The Franz Kafka Videogame

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.

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

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.

The Franz Kafka Videogame is less a traditional game and more an interactive fever dream: a surrealistic puzzle‑box that slips between logic and absurdity with deliberate grace. It invites you into a world that is both whimsical and unsettling, drenched in imagery that nods to Kafka without shackling itself to direct adaptation.

Visually, it is exquisite: painterly backdrops, delicate animation and a muted color palette that conjures an atmosphere of quiet disquiet. The puzzles themselves range from the gently clever to the willfully opaque, often requiring lateral thinking - or perhaps a willingness to abandon reason altogether.

Yet for all its charm, the experience is ephemeral. The narrative, such as it is, remains elusive, more a series of impressions than a coherent arc, and the entire journey can be completed in a single sitting. Those seeking mechanical depth, challenge, or narrative closure may feel shortchanged.

But perhaps that is the point. Like Kafka’s prose, it resists easy resolution, preferring to leave the player in a state of bemused contemplation. It is not a work for everyone, but for those receptive to its strange rhythm; it offers a brief, beguiling escape into the absurd.

In the end, The Franz Kafka Videogame is best approached not as a conventional puzzle game, but as a finely crafted, fleeting work of interactive art: one that trades mechanical complexity for atmosphere and narrative clarity for a lingering sense of wonder and estrangement. It is eccentric, unapologetically strange and all the more memorable for it.

"Mixed" recommendation.
This is a puzzle adventure, so unlike other adventure games the focus is on solving a series of puzzle rooms rather than having much of a story (which is fine). The puzzles themselves are fairly brain-scratchy and difficult (a lot of visual interpretation of letters/numbers/symbols, etc. ), which is a plus for me. Purely as a game, I'd say this is rather good.
If you are a fan of Franz Kafka in any sort of way however, prepare to be vastly disappointed; the author seems to interprete Kafka's stories via a style of surrealism associated more with paintings of said movement as well as some Burrough thrown in for good measure. What this means is that we are given random superficial Kafka quotes and literal imagery which are entirely distorted and deprived from their original contexts (particular victims being "Der Landarzt", "Die Metamorphose" and "Der Proceß").
Don't get me wrong: there's tons of valid and legitimate ways to interprete a work or draw inspiration from it. But if I call something "The Spider-Man game" and then have Peter Parker being a man in his thrties that collects spider posters and then at some point decides to hit the gym while saying "with great power comes great responsibility...to remove my belly flab", then at best that could be a pretty funny take on it. But if done in a deadpan serious artistic sense, where you understand that the author, in fact is *fully serious* with this description, you get more of an..."oh no" kind of feel.
That is this game.
This is *not* The Franz Kafka Videogame. This is a videogame with Franz Kafka paraphernalia stickers slapped onto it.

The game is thouroughly absurd, maybe a bit boring. Certainly Kafkaesque
7/10 Surreal Dreams

Relatively simple and short puzzle game. Only had to use the hint feature a couple times and every time I groaned because I was overthinking something simple. Silly, doesn't overstay its welcome, and a fun quick adventure if you're looking for more outside-of-the-box and quirky puzzle solving. Also helps i got it on sale for $1, big bang for buck value there.