Whispers of a Machine

Rating 7.5/10
Genre: Point & Click Adventure
This is a fun P&C game, you play as a detective trying to solve murders in a dystopian future. The puzzles are decent with only a few requiring a walkthrough because I found the clues to be too vague.
I like how certain actions and dialogue choices determine what abilities you get which change how you solve certain puzzles. Its worth a second playthrough at least to see how certain puzzles play out differently.
The back story is interesting as it touches upon the traditional tropes of cyberpunk.
My only disappointment is that I found the environment and backdrops too simple given the cyberpunk dystopian future setting.

I finished the game in 8,5 hours and I didn't use any guides to help with the puzzles. Most of the puzzles were the kind that you need to use common sense and really think between the lines. The game is challenging and few of the puzzles really took their time to open up.
The story was really interesting and rich. The voice acting was really good. Only negative thing that comes to mind is that the game could've been longer. I played slow and took my time on everything and it still took over 8 hours to complete the game.
Of course there are three different ways to complete the game but still.

Whispers of a Machine is a classic looking point and click adventure with a very interesting twist.
It's a very well acomplished game, with great voice acting and lovely graphics, but the story is what I liked the most.
Vera, the main character, is a nano-tech enhanced detective that will develop special abilities during the game, according to the choices the player makes.
The story and the interactions with the other game characters will partially change based on the player's responses, and balance our personaliity into one of 3 paths/aspects: Empathetic, Analytical or Assertive. Our abilities will develop according to that personality, and some puzzles will then require different solutions adapted to those abilities.
Our choices will of course lead to different endings.
This dynamic system is very interesting, as the sense or right and wrong gets frequently challenged- it's a deeply inspired narrative that deals with different perspectives, moral duality, and being set in a futuristic (who knows, maybe prophetic) sci-fi scenario doesn't make it lose any relevance - it deals with power, laws, tech innovation, Humanity, love, parenthood, Life and Death... or Eternity - it picks your head and shakes your feelings.
NEEDS to be played more than once.

Hugely enjoyable adventure game with great characters, writing and voice acting. I love that you can take your character down different paths and make use of skills that give multiple ways to solve the puzzles. Choices are always appreciated in this genre and make the character feel more like your own.

I'm really impressed by Clifftop Games. They have a really great grasp of storytelling, pacing and atmosphere, which are really the most integral parts of a good point-and-click game that are often overlooked. They're really great at stringing puzzles together in a way that feels satisfying to solve without ever pushing the difficulty too far and breaking emersion. There's enough clues and guidance that you pretty much always know what you need to do next but it's still engaging throughout.
I enjoyed Kathy Rain but I think Whispers of a Machine is a huge improvement in pretty much every way. The story is much more unique and surprising, the puzzles are more sophisticated and the visual design is really solid. It also avoids the pitfall that Kathy fell into of forcing you to do some pretty gross stuff (e.g. tasering a homeless man) to get the story to move along. This makes Vera much more consistent as sympathetic protagonist, which is really important to get you invested in an ethics-focused narrative.
Overall I just really felt swept up in the setting and, even though the story deals with murder and violence, I found it kind of calming to exist in the space the developers had created and gradually unravel the mystery. Definitely would recommend.

Nice tight sci-fi Nordic noir, nothing earth-shattering but some good ideas well-presented, with meaningful choices affecting both puzzle solutions and narrative.
Completed in 7 hours with only a couple walkthrough checks, and I am an idiot, so take that as a difficulty metric.

A wonderful scifi adventure game.