Almost My Floor Review on Xbox

Almost my Floor is best described as a point and click detective game split between two protagonists. All reviews (unless stated otherwise) are based on the Developer/Publisher providing myself with a review code, which i am grateful for, but does not influence my outcome.

The premise is you play as two protagonists at varying times. For Alex, this is the story of what exists between fiction and reality. It is time to face the monsters, meet the other house residents and determine their fate. But the most important thing is to escape the depths of terror… and try to remain sane afterwards. For Detective Adam Trust, its up to you to unravel the secrets of the situation and resolve quickly what is happening.

The game boasts two main characters with different perspectives on history, various options for passing the puzzles, a comic book art style, and monsters promising death at every turn.

Accessibility

With regards to accessibility there is only a few things, it does have subtitles, however the size cannot be changed, which would be ideal if this could be patched in. It does offer a button press to skip subtitles for easy reading instead of being automatic. There is no text-to-speech option for the game, so those with eyesight issues will have problems.

There is a highlight option In the game that will help those with eyesight issues, but no option to change the colour. Now even though this is a point and click adventure, there are many quick time events in the game, but no option to skip or slowdown these elements which will hinder some from progressing the story. In all there is little to no accessibility options, so please be aware before purchase.

Gameplay

The gameplay starts with a short cinematic cutscene showing Alex in an interrogation room, looking like he's been through hell. As he begins telling his story to the police officer, we jump back and see Alex just as he’s arriving home to his run-down apartment building, reeling from some strange and sad events in his life. From here he will be introduced to the games mechanics in how this particular point and click adventure works.

The interface is point-and-click, but played entirely with a controller. You use the right joystick to move the protagonist around the background, with and the left stick to control the characters walking movement, and RT being used to run. One great feature is the highlight option, which by pressing Y will highlight all elements on screen with a bright white layer. Sometimes, points of particular interests are highlighted with a white dot over the top as well. When you do click on people or objects of interest, Alex will either perform the default action (if there is only one action). Otherwise it will bring up two different options. One is for explaining what you are looking at, and the other is a conversation option allowing for further interaction.

There's a permanent inventory bar lining the top of the screen which works wonders when trying to work out what to do next and with what item. And being a point and click game, puzzles are part of the genre. Its the usual job of exploring a scene looking for ideas or items to distract a character so you can walk past them or take something they don't want you to have. Or it can be reading a diary and use details from it to figure out what order to press a series of symbols. Nothing here is too out of the ordinary in terms of puzzles, and I also wouldn’t say they are too taxing. Just use a little creative thinking, you can easily bypass them.

Speaking of puzzles, like some conversation your actions may lead onto choices in the game that will determine if you are good or evil. A 50’s like cartoon angel and devil will appear over Alex’s shoulder, either encouraging him to do something evil or find a good solution. This system is sneaky in that the “evil” option is always the easier one at the time, but will creates consequences for you later in the game. The “good” option generally requires more thought or more steps, but will pay off later on with characters being friendly or helpful to you. This opens up the game in term of replay ability and depending on your choices, and for better or worse, will lead to one of two potential endings that vary in small but significant ways.

For Alex, the lift is the entrance and exit for the games level design, so you always know where you are going. Each level gets more bizarre and horror inducing with neighbours becoming monstrous creatures and the surrounding world twisting into exposed red flesh, and sinew. Besides puzzles, there are some quick time events where a bar with green sections appear with a cursor sliding left to right, and you have to hit the cursor on the specific green zones to progress. If you make a mistake, it will lead to your death, but thankfully, there is no real death here and you are always put back just in front of the quick timed event. There are also a few other mini-games that require quick thinking or quick reflexes or in some cases a combination of the two.  For example, cutting wires with a timer counting down or blocking an onslaught of laser blasts using button prompts. It’s a shame there is no option to skip said event for those who have motor issues.

About three quarters of the way through, you get to take control of another protagonist, the detective called Adam Trust, in this strange story. He's been hired by Alex’s girlfriends parents, and his search takes him almost immediately to the apartment. Everywhere you had visited as Alex in a hellscape populated by monsters and horror, you now revisit as Adam, who sees nothing but a normal decrepit building. By bringing adding in another character to unravel the tangled mess the first, the game cleverly plays with your sense of reality by experiencing each level in an entirely different light. And because of this, you start to doubt Alex's version of events and his behaviour. As you progress further you begin to discover that something more complex is happening..

Adams version in terms of control, is the same, however, there are no timed events and all the puzzles take the form of finding keys and codes to access more information. What is clever is that you with Adam, you will thoroughly pore over each of Alex’s scenes, looking for any clues you can, interrogating characters, and generally investigating. Something you couldn’t actually do with Alex and thus build up a better understanding as you progress.

Graphics

The game has a lovely comic-book art style in general, but that really shines during the cut-scenes, which are delivered in lightly animated comic book panels, that slash across your screen. The general character designs are punctuated by thick, black, outlines and subtle highlight colours enough to make them pop out of the background drawings. The dialogues, change depending on the scene with some expressed through speech bubbles and other white dialogues transitioning across the bottom of the screen.

When it comes to the in game visuals, the bold character sprites are dropped into incredibly detailed backgrounds that perfectly showcase of the worlds grey grimy, low-rent apartments. The world building here is top notch and is visual treat to the eyes. And, as the game progresses, the more supernatural elements begin to seep in, with colourful blood spatters here and there.

Soon the atmosphere is cranked up using the full colour palette, showcasing beauty of the demonic world, in all its goriness. Grasping glowing blue/green hands reaching down from light fixtures, chunks of dark red viscera on the ground tinged with green slime, rooms full of huge floating green eyeballs, or a pack of ghostly silhouetted figures staring dead-eyed in a corridor. Each scene perfectly setting the spiral into madness that Alex is going through.

Another good element is that some text is highlighted to ensure you always know what is off importance, its just a shame that you can’t amend the colour, which would be a help to those with eyesight issues.

Sound

For this game, the general sound quality is superb. The games music emulates your general horror movie style and its use of tense and echoing pianos keystrokes or the low-buzzing tones, resemble those iconic sounds from the classic horrors are old. Combine this with the immersive ambiance of background noises like buzzing fluorescent lights, wet sounds and the game’s many grotesques, it drags you into a world gone mad.

There is some voice acting and this is limited to some cutscenes, but what is, there works well in terms of selling the story and characters that are voiced. The voice actors sell their respected characters and it’s a shame we couldn’t hear more of them if im honest.

Verdict

This leads me onto the rating of the game:-
Now I rate games in order of, avoid, on sale, great purchase and must own. My rating for Almost My Floor is a "Great Purchase’’.

This is a fun game to play, and perfect for those wanting a point and click adventure to keep them entertained for a few hours. The game at no point didn’t deliver on its promise and brings its own style and take to the genre. Whilst it is a shame that its missing some accessibility options, I do hope that these can be patched in later so more could enjoy this great game.

The game is currently priced on Xbox at £8.39 or approx $10, and depending on skill and patience would give you about 3+ hours worth of gameplay. With the good and evil system in place, and a second ending depending on your choices this could easily add another 3hours of replay ability.  

This small indie dev team have hit upon a winning receipt and Iits clear that there is value for money here. I look forward to what they produce next as plying this games shows they have a good understanding of what makes a point and click adventure enjoyable.