Only After for Windows

Find the Lost Girl

Interactive fiction has long been occupying a space in the world of video games. And as the game world continues to evolve, many of these games dazzle players with state-of-the-art graphics and heartfelt motion-capture performances. Others, on the other hand, create text adventures or visual novels. But what’s common between these games is the fact that it attempts to give the players the chance to control how the story goes. The players can choose how the story goes, and the fate of the characters depends entirely on their actions. Only After is yet another adventure game with an interactive story. This game involves investigation as the characters attempt to find a missing girl. If you like to flex your mind and dive deep into a person’s memory to find clues, this game is worth checking out.

The Story

The gameplay of Only After is comprised of players traversing a collection of memories, skipping back and forth between periods to look for clues. It follows the story of Detective Michael Grady, who works with psychiatrist Judy Williams to find a teenage girl named Julie, who has gone missing. The only clue they have is Julie’s boyfriend, David, who was found in a nearby forest, beaten black and blue. The problem is, David shows signs of post-traumatic stress symptoms and could not piece together what happened before Julie’s disappearance. Judy and Michael will have to reform David’s shattered memory to find Julie.

Only After positions itself as a game of choice. While players need to wander through David’s memories to collect information, the main goal of the game is to make decisions using the options provided by the game. However, despite the seemingly-plentiful pathways that the game gives, only a single binary choice right at the end will actually make a difference. One could argue that the choices in the game are often largely an illusion. Some choices do not have any impact on how the story flows or how the main characters determine the cause of Julie’s disappearance.

The Game

As mentioned, Only After does not live up to its aim of becoming a legit game of choice. The story narrative is unclear and blatantly disregards the players' choices. This inflexibility could have been forgiven if the story is engaging. Unfortunately, that is not the case. The pacing of the game is incredibly off, in that the first parts of the game will have you watch the characters wandering about and being mean to one another. All the characters clearly need development, and their dialogues are sparse. The game makes up for it in the latter part of the game due to its clever twist. It explains the lack of chemistry between the characters and gives context to David’s dimness. It also neatly wrapped all the clues given in the duration of the game.

Another thing that might put you off about the game is its buggy and unreliable controls. The mouse sensitivity is way too high; you cannot adjust it even if you made changes in the Windows settings itself. While using the gamepad is better, the game sometimes forgets that there is a gamepad being used and will prompt you to use the keyboard. Only After also does not allow players to pause during cutscenes. Moreover, the game only has an autosave, which is inconvenient if the players need to step away from the computer for a bit.

Not Good Enough

All in all, Only After has a great deal of potential—if only it did not fumble its execution. The game featured decision-heavy gameplay, but most decisions that players made did not matter. And even if it does have a clever ending, it comes with the slowest build-up that will not patch things up. Add in controls that are buggy and unpleasant to manipulate, and you’ll get a game that is not really worth spending hours with. In the end, the game sabotages itself in every turn.