Movies Are Awesome, Until You Have To Play Them – I Saw Black Clouds Review

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I Saw Black Clouds is an interactive psychological thriller that combines investigation, horror, and the paranormal. This is not publisher Wales Interactive’s first venture into the interactive film realm, as they also gave us Late Shift, The Complex, The Bunker, and Five Dates. This new game was developed by Ghost Dog Films (Crucible of the Vampire and The Singing Bird Will Come), and it boasts a rather intriguing cast of Larry Rew (Underworld 3), Nicole O'Neill (Penny Dreadful), and Rachel Jackson (Outlander). And that’s all well and good, but is it enough to make I Saw Black Clouds a quality movie and/or game?

The game casts you in the role of Kristina, a young woman in mourning following the suspicious death of her friend, Emily. While said death is first presented as a suicide, Kristina decides to investigate it further after speaking with a few locals. I Saw Black Clouds alters the scenario according to Kristina's character traits, which can be viewed on a separate statistics screen. These attributes develop according to the choices made during the game and, more specifically, her state of mind regarding the untimely death of her friend: the denial, guilt, and acceptance that she goes through.

Although it has four different endings, I Saw Black Clouds's main plot runs two hours, so you'd have to be truly engaged to spend the extra time discovering any alternate endings. What’s clear, though, is that the game would have benefited from more independent interaction and diverse branching paths in terms of the overall narrative. I Saw Black Clouds is a low-budget production, and this shows through when you notice the large amount of scenes that are recycled quite frequently. This impression of limited means also comes through in the performances—not that they are entirely awful, but it’s obvious that a few actors are totally chomping the scenery, putting forward strange interpretations and facial expressions during many of the reaction scenes.

The low-budget nature of the production is also evident in the 3DO-era “special” effects. Water and fire are added digitally in an amateurish way, and the game is full of continuity errors, such as the scene where Kristina is supposed to break a window...but the glass is wholly intact in the very next scene. In another scene I encountered in my playthrough, Kristina showed up with a sudden head injury, but she hadn’t received this rather nasty-looking cut in any of the scenes I’d played through previously. Suspect editing like in these examples makes an interactive movie production lose all credibility in my book. In the same vein, and what was most obvious to me, I Saw Black Clouds lacks fluidity or any real rhythm in the dialogue choices. There were times when I had two dialogue choices, and I was shocked when I experienced a lengthy pause after I input my choice as well as a break in the soundtrack—which is one of the few strong things in this game, quite honestly.

What makes an interactive film what it is and gives it its potency is to have the feeling of controlling the direction—the destiny, if you will—of this adventure. Unfortunately, there isn’t much risk-taking in I Saw Black Clouds. In addition to the recycled scenes, certain paths I took came together in such a manner that there’s just one real choice. For example, I don’t want to search for documents in a particular room. Well, Kristina ends up looking for them anyway. I want to leave a place? Kristina says nope, and she will still end up doing what she and/or the game wants, regardless of my input.

Fortunately, some of the major choices remain at the player’s discretion and even allow you to move towards a scenario with a supernatural bent, which is where things (finally) get good in the game. Ghosts, urban legends, and vengeful spirits converge to embellish the story and give a little spice to the overall plot, which pulls something of a “bait and switch” on you if you take certain paths. Hell, I’ll even go as far to admit that there were a few scenes at the end that suddenly overwhelmed me with both pathos and anguish. Too bad these moments were marred by the underwhelming special effects that, once again, just do the whole production a disservice and took me out of the game.

I Saw Black Clouds gets credit for attempting to tackle serious subject matter (i.e., suicide and mental health) in a fresh way, but the execution just never rises to meet these high-minded ideas. I have some issues with the way the narrative plays out overall, but the more damning issues are the technical ones. Even when the game hits its stride, it’s still undermined by poor flow and editing, which are consistent throughout. There aren’t a ton of full motion video games available for mobile devices, so I think you’ll enjoy your time with this experience if you’ve already played through the other big names in the genre a few times. But it’s hard to shake the nasty feeling that there was a lot more potential in I Saw Black Clouds than actually comes to fruition—more so as a straight-up film rather than an interactive experience.

SCORE: 2 STARS OUT OF 5

PLAY IF YOU LIKE:

• Memories. Play I Saw Black Clouds if you enjoyed Shenzhen Bain Interactive Entertainment’s live-action escape room FMV game.

• Night Trap. I Saw Black Clouds may not be as campy as this ’90s cult FMV classic, but it’s definitely cut from the same cloth as I Saw Black Clouds.

Have you played I Saw Black Clouds? Let us know what you think of it in the comments! Even if you haven't played it, leave a comment sharing your favorite FMV games!

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