I tend to enjoy games that allow me to dispense justice as I deem appropriate. Considering I’ve mainly played a Paladin in World of Warcraft for years now and Paladins are all about administering justice and righteousness, that connection’s existence doesn’t come as a surprise to me. 2020’s Femida, developed by Art Interactive and published by Roman Loznevoy, puts players in the robe of a trial judge who was selected for his position by a labor lottery established after a revolution overthrew his home country’s former autocratic government. So, to what extent does Femida allow you to bring down the long arm of the law?

Before the beginning of each trial over which you preside within Femida, you’ll have the opportunity to order reports and evidence relevant to the case at hand via the telephone in your office. When you do this, Femida presents you with a usually lengthy checklist of evidence you have the ability to order. I found myself tempted at first to just leave every box on that list checked and sort through the paperwork later. However, I quite like the fact that Femida makes a point of encouraging you not to do that and to actually think carefully about what sorts of reports you’ll need.

Femida takes the step of explaining that because not every potential piece of evidence you could request is fully relevant to the case, this could lead you down a path of inappropriate questions you might ask witnesses, plaintiffs, and defendants. On top of that, you’ll need to be mindful of how it might look to people both in and outside of the justice system when you, a judge, order certain types of reports. For example, the optics probably won’t be great when you order someone’s medical records even though you know this breaks doctor-patient confidentiality laws. Whether you can justify requesting such documentation or not.

After you’ve issued your requests for all the evidence you consider appropriate, you’ll have the opportunity to review the documents you receive in your office before you head to the courtroom. Thankfully, you can also consult these documents in the middle of a trial if you need to, so you don’t have to memorize every single detail beforehand. However, you aren’t always guaranteed to receive every single piece of evidence you order. There are times when investigations and search warrants you call for won’t be carried out, for instance, so you’ll have to be prepared to proceed without any evidence those things might have uncovered.

Once you’ve taken your place at the judge’s bench, you’ll need to bang your gavel to formally begin the trial. The defense and the prosecution will typically make their respective opening statements, after which you can start calling people relevant to the case before you for questioning. These people are often plaintiffs, defendants, witnesses, victims of crimes, and relatives of such individuals. If you’re questioning someone and realize you didn’t ask them something you had the option to ask and that you think might be important, you can call them back to the stand at any time.

You don’t have to call anyone to the stand in any particular order, nor do you need to ask them every single question Femida gives you the option to ask. However, Femida does encourage you to ask each person as many questions as you can, as the optics of asking certain questions can either improve or harm your reputation as a judge in the eyes of the general public and the prosecutors with whom you deal in your courtroom. You won’t know what effect, if any, certain questions may have on your reputation, but you’re still encouraged to take risks like that.

The biggest catch in that department is that you’re only given twelve minutes per trial to question everyone relevant to the case. I think this time limit puts an interesting form of pressure on you as you conduct each trial because it forces you to act quickly and think carefully about what sorts of questions you ask everyone you call to the stand. You probably shouldn’t ask everyone every question Femida says you can ask because doing so will likely use up most of your allotted time. Sticking to the questions you think are most important will often serve you well.

The other thing you’ll need to contend with during each trial is what Femida calls the “tension meter.” If tempers run too high during a trial and you don’t intervene to keep things calm, you’ll fail and have to replay the current trial from the beginning. You can reduce the tension meter by banging your gavel as many times as you deem necessary until things quiet down. The tension meter increases in response to such things as you calling deeply unpopular people to the stand, asking questions that are perceived as inappropriate, and the courtroom’s reception to the answers you receive.

I see Femida as a game that would have had quite a bit of potential if not for the multiple ways in which its execution and presentation are questionable at best and very disappointing at worst. By far the biggest gripe I have about Femida is how often I’ve noticed mistakes in terms of spelling, capitalization, grammar, and punctuation. I know I tend to harp on about this issue in particular whenever I see it, but these kinds of oversights are among the most disappointing things to me in any game I detect them.

You’ve probably noticed many such mistakes in the screenshots I’ve included throughout this article. I took a screenshot whenever I spotted any errors in in-game text in an effort to highlight just how frequently they crop up. Issues like this by themselves haven’t been deal breakers for me with any game I’ve played, but I still think Femida would have benefited hugely from more quality assurance testing and having its text examined by a proofreader or two. Still, I suspect the dev team behind Femida may not be entirely composed of native English speakers, so I’m willing to cut them some slack on this front.

A related aspect of my disappointment with Femida’s in-game text is that I’ve also seen multiple examples of what strike me as unnecessary and/or inappropriate attempts at humor on the part of Femida’s developers. One such message I’ve seen said something close to, “Press [this key] to access your journal, or you can also press [a different key] to do that if you’re a weirdo.” I understand wanting to “lighten the mood,” so to speak, but I think there are far better and less potentially offensive ways Femida’s developers could have gone about injecting humor into this title.

Bugs with the potential to halt your progress also exist within Femida. I’ve encountered two such bugs, both of which were in menus that I would think would have been thoroughly tested to ensure no errors were present. During one trial about halfway through Femida, I found that the “next” button you’ll frequently have to click when questioning people suddenly stopped functioning, thus preventing me from continuing the trial. As a result of this bug, I tried to exit to Femida’s main menu; the button to do that didn’t seem to work, either, so I had to force-close the game with Alt+F4.

Ultimately, I cannot in good conscience recommend Femida. As I said, I believe Femida could have achieved great potential, but it is too severely hampered by many of the pitfalls that can harm small and potentially inexperienced indie development teams. Femida’s story campaign is rather short, though, which might make it worthwhile if you find it on sale and want to mete out some justice during your lunch break. Outside of that case, I’d say there are far better options in terms of games that grant you the power to enforce the law and exact justice upon those who break it.

A PC review copy of Femida was provided by Roman Loznevoy for the purposes of this review.

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Femida

$9.99

5

Score

5.0/10

Pros

• Interesting story concept and your role in it.
• Intriguing side-plots pop up often.
• Rather short campaign.

Cons

• Frequent mistakes in spelling, grammar, punctuation, and capitalization.
• A constant insistence to take medication feels unnerving.
• Copious bugs in obvious places.