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Sometimes it takes a nightmare to wake a place like Dahlia View.
Lead the investigation into a missing child and discover the dark secret of Dahlia View in this story-driven observational thriller from the creators of The Occupation and Ether One.

Conway: Disappearance at Dahlia View is a gripping observational thriller set in 1950s England. When 8-year-old Charlotte May is reported missing from Dahlia View, retired detective Robert Conway searches for the truth behind her disappearance, observing his neighbours from his apartment window and questioning their behaviour. As suspicions escalate, Conway launches his own investigation into Charlotte May’s disappearance, following leads, uncovering new evidence and piecing the case together on an unpredictable path to the truth.

GAME FEATURES:
A tense thriller
Experience a tense and emotional story in an all-new detective thriller from White Paper Games, the creators of The Occupation and Ether One.

Observe
Explore Dahlia View, solve puzzles and investigate residents to discover new evidence, profile suspects and piece together your investigation.

Solve Puzzles
Lead the investigation into a missing person as Robert Conway, a retired detective living in Dahlia View.

Investigate
Observe the actions of Dahlia View’s residents to uncover clues, study suspicious behaviour and gain new leads.

Anyone else playing this? I just started it and so far I’m enjoying myself. Good presentation and voice acting. There’s some decent suspense during investigations where it feels like you may be caught, despite the fact that you aren’t timed. Which made it a bait & switch when there’s a legit time pressure suddenly introduced during the first real investigation. Puzzles are a mix of inventory interactions and clue combining. So far it’s not exceptionally challenging but it’s enough to keep me interested.

Too early to really say how the mystery shakes out but I’m entertained so far.

I saw “Conway” and thought this was a sequel to Kentucky Route Zero. Disappointing.

PlanetX - 13 November 2021 03:05 PM

Anyone else playing this? I just started it and so far I’m enjoying myself. Good presentation and voice acting. There’s some decent suspense during investigations where it feels like you may be caught, despite the fact that you aren’t timed. Which made it a bait & switch when there’s a legit time pressure suddenly introduced during the first real investigation. Puzzles are a mix of inventory interactions and clue combining. So far it’s not exceptionally challenging but it’s enough to keep me interested.

Too early to really say how the mystery shakes out but I’m entertained so far.

For some reasons the demo didn’t want to run on my machine at all, so I decided to wait for a full release and see. So many people reporting bugs though, including gamebreakig, that I’m now just kinda reading reviews, letting the developers fix whatever they need. Did you encounter any?

Also, a few people mentioned that it is very reminiscent of “Flower Collectors”, and I found that game to not be my cup of tea. If you played it - would you say “Conway” is similar?

DCast - 13 November 2021 05:24 PM

For some reasons the demo didn’t want to run on my machine at all, so I decided to wait for a full release and see. So many people reporting bugs though, including gamebreakig, that I’m now just kinda reading reviews, letting the developers fix whatever they need. Did you encounter any?

Also, a few people mentioned that it is very reminiscent of “Flower Collectors”, and I found that game to not be my cup of tea. If you played it - would you say “Conway” is similar?

I’ve seen the reviews mentioning bugs, hope I don’t run into anything bad. The only bug I’ve encountered is my P&C cursor disappeared once when I was tabbing in and out of the game to save screenshots. But it came back after going to the main menu then resuming the game. Played it for about an hour and thirty minutes at this point.

I also noted that the concept is similar to The Flower Collectors. Didn’t get around to playing that game because it’s from the Lion’s Song dev, Mipumi Games, and it looked like a puzzle light/puzzle-less kind of game—which I just wasn’t in the mood for at the time.

So yeah, I haven’t played Flower Collectors but from what I can tell Conway seems like less of a casual game in comparison.

Also, in Conway you do go to different locations and investigate in addition to observing from the apartment window. Was that the case in FC?

From what I remember - I didn’t leave the apartment,no. There’s another character who will do things on the ground, but MC will still watch from the window. Flower Collectors is more like a stylish visual novel, very light on gameplay. Also, as a player - I wasn’t doing much investigation either, mostly just watched main heroes vocalizing their thoughts.
Oh, and I think there wasn’t any wrong moves I could have made, they would just say that “something isn’t right” and to “try again”, hence I didn’t really feel I had any kind of agency. Just put stuff together the way game wanted me to and called it a day.

Sounds like Conway can have a bit more “action” (in an adventure sense of that word). Keep posting your thoughts, please! Game certainly looks really cool.

Much further into the game now. I probably played an additional 4 hours or so. I’ve switched from my gamepad to mouse & keyboard controls, and I do prefer them. Both are usable enough, but the cursor for investigating close-up objects tends to overshoot with a controller. Even after adjusting sensitivity.

I’m liking the game more as it progresses. The “investigations from a window” thing is actually a relatively small part of the game. Conway breaks and enters like nobodies business. Which might be less original on a conceptual level but the game is better for it. As you’re perusing through your neighbor’s property you, of course, find out all of their secrets. There’s always a good mix of red herrings & evidence that’s potentially relevant to the disappearance of Charlotte May. In general I think the games done a good job of not making the mystery too obvious, although I have my suspicions.

I also like the tension between Conway and his daughter, Catherine, who works with the police. I wish it was explored a bit more, though. There’s some pretty well executed and emotional scenes between the two of them, but they haven’t amounted to much in terms of real consequences or stakes for Conway.

On the gameplay front, the puzzles ramp up a bit with each new investigation. I’d say they’ve landed on the lighter side of moderate difficulty. It’s not a brain-dead game, you do have to think to progress, but it wont stump any adventure fan who cut their teeth on 80s & 90s classics. I’ve been enjoying them. The game has settled into a nice rhythm of Observation > Investigation > Deduction that feels like actual detective work.

I think I’m approaching the last investigation of the game, so hopefully they can wrap up this mystery well. As it stands now I’d definitely recommend it. One of the better adventure games to come out this year.

Thank you so much for your review, PlanetX! Looks like I’ll be getting this one. I love investigative games when you feel like a part of the action, instead of just being an observer where the game does all the work for you. Looking forward to your final thoughts, f you have any. Sometimes the ending might be that factor that ends up making or breaking a game, so I hope Conway did a good job with it.