First off, as has been stated here time and again, this is not a game. That said, it is also not a book. And therein lies the source of most of the negative Steam comments. Yes, it is slower than a book, but does that necessarily make it tedious? I am inclined to say, "no". Today's super-hero immersed, action thrillers, contain so little plot, it could be contained by one written page, maybe half a page. And yet, they are consistently called, "fast-paced". A painting talks hardly at all, does this mean it does not say anything? I think a better may to approach this new art, for art it surely is, is to consider it as an interactive-comic-book-movie hybrid. The reader sets the pace of his exploration. If one wants to explore the beautiful moorish vistas, he may. If he wants to read every letter of a simulated 1914 newspaper, he may. If he simply wants to hurry through to the end, he may do that too, to his own detriment. The pace is not slow, as much as it is metered. The interactive-comic-book-movie, or icbm as I shall now so intelligently dub it, can not be completed in an hour, although one could surely read the text in this amount of time. It slows the pace, to a line, or even a picture, at a time, giving the viewer time to reflect upon the work, and, for me at least, time to become immersed in the story. Where a Marvel movie might have me bored to tears, and a novel by Dickens might encourage me to speed read past my tedium to my have-done list, I found the icbm totally engrossing for its duration. Considering its often discounted price, I found it well worth the money. Currently the price of a comic book or movie rental, it provides about 5 hours of enjoyment. Not only is it a better bargain for entertainment, it leaves a sense of intellectual satisfaction. Having bought it as part of a Humble-bundle, it also sated my frugal-pride. On a side note, while I enjoy Hitchcock as well as film-noir, I could never get myself to appreciate the confusion of his film adaptation. This version I loved. It taught me to forget about the movie, and enjoy the icbm. To finish, I would encourage anyone with an interest in books or art, to check this little number out. It think most will find it well worth the look.

Okay, I'm giving this a 10 on a couple of counts. The first being that this is bold new territory. Seen nothing quite like this. I was immersed in the story, and really enjoyed the experience. Secondly, I think the format created here really shines and I'd love to see how other stories could be transformed in this way. I noticed the developer has pushed this out on desktop and tablet... I'd like to see console too. If there was a criticism, I'd say it would be good to push the interactions a bit further. I'd give anything to actually feel like I was standing in the worlds that are being created. Maybe the next one?

Rarely we see a story-telling game doing the story telling part right but that's not the case with The 39 Steps. It proves once again that video-games are as capable as other mediums of telling a good story about humans and human problems. It keeps you engaged in the story and the development of it from the beginning until the end without using any video-game cliches such as, for example, ridiculous, out of context puzzles. Unfortunately there where some strange choices in what regards the strange collectibles and the even stranger trophies that we receive through out the game. We should only receive rewards when a difficult challenge is presented to us and we are able to beat it, and not by just playing the game...
On other subject, what many people don't understand is that interactivity doesn't automatically imply choice or free will... Interactive means you can touch the work (so to speak). You can appreciate the work at your own pace and sometimes only what you which to appreciate. You need to understand that your presence in the world of the game doesn't always need to be of an active participant and that you aren't always the main character. Sometimes you are only a observer with limited capabilities. The argument that this and other similar games are movies just baffles me. Not many people watch movies it seems...
Anyways, The 39 Steps it's, in my opinion, a must play to everybody interested in the interactive medium and also to everybody interested in a good crime / mystery story.

It is not really a game, it is an interactive story with barely any interaction at all, but I really enjoyed it. A very interesting story (better than the movie) and a nicely crafted atmosphere.

Definitely different and its quality is comparable to heavy rain, if not better...

the minus point comes from the unnecessary mouse*pad gestures to open doors and stuff. It was not necessary.

The other minus is because this game is basically a pdf game with sounds and animation..

But definitely not a bad thing as it can immerse you into the story and the early 1900s.

Would recommend it to conspiracy fans and people who do not read books...

The Story Mechanics have done a splendid job of making you feel like you're back in 1914 Britain which enhances the experience you'll have reading their adaptation of the novel. If you're wanting to play a game, you'll be disappointed but if you're looking for an adventure novel to read with that extra level of immersion, and you've never read or seen the The 39 Steps before, it might be worth a look.

The 39 steps is an enjoyable story. Gameplay is pretty much non-existent, but most visual novels suffer from the same issue, after all they are digital stories. Storywise the 39 steps is kind of exciting for the most part, but it gets a bit boring about halfway through. The voice acting is decent and the artwork is nice to look at, but the game has little to none replayability.

Good concept but... for a game about story, one would hope that they have a decent mastery of spelling and grammar. I am no expert on the English language, but, even I feel like I'm being yanked out of the attempted immersion at times due to said spelling errors, common writing pitfalls, and grammatical omissions and errors.

While this is definitely not going to be everyone's cup of tea it does have a very enjoyable element to it and for me personally made me want to finish it.

The big deal breaker for this kind of interactive novel is the story they choose to present and for me 39 Steps is a winner.

Very poor attempt at creating an interesting visual novel/interactive story. Voice acting is far from being natural, gameplay boring and events uninteresting.

I'm not really sure on what account this is a game. I think this would work much better as a movie or a visual novel. There is next to no game play unless you count pretty awkward mouse gesture events as such. Its clear a lot of work has gone into the art side of things and I can applaud that but beyond that there is really nothing. The story might get you through it but if at 10 minutes all I could think off was to turn it off I really don't think the game can catch more .

Oh god no please this is not a game. It is a e book with every so often open the door interaction cant recommend hated it and was a waste of time. Dont buy it I know the story may be good but jst buy the book.