The Franz Kafka Videogame

It's strange, perplexing, and frustrating—truly Kafkaesque, much like the title.
카프카스럽다.

My Playtime: 2.4h (11/12 achievement, finished the game)
My First Playthrough: 1.4h
Grindy Achievement(s): Yes (~1 achievement).
Optional Achievement(s): Yes (5 achievements).
Difficult Achievement(s): No.
Intro
The Franz Kafka Videogame is a puzzle game where you need to either brute force the solution or interact with random objects to figure out what the game wants to solve the level.
Pros:
- Hints for those who are stuck
Cons:
- Some puzzles either don't make sense or require brute force to solve
Specs
Intel Core i5-9300H 2.40GHz, 8GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650
Should you buy this game?
If you enjoy a story with a twist and don't mind the unintuitive puzzle, buy it when it's extremely discounted.
In-Depth Review
Visuals
The visual looks unique with its soft color palette. Characters and objects are simplified for the most part, although the game still tries to incorporate details in some scenes. Despite the short length, the game uses different art for each of its levels, and they all look great to the eye.
Story
The story in this game can be quite confusing. It spans four chapters, with the first two telling the story of the protagonist, K., and the last two having a sudden protagonist switch to someone else. The last chapter was there to give you a twist that wraps the whole story together, but I just find it to be confusing. I mean, I get what the story means, but it's as if the story's main purpose is only to give that twist, with everything you experienced throughout the game amounting to nothing.
The Game
Gameplay
You'll either hate or like the gameplay of The Franz Kafka Videogame. It plays out like an adventure game, but it's actually a puzzle game in disguise. The game will link you to level after level with either a puzzle or a story in it. The puzzles themselves are divided into two types: one that requires brute force and one that requires you to interact with random objects.
You need to think outside the box to finish some puzzles. They will require you to interact with things that you might think are not possible to be interacted with, or even something that might look like a background image. These can make the puzzle look ridiculous at first, especially since there is no obvious hint on what you are supposed to do.
Well, there is actually an in-game hint that you can consult, and it does a good job of explaining the puzzle logic without using words. However, that should be your last resort and not something that you click on every time. Moreover, you need to wait for a few minutes before you can see the hint(s). That being said, I found the puzzles to be clever once you figure out the correlation to the answer.
I hate the puzzles that require brute force, though. There are just too many combinations that you can do and it takes a long time to finish. Luckily, there aren't a lot of these types of puzzles in the game.
Length and Difficulty
The game is very short—1.4h is all it takes for me to finish the game, although I admit I used a walkthrough several times since the puzzles can be hard to solve. It will take way longer than that to finish the game blind, especially since you'll be stuck on the puzzles for a long time.
Conclusion
The Franz Kafka Videogame actually deserved the mixed rating. To be honest, I'm not sure whether to recommend this game. On one side, I found that the puzzles and the twist were clever, but on the other side, I also found that the puzzles were confusing and the story was shallow. However, if you decide to try it, buy it when it's extremely discounted. Not only there are some aspects that might be hit-and-miss to some people, but the game is very short in the first place.

NOTE: This game is very neat in terms of art style and story, but it's a little short. Very fun nonetheless, only bug I encountered was at the very first board game puzzle (when spamming the assets they glitch around and exit the screen, no bug that requires a restart though).
---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☑ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS
---{ Gameplay }---
☐ Very good
☐ Good
☑ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't
---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf
---{ Audience }---
☑ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☑ Grandma
---{ PC Requirements }---
☑ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☐ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer
---{ Game Size }---
☐ Floppy Disk
☑ Old Fashioned
☐ Workable
☐ Big
☐ Will eat 10% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data
---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☑ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls
---{ Grind }---
☑ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☐ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding
---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☑ Good
☐ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life
---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☑ Short
☐ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond
---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☐ Worth the price
☑ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money
---{ Bugs }---
☐ Never heard of
☑ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs
---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☑ 7
☐ 8
☐ 9
☐ 10

Interesting short puzzle game, it’s definitely more about the mood than the challenges. some puzzles may not make sense here and there, but that’s part of the charm, ig? It also slips in a few thoughtful messages along the way. Love that!
I’d probably replay to unlock the remaining achievements...it’s short anyway, so why not? xD

This was a quick little adventure game. I finished it in about 2 hours which feels a bit on the short side, but I got it in a bundle highly discounted, so I feel like it was worth it in the end.
I enjoyed the surreal atmosphere and overall the challenge on the puzzles felt good, (I did have to look up the solution to the cannon with no ammo puzzle, it felt like they expected you to just brute force it, but seeing the solution actually made sense)
The ending felt kind of abrupt, but I was still entertained for a couple hours.

This game is okay for a single playthrough, but incredibly annoying for achievement hunting. I love puzzles, but these were genuinely incredibly frustrating and unoriginal.

the story if an on-purpose cluster-fuck, but these puzzles are pretty good. they can be pretty cryptic, i enjoyed playing with my wife and each of us figuring out different solutions the other one didn't think of. best daedalic game i played so far.