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Game
Game2020
BEAUTIFUL DESOLATION
Developer THE BROTHERHOOD
Beautiful Desolation is a point-and-click adventure game by The Brotherhood. It uses an isometric perspective and is set in a post-apocalyptic version of South Africa. When alien technology teleports two brothers into the future, they must find a way back home. From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
204 reactions from 3 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Mastodon) · newest Oct 14, 2026 · last updated Oct 16, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
75
LovedLoved
141 positive · 46 negative
95% range 69–81%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 141 | 46 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 2 | 0 | 8 |
| Mastodon * | 3 | 0 | 4 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
Steam's own rating
Very Positive
314 of 386 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What people are saying
Mixed reactions: praised for art and story, but criticized for obtuse puzzles and tedious backtracking.
Players widely praise the game's beautiful art, original story, and voice acting, with some calling it a unique and entertaining experience. However, many criticize the puzzle design and progression, noting that it often requires pixel hunting and backtracking, making a guide nearly essential. [1][2][5][10][22][30]
Some players find the game's lack of hand-holding refreshing, while others feel it leads to frustration and reliance on walkthroughs. A few also report game-breaking bugs, though developer support is noted as responsive. [3][7][27][31]
Praised art and visual design · story and world-building · voice acting
Criticised puzzle design and progression · backtracking and fetch quests · need for walkthrough
Summary drafted by an AI model from the 36 reactions it cites ([n] links open each post), then checked by code: every paragraph cites real posts and every quote is verbatim. Written Oct 9, 2026. Method
RottenBot@rottenbot · automated account
BEAUTIFUL DESOLATION sits at 75% positive across 187 opinionated reactions from 3 sources. Fresh or rotten — where do you land?
Critics, per Wikipedia
On Metacritic, the PC version received positive reviews; the Switch and PlayStation 4 versions received mixed reviews. Adventure Gamers said it "succeeds admirably on most fronts". They said that progressing through the story can be "both engaging and frustrating" because of the quest and puzzle design, which occasionally require pixel hunting and backtracking. However, they felt the game "really showcases the creativity and impressive production values that The Brotherhood is capable of". Nintendo Life and NintendoWorldReport criticized the Switch port, which they said had frequent and long load times and poor controls. Though calling it an "ambitious and lovely-looking game", Nintendo…
From the “Reception” section of Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Critic context only — not part of the audience score.
Reactions
60 of 204 · most liked firstFrustrated and annoyed. Full disclosure: I backed this game on Kickstarter. Beautiful 2D story-rich isometric Fallout-esque game? Yes, sign me up, definitely! Project started in the beginning of 2017, and I was prepared to wait, and wait, and wait. ONCE AGAIN, I should have read the description more carefully… For ♥♥♥♥’s sake! You cannot make a good game with good graphics alone. You cannot make a good game with a metric butt-ton of padded pointless dialogue (looking at you, Tides of…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The good:- - Visuals are great. Has a nostalgic 90's game vibe to it, with modern comforts and improvements. - Sci-fi world and lore is pretty interesting - The South African setting and history/culture added quite of lot of interesting aspects to the story and art style. The bad:- - Lists that it's an RPG, but it's not really an RPG - Has a lot of the worst aspects of point and click adventure games, with the added punishment of making you travel long distances, through many loading…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →So first things, this game is beautiful, stable has a nice interface and intriguing story. The problem is the puzzle/progression design is kind of broken. The company that made this game is a veteran developer and this isn't their first title but it's nearly unplayable without a walkthrough. Sometimes, progression requires talking to a character, leaving the area, and speaking with the same character again. WHY? There is a starting quest where a maiden tells you she will plant a flower only…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I won't do a proper review since I have not finished the game and I don't think I will. Why? Let me be fair here, I love classic point and click games, I always look for them and I always support indie devs who start their careers making them. Beautiful Desolation is without a doubt a work of art. The dude or people that worked for this game and Stasis have a huge talent in art design, but that is it. I have 7 hours and I'm probably half-way in but I absolutely cannot push through this boring…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is a lawnmower - you'll scrape every pixel of the screen in search of something to click on. Maps quickly become vast and empty, with no clear direction or context clues - or if they're there, they're easily missed. Character and environment design is gorgeous but can't make up for hard-for-the-heck-of-it gameplay. It's a clear evolution from STASIS: willfully obtuse, now with larger levels!
