While the puzzles may be a bit basic the narrative easily turns a simple adventure game into a worthwhile experience
On the surface this game appears to be a horror game but I found a lot of the horrific elements aren’t even the real reason you’ll want to play this. Detention takes place in Taiwan at a time of martial law. Two students get caught stuck in their school after a colossal rain storm. Which collapses the bridge leaving them stranded. At the same time the river turns red and beings that should not be appear. The only way to get out now is to not breathe near the ghosts and solve all the puzzles this bizarre school puts in their way.
But like I mentioned this is only used in a way to get players interested in picking this game up. Then it throws the real message about living in a time of martial law and how it could affect students in areas far from the main war front. It really does show how simple problems can lead to deadly consequences. Presenting minimal dialogue and leaving most of the narrative up to the player to deduce is something this video game does exceptionally well.
As for the horror elements it is creepy but it never really made me feel dread. The ghosts you interact with aren’t that scary looking making them a minor obstruction that gets in your way occasionally. At the same time learning a bit about Chinese/Taiwanese ghost lore was neat. Still a similar issue comes up with the puzzles. Other than getting stumped by the clock puzzle for a while none of them really tested my puzzle solving skills. So they really are just a bit of busy work to put in between important plot points. Yet that also means they didn’t annoy me which is certainly possible sometimes in a horror game.
Putting all my thoughts together forms a positive focus on the sad story of a girl that felt like she didn’t have a chance. What about the boy you ask? Hmm, you'll just have to play to find out. During my play through as I noted the simple puzzles seems like minor distractions. Meanwhile the hand drawn style of the graphics gives off a creepy vibe even if they don’t animate that well. All the negative points are minor thanks to narrative hooks being compelling enough to see it through to the end. The short length at around 4 hours helps too. Overall this is a adventure game worth playing if any of what I typed here made you interested in checking it out.
