the run cycle is far more fluid. Some movement transition animations appear to be missing. There was one instance when a character went from laying down on the floor to immediately springing up into a kneeling position.
Overall, I think Rainswept comes across as a good visual novel. While the story premise is a bit cliched, it doesn’t hold the game back from exploring compelling stories.… Expand
