I know it is a tired review cliche to say "I wanted to like this game", but it's really true here. I'm a big Danganronpa fan, so this game, on the surface, should be right up my alley. You've got your quirky, over-the-top cast of 16 teens/young adults, you've got your mysterious entity trapping them in one location and making them play weird "games" etc, but that's pretty much where the similarities end.

My biggest disappointment with Friendly Facade is its lack of choices. There are choices, of course, and it's not like they don't matter, but it's just that when the choices would matter the most, you don't get any. You pretty much only get choices during the various challenges that the Golding Foundation puts you through. Challenges which I found to be creative in their setup, but tedious in their execution. Out of the three chapters that have been currently released, only the challenge in the first chapter did I find engaging, and that was because this challenge gives you more information about the characters – Friendly Facade's biggest strength.

It is a double-edged sword though, because although the characters are fun and memorable, you don't really get any opportunity to interact with them for any reasonable length of time and you pretty much never get any dialogue choices. You just have to sit and watch Maggie, the main character, make terrible decisions (lying to other characters, for instance) and have no input whatsoever. For example, I really like Mat and would have liked to spend more time with her, but the game rarely ever gives you the opportunity to hang out with anybody, and even when it does, those interactions are disappointingly short and have no interactivity to them.

This might be one of those cases where it would've been better for this story to be told in a non-interactive manner, like a kinetic visual novel or a traditional novel. At least that way there is no frustration in not having a choice when you desperately want to have one.

One might argue that the aforementioned Danganronpa is pretty linear too with no real choices, but that game gives you more interactivity overall with you having to move your character around from location to location, examine evidence, and interact with characters in whatever order you choose, giving you more of a feeling of control and immersion, even if the story itself is linear. Plus, that game pairs over-the-top characters with over-the-top stakes (kill or be killed) while Friendly Facade has the over-the-top characters part down, but sets the stakes pretty low. The characters having to compete for money and prevent their deep, dark secrets from being revealed to others just doesn't have the same oomph as the literal fight for survival in Danganronpa does, especially when those deep, dark secrets are actually pretty benign. Even the main character, Maggie, admits that she doesn't really have anything to hide.

I'm aware that the story takes a darker turn at the end of chapter 3, but it is, in my opinion, a bit too little, too late, and although I would be interested in checking out the next project from these developers, I'm not interested enough to finish this particular story.

I know it is a tired review cliche to say "I wanted to like this game", but it's really true here. I'm a big Danganronpa fan, so this game, on the surface, should be right up my alley. You've got your quirky, over-the-top cast of 16 teens/young adults, you've got your mysterious entity trapping them in one location and making them play weird "games" etc, but that's pretty much where the similarities end. My biggest disappointment with Friendly Facade is its lack of choices. There are choices, of course, and it's not like they don't matter, but it's just that when the choices would matter the most, you don't get any. You pretty much only get choices during the various challenges that the Golding Foundation puts you through. Challenges which I found to be creative in their setup, but tedious in their execution. Out of the three chapters that have been currently released, only the challenge in the first chapter did I find engaging, and that was because this challenge gives you more information about the characters – Friendly Facade's biggest strength. It is a double-edged sword though, because although the characters are fun and memorable, you don't really get any opportunity to interact with them for any reasonable length of time and you pretty much never get any dialogue choices. You just have to sit and watch Maggie, the main character, make terrible decisions (lying to other characters, for instance) and have no input whatsoever. For example, I really like Mat and would have liked to spend more time with her, but the game rarely ever gives you the opportunity to hang out with anybody, and even when it does, those interactions are disappointingly short and have no interactivity to them. This might be one of those cases where it would've been better for this story to be told in a non-interactive manner, like a kinetic visual novel or a traditional novel. At least that way there is no frustration in not having a choice when you desperately want to have one. One might argue that the aforementioned Danganronpa is pretty linear too with no real choices, but that game gives you more interactivity overall with you having to move your character around from location to location, examine evidence, and interact with characters in whatever order you choose, giving you more of a feeling of control and immersion, even if the story itself is linear. Plus, that game pairs over-the-top characters with over-the-top stakes (kill or be killed) while Friendly Facade has the over-the-top characters part down, but sets the stakes pretty low. The characters having to compete for money and prevent their deep, dark secrets from being revealed to others just doesn't have the same oomph as the literal fight for survival in Danganronpa does, especially when those deep, dark secrets are actually pretty benign. Even the main character, Maggie, admits that she doesn't really have anything to hide. I'm aware that the story takes a darker turn at the end of chapter 3, but it is, in my opinion, a bit too little, too late, and although I would be interested in checking out the next project from these developers, I'm not interested enough to finish this particular story.