Silent Streets game

Silent Streets: Mockingbird Game Review (iOS)

Silent Streets: Mockingbird is a detective puzzle-adventure game. In this game, you get to play as a detective who is assigned to solve a murder case of a boxer nicknamed Mockingbird.

Intro

Silent Streets: Mockingbird uses Apple’s ARKit augmented reality technology to enhance some of the investigation scenes as you examine the place and collect evidence to help you with the investigation.

All the other screens of the game are not in augmented reality. That being said, they are beautifully crafted using a realistic black and white style with color accents. Alongside captivating music and professionally narrated character voices, the game delivers an engaging and exciting gameplay experience.

Decisions that you make in the game affect the path you take throughout the story. The game does give you hints on which place you should visit next, but it’s up to you to ask the right questions to those whom you interrogate and show them the right items in order to obtain important information and finish side quests.

The developer of Silent Streets made sure that each character is memorable. Each one has its unique and interesting personality, and some have their dark sides. Unlike many other detective games where you just click all the options and move on to the next place, in this game, I actually took my time to think twice before choosing a certain action. Of course, you get to some areas where you have to give a person a specific item in order to unlock the rest of the story, so if you don’t know what that item is, you can run through all the items until you get the required response and can continue on with the story. That being, said, the fun part is being able to follow along with the story, and enjoying being in the shoes of a detective, rather than playing it the other way around.

Another great thing about the game is that you can encounter different characters as while you travel to a specific place, before reach it. This is nice because it creates an element of surprise. One time I met a bunch of kids. I’ve decided to ignore them, only to found out later that they have stolen an old hand watch that I found at the crime scene. Well, maybe this cause me to not be able to complete one of the side quests, but I’m still not sure.

I also want to point some unique feature that the game has. When you travel to a certain place, you have two options, either physically walk a certain distance or get a cab ride instead (which has a cute little mini-game where you need to locate the taxi driver’s crazy wife LOL).  In the version of the game that I was playing, it appears that in order to get promoted, you need to do some legwork and taking a cab actually prevent you from being promoted. I did have a little chat with the developer, and apparently, this is going to be changed in the next update.

Augmented Reality Included

The AR part of the game is very simple but made well. I really liked the ability to use a forensic light to enhance observation, which helps to locate important evidence at the crime scene and other locations.

The player has a limited time to locate all the required evidence from the scene. However, overall, the AR part of the game felt a bit more like an afterthought. If you don’t have an ARKit supported mobile device, 1 2D point, and click scene is displayed to the user instead.

Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy that little AR part, but obviously, this wasn’t enough to satisfy my AR enthusiasm.

As an AR enthusiast and a passionate gamer, I was disappointed that the augmented reality part was so limited. Having said that, it was interesting to see the developer making a choice to use unique art design alongside augmented reality to produce a visually appealing and entertaining game.

To me, it felt like an intelligent piece of art blended with an exciting storytelling experience that helped to deliver a very compelling and unique gaming experience. So although AR takes a small part in the game and has limited gameplay functionality, the overall artistic composition was done incredibly well.

I played the game in my little room in Seoul, South Korea. This means that you basically can play it almost anywhere. Of course, it’s preferred to have a relatively large space so you can experience it better. For example, when I inspected the body, I had wished that I played the game in a larger space, so I can walk around the body and inspect it from all angles. Anyways, it wasn’t necessary to accomplish the task, and I could do it from just one side.

Conclusion

Silent Streets: Mockingbird turned out to be a pleasant surprise. The game describes itself as an “Augmented Reality detective” game, but AR was actually a small part of it. I think that making the evidence-collecting in AR more challenging, could have improved the experience

It’s easy to understand why the AR part was disappointing because it was over before you know it. It was too short and not challenging at all, and this is why it was less memorable than the other parts of the game which not in AR.

I want to add that I did like the decision of the developer to implement AR in that part of the game to enhance the evidence-collecting experience for those who have an ARKit-compatible iPhone or iPad device. It’s definitely better than the standard non-AR mode. There is nothing wrong using AR as part of a game and not as a whole if it can improve the experience. The developer also provided an alternative for non-ARKit compatible devices, which is smart.

Silent Streets: Mockingbird has some decent replay value. I, for example, didn’t finish all the quest and I was actually triggered to play the game again to see where different action leads me to and how can I unlock and finish all side quests.

The game has only a single case to solve, which is quite disappointing. The game is quite short if you just run through it, but obviously, this is not the way to play this type of game. I recommend playing it in the evening, take your time, follow the story, feel the characters and try to get that sense of a real detective. Once you are in that place, you will enjoy every moment of this game.