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →YUP! (while the team was kind enough to put me in the credits for feedback on an early build of the game, I am not speaking for them in any way, this is just my personal belief) if you want more games like it, you should check out SANITARIUM, STASIS: BONE TOTEM, and BEAUTIFUL DESOLATION
positive · AI labelView post →This is quite an odd game in a sense. It has so much going for it and yet it makes some really poor decisions and has some key weaknesses that stop it from becoming a classic. Such a shame. Here's an overview: THE GOOD - it has gorgeously designed locations with ridiculous amounts of detail - the story is very original and well thought out - the interface is clean and works well - it's very polished and feels very solid - the voice acting is pretty great with South African accents all over…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Beautiful Desolation is an isometric point&click adventure with a fascinating story, great world-building, mediocre puzzles, and a lot of aimless running around. You play as a journalist in an alternate world where, in 1976, a strange object appeared in the sky and changed human civilization. During an attempt to investigate this object, you, your brother, and an intelligent robotic dog get flung into the far future, where the object still exists, but humanity has been reduced to small pockets…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →6/10 Decent. The dev team (Brotherhood) are very talented at two things; Writing superb storylines and creating atmospheric designs that tie into world building and characterisation. Beautiful Desolation is a decent game, the concept of a 1980's alien object appearing and catapulting your character into a dystopian future where man and machine merge in various awful ways, is quite interesting. The dialogue and characters are top notch, really showcasing the body/mind-horror on display. And…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It has been 3 years since the game was released. I have found a game-breaking bug. Checked forums, internet - my bug was unique, never happened before. I stated to myself, "f*ck". Then I decided that maybe I will write it on the discussions forum, just so people don't replicate my bug and get themselves f*cked like I did. Got a response on the thread on the same day from Developer Nic asking me to send them the game save. On a Sunday afternoon, I got a reply to my email within 3h... with a…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It is a science-fiction adventure with a very original story and creatures, all voice-acted and decent graphics. There is a slight touch of humour without breaking the immersion. Note though that it is pretty much a point-and-click adventure: so you find items, try to combine them, etc. But there are dialogue choices, some of which are important decisions. The dialogue style and UI reminded me of Fallout 1-2. Do not expect combat nor any skill progression. While most tasks or missions are…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →What a waste of beautiful art, sound, and characters. Too bad the sum of the parts doesn't make for a fun GAME. Beautiful Desolation had me hooked in for the first five hours, until I finally broke down and had to consult a guide for a hint. After that, the story was basically ruined for me, and it made apparent how player unfriendly this game really is. I've never had to do this much backtracking in a game before. You literally have to fly to one part of a universe, talk with someone, fly to…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A rather mixed bag here. Pros: - pretty cool setting. - faction conflicts are interesting and require you to make some morally grey choices (though, in hindsight, one is generally the most sensible). - companions have good voice acting and interesting conversations. - maps and artwork are generally very good. - main menu looks great and unique. - cutscenes look pretty good. Cons: - some of the voice acting is very obviously autogenerated and sounds horrible. - the plot is very confusing to…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Great artwork. I enjoyed collecting the hand-made drawings from each location. There is a lot of content in this point-and-click adventure game, though I referenced a walkthough guide many times to advance through the story. Discovered the secret of the pemrose on an ubuntu linux desktop computer.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Way too convoluted of a fetch quest. Going back and forth to various areas became rather tedious. I ended up using a quick walkthrough guide to get to the ending as fast as possible. I almost refunded the game but decided to slog through it. The various endings are unsatisfying (After my run, I watched a video for the other endings). To me, it is just not worth the time and energy to get the alternate endings. While the characters are some what interesting, they are really never that fleshed…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I really liked the writing and the animation. The atmosphere and production are really a cut above what you would expect from an indie game with a small team. The problem is that the game itself isn't very good. The story only seems to have one way to do everything and nothing is intuitive or even makes sense as a puzzle. The devs had to make their own solution guide on steam for anyone to get anywhere in it. I found it almost unplayable without the guide and then why am I even playing…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is beautiful to look at and the designs are incredibly creative, but the plot like something from Garage Bad Dream Adventure and not at all what I was expecting. I guess because it's "the Future" nothing has to make sense. It's like a pulp science fiction book you read where the plot is stupid and you know it's stupid but you keep reading anyway because the writing is decent and there's the occasional interesting idea.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Heya folks, here's a set of screenshots featuring an indie game called Beautiful Desolation by The Brotherhood. Since I can't get STASIS: Bone Totem to work yet, I decided to play the dev's previous game instead. #beautifuldesolation #videogames #indiegames #adventuregames #screenshots
