Dead Synchronicity: Tomorrow Comes Today

Michael has no memory of his life before the world was devastated by "The Great Wave," a string of disasters that has ravaged the planet. What he does know is that the world isn't what it used to be. With the decimation he sees before him and the knowledge of “The Dissolved,” a disease of pandemic proportions that could infect anyone at any time, Michael finds that he will have to do whatever it takes to survive and restore his lost memories, even if that means he must lose what remains of his humanity in the process.

Dead Synchronicity: Tomorrow Comes Today, developed by Fictiorama Studios, is a Kickstarter funded 2D point-and-click adventure in the same style of games like Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle. The story itself intrigued many with its dark tones and mature take on the point and click genre, reminiscent of the darker entries in the genre such as I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. The way that the story is executed helps the player dive headfirst into this dark world. Much like the player, Michael has no idea what is going on for he woke up with amnesia. He learns of the harshness of the world at the same time that the player does through encounters with NPCs and the overall setting of the world.

The art style of this game is nostalgic in that it incorporates the classic 2D adventure look, but delivers a darker and gritty appearance. The style is distinctive, making everything very angular and clearly it's own unique facet of the game. None of the NPCs looks like ones you've seen before on your journey and they each have their own unique personalities to complement their appearance. Looks, however, can be deceiving in a game like this; even the most benign looking individual can harbor a violent side. The music matches this going from soft and subdued to suddenly loud, almost as if it's punching you in the ear.  The style emphasizes these violent acts in a comic book or movie style noir that makes everything more distinctive and visceral than it would in almost any other type of approach. It perfectly highlights just what sort of world Michael is now in. This world is unforgiving and doesn’t care that Michael has no knowledge of its rules. He’s expected to learn them or suffer the consequences.

Simple tasks become arduous quests with death looming over Michael's head and one must be prepared to face the consequences of their actions. Dead Synchronicity gives the player control of Michael and with a click of their mouse they are able to guide him along in this hectic world. It’s a game that’s very easy to pick up and play casually, with nothing pressuring you to keep playing if you want to take a break. The main mechanic is simply clicking on items or people, and interacting with them. Michael makes observations about the objects or people he’s interacting with and if you click on the right things Michael can even pick an object up that he can use later. Nothing in the game is useless; it will all be used at some point in a simple yet creative way. It doesn’t try to do anything obtuse, which plagues many games of this genre, it gives you an object and by putting two and two together you can figure out what the game is trying to tell you.

It is important to explore as much as you can to find the objects you need. The game clearly tells you what you need and it doesn’t hold your hand through it. There is a journal system that helps you recap what you’ve done so far, who you’ve met and the entries might lead you to what you need, but that’s the biggest piece of assistance you receive. It lets you figure out things just like Michael does, on his own, giving the game a very organic feel to it. The player will either feel like they are there with Michael, helping him out through this world, or like they are Michael himself being fully immersed in this world.

Michael as a character is interesting despite having amnesia. Due to how common amnesia is in videogames, it takes a special kind of character to be captivating regardless of the usage of the trope. Michael is definitely one of those characters. You can tell he’s trying to remember things and when you interact with things you even get glimpses of his personality through each description. The game will often flash to a comic book style close up on his face, with thoughts of his displayed on to the side of the panel. While jarring at first, this method of storytelling shows amazing glimpses of Michael’s character and how he feels with any revelation that he has. With every interaction Michael has he finds himself slowly becoming more and more involved with this merciless world that he just woke up in. A world that he still feels disconnected to with only the player as his guide, with the dialogue serving to assist the player in becoming more entrenched with what’s going on.

In addition, Michael's intrigue is furthered with him being different from everyone else in the world, being plagued often with strange visions of different worlds that will suddenly snap him out of reality. They are very disorienting with static and visions of decimation far worse than what Michael sees before him on a regular basis. These events are often timed when both Michael and the player least expect them and it can jar them out of a sense of brief safety into something else entirely. This world, which is already foreign and strange, gets a lot worse when things are shown destroyed or blood is splattered everywhere.

These visions seem to be a plot device about a certain strange hole in the sky whose identity is a point of contention. Those in the city think it’s one thing, while those in the refugee camps think it’s something else, the population as a whole not knowing anything about it. You're just as much as in the dark as they are and part of what the game does really well is building up tension, giving answers only when they are needed most.

Dead Synchronicity: Tomorrow Comes Today is shaping up to be a truly thrilling adventure game. The controls are perfect, the art is grim yet striking, the writing is fantastic and everything that should be in an adventure game is here in spades. Fictiorama Studios is throwing us back to a time where adventure games can have not only interesting art styles, but also stories and characters that chill you to the bone.

Angelina Bonilla, NoobFeed (@Twitter)