Price at Time Of Review: £15 ($19)
Comfort Rating: Yellow (Mild Movement)
Genre: Adventure
Supported Platforms: Oculus Rift, Rift S
Supported Controllers: Gamepad, Touch (as gamepad)
Best Playing Position: Standing, Sitting
Multi-Player: No
Age Rating: PG
Description: When a washed-up actor hangs himself on location, a spotlight is cast on the backwater Florida town of Cypress Knee. Your screen becomes a stage on which you investigate this mysterious suicide as three distinct characters: cheeky blogger Romana Teague, down-and-out local reporter Jack Bellet, and cynical private investigator K.C. Gaddis.
Experience a magical reality where characters are transported among scenes, set pieces moved into place, and music wafts from the orchestra pit. Knee Deep is about characters, storytelling, and the melodrama of swampland Florida.
Review: Knee Deep is murder mystery game that is set on an acting theatre stage. This unique setting is because the characters you are playing with are all actor and the storyline are played out in typical theatre fashion with ‘sets’ rather than levels or stages. Each of the characters has a unique personality and personal storylines. While each of the wide variety of dialogue choices doesn’t change the storyline it does decide how each of them act toward you meaning every game will be different to each person playing depending on the choices they make (But the main plot line and ending will remain the same).
And that is how you go around in this game, no free movement, just moving automatically to the next scene, the next little part of the story until you have watched all acts and the killer is revealed. Now please note, the killer will get revealed no matter what you say, the ending is the ending no matter what. But it is the path to the ending that is forever changing. Each game will only ever be the same at the start and the end, what happens in between and the dialogue they use will be up to your choices.
While the Steam VR version of this game proves that this game can be played just as easily without the VR feature added, but in VR the experience that you are part of a massive stageplay is exaggerated and really gives you the feeling the makers of the game were trying to get across. This will not be to everyone’s tastes, but for those of us who love a good murder mystery or simply like watching amateur dramatic theatre plays, this is one experience that might well be the face of theatre plays in the future. OK, so it might not be theatre plays done in 3D, but a VR play with real actors is certainly more than possible.