neutral · AI labelView post →Pros: The game's atmosphere is unique and beautiful. The Characters are individuals that espouse their ideologies to the letter. The different clans/tribes/groups are all unique. I love the way this game looks, and I love the lore. Cons: Not an open world game, you can travel around a lot, but to no avail. Most quests are fetch quests, and this ruins a lot potential. You cannot unlock certain dialogue points or areas or character context without completing said fetch quests. Final thoughts:…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I grant this is much better than its predecessor, Stasis, which had too many illogical things required (see my review for that). But it suffers from the frustrating tedium of requiring way too many steps to accomplish anything with very little to go on to know what to do. You must do every step in order. So, a walkthrough is required. I don't play games for tedious frustration. And using a walkthrough for every next step becomes just following instructions. The South African touch of language…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →BEAUTIFUL DESOLATION is indeed beautiful but the desolation part was a bit too much. I loved "Stasis" and "Bone Totem" by The Brotherhood developers. Beautiful Desolation was developed in between those games and that can be felt. "Bone Totem" is perfect, they learned on the mistakes of Stasis and B.Desolation. But B.Desolation is a point & click game only in the mechanical sense. It is a blend of RPG and adventure game. Character development leads to different endings. Your choices matter and…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I tried to play this game to completion but I found myself at a point where I was running around in circles trying to determine how to progress the game. Online walkthroughs did little to help me ascertain my next point of interest, thus I lost interest in the game and found myself deciding to stop playing it. I think in some ways this is a very interesting game. It has the feel of a role playing game but without the game. I wonder what it would have been like with a full fledged battle…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It seems to me like most of these reviewers don't grasp the concept of a point & click adventure game. This is an absolutely excellent game. It's so good with multiple branching story lines that i played through it a second time. I work full time and have kids, i never replay games these days.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Well, I can just hear some of the reviewers say, “I told you so”. I have always been reluctant to buy BEAUTIFUL DESOLATION. I have watched a lot of gameplay footage and read the reviews. But still I was drawn to this game because of the graphics. Maybe it’s nothing earth shattering but still, in my opinion, the graphics looks good, and one can get a “feel” for the postapocalyptic world. But … I find the story strange. Sure, I get it … it’s clear that the player gets dumped at some strange…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Nice visuals and isometric 3rd person hint at open world party-based RPG, but that this is not. This is a mostly linear point & click puzzle game. While the story seems interesting, it simply hasn't been compelling enough to keep me wading through what I see as tenuous threads of logic in the puzzles. Perhaps I'm not a fan of the genre, but I do remember enjoying the old Sierra point & click adventures of the 90s. The game play and story telling here don't really stand up by comparison…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I couldn't finish this game! Not because it was iinherently a bad game, there was just... something that didn't click with me. There are some cool characters and the game world itself is interesting to explore. The story is ok and the voice acting is a bit meh but nothing terrible. I just feel like there was nothing here that kept me interested in the game. Probably a personal thing as I see a lot of other people enjoyed it. Can't like them all I guess!
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is not an rpg game its more like a point and click puzzle adventure game
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I am a massive fan of THE BROTHERHOOD games but this one is a bit of a disappointment. The world is fascinating, the main plot it's okay, POOCH is my absolute favourite, but this game it's just one big massive go-and-fetch quest, which makes it very boring and tiresome at some point. There is one really cool riddle and the rest is just: go to this character, ask what they want and go to another character to bring this to them. Add to this the fact that you need to spend some time travelling…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I really wanted to like this game. In fact, I've purchased the game twice now. I just didn't like it enough to recommend it. I'm never going to finish the game. I wanted to, but I get burnt out on playing after less than 30 minutes. It has positives, such as the good voice acting, world building, and the art style is okay if you like sci-fi, but the gameplay is far too tedious.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Delightfully different. The setting, art, voice acting, soundscape, it's all brilliant. I love the "modern" take on classic gameplay of isometric RPG and P&C adventure game. The story was very enjoyable as well, with moments of triumph balanced by moments of poignancy, interspersed with some great humor. A total recommend from me! Small caveats: I have to admit that I basically played with a walkthrough open, but it was only occasionally necessary and even then likely only because I am an…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Welp, let me start by saying this game hits D I F F E R E N T. From the unique voice acting to the sheer atmosphere presented by the game's setting, this sh*t was one of the most enjoyable stories I've ever played in a game. And to be honest, it wasn't even that deep of a story; every-single side-quest and character has their own history, personality, voice, and general feel about their presence. I played this game over the course of a year, and every time I came back to it I was immediately…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →6/10 + about 8 hours of gameplay + story + voice acting - not really puzzles - move speed is slow - no waypoint or what to do next help. your gonna want to use a guide if you dont want to waste 2 hours running back and fourth looking for 1 thing over the course of the game
