Rivals is a unique twist on the investigation puzzle genre, a cleverly executed evolution of the type set out by Obra Dinn and Her Story. It's the kind of game you'll want to pull out a pen & paper to scrawl your mad thoughts on the page, and that's why I love it!
Owl Skip has constructed a detailed tapestry of fictional history tied together with beautifully recorded custom soundtrack, character biographies and audio logs which you use to untangle the storied account of these interwoven bands.
Like curating your own iTunes library, or digging through wikipedia to piece together the lineage of your favourite band, Rivals effortlessly delivers on the premise of sorting bands and albums into a timeline but peppers it with so much extra juicy detail you'll become lost in its own constructed world.
The game has a good handle on its difficulty curve, with the first chapter being completable with all information available to you, and subsequent chapters expanding the scope to internet sleuthing and riffling through your notepad of hastily scrawled notes desperately trying to make sense of it all.
By the end of the game you will feel like a super-fan at a pub quiz with an intimate knowledge of the subject matter, able to answer any question thrown at you.
Tying into their previous game, Family, Owl Skip clearly has an excellent handle on this burgeoning genre of detective simulation and I'm very interested to see where they take it next!
