Category: Keymailer

[LEGACY] Nightmare Never End

You wake up in your room and realize that something is very wrong. You’ve been tasked to review another horror indie game, and it already looks as if you’re going to be crying in frustration more than you are in fear.

In the last (or maybe first) review that you saw of mine, in the very first paragraph I mentioned the shovelware that has plagued Steam since Steam Greenlight was taken from us and “anything goes”. Well, here is your first example.

NMNE is a “horror” game, which in itself is correct. Any game which has the purpose of trying to scare you is indeed a horror game, but it spectacularly fails at doing so. Even trying to cut the game some slack by looking at horror sub-genres still greatly fails.

Survival horror? Yes, but either easily survivable or pure luck (based on unpredictable A.I. patterns and wall phasing).
Action Horror? Nah, not really.
Psychological Horror? It wishes, or at least it’s trying to be. It’s one of the many games where the protagonist is stuck in a coma, and it tries so hard to create this sense of dread but is entirely ruined by the next part.
Jump-Scare Horror. Which is badly done. Scares with no rhyme or rhythm. One of which, after being “scared” once, I know exactly what triggers the scare, which I then demonstrated that I knew as I had to replay the game when I got stuck.

There is no finer detail to this game. Every story aspect serves itself as it is, and it is what it is.

Pros: 

  • The game works as a game (most of the time)
  • Has grab and move physics
  • Actually made me jump (once)
  • I’m a sucker for trippy visualisations. Eyeballs coming out the walls, floating teacups, fleshy meatballs I need to stack into a bathtub? Love all that weird shit.
  • The game has a beatable threat (most of the game) but doesn’t seem too unrealistic to beat or not beat, reasonably easy.
  • You know exactly what you’re doing every time you’re faced with a “challenge” or scenario. Very self-explanatory, even though that’s probably just down to the game’s simplicity.
  • When you die, you get sent back to the last stage or beginning of the stage you’re on. Very unlike most trash indie games.

Cons:

  • I actually got stuck in the game twice, one was due to the lighting being terrible in a particular area that I couldn’t see the “solution” to the “puzzle”. The other was to do with bad A.I.
  • Grab and move physics are almost overused, to the point where I need to make bathtub meatballs a SECOND time in the game. I love weird shit but WHY. The lack of other mechanics and odd tropes hammers this almost-overuse in.
  • The game is not scary, honestly. The one scare that got me was because a bat flew into my face as I went around a corner. I didn’t even jump that much, but THAT was a proper jumpscare. The rest of which was The Rake, but like Shadowman squished up behind a door going *BSSHHHHHT* *Static Noises And Static Visual Effects*. I’m scarier behind a door making those noises.
  • The last thing that I came face to face with (whether it was the end of the game or not) was biscuit collecting??? Every time I collected a biscuit, noises, and sounds were added, enemies with AWFUL PATHING were added and it eventually killed me. Unlike the rest of the game, it did not revert me to the previous stage, it bugged and game over’d me. At this point, I’d already restarted it once, so…

Overall, this game is not great. If you want to be scared, this is not it. It seems like a first attempt at a game with minimal assets and minimal effort or people who seem to kind of know what they’re doing but don’t know how to pull shit together.

But, this is not their first game, nor their first horror rodeo. AK Studio, the publisher, and developer of this game, has made 5 games before this going back to 2019. Albeit, one of them not being horror but a Crossy Roads clone, by the look of it.

While practise is patience and practise improves things, you have to pay $100 (I believe, feel free to correct me) to publish a game on Steam. While it is completely free to publish a game on Itch.io or Game Jolt, GOG, or Gamers Gate.

I’m not saying, “TAKE YOUR TRASH AND PUT IT ELSEWHERE.” It is a better business prospect for games like this, where you can get traction and feedback without having to pay out your ass just to see if people will buy your game.

Even so, despite traction and everything, you can even have someone famous review or play your games. One of their previous games, “Ghost Stories” was obviously seen by someone quite famous on Twitch as on Nov 12th 2020 the view of the game on Twitch spiked to 4.7k. Despite that, and despite all the LOL GAME BAD = GOOD REVIEW that came from it, not much else came from it. Obviously, enough money to try it again, but it lucked out, and it probably won’t happen again.

The reason I’ve spotlighted this game in particular is for one reason. If rubbish is highlighted and praised for its stupidity, you can fool anyone into thinking that the market is successful and a feasible means of making money.

Price: £7.19
Time To Complete: N/A
Achievements: None
Cards: No
Worth The Money: Yes, play it again and again.

This game’s base price is £3.99, discounted right now at £3.19. That’s not a steal, and I doubt there will be a price suitable for the “content” that it brings. If you can get this for free, good on you, but I have no clue why you want it. Jinx from the present day here, this is ridiculous. I’m checking right now if they’ve made any updates since on this game because the base price has been raised from £3.99 to £7.19 as of a couple of days ago. Yeah, just as I thought. No official updates of patches since release in December 2021. I’m not altering the rating or anything to suit, just thought I’d chime in on this somewhere.

