Throughout your life you’ll surely experience bouts of depression, be it due to the loss of a loved one, disappointment caused by external factors out of your control, or simply due to the feeling that nothing in your life is going the way you want it. When you add loneliness to the mix, it can become a deadly combination. While most people rely on the company of others in difficult times as a way to boost their spirits, what would you do if you had no real means of contact to the outside world, aside from communicating with a single stranger, via a computer? This is the premise for the recently released STAY.

The game quickly introduces us to Quinn, a character that is clearly dealing with some mental issues and is fighting insomnia while taken from his bed by a strange masked figure. He wakes up in a strange, dilapidated room with a single computer in the middle of it with his only contact with the outside world being you via a chat room. The narrative is the main reason to play the game, so I won’t really touch on it more, as going in blind would make for the best experience.

You don’t directly control Quinn in the game world, as you are more of an adviser, offering guidance and companionship while he tries to escape the room and figure out who brought him to this dark place, and why. You’ll do this primarily by selecting responses similar to any of the Telltale games. There is much more depth to this than it sounds, as your responses will help build trust between you and our hero or make him leery, as he may assume you are in fact the person keeping him captive. You’ll need to carefully monitor his emotions as well as choose your responses wisely – choosing the proper responses will result in him opening up to you on the opposite end, and choosing poorly can result in his (often brutal) death, or even push him as far as breaking or disconnecting you from the game.

Death or disconnection has little consequence, at least from what I could tell, as you can reload from the beginning of the most recent chapter. The biggest setback here is some of the more challenging or tedious puzzles will have to be repeated and you will have to sit patiently waiting for Quinn to complete his often long winded monologues. I initially felt a connection and genuine sense of dread for our protagonist, but his personality quickly became the equivalent of human sand paper. While I wanted to know more about him, his angst ridden, whiny responses full of obscure pop culture references made me want to see him die over and over again, often causing me to seek out new ways to see him bite it. At one point, he complains repeatedly about being hungry, yet when a food source pops up, he complains about eating it and refuses to do so in most cases. I kid you not; Quinn is the worst of the worst when it comes to being a Debbie Downer, no matter how nice or reassuring you are.

Through the games 25 chapters, you will often be tasked with helping Quinn solve puzzles. These start out small, often just piecing together broken photos or objects, and then become more taxing, requiring you to rearrange or sort various items. Late into the game, the puzzles become even more tedious, one of which is simply randomized – I spent close to two hours simply selecting random solutions until I got lucky. I can confirm that the end solution is completely randomized, as I know for a fact I tried the same pattern before. These are also physically taxing, as the controls to manipulate the game world are a bit wonky and the game provides absolutely no hints. The puzzles are varied with only a few repeated themes, both of which are more akin to simply putting items together like a standard cardboard puzzle.

The game boasts a mechanic where the time you spend away from the game will impact Quinn. I returned to find him opening a fridge to only be electrocuted after a time spent away from the game; I noticed no other changes with the exception of Quinn leaving a number of needy responses asking if you are there or complaining that you don’t care about him. This makes him come across as an insecure girlfriend nagging you at level nine clinger status while out with your friends. I did find it easy to relate to him and legitimately wanted to help him initially, but this lead to my disdain for the character around the two hour mark.

The time mechanic likely impacts the ending you receive, as there are an impressive number of seven endings to unlock – the one I received being not so great. In my first playthrough, with 55 hours away and around eight hours in game, I received an ending that provided more insight as to why Quinn is so depressed. This was certainly a devastating turn of events, although it did not provide any closure to what was occurring in the game.

The overall presentation is acceptable for the adventure genre, but the bulk of the visuals will be in the chatroom, rarely exiting to show Quinn moving from one area to the next or completing certain actions. The pixel art works well to convey his reactions to your responses and makes it easy to determine what he felt without really needing to change to the menu that shows your overall friendship or his level of trust. The game suggests using headphones to play, which invokes a sense of dread early on, but after the first chapter, most of what you’ll hear is the clicking of his typing or the ambient music, which I could take or leave. The game is relatively bug free, with the only issue I experienced being a number of Xbox Achievements not unlocking when the requirement was completed, which I believe was due to me using the standby function when turning off the game. That said, if you’re an achievement hunter, be sure to close out of the game prior to exiting.

Boasting a number of paths and an interesting story, the game offers quite a bit of replay value. Sadly, the taxing puzzles make me torn on whether it’s worth the effort of jumping back in to find out the mystery behind Quinn’s abduction. If you’re up for the challenge, the game will likely offer hours of entertainment.

8 out of 10

Pros

• Interesting Story
• Multiple Endings
• Quinn Feels Like a Living, Breathing Person

Cons

• Puzzles are Vague/Tedious at Times
• Quinn is Often a Whiner

STAY was developed by Appnormals Team and published by PQube Limited. It launched on May 16th, 2018 for PC and May 30th, 2018 for X1. The game was provided to us for review on X1. If you’d like to see more of STAY, check out the official site.

 

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