Kathy Rain: Director's Cut
Kathy Rain: Director's Cut
Game
Game2019
Whispers of a Machine
Developer Clifftop Games, Faravid Interactive
Whispers of a Machine is a point-and-click adventure video game developed by Clifftop Games and Faravid Interactive, and published by Raw Fury in April 2019. From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
238 reactions from 4 sources (Steam reviews, Mastodon, Bluesky, Lemmy) · newest Nov 4, 2026 · last updated Nov 5, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
89
LovedLoved
168 positive · 21 negative
95% range 84–93%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 168 | 21 | 0 |
| Mastodon * | 0 | 0 | 28 |
| Bluesky * | 9 | 1 | 9 |
| Lemmy * | 1 | 0 | 1 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
Steam's own rating
Very Positive
1,386 of 1,487 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What players are saying
89% recommend · 165 yes, 21 no
Counted from the reviewers’ own thumbs up/down on the 186 English Steam reviews we collected, not by the AI. Valve’s all-language rating: Very Positive (1,884 of 2,024 positive).
Players praise the game's compelling narrative and logical puzzles that flow naturally. [1][2][3] Many reviewers note the game is short, with some finding it unsatisfying or anticlimactic. [4][5][6] Some players criticize the single-save system and limited replay value. [7][8][9]
Liked
Representative posts
- [8]
In a game where choices matter, the developer decided to have one single save game. The dev's reason? They have a particular dislike for a gameplay style: to prevent savescumming. You don't savescum, but after finishing the game wanted a way to play other choices? Too bad: there's not a way to do that in game without either playing the entire game over again or creating a vast save archive system manually. If that …
- [2]
It's a superb point-and-click adventure title. It's lamentably rare in games like these to find a game that's crafted so that you can just naturally follow where clues and evidence lead you and solve puzzles organically, instead of trying to work out the abstruse and often-cutesy reasoning of the dev. The highest praise I can offer Whispers is that I almost never had to resort to pixel-hunting and random …
- [11]
Detective point&click game, set in rather unique vision of post-apocalyptic world. ✅ Great story with some surprising twists. Unique post-apo scenario combined with great worldbuilding. Game provides enough information to easily get the background of events and find out what happened. Game adapts to how you play it. 3 different paths of development that can be mixed in-between. Great art-style. Modernized retro, …
- [5]
It’s one of those adventure point-and-click whodunits. Since I’m addicted to this genre, my review might be biased. I love these games and rarely have to say anything bad about them. As always, it’s a good couple of hours of fun and not too difficult either. My only negative with this one was that it was kind of obvious who the perpetrator was. Also, why are these games so short? Please feed my inner detective and …
- [1]
I usually steer away from Sci-fi games, the reason why I haven't played this gem until this year, and my god, I have missed a lot. You play as Vera, a special agent who uses a new kind of cyber technology that was implanted into her. She can scan evidence, run analyses, and cross-match across cases. She was called to investigate a murder in a rural city and discovered there was a serial murderer. With the help of …
Summarised from 34 of the 236 public posts collected about this game; every point cites the posts behind it ([n] opens the post) and the split is counted from the posts’ own ratings. Updated Oct 12, 2026. How summaries are made
RottenBot@rottenbot · automated account
89% of the 186 Steam reviewers we collected recommend Whispers of a Machine. The complaint that keeps coming up: game is too short for many players. Deal-breaker or nitpick?
Critics, per Wikipedia
Whispers of a Machine garnered generally positive reviews, and holds an average of 77/100 on aggregate web site Metacritic. John Walker of Rock Paper Shotgun gave an overall positive review: "I really enjoyed it, I really appreciated having a methodical, forthright adventure game to play, with excellent art and animations, good music, great acting, and a story worth hearing. I just wish I'd been more of a detective as I did it." The game was a nominee for Best Adventure and won the Reader's Choice award at the 2019 Aggie Awards.
From the “Reception” section of Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Critic context only — not part of the audience score.
