Business simulators do not need to be sisudo or demand an MBA of their players. This truth was probably discovered when Rollercoaster Tycoon’s first user decided to create a roller coaster that challenged the laws of physics and common sense. Whole franchises rose around this idea of mixing mood with resource management: Dungeon Keeper, something… comes in an attempt to compete in this market.
PirakNights Games’ proposal is tasty: putting the player to control hell, punishing sinners and managing a demonic bureaucracy. There are great ideas here and there, especially in their presentation, but their mechanics sometimes fall into the temptation of pride, sometimes fall into the temptation of laziness.
Serving well to always serve
In tune, we receive the mission from none other than Almighty. In this reality, hell is nothing more than a satellite company in heaven. Unfortunately, the creator is too busy with a connection to explain all the details of the operation, but we are advised by Lili, the first succubus, which introduces us to the functioning of administrative processes. In other words, in the first few minutes of the game, you have already been introduced to the anarchic and mocking character of the whole thing.
In each plane of existence, there are two layers of interest. On the surface are the living beings thinking, who build things, who prosper, who fornicate at dawn and commit their sin. When one of these beings inevitably dies, his soul awaits the cemetery by the bus that will carry it to the depths. Once in hell, this person becomes our product. It is up to the player to make this poor soul punished by their sins, repent as much as possible and return to the world of the living to reincarnate and restart the cycle. It’s a good job and we are paid by God to do dirty service.
This whole context is very well illustrated by animations and very fun details. It is possible to say that the creative side is the strong point of PirakNights Games. Tune is friendly. The characters are funnyly modeled, even the structures are comic. There is a special room to atone for the sin of greed in which gold coins gush in front of the sinful soul and she cannot take a mere penny. The room to atone for lust has a pole dance show of a seductive diaba. Infernal employees all look like a comedy show and only think of taking long breaks in the bathroom and strike if the salary is late.
SOUL TOURPY IS IN MECHANICS
Unfortunately, not every dose of sympathy can disguise the boring interactivity of the game. On the one hand, Piraknights Games dared too much, adding more details of what would really be necessary for the title. Is it really to be expected to have an eye on the peculiarities of each employee or soul punished in hell? There is an excess of information in the menus, which reminds me of something even more frightening than their premise: real work. An Excel spreadsheet, even disguised in a shiny user interface, is still an Excel spreadsheet.
Another pillar of the game is the soul processing unit, a kind of programmable crossroads, which filters and selects souls according to criteria established by the player. In a title that extols the silly and calls for something more casual, we are presented to programming mechanics: the processing of souls is nothing more than a succession of “IFs” and “Elses” to optimize production chain efficiency. It refers a little to Human Resource Machine, including the approach. That is, sometimes you tune is a big joke, sometimes you take it too seriously.
On the other hand, amid such meaningless complication, there are aspects that are merely repetitive. Just as there are seven deadly sins, the game expects you to be prepared to deal with them all, which will lead to the creation of seven dedicated buildings, some generic buildings and a processing salad to create the ideal production line to maximize profits or at least keep salaries being paid to everyone.
In addition, many options are not yet released in this advance access, which makes gameplay even more monotonous as one understands what needs to be done in each scenario.
On the surface is one thing, in the background is another
Touring also misses dividing its gameplay into two layers. While in hell the management system is even fun, although it is oscillating between being confused and repetitive, it is on the surface that tune becomes a boring game. There are not many ways to interfere with the direction of events in the living world, especially at the beginning. The late Black & White sends a hug.
We then follow the “being ninths” (here called humus) to play their daily lives, choose a conductor, hang more to one side or the temptations, with their own internal mechanics and interrelationships, also full of statistics and effects running behind the scenes. To complicate even more, the surface world can be less visually interesting than hell, even though it has more landscapes.
Piraknights Games is right at the beginning of the development of tune. There is a lot of space for evolution in what needs to improve and simplification in what needs to be less bureaucratic. My sympathy they already have, now a little more substance is missing to make my gears spin. It will be a sin if this game does not reach its potential.
