Hey, look at that, my second video game review this year. It seems I’m on some sort of roll.

So, it was a Friday evening, and I was browsing my Steam library for something to play. As always, it’s a surprisingly difficult task. Like many Steam users, I’ve got more games than I will ever find the time to play, most of them amassed during various sales over the years. And more often than not I’ve just ended up browsing though my games, not actually playing anything. That’s the sad state of my gaming life these days.

But even though I rarely play any games, there’s always a Steam sale going on where I - also like many Steam users - can purchase more games that we’ll never play, perhaps not even install. On this particular Friday, I stumbled upon a sale by publisher Devolver Digital, a publisher that often releases fast paced, arcade style games, a genre I usually tend to steer clear of. I still own a few Devolver Digital games, though, like Hotline Miami, Broforce, and Katana ZERO, which I even reviewed, all of which I’ve picked up on - you guessed it - a Steam sale.

During this sale, a game called The Red Strings Club was available for a couple of bucks. It was described as “a cyberpunk narrative experience”, and the Steam reviews praised the world building, the sound track, and the pixel art graphics style - all of which tickle my fancy. So I clicked the purchase button, telling myself that this time I’d actually play a game I bought on a Steam sale.

And I did. Congratulations, me!

Welcome to The Red Strings Club

A large part of The Red Strings Club is about bartending, which is another reason why I purchased the game. Even though my alcohol drinking days are more or less over - I’ve realized I prefer a good night’s sleep and an early morning to the alternative that alcohol literarily brings to the party - drinks and bartending has always fascinated me. It also helped that on this particular Friday, I’d gone wild and poured myself a glass of Tamnavulin Speyside single malt whisky, which made everything, including purchasing games on Steam sales, sound like a great idea.

The Red Strings Club starts out like pretty much every adventure game. A little chatting, a little world building, generally setting the scene. There is a lot of weird ass stuff going on, like implants and androids, and it’s all very cyberpunk, something I tend to enjoy. Then there is the drink mixing mechanism, which I, if I’m being honest - and I tend to be - didn’t really find that interesting or entertaining.

By mixing different drinks that enhance a certain mood or feeling in the people who pour it down, you’ll get different answers to your questions. This unlocks different story arcs, making it possible for the player to complete the game in many different ways. My problem with having many different choices that will actually have consequences for the game play is that I’m always worried I didn’t choose the best path through the game. But my main issue with having a lot of options, is that I won’t get to experience the whole story without playing through the game multiple times. A book is linear, I get to learn the whole story. In a game with choices like these? Not so much. This is not a problem with The Red Strings Club in particular, though, it’s an issue I have with the genre.

But The Red Strings Club sure does feel like it has a lot of story arcs!

Story time

The story in The Red Strings Club cover a few interesting topics, like capitalism, free will, humanity, advertising, and my mortal enemy, AI. But there seems to be a few holes and a bit of weirdness in the story, which might be a result of the different story arcs not quite aligning where they should. At one point, for instance, I’d already experienced something that was later explained to me like I didn’t know it had happened.

The third act of the story gets particularly convoluted, and at one point I just started to exhaust every option in the decision tree without thinking much. This resulted in me managing to soft lock myself, meaning that it was impossible to progress without consulting a guide on the internet to find a phone number I should have learned from somewhere. But I never touched that particular story arc. If this is because of a error in the game, that’s a shame. If it’s possible for the player to soft lock themselves by design, that’s just plain dumb.

During my 4-ish hours play through of The Red Strings Club, I didn’t manage to pick up a single of the game’s 12 Steam achievement. Normally, in a game of this size, I’ll rush through it a couple of times to get the achievements^{, but in this case, I can’t be bothered.}

I give The Red Strings Club a score of 2 out of 5 points, but award it a whole extra point for the soundtrack. It was worth the price of the game alone. I wish there was a jukebox i could control in the club I could control, but alas.

Now go find someone that’s important to you, and give them a hug - and perhaps a delicious mocktail 🩷🍹