Reactions
60 of 238 · most liked firstI usually steer away from Sci-fi games, the reason why I haven't played this gem until this year, and my god, I have missed a lot. You play as Vera, a special agent who uses a new kind of cyber technology that was implanted into her. She can scan evidence, run analyses, and cross-match across cases. She was called to investigate a murder in a rural city and discovered there was a serial murderer. With the help of her fellow agents and her journal, you start questioning the people. Vera, with…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →In a game where choices matter, the developer decided to have one single save game. The dev's reason? They have a particular dislike for a gameplay style: to prevent savescumming. You don't savescum, but after finishing the game wanted a way to play other choices? Too bad: there's not a way to do that in game without either playing the entire game over again or creating a vast save archive system manually. If that doesn't sound like your thing: pass this one up, even if you're a die…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →They do exist and in greater numbers and variety than ever before. Play Undertale, Baba is You, BeamNG.drive, FTL, Disco Elysium, Emily is Away, Islanders, NEO Scavenger, Rodina, Whispers of a Machine, Proteus, etc. Totally random examples, but I could name dozens more. We are spoiled with great games that are pure expressions of their developers' visions. There are more of them than anyone can realistically ever play.
neutral · AI labelView post →This is a well made point and click that has a compelling narrative and excellent puzzles, and overall I enjoyed my time with it. Having said that, there's still something a bit anti-climactic about the story that didn't quite work for me. The world it takes place in is kind of undeveloped (in more ways than one), as technology got out of control and AI caused some kind of cataclysm that left advanced computing being outlawed. As a consequence the setting is somewhat post-apocalyptic but…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Reviewing (mostly) every game (or DLC) in my library, part 247: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️☆☆☆ (6/10) Whispers of a Machine is a slow-burn cyber-noir mystery that tries to blend classic point-and-click gameplay with modern RPG mechanics like branching dialogue, multiple approaches to puzzles, and player-shaped personality stats. It's a thoughtful little game with a few clever tricks and a quiet, dystopian tone, but ultimately, it feels too sterile and undercooked to fully land. The ingredients are all…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A short point-&-click adventure with an original post-apocalyptic setting, that breaks the immersion everywhere you click and fills the rest with overused clichés. Whispers of a Machine has something going for it - the setting is a breath of fresh air, the artwork is decent, and it tries to explore some interesting questions regarding AI and identity. But that's about it. As a game, it fails in everything else. The dialogs are very robotic and self-serving, there isn't any personality coming…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game fell off steep. I really liked it at first. The aesthetic was cool and I loved the Norse words and runes. I loved the little investigation 'modifications' the character has. But..... it fell off really hard. What starts as a really cool question regarding the place and purpose of AI falls off into a story that is not well knit. After the initial hit of oh this seems cool, it falls off to be a very boring game. Not only boring, but there's some scenes that just make no sense…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I've really wanted to avoid giving a negative review, and even then I hope my explanation for why can give anyone reading this an idea of whether they'd be bothered by the same thing. I'll also mention that my play time is as long as it is because I started it a long time ago but got distracted by other things before finishing it, and have only recently given it another shot. I was on the fence for a chunk of my playthrough. I'm not the most experienced point-and-click player, so was…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Whispers of a Machine ,well-crafted detective story set in a quiet, futuristic world. You play as Vera, a special agent with cool tech powers, trying to solve strange murders in a future where AI is banned. The story makes you think about freedom, control, and what it means to be human. The puzzles fit the story well, and your choices matter. It’s a bit short game, but worth playing and the price.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's a superb point-and-click adventure title. It's lamentably rare in games like these to find a game that's crafted so that you can just naturally follow where clues and evidence lead you and solve puzzles organically, instead of trying to work out the abstruse and often-cutesy reasoning of the dev. The highest praise I can offer Whispers is that I almost never had to resort to pixel-hunting and random combine-this-with-that exercises, and on the rare occasions I did the frustration was…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Your character is a monster, the story is boring, graphics bad, gameplay clumsy, propaganda unbearable. Avoid.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Scandinavian post-cyberpunk is fascinating. A detective point and click game with RPG elements, an unusual setting and a femme fatale as protagonist.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →game is meh. It does not have a strong theme. The writing and voice acting is pretty bad and the puzzles are not clever. The game has some alterative solutions and different endings but it is just not interesting enough to play it again. There are better alternatives to spend roughly 7 hours on.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →If I could give a neutral feedback, I would - but the question is if I would recommend, and I don't think I would go out of my way to do so. I'm sure others will talk about the various aspects that make this game good, and there is good here - but I've now played it twice, a few years apart and in both instances been extremely frustrated at getting stuck. The problem is, with the augmentations it increases the number of permutations of things to try to unstuck yourself way too high, and…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Short and simple but brought me back to the days of Beneath a Steel Sky. Would like to see something similar with a bit more content, maybe even a seqelt with the same protagonist.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Do you like pointing and/or clicking? Allow me to recommend a couple of story heavy adventure games that fit the bill: Technobabylon (currently $4.50) store.steampowered.com/app/307580/T... and Whispers of a Machine (currently $3) store.steampowered.com/app/631570/W....
