Inspector Schmidt - The Ebbing

Before starting the game, I didn't have particularly high expectations. I only wanted to try it for a few minutes. Those few minutes quickly turned into three hours! I really like the setting. The story takes place in northern Germany during the 19th century. The island is fairly large, and you can explore many of its buildings. The story is engaging, and the characters are well-written. The graphics are solid, powered by Unreal Engine 5. The puzzle difficulty is well balanced—they're neither too easy nor too difficult, which keeps the gameplay enjoyable. Another big plus is that the game is translated into many languages. Since there's quite a bit of reading, that's definitely appreciated. Surprisingly, I haven't encountered any bugs so far. The game was released over a year ago, so it seems the developers have had enough time to fix the issues mentioned by earlier reviewers. You can tell this is a lower-budget production, and the gameplay may feel a bit clunky at times. Even so, I believe this game deserves far more attention than it has received. It's a strong title in its genre, although unfortunately many players will probably never get the chance to discover it. I came across Inspector Schmidt - The Ebbing by pure chance, and it turned out to be a very pleasant surprise. I highly recommend it.

Great game which got me hooked the minute I entered the inn. I only had one break which was for recharging my sleep meter but other than that, I played it in pretty much one go. I love the historical accuracy with the slight horror aspect and the sometimes silly personality of the main character. I like that you have to use your brain and connect the dots yourself, and the personal affairs and tragedies are wonderful as always. The gameplay is a bit buggy sometimes and the sneaking parts are exhausting and not really sensible, but for a small developer studio, this is absolutely acceptable to me. The voice acting has charisma but lacks in finesse sometimes; I still enjoyed it a lot. However, the story telling is simply beautiful. I was invested right from the start. To write the game both in German (with a Northern dialect) and in English is beautiful and noteworthy. All in all, this was a super interesting game with plot twists and riddles that had me in a chokehold, and I'm really looking forward to their next games (hopefully, I'll have a better pc by then because I had to play this game with potato quality settings)

Even a little ways in, I was struck by the well-crafted dialogue (snappy, often funny!), and the super dense/detailed enviroments/props. Said props reminded me of the thoughtful, narrative miscellany present in some of my favorite games, (Morrowind, FNV), so I definitely appreciate how they're going the extra mile with the environmental storytelling.