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →In this isometric adventure (which to me feels like a walking simulator) you'll traverse post-apocalyptic Africa, encountering bizarre creatures, solving intricate puzzles, and making decisions that shape the fate of the world. It's like a scenic hike with a side of existential crisis - perfect for those who prefer their exploration with a hefty dose of narrative depth. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3286774544…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A game that left me with mixed feelings. I adore the art style, post apocalyptic sci-fi setting, story, various factions, captivating NPC's, voice acting and dialogues. However the gameplay is severely lacking and I had to drag myself to the end of the game. I'll describe to you an example of the gameplay loop. You'll be in a town, talk to an NPC for a brief moment, get a quest, call transport, go to overworld, move to teleporter, teleport to next zone, travel to location, pick up item, call…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's not a good game, and it's not an RPG. It's an okay "interactive book." There are dialog choices, but they don't change the outcome at all. There are no puzzles, the game is all fetch-questing. The only actual interactivity you have is in the aggregate, in the dialogue choices: whether you decide to be "evil" or "good" or sometimes mix it up a little. All this does is determine which of 4 endings you get, which are all very brief, entirely unsatisfying, and have no connection to anything…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Score: 7/10 I love post-apocalyptic anything. Just the curiosity of wondering what would happen when a man is on the brink of extinction is morbid yet fascinating. Beautiful Desolation takes the isometric point and click of yore and brings it to life with over 40 fully voiced and wonderfully designed characters and a time warping story. The game starts out with you, Mark Leslie, arguing with his wife about someone whose emotional mess you have to clean up. Suddenly a giant object slams into…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Made with love, that´s to be experienced. Great story, nice sightseeing of postapocalyptic scenery, entertaining point&click-like elements (inventory, items combining, using them in the game-world), relaxing gameplay, you won´t fight, you have no time limit whatsoever. About 15 hours of entertainment in one playthrough. Different decisions deliver different endings, some decission pretty tough, morally. Will challenge your conscience. Main characters are likeable. NPCs in the world are pretty…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →TLDR - 5/10 This is a hard one to do, i'd likely give it a neutral rating if I could as its a hard game to quantify in many ways, on one hand you have an amazingly well realised world, that immediately pulls you in, with some fantastic world building, interesting characters and a uniquely portrayed post-apocalyptic world. The writing side I give them absolute full marks on. Same with the companions and characters met, they were always interesting to deal with and talk to and left me wanting…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is a just a bad game. REALLY bad. Stasis ultimately also was a bad game, but I thought it showed enough promise that I was optimistic that The Brotherhood would learn from their mistakes and next time more successfully implement some interest seeming ideas into much better designed gameplay. Nope! Beautiful Desolation is worse, much worse. Everything problematic in Stasis is here again but magnified enormously, and major additional problems are added. Trying to list everything wrong…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I absolutely loved this game. Yet another highly imaginative game from The Brotherhood, we have a far future, post-apocalyptic South Africa. There is a deep integration of local South African cultural ideas and aesthetics, which give this game a unique flavor that I haven't seen captured anywhere else. Additionally, the characters, societies, technology and more that accompany the setting are all brilliantly creative themselves. The party members you get are all likeable and have their own…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →If Fallout 2 and Monkey Island had a weird love child only a mother could love, this game would be it. It's an isometric, click-and-point adventure game with some RPG elements that looks like similar to games like Fallout 2, set in South Africa. The story takes you through some sort of weird apocalypse, and it's up to you to try to find your way back. There are multiple endings, though I only explored one of them. There is no combat, except for one small part, but that doesn't stop the game…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Fantastic! One of, if not THE most unique and entertaining games I've played in a few years. Gorgeous end to end, excellent audio design, wonderful companions, and a new spin on traditional adventure mechanics. The closest game I could say it's related to is Planescape: Torment, and that is also intended as an extreme compliment. I'm not sure what the complaints are about the game loop, it's very traditional for adventure games to have you searching for items and trying combinations of…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →As someone who's a huge fan of point-and-click games, I was really interested to play this title. The devs usually only make horror games, so a quirky sci-fi post-apocalyptic game set in South Africa sounded neat. Unfortunately this game is a complete slog. 90% of the game is just fly here, do something, leave, fly to different place, do something else. Every location is mostly empty and there is absolutely no challenge to anything whatsoever. While it's interesting to see cultures and…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is a decent adventure "game". The art is beautiful, the dialogue is good, the voice acting and music are great, the puzzles are ok. The first two hours of the games were super fun, the scifi is top-notch and it really makes you think about how the world would be like in the far, far distant future but then, it started to happen. The multiple fetch quests are not ok. If the quests would take you to new places or old places that have now chanegd, it wouldnt be that bad but the game makes…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Sadly, can't recommend the game. It's drawn nicely and the story is interesting enough, but characters are so boring, voice acting is lame, the gameplay is clunky and seems unfinished.