neutral · AI labelView post →This game was made for me. I love mysteries with cool worlds. And this world is really cool. I love the augmentations that allow you to play with AI. I think it is a really fun game
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Detective point&click game, set in rather unique vision of post-apocalyptic world. ✅ Great story with some surprising twists. Unique post-apo scenario combined with great worldbuilding. Game provides enough information to easily get the background of events and find out what happened. Game adapts to how you play it. 3 different paths of development that can be mixed in-between. Great art-style. Modernized retro, similar to the point&click games from early 90’s. Puzzles…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →So I read a common warning among steam reviews that this was a short game. I had Whispers of a Machine under my radar for a some time now, unfortunately I have to admit I was a bit hesitant to get it because of those reviews. The theme and its tone it was going for really intrigued me and because of that. I really wanted to sink into a long and gripping story. Well, I'm glad I got to play the game after all. I took my sweet ol' time to complete my first playthrough (with only checking a guide…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →After Kathy Rain, I had big hopes, especially because I love sci-fi, but the game did not deliver. The game felt empty, one could click on many thing but there were no fun responses or happenings. The story and setting had so much potential and then the game just ends abruptly. Deciding the ending was like a slap in the face , game ends, no consequences.. felt like a cliffhanger and they want me to buy the sequel in the future
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Enjoyable PnC adventure. Just a shame that it uses an autosave feature and basically locks you out of a choice and forces you to replay the entire game to see what happens. It also seems like the choices by itself don't really amount to a lot, just a few alternative ways to solve some puzzles. I can get that you want to avoid save-scumming, but honestly.... I really am not going to replay an entire game just to witness the alternative ending. Odd choice really.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It’s one of those adventure point-and-click whodunits. Since I’m addicted to this genre, my review might be biased. I love these games and rarely have to say anything bad about them. As always, it’s a good couple of hours of fun and not too difficult either. My only negative with this one was that it was kind of obvious who the perpetrator was. Also, why are these games so short? Please feed my inner detective and make them longer than a few hours.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I like detective games and had heard good things about Kathy Rain 2, so I played through both of those games and loved them. I decided to look into the developer and found this game, combining detective fiction with sci-fi, so I went in with high hopes. I really wanted to like this game and played it to completion, but it just never quite got there. Boring characters, a largely uninteresting plot, confusing pacing and direction, it just never presented anything worth recommending.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Interesting extension on point and click genre with cybernetic augmentation abilities: bioscan, muscle boost, evidence scans, and others as acquired depending on 3 different character development paths. Well-voiced characters and dialogue, but unfortunately some very long-winded unnecessary dialogue. Ultimately, the game falls flat due to uninteresting characters and terrible, obtuse, and cryptic puzzles that are largely incoherent and annoying guess work. Also automatically overwrites…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Liked the story and the atmosphere.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →i'd recommend this game to any fan of the genre. puzzles are balanced. they are not too obscure and not trivial either.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →interesting point&click / dare i say it scratched a bigger itch than kathy rain / blackwell
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I got this game as an add-on to the Kathy Rain game, but unexpectedly I liked it much more. The graphics are nice, the pixel portraits are very beautiful and distinctive, showing a whole range of characters with all their features. As for the characters, even if they don't have a lot of lines, which is explained by the fact that the game is short and there is not much content, everyone still has their own personality. For example, what is the doctor with his dark humor or Valter in the robot…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Interesting game and very good soundtrack.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Loved it. Very good story and pacing. I was upset when work/adulting cut into my gametime because I really didn't want to put it down. Applause. Now please make more.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Overall pretty good, the puzzles are solid and the story is engaging enough, just awfully short and ultimately kind of unsatisfying. The play style gimmick is ok but doesn't really change anything and isn't robust enough to warrant a second walkthrough, plus it all just really boils down to dialogue choices that don't affect the story at all. If you like pixel point and clicks you can do a lot worse, but I'd say wait for it to go on sale.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I loved the first Kathy Rain so I'm super excited for this! The other game from the same developer, Whispers of a Machine, was also quite good.
