Booth: A Dystopian Adventure Review

Booth is an indie game title about a dystopian future in the year of 2036. Booth got released in July 22th, 2020 and received positive reviews from the community for having similar atmosphere as the beloved title known as Papers, Please. Booth does an excellent job when it comes to nailing the story and atmosphere. If you’re looking for an interactive visual novel, then this might be a solid candidate for you!  

As soon as you start up Booth, you will be greeted to a relaxing main menu with chill beats. You will then have to select a difficulty between, Divine, Blessed and Braving. One of the difficulty settings will allow you to skip the gameplay and just enjoy the visual novel aspect of Booth. Progress will be saved automatically at the end of each day within the game, so there is no need to worry about saving your file. In Booth, you will be in the shoes of Ned Crawford. For the next six months, you will be working and living in your booth as a food inspector. It is your job to check the quality of the food and decide whether or not they reach the standards. You will be told by the Supervisor what the standard is by looking at the display in front of you as you work. Pay attention to the weight and then the color of the content inside of each container. 

Your performance will affect your rank and paycheck that you will receive at the end of the day. With the paycheck, you will also be able to see how well you did on that day as well as the amount of extra money you will receive. With the money, you will be able to buy food that will refill your healthbar a certain percentage depending on the food you buy. You will be able to choose what food to purchase by selecting from the menu! I think the food menu is a nice touch to the game since it adds more immersion. That aside, I really enjoy the point and click perspective of the game.

It is nice to explore such a well-crafted surrounding due to the dark color palette which brings a more serious atmosphere to the game. By interacting with the things in your room, you will be able to read Ned’s thoughts and this will give you an idea on what is going on in his head. Another thing that I really enjoy about Booth is the characters you will be able to encounter throughout the game. They’re really interesting and quite unique in their own way! Once per day before the working hours, you will be able to order food from one of the few restaurants within the game! You will have to order food in order to stay in a healthy condition. You will be able to order food by navigating around your room and interacting with the phone on the wall. Tap the numbers corresponding to your desired restaurant and choose what you would like to enjoy. If you have a hard time choosing, then why not order more than one dish and then store the rest in the refrigerator in your room? 

So, what really makes Booth a worthwhile experience? As mentioned earlier, the story is absolutely brilliant! The developers have done an excellent job wrapping the gameplay element together with the visual novel aspect of the game! You will pretty much have an idea about how Ned feels about most of the situations he finds himself in and that makes you feel really bad for him since you pretty much know what is on the line.

If you are new to the point and click genre then I would really suggest picking up Booth since it really does a great job keeping the player engaged even in the interesting dialogues!

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary PC code was provided to Bonus Stage for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to press@4gn.co.uk.