The Butterfly Sign (Chapter One: Necessary Evil) is a first person detective story set on the border between Romania and Ukraine. You are the lone survivor and sole witness to the disaster that took place at Memority Hospital. It is up to you with the help of an experimental drug, to explore your memories and uncover the truth behind the Memority Hospital disaster.
You play as a man named Jack, the aforementioned lone survivor and witness to the disaster that occurred in Memority Hospital. Waking up and finding yourself bound to a bed in an undisclosed location, a man named Romanov interrogates you. Unable to recall, the only solution available is to take the experimental drug known as “Rammex”. Slipping into your memories, you investigate and uncover the sequence of events that led up to the disaster.
Based on the video describing the gameplay, there is heavy emphasis on the graphics and sound design within The Butterfly Sign. Using photogrammetry technology and high-resolution textures in the Unreal Engine 4, to create the beautiful scenic landscape and eerie hallways of Memority hospital to life. Each sound in The Butterfly sound has its own unique sound: every water drop, each tree branch and more.
Boasting non-linear dialogue choices, your dialogue choices influence how the game will end and whether you will find out the ‘truth’. Although sadly, each of the chapters (chapters 2 & 3) will be released as their own separate titles instead of added dlc content. From what I recall, there was a problem with how the game engine stored the game files, which made selling the chapters individually as a single chapter problematic. It would had replaced the older chapter even with the Steam DLC systems, hence the decision to sell each chapter individually.
The graphics and detective style heavily reminded me of The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. Minus the amnesiac protagonist and terrifying narrow hallways. The hospital basement alone unnerved me so much that I was actually ready to quit the game and ask for a refund. The creep factor of the basement with its sound design was a little too well done for me since it just about induced a heart attack on me, from my paranoia of what was around the next corner. I have no problem admitting I promptly sprinted out of the basement once I completed the task. Did not want to stay there for a second longer than I needed to be.
Although I have noticed it seems the audio files and facial animations are not fully synced with one another. I did notice white flashing on the screen when you select certain answers, so I am assuming it indicates you picked the correct answer or the one that is the ‘truth’.
The main problem I had with the game so far is the extremely long walk in the beginning. There is no auto save till you at least approach Memority Hospital, so if you quit before then…well you are going to start your journey from the beginning. That ain’t fun. While there is a sprint ability in the game, it is unclear when it gets disabled and why. So there would be times I tried to sprint only to find out I could not.
There are hints of a conspiracy throughout the game told through notes, flashbacks and video recordings. Unfortunately, it is relatively easy to figure who the “mysterious inventor/investor” of Rammex was, and the game will reveal this at the end.
Gameplay-wise, it took me about two hours total to complete the game and enjoyed playing detective. The detective style and mechanic was very similar to Vanishing of Ethan Carter, the main difference is that you do not see the recreation of the events happening. Seeing the events replaying after piecing the sequence together correctly is what I loved about Vanishing of Ethan Carter. Although the Butterfly Sign does not introduce anything new into the gaming scene. I did enjoy the cut scenes that seemed to be showing the drug taking affect. Implying the drug is imperfect with the “glitches” that appeared and you had to find a way to exit the broken memory/loop. I would like to see if this plays an important part in Chapter 2: Human Error serving as a puzzle players need to solve, by having to figure a way to break the loop. Besides that, I would like to see the story being fleshed out as chapter one feels like more a prologue and to be honest, I felt chapter one revealed too much of the story. So hopefully Chapter 2 will either address that or throw me off with a curve-ball or twist in the story.
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