The Isle Tide Hotel test – The only thing missing from here were the bed bugs

Wales Intercative pleased us with another live-action movie game. With so many works of a similar nature, their offer has now swelled nicely, operating with varied themes. Most of the time, they have touched on the topic of action and occult horror, but they always try to twist the formula. Whether it’s a small game mechanic innovation, experimentation is not far from them. And this is no different now, but I will get to that later.

The Isle Tide Hotel, described as the British Twin Peaks, is about an isolated hotel with dozens of strange people. In the opening video, we can see the kidnapping of a young girl, around whom the plot will revolve, of course, only if we want it that way. We manage a dad who arrives at the facility by taxi. You can only get here by invitation, and it is also interesting that the hotel only opens its doors for a few nights every few years. It’s no secret that we are coming as the father of the kidnapped girl, a private investigator wants to meet us, who is waiting for us at the location (he also arranged the invitation).

It is immediately apparent that the cast exhausts the concept of extremity, just look at the staff. When you check in at the reception desk, the complications can begin, as the plot develops depending on our answers. What will be presented to us in a dirty drag – I think there might even have been a separate director’s instruction for the actors to speak so slowly. Actually, it wouldn’t be a problem if it was mostly interesting, but we’ll be stumbling into such levels of crap every step of the way that it will be hard to recover from. Throughout, I had the feeling that I was watching some crappy art film that a friend of mine invited me to, and it would be fun to get out of the screening. And after the end, I sat in my chair like a bird of prey, trying to process what I had seen. Since this is not my first rodeo, I sat down again a few days later, giving completely different answers, so the plot changed, the ending was completely different, but the catharsis still didn’t arrive.

Of course, there is also something new now, and this is how we finally managed to fill the one-hour playing time. In several cases, our hero stops, and choosing from several options, we can enter into a conversation with different people or examine things. At the end of the act, he walks nicely back to the starting point so that he can go on a new adventure. For example, you can open a dozen doors in a long corridor, or you can sit down and joke with 4-5 people in the dining room. There won’t be time for everything, the plot ensures this, and the slightly sectarian-looking figures ensure extra entertainment. Some of the scenes were clever, but I was bored with most of them – there may be an optimal run with fixed answers, but after two rounds I let go of the theme. I think this is the weakest FMV I’ve “seen”, played so far, so I don’t dare to say that fans of the genre should give it a try, because I include myself.

The test copy was provided by the game publisher.