We’re living in dream land today, but it’s all starting to turn into a nightmare. It’s not safe to sleep, in Oniria Crimes.
The world of Oniria Crimes is a deeply complex one. Before we even meet our protagonist, there’s a lot of history be told in the intro so, Get Comfy. We delve into the creation of Oniria, the land of dreams, the running of the city involving several battling guilds, the natives of Oniria called the Kabu and the sudden influx of dreamers. The city is run by Tibirius of the Triple Star guild and has been since its inception, however, with the increase in population due to a new method of entering Oniria called the 'La Llave Method' and the tension between both the natives, and the other Guilds growing daily, the first elections have been called. Got all that? Good. To put a cherry on the cake, there's a criminal on the loose, trying to break the slim peace between the differing Guilds. Essentially, causing more violence to rock the leadership of Tiberius, and undermine the whole bloody lot. And here’s where we step in.
We play as Torres, a new recruit to the Rounders, who are an independent unit, not affiliated to any guild, who investigate all that’s unjust and unlawful in Oniria. Kind of the dream police, which in my mind, is a way better name.
And here we are, at the start, at a murder scene. The scene is simply a small room with a few items in and we have got to figure out 'whodunit'. Together with our not-really-a partner Santos, the room needs to be groomed with a fine toothcomb, but not with fingerprint dust and CSI-style jump cuts, but by talking to it. Everything, and I mean everything in this room and in Oniria has it’s own viewpoint. From the rug, to the bookshelf, to the stuff on the bookshelf, to the things inside the things on the bookshelf. By clicking the left mouse button these items tell us information about the room or their experience with the victim. The pieces of info that seem important are handily identified by a lovely little ping, and after reading their clue, it’s posted into Torres’s notebook. The aim then, after all this, is to use these notes to calculate and discover the criminal, and to do this we have to use our deductive skills. A Lot. Usually there are 3 suspects in any case and in between the clues we’ve discovered will be a slim line of facts. Out of the 6 or so clues per suspect, we have to pick 2 and ask ourself 'do these 2 clues make them innocent or guilty?' And after aaallll that, we can click the little arrest icon and boom, jobs done. Unless we’ve got it wrong, in which case we have to look at it again.
And you know what, I loved it.
Every pixel of it.
All in all there are 6 cases that are all completely different, with different styles of crimes involved, with all cases linked through 1 main story, but under this larger story are several smaller stories about the Guilds and how they work together, or against each other. The historic lore here feels like it’s been written deep, that I’d imagine it’s possible to create several spin offs involving each Guild. It reminds me a little of Discworld from Terry Pratchett where, there’s one big world, with several huge cities all involving so many stories, some of which touch on other stories told but it’s all one piece of work.
To keep from going over old ground in each episode and performing the same techniques, further ways to interact with items opens up. In one crime scene we have to join two objects together using 'Syntaptic Links' which will give us vital clues, and in the library scene we can pretty much click on every single book, which is probably in the hundreds, so there’s a handy slide bar to narrow down our choices. We can also turn the room around so we can see a different angle which often brings up new clues
Considering each crimes scene is literally just that, one scene, there is a huge amount packed into this game. Our guy Torres is a very likeable, relatable dude who just wants to do the right thing, whilst learning on the job. Santos who we work with through the majority of cases, initially is a bit frosty to us, 'the noob', but she quickly drops her guard and the two work well together, without any friction, letting us get on with the game.
Graphically it’s basically pixels, cubes, voxals, whatever you like to call it, and it’s all built wonderfully in vibrant colours that make up the world of Oniria. There’s no voice acting in it but I didn’t feel it needed it and as for the music, it’s fine, it’s minimal with barely a tune in it, but it helps keep the focus on the visuals.
There are a few frustrations in there though. Once you’ve collected enough evidence and decide to go through the process of choosing guilty party, if you get it wrong you have to go back and try again, except it takes ages for it to get there. It restarts the whole scene, including the intro, so even after pressing escape to skip it, it takes a little bit too long for me. A few puzzles also left me a little perplexed. Thankfully, you don’t necessarily have to work through everything in a room to get what you want. I had to leave some puzzles that were simply too difficult. In hindsight there’s also 1 puzzle in particular where you need to use your own phone, and so if you don’t have it with you, I guess you couldn’t move forward in the story. This part of the game and the way it’s utilized is very inventive, but I do think there needs to be a workaround, just in case. Essentially though, these didn’t stop me from thoroughly enjoying the game and the story told over the 6 cases was very strong.
Oniria Crimes is a complex, Blocky, political plot driven victory and it’s in my highly recommended pile of games out in 2020.
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Michael
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