The Red Strings Club

The Red Strings Club (2018) is a futuristic narrative game where you prescribe implants and drinks to people who visit your bar. You talk to patrons, prepare them drinks and coax information out of them to advance the espionage story. It's a unique game that uses its futuristic setting, puzzles and visual narrative to explore complex themes in a thought-provoking and nuanced light.

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In a vast cyberpunk-style metropolis you play as both the bartender at the Red Strings Club, and local hacker. They must work together to uncover the plans of a huge corporation that wants to eliminate depression, anger, and anxiety from society. It sounds like a good aim, but they soon discover the price the world will pay for this idealised vision of humanity.

As the bartender, you talk to the people who visit your bar and complete mini-games to prepare drinks designed to heighten certain emotions and tease out vital information. As the hacker, you create genetic implants at a high-tech lathe to alter the emotions of the executives of the corporation. You then assume the voices of company executives in phone calls as you attempt to bring it down.

While most of the game plays like a text adventure, often with little player input, the drink-crafting and implant-creation mini-games keep things varied. The result is a uniquely philosophical and thoughtful game that looks at the nature of happiness and the importance of untamed emotions.

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Our examiner, Ben Kendall, first checked The Red Strings Club 20 months ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated 9 months ago.