South of the Circle

South of the Circle, which stands out with its interesting art design and the effect of the decisions we make on the game focuses on both the academic and love life of Peter who is a Cambridge academist stranded in Antarctica, during the Cold War. In this review, we participate Peter’s choices between the past and the future with a unique story.

• It is up to us to go back and change our future.
• Besides Turkish subtitles and interface support, magnifical music is waiting for us.
• South of The Circle confronts us with interesting but spectecular art design.

South of the Circle, which was previously released on the IOS platform and changed the course of the events on the game with our choices, will be released on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch and PC platforms on August 3 with Turkish subtitles and interface support. Are our choices is really effective in the game, developed by State of Play who formative of BAFTA-winning Lumino City, BAFTA-candidate KAMI2 and Apple Design Award-winning INKS production , and published by 11 Bit Studios who developer of Frostpunk.

Cambridge during the Cold War

South of The Circle tells us the story of Peter, a Cambridge academist whose plane crashed into Cold War Antarctica. While playing Peter’s struggle for survival in Antarctica, we occasionally return to the past with excellent scene transitions and share both her academic and love life in England.

Although it is among the factors that carry South of The Circle to the top like art design of the game, telling the story in a binding way with short dialogues and the attractiveness of the story, many shortcomings in the story of the game stand out.

First of all, our choices, which are the most prominent part of the game means almost nothing. Other than changing a few dialogues, our choices in the game have no immediate or future effect.

Non-existent gameplay!

Unfortunately, i can’t comment positively about the gameplay of South of The Circle. Because we interact very little except of the selection screen in the game. Mostly we only run our character or we can examine a small number of items. Throughout the game, we feel as if we are watching a movie and having small interactions in between. This makes the game pretty boring. Luckily, the game’s interesting, engaging story and art design make it playable.

When it comes to choices of the game i encounter a nightmare…  A tiny boxes for doing choices has been undermined the artistic influence… We are doing our selection clicking to tiny symbols. These symbols are indicate reactions like panic, keen, helpful, etc. Until you get used to these symbols, you have to go to the menu of the game and look up the meaning of these symbols. This slows the pace of the game too much.

You can see the symbols and help menu I mentioned in the image below.

Short-winded adventure

South of The Circle is lasting only 3 hours and this is a bad situation for a story-focused game. The game ends when you are about to bond with the characters. No matter how well the story progressed, I was not satisfied with such a short story. If the story had been a little longer, it could have been both a more memorable and a more striking ending…

Give the devil her due!

Although South of the Circle is a game that can be criticized in many points, it should not go without mentioning the music used. Scenes that may not make sense in the game are emphasized perfectly together with the music. A scene that you may not be interested in or that you don’t care much about can have very different effects with its music choices.

Review

Although South of the Circle stands out with its art design, story and great music, the game has many shortcomings. The fact that our choices mean nothing, that there are almost no gameplay factors in the game, and that it is very short, discredits South of the Circle. Nevertheless, if you have low expectations for choices and gameplay, I highly recommend this short adventure because of its story, music, and art design.

Author: Ege Muslu
Translator: Pelin Özkan

Finally, we would like to thank 11 Bit Studios, as the Oyun Gunlugu, for providing us with the early access code of the game.

https://youtu.be/Qk5VoKBZ5xw