positive · AI labelView post →Whispers of a Machine is an atmospheric science-fiction detective adventure that takes the familiar foundations of classic point-and-click games and gives them a more flexible, character-driven structure. Developed by Clifftop Games and Faravid Interactive and published by Raw Fury, the game places investigation, dialogue, environmental observation, puzzle solving, and personal decisions at the center of the experience. Its combination of Nordic noir and speculative science fiction creates a…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Great story, puzzles were fairly straightforward. Would definitely recommend.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Overall, I enjoyed it. The story is good, not something extraordinary, but interesting enough to keep you engaged. The game is around six hours long, and most of the puzzles are not too complicated, which makes it pretty easy to play through without getting stuck too often. It could have been a bit longer. The choices didn’t feel very impactful. To be honest, I only felt like one of my choices actually influenced the game in a noticeable way. Still, it was a nice adventure. I’d say it’s worth…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Whispers of a Machine is a crime solving graphical adventure that takes you to a small town in the middle of nowhere. The protagonist is an special agent from "The Bureau" that is assigned to a murder case that will soon expand the plot from an isolated crime to a more complex story, involving more murders and secret societies. The gameplay is quiet interesting, adding the concept of augmentations that give special skills to the protagonists and it also adds replay value by using a…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I really liked the worldbuilding/setting, but if I'm being honest, a lot of the puzzle solving felt a little cryptic or specific. I like Point and Click detective games and I felt like I needed a guide for this one at points because I wasn't getting what they were trying to tell me.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Cool aesthetics, setting, and gameplay mechanics, but almost all underutilized. And it would be fine, if it wasn't for the story being REALLY underwhelming. Quite a few pretty cool elements just pop up seemingly outta nowhere and yet you're expected to care? From dead boyfriend ghost to respected peer going off of deep end to even the bizarre circumstaces of all murders - the pieces are so interesting, and yet heavily mishandled. I don't regret playing this, but I also had to force myself to…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Very cool game. It captures the feel of the old school Point n Click games. The music and artwork do very well to create an atmosphere reminiscent of the good ol' days of PC gaming. I enjoyed it very much. The puzzles were tougher than other games I've played, but not so tough that you end your game play in frustration (though I will say sometimes I had to go back and forth more times than I would've liked before the game caught up with what I'd already figured out). I liked the main…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Yeah! It's like the game is moving too quickly in some areas and too slowly in others. Makes me wonder if some scenes were cut 🤔 If you haven't already, try Whispers of a Machine, the developer's other game. Better plot and gameplay, in my humble opinion - hoping for a sequel! 🤞
positive · AI labelView post →Nice tightly written detective game with an interesting lead character, the nice ability to play in different ways (for both replayability and a more personalized experience). A couple quite tricky puzzles that make sense once you figure them out. Quite an enjoyable game that isn't that long at all (half my time is having it open in the background doing something else), but has some surprising choices and decisions and great writing and arc for the character in the path I chose. Highly…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The game does seem cool, but that haircut definitely does not. It's impossible to imagine that someone composed and professional would have THAT, even in cyberpunk. This is my official petition to stop with the "i-have-issues" haircuts.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →There's a ton to like and that I did like here. It presents itself as a more modern take on the genre with associated QoL features and design sensibilities, but it's all skin deep. Underneath it still does all the same old BS the golden age games did lol. The atmosphere is moody and cool, voice acting is largely solid and the script is good. It has a really strong start gameflow-wise, but then the "exploration" and "puzzles" start and that "old school point and click" stuff rears its ugly head…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This review is augmented, too!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I've played through Whispers of a Machine, a 2019 point & click adventure game by the studio that previously made Kathy Rain. It's good!
