Genre: Graphic Adventure
Release date: August 31, 2017
Platform: Windows

Last Day of June is a story-based adventure that begins with Carl and June – a married couple who set out on a drive to spend time together in their favorite spot. The game opens with an idyllic scene and then fast forwards to the aftermath of a tragedy.

In the present, Carl is alone and crippled and we learn that he has lost June. As he steps through his last day with her, he remembers the chain of events that were set in motion by seemingly random and often innocuous decisions. He then replays the day in search of a means to save the woman he loves.

Inspired by an original story and artwork by Hajo Müller and Steven Wilson’s Drive Home, Last Day of June is an emotional tale about the power of love. There are no voiceovers. Characters “speak” in an unintelligible gibberish that is reminiscent of The Minions. Without any spoken English or subtitles, they manage to communicate an entire spectrum of thoughts and feelings. The game comes together under the direction of Massimo Guarini and is brought to life with an original sound track by Steven Wilson.

Last Day of June is played from a 3rd-person perspective, and uses the mouse to scan/turn and the WASD keys to move. A handful of keys is used for specific actions and these are indicated on the screen, when needed. There is no clicking in this adventure.

You begin with Carl’s memories and then replay the last day by reliving it through the eyes of four main characters: The Boy, The Best Friend, The Hunter and The Old Man. As you relive the day, you can craft an alternative series of actions and decisions to try and avoid the tragedy.  Once you have revised the events of the day, you can end it and watch the outcome of your efforts. If it is not favorable, it is time to try, try (and try) again.

So, you say…this should be a cake walk! However, changing a day with multiple characters is more challenging than one might think. There are puzzles to solve and most require that you find an item or take a specific course of action. Except for a hunting sequence involving a dog and a blue bird, most are straightforward. Things get complicated when you realize that for each action, there is a consequence. Decisions by one character impact the actions available to another. Areas in the game cannot be accessed by some characters until they are opened by others. If an object is used by one character, it is not available for use by the others. Thus, there is a lot of flipping back and forth, restarting the day from different character views as you plan actions within the context of a global solution.

Your game is automatically saved at specific points. I soon found that it was in my best interest to only stop playing when I ended a day. Although I am not a fan of predetermined auto-save points, the Ovosonico development team did a really nice job of setting up a save system that (for the most part) protects the player from losing progress.

I admit that I was slow to get into the swing of Last Day of June. At first, it was not clear to me what I was supposed to do and the environment did not make sense. Floating bubbles (some blue and some white) turned out to be memories that could only be accessed by their owner. A blue bubble belongs to the character you are currently playing and can be collected by passing through it. White bubbles apply to other characters. Each memory is a photo of an event in the character’s history. While not fully relevant to the tasks at hand, they help build the backstory and you begin to understand how the character’s lives are intertwined and what brought everyone to the Last Day.

The game is beautifully made and the art and music create an emotional synergy that is very touching. It’s a story of love and sacrifice in its highest form that will warm the heart of anyone with a shred of empathy. Last Day of June took me about 5 hours to play. While the story held my interest, I began to grow a bit weary of flipping back and forth between characters, restarting the day over and over while moving about to manipulate the environment. Travel time was slightly reduced by my ability to use the space key to run from point-to-point. 

Playing through the day as The Boy, The Best Friend and The Hunter followed one paradigm. Just as I got comfortable, everything changed when The Old Man entered the picture. The game became confusing and variations in the landscape did not make a lot of sense to me. All the rules from the previous scenarios seemed to no longer apply and I wandered for quite awhile looking for options that were not available. Having had time to reflect, perhaps the changes towards the end of the game were visual metaphors for the process Carl was going through. To say any more about this would be unfair to those who choose to play this game.

To summarize, Last Day of June is a powerful adventure that is a delight to experience. Kudos to Ovosonico for combining a lovely story with art and music to create a game that is about humanity at its very best. For me, it provided a much needed respite from my Twitter feed of bad news in the “real world!”

+ Powerful love story that will touch your heart + Original soundtrack and artwork create an emotional experience without a single intelligible sentence   – A bit hard to figure out in the beginning, but worth hanging in there until things make sense – Those looking for action and mayhem may want to look elsewhere!

System Requirements