Delete After Reading

by Aethyna Mar 22, 2023 | 1 Votes | 43 Played | 0 Reviews

9 rate

Genres:

Adventure , Puzzle

Graphics:

Labels:

Adventure , Storytelling , Mystery , Text-based

Platforms:

Publishers:

Patrones & Escondites In this game, you play as a young kid who just had the worse day of their life. However, little did you know that the retro-yet-futuristic device you’ve picked up on the bus is about to propel you into an adventure unlike any other – where you get to go up against mercurial Destiny himself with your team of new, supernatural friends. Play Now Similar Games

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Summary Plotline Gameplay Graphics/ Sound Conclusion

Summary

Delete After Reading is a unique gem of an indie title that tastefully combines elements of point-and-click games with text-based adventures, along with a generous scattering of light puzzles, some of which are timed. In this game, you play as a young boy/girl who just had the worse day of their life. However, little did you know that the retro-yet-futuristic device you’ve picked up on the bus on the way home is about to propel you into an adventure unlike any other – where you get to go up against mercurial Destiny himself with your team of new and supernatural friends.

Plotline

Delete After Reading is an interactive text adventure at heart and as such, its storytelling is definitely one of the best parts of the game. It brings to mind the kind of humorous storytelling style – the lighthearted type - that classic point-and-click adventures back in the 90s have.

Without spoiling too much of the plot, the game kicks things off with the protagonist – you! – complaining about their worse day ever. However, the story became a whole lot more intriguing and mysterious once you discovered that the walkie-talkie-slash-calculator-like device you’ve picked up on the bus on the way home is actually active. It’s actually a communication device used by a secret underground group of individuals to thwart Destiny himself and to stop him from various “injustices” that he has meted out, usually on a whim.

One of these recent injustices involve the only copy of the latest sequel (the fourth game) to one of the biggest and most popular adventure games there is – The Curse of Penguin Island. For some reason, Destiny made it possible for a mysterious buyer to outbid everyone and bought out the copy of the video game for a ridiculous sum of cash. Capitalism at its finest of course, but the thing is… this buyer refused to release the game to the public and kept it in his own personal collection, depriving millions of fans the chance to enjoy the game.

As avid fans of the game, you along with your newfound (and supernatural) friends, Nina, Cinco, and the talking and singing rabbit, Tomate, set off on a perilous adventure to get the name and address of the buyer, and to break into his home to recover the video game. Will they make it? That’s up to you to find out!

Gameplay

As an interactive text adventure, Delete After Reading feels a little bit like a gamebook, which I frankly adore. However, due to its more interactive digital design and format, the developers definitely went to town on the game, adding in elements that are typically present in point-and-click adventure games including interactive puzzle-solving, audio clues and cues, as well as some challenging quick-time event-styled (QTEs) puzzle-solving.

Most of the puzzles in this game involve collecting clues – hence, the game’s recommendation of jotting down notes as you play on a piece of paper – and combining them so you can hash out the solution. Some puzzles are quite straightforward and simple, requiring you to rearrange letters to get a corresponding number code, while others can be a bit more convoluted, requiring multiple steps and solutions before you can actually completely solve the puzzle.

There’s even a part in the game that’s a bit like a treasure hunt, requiring you to just scour each room in hopes of finding one of the three figurines needed to solve another part of the puzzle.

The puzzles aren’t all text and visual-based either. Some of them come with clues that are audio-based and considering that there’s no subtitles, you really need to pay attention to what the audio is saying. In case you find yourself stuck, the game also comes with a series of hints that may be able to help you. To access them, you just need to go to the Pause menu.

As fun as the game is, I do think that the series of quick-time event-styled puzzles (there are 4 of them) in Chapter 5 is quite the doozy and could have been toned down a little. The game expects you to complete the gauntlet of puzzles within just 2 minutes… and no, you don’t get to see a timer. Instead, you get to hear Tomate, one of the three new friends you’ll meet in the game, sing one of his favorite 2-minute-long song.

Most of these QTEs-style puzzles will really put your reflexes as well as hand-and-eye coordination to the test, requiring you to click on a word when you see the right cues, remembering a series of directions, or having to mentally count out 5 seconds without really knowing when the invisible stopwatch starts ticking down the time. Every time you fail any one of the puzzles – the game puts you right back at the beginning and you’ll have to start all over. Coupled that with the fact that you have to listen to the same song every time you start over, it does get pretty infuriating after failing the puzzles for the umpteenth time.

In case you have to quit the game in the middle of a chapter, know that the game only auto-saves at the start of every chapter and that there’s no way to manually save your progress. This can be quite inconvenient for some players since they won’t be able to pick up where they left off.

Graphics/ Sound

Delete After Reading features amazing stylized artwork, from the characters to the different locations you’re scouring around for clues. The style goes well with the game’s theme too. In terms of sound, the game comes with a pleasant background music to serenade you as you read. However, it doesn’t distract you from important audio clues when you find them.

Conclusion

All in all, Delete After Reading is a truly unique blend of genres that fans of text-based adventures, gamebooks, and even point-and-click titles, would really enjoy. In addition to having an intriguing plot to follow and fun characters to be on an adventure with, the puzzles aren’t all too hard to solve, especially with the hints available. Considering the playtime offered, the price tag is also reasonable. Definitely a recommended from us!

New Game Added: Delete After Reading

by Aethyna Mar 22, 2023

In this game, you play as a young kid who just had the worse day of their life. However, little did you know that the retro-yet-futuristic device you’ve picked up on the bus is about to propel you into an adventure unlike any other – where you get to go up against mercurial Destiny himself with your team of new, supernatural friends.