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It had a melancholy yet entertaining feel. The writing and voice acting was excellent and the multiple story lines make this game 100% replayable.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →All in all I really enjoyed this game. story was fun, only problem is boy is it vague on what you are supposed to do. completing a quest was a lot of randomness actually and retracing your steps. which was fine in the being as you only had to retrace so much but a bit of a headache near the end. Still really enjoyed the story thou
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This amazing game is a must play! Story is deep rich and worth exploring to its full potential. You wont get bored, with this beautiful story game!! One of my all time favorite point clicker games. I also would like to point out how unique the art design is on the world and each individual characters.. Great detailed has been added to the different choices you have to make and outcomes that are detrimental to the story as a whole.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A truly unique game that gives Disco Elysium and/or Planescape:Torment vides at times. Admittedly, I used a guide and because the game world is so large, I assume it would be very frustrating without a guide. Despite using a guide, I was intrigued the entire time due to the unique setting and characters you encounter along the way. This game certainly has a unique vibe.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I'm giving this a 👍recommendation because I did genuinely enjoy it, but it was be a lie to say there aren't inherent flaws in it. Some of these can readily be seen in other reviews, both positive and negative. First and foremost, however, the game is astoundingly beautiful. The visual direction is just wonderful on the character designs, the look of the regions, and gorgeously rendered cutscenes. It also has a fantastic soundtrack by the magnificant Mick Gordan. I also want to give praise to…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Entertaining adventure game with a great setting. I loved the setting, characters, voice actors, and graphics/art. How you find items in the world is terrible and worse than the classic 'pixel hunt' because it seemed the proximity you needed to be to make an item 'appear' wasn't consistent. This led to me missing 2 necessary items even though I searched the screens they were on. Luckily the devs have a guide posted on Steam. That flaw aside, the game was still cool enough that I recommend it to…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →4.5/10 The entire game is a giant fetch quest simulator, go here go there take this item and open that conversation, the game world/stage is big but filled with empty spaces with almost no meaningful exploration, voice acting is pretty avg and your companions do nothing 99.9% of the time, they just follow you around and occasionally give you some dialogues. Only plus for me is the artistic concept of the world and the attempt for replayable narrative story lines tied with moral system. I think…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →What a... Beautiful game. Art and story are wonderful, it was really easy to pick up and put down and I enjoyed the lack of hand holding. It really brought me back to the days of exploring and figuring things out. Plays perfect on the Deck, only wish it updated my offline playtime. About 20 hours to complete.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Played it through in one sitting. Its weird and interesting. I played through Stasis as well before, and like this much more.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game deserves more attention. It's quite an experience. Even though it's mostly bringing items to various characters and locations, said characters and locations, their aesthetics, together with the soundtrack and the world building, make the experience worth it. I didn't feel these "fetch quests" as something tedious, I could only look forward to the next line of dialogue and the next scenery to contemplate. The duration of the game is just right, without overstaying its welcome. It's a…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Gameplay: 6/10 Graphics & Sound: 9/10 Narration: 7/10 ✔️ Wonderful visual design - both environments and characters are original, interesting, and beautifully executed. ✔️ The voice acting is nice and gives quite a bit of life to the world. ✔️ The choices offered to the player are actually intriguing to explore. ✔️ Pretty fun optional tactical combat minigame. ✔️ Some investigations require you to wander around quite a bit but I never actually felt the need to check a walkthrough to solve a…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Cons: * Dull. * No progression. * Repetitive. * Easy to get lost (because every bit of the terrain loos the same, whether you can go there or not you just have to randomly click the screen until you find you can go there). Pros: * They gave me a refund.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Unique and creative world! You won't see something like this coming out of a big studio.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Beautiful Desolation feels like a classic adventure everyone always recommended I play but which I never gave a chance until now. The game is set in a mix of science fiction and Africana, full of beautiful and unusual scenery. I really enjoyed discovering its world through the eyes of two everyman brothers and a talking robot dog who definitely does not sound like you'd guess she would. One weakness, though, is the two minigames the authors must have spent a tremendous amount of time adding…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Just no.... waited to long to check it out, cant refund. bad voice acting slow movement clunky UI debris/icons/text all over, immersion breaking
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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