positive · AI labelView post →DAMN This Game Is Getting GOOD!! [Whispers Of A Machine - Part 2] www.youtube.com/watch?v=z11i... #Khazaboom #WhispersofaMachine #ClifftopGames #AdventureGame #AdventureGames #PointandClick
neutral · AI labelView post →not sure which platforms it's on but the latest investigation based adventure game I played was Whispers of A Machine and I liked it a lot :) the puzzles all make sense but they are also pretty challenging
positive · AI labelView post →A neat point and click game with some added cyberpunk features and a smattering of branching paths/alternative solutions. Not as good as Beneath a Steel Sky but worth a play if you like adventure games for sure.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is a short, linear, point-and-click game with a taste of a "choices matter" ending. The story is subpar, in my opinion, due to how short the game is but endings you get here depends on your personality - how you select dialogues when prompted. The problem with that is you have to figure out which responses correspond to which personality. Colored backgrounds would have been nice. I wished they expanded more on this. The endings are cliffhangers so there's room for a potential sequel, I…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is a smart adventure game with beautiful art direction and an effective mood. The game has an interesting mechanism for shaping the protagonist and thus the game's events and outcomes. The antagonists are morally ambiguous, and we are invited to share in that moral ambiguity. This raises the stakes of the game. Because the game is strong in many ways, its weaknesses do stand out. The main issue for me was that the writing sometimes made the protagonist seem unlike an investigator: I'd…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Let's Play Whispers Of A Machine - What's The Code?!? - Episode 6 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbEuqjTmeC8&ab_channel=YakWaxLips #YakWaxLips #WhispersofaMachine #ClifftopGames #AdventureGame #AdventureGames #PointandClick
neutral · AI labelView post →Let's Play Whispers Of A Machine - Who Are The Conduit? - Episode 5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-dH4nM7TD4&ab_channel=YakWaxLips #YakWaxLips #WhispersofaMachine #ClifftopGames #AdventureGame #AdventureGames #PointandClick
neutral · AI labelView post →Whispers of a Machine is a nice, mellow point-and-click detective game. I played through 3 times to try the different "personality" paths and had a good time. You get different augments depending on your personality which changes how you deal with some situations. There are some puzzles but it's mostly what thing to click or what item to use. It's usually not hard to figure out. ✅Easy controls (mostly mouse), no timers/time limits, 3 different ways to play, no bugs/issues. 😐Short-ish at 6…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Honestly, I would not recommend, unless in a heavy discount, like now at -80%. The story has its moments, even if in general quite predictable, the world is interesting enough, and the setting has its charm. The voice acting is good, no complaints there, the dialogue in general is okay, and the characters are nothing special, etc. In other words, everything is okay, but nothing really stands out positively. Mediocracy is in fact a quite good way to describe this game. It's not a bad game, but…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I like the atmosphere of this game and I'm actually having fun but the game keeps crashing all the time.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I finally finished and I will cautiously recommend this game. It is not an exciting game, it is a methodical game. It is more complex than something like Deponia or Leisure Suit Larry, because your protagonist gains weird super-powers throughout the game, and half the challenge is figuring out when to use which super-power. Like - do I need my super-strength to tear this lid off, or my x-ray vision (sort of) to see whats inside, or do I use my ESP to force the owner to open it? There is for all…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is one of the best point and click adventures I've ever played! The graphics, game play, voice acting and story are all excellent. I especially enjoyed the way your decisions form your personality and introduce matching mechanics along the way. I'll probably replay this again just to explore different choices and their related mechanics.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Pretty solid game! Good sci-fi mystery story, the different options/paths are interesting. My biggest complaint is some of the puzzle solutions aren't signposted quite as well as I'd like leading to me fumbling around and doing trial and error. Also I have a big specific complaint about one early puzzle that requires the use of the biometric analyzer when there should be at least two other ways to solve it. Final judgement is that it's a good game if you're a fan of the genre, but Clifftop…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Classical style, pixel art, point'n'click game. Spiced up with psychology building of character, that give you different skills, based on how you approach things. If you know, you know, no need to hint more. I liked.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I am a big fan of Cyberpunk, so I gave Whispers of a Machine a try. And I am happy to say that I wasn't disappointed. From what starts off as a murder investigation, it quickly blossoms into a story about conspiracy and illegal A.I. usage. Aside from the usual inventory management that you would expect from a traditional point-and-click adventure game, Vera comes equipped with a number of augmentations floating around in her system that are often used to help her in her investigation. The best…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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