Femida is a story-driven choice based judge simulator developed by Art Interactive. I got a review copy of the game on Steam and played it on PC. The game is set in the post WW2 era and it does a pretty decent job in portraying the neo-noir aesthetics. The game is point-and-click, which might not be the type of gameplay experience everyone would want. However, the courtroom sessions and the gameplay immediately reminded me of one of my favorite point-and-click games; Papers, Please! From shuffling through the case files, and going through every detail of the various witnesses regarding a case, there is no denying that it is inspired by Papers, Please!
Since the story of the game relies on the choices that you make, the game already lets you know about the multiple endings it has. The moment you start up the game, you are vaguely told about yourself being the judge appointed by the provisional government after a lottery. It also gives out a hint about the disappearance of your father, and that it may the best chance to uncover the truth about him. In the initial scenes of the gameplay, you are introduced to various characters, and basically how you will be able to converse throughout the story gameplay. The conversations with the characters are based on 4 predetermined choices that you can pick from, and answer or question.
Since you are also the judge, you are also faced with solving all sorts of cases that you will be assigned with. The cases vary from sexual assaults, homicide, drugs, and various criminal activities that the city is ridden with. Apart from out of the court conversations, the biggest conversation platform is the courtroom itself where you get to question the witnesses, the police, the defendant, and other relevant parties involved in the case. The game tries to bring some level of realism by first briefing on the cases and reading about all the parties. You also have the option to take a look at the evidence and review the facts regarding an incident.
When I say that the game reminds of Papers Please, it is because of the similarity the game poses when reviewing evidence, and going to the case files for a brief overview. Before you head out to the court, you have the Folder that will display all the reviewing documents. This gives you a brief understanding of the cases and the relation of all the people involved in the case. On the other hand, you also have the evidence steel case, which contains all sorts of evidence like notes, phone calls, video evidence, and any other relevant material.
When you are ready to go into court to begin the trial, you are given a few minutes to go through each of the key persons involved in the case, and then ask them questions. There are a few things you have to keep in mind here apart from the limited time. You have to make sure that you have a good Public and Judiciary score at the end of your trial. This score depends on the type of questions you ask. Any relevant or irrelevant questions can have a negative effect on either the public or the judiciary. Another feature that the court room has is the Tension meter to the right. This determines how the people inside the court are handling the situation of the trial. If the Tension meter goes too high, the trial will reset and you will have to start all over again.
Now moving on to the problems that I have with the game, which firstly include the grammatical errors and the awkward dialogues that you have with other characters in the game. Most conversations seem out of place and paired with the abrupt transitions, the first few minutes of the game seem random and hurried. Other issues involved the scarce information about the real plot the game is trying to tell you, which is about the disappearance of your father in the game. Starting with the trial of the Dictator, to the other cases that follow, you are left puzzled as your focus is split on either the case or to find out about your father’s disappearance.
Another issue is how pointless the Tension meter is. At times, the Tension meter kept rising without any control, even if I asked a random question with either the witness or any involved person. This meant that trial would reset and I had to repeat all the questioning from the start. The same goes with how inconsistent the Public and Judiciary scores are. If a trial has failed, the score would become inconsistent even if I asked relevant questions from the parties. At times I was just hurrying through the questions just to the point where I lost the previous progress.
Apart from the gameplay issues, I think the game can be much better and does give you a little sense of how courtroom trials work. You can start by ordering multiple tasks to gather more evidence and also having to mind the people’s sentiments when delivering a verdict. Some cases put you on the spot to decide whether the defendant is innocent or guilty, after going through all the evidence. The grammatical errors can be fixed with a patch but what I think the game needs is better conversation dialogues between you and the other characters.
Final Verdict
Femida is another point-and-click game that comes as a judge simulator. The game certainly has interesting ideas that you may like, especially the court room trials where you will have to hand out the sentence after reviewing every bit of evidence and questioning the witnesses. Personally, I would have loved for the cases to have a little sense of realism, as every case pretty much felt the same after the other, with the only exception of having different details. The tension meter is something that does not pair well with the trials, while the dialogue and conversations come with a lot of grammatical errors. If you are interested in taking the role of a judge, give the game a shot.
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Thanks for reviewing our game! Our team hired a proofreader and corrected the mistakes in the texts. It would be nice of you to replay the game and update your review.
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