Zesty rating
1 Out Of 10.

A badly made, badly crafted excuse of a semi-psychological, shitty jumpscare “horror” game where discount RakeXShadowman squeezes into the most unscary, ridiculous places to scare you and defies physics just to be intimidating. 

Please bear in mind that this is a repost. There have been slight changes to the post such as spelling and grammar fixes, images added, and things generally organised in the fashion I'd like them presented.  Apart from that, the main context of the review has not changed, opinion has not been altered and everything is sacred. I look forward to writing for you all again.
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[LEGACY] Thrive

We’ll start off by saying that I was excited about Thrive, as I’ve played Spore. It’s the part of Spore where you crash-land into the sea inside a big meteorite and gobble up all the stuff you need to evolve, adding more on as you go.
This game is that exact part from spore, but more complicated, more complex.

Again, you start off a tiny cell doing a wiggle-swiggle around the sea, but instead of particulates being picked up you’re sucking up glucose, ammonia, and phosphate. Glucose acts as your primary food source and energy source (so if you can’t find that you’re fucked), whereas ammonia and phosphate are your progress devices, the more you collect of those the quicker you fill your evolution metre.
From there you add different parts to your tiny little cell body, some are just cells, but others have more precise functions like Metabolosomes and Chemosythesizing Proteins… nah I’m too dumb for that stuff.

So, what do you do in the game? Thrive. Haha, yeah but what else? Nope, that’s merely it.

I only played it for what I can say is a “little while” on my stream while making my review, and it’s safe to say it’s not the most entertaining game to play, but also for others to watch. So I continued to play it off-stream to no avail. I couldn’t get a whole lot further than what I had initially, but slowly came to the realisation that “I have to play this game for a lot longer and grind it right out to even noticeably progress, don’t I?”
Yes, that was the case. That, for me, is a huge game-killer. When you noticeably have to put many hours just to get the ball rolling in a game, is it really okay? When the game punishes you for taking a step further than what is expected of you? Especially when all there is to the game is swimming around, gobbling up things and becoming bigger.

Pros:

  • The game functions as a game.
  • Takes the cellular floaty and collect things to upgrade yourself (part of Spore(in brackets as idk where it came from first)) and expands on it, pushing it further.
  • Goes in depth with a more science-y approach, adding more accurate names and processes to evolving and upgrading your lifeform.
  • The upgrade, item, and travel menu is clear and easy to read. It could’ve been so user unfriendly considering the amount of information they’re trying to put across.

Cons:

  • Despite being a lot more complex than the original concepts of this style of game, it still feels empty. I think the original premise (that I’d found in Spore, among other games) was better due to the promise of actual evolution. Within Thrive you just get bigger and bigger and more complex, while that in itself if a fun part about it, that’s really just about it. It’s about getting the best out of what stage you’re in, but not progressing any further than that.
  • Even though the game has numerous pointers and plenty of little pop-ups that show you at the start what things do and how the game works… I still can’t help but feel a little lost even into an hour of playing. I know what I’m doing, yet still feel lost.
  • The game overall, while a good concept, is just incredibly boring. Not much to say about it. The only real danger you have is dying because you can’t find any glucose. I have found other organisms in the water that I’ve had to fight, but honestly, you’re more likely to die from “starvation”.
  • Following the above comment. I do know how the game works, different areas have less of different things that you can eat and need to survive. I know that if I go into a stage unprepared, then there will be a higher chance of me dying, sure. But when I go into the next stage up, and I’m wandering around (in the one direction the first time) for the best half of 2 minutes. In those 2 minutes I find absolutely nothing with no clue as to why I’m not finding anything or where it could be, and die. It’s not really compelling me to play the game for any longer.

Overall, this game is for someone who can do the same thing over and over again, with the same kind of background, same motions but with slight variations. It’s a game that will take a lot of time and a lot of patience, and is really only for someone who enthuses about microorganism evolution and progression.
It’s honestly not for me, not really worth my time and genuinely looked a lot more enjoyable in the trailer than what it was playing it or watching it via a stream.

In addition, please note that this game is currently in Early Access and seems to be one of those games that will be an EA (not that EA) game for a while. This is (hopefully) not due to this being a shovelware game, and because, as the devs state, it is a volunteer project. It is also apparently free elsewhere, whereas on Steam it’s paid for.

Price: £3.99, but free elsewhere.
Time To Complete: N/A
Achievements: None
Cards: No
Worth The Money: Honestly, no. But it seems (like Unturned) this is a pay to support the dev type deal. If you’re interested in this game, find where it’s free and help these devs perfect their long-term project.

Zesty Rating
4.5 Out Of 10.



A game premise I was genuinely keen to see if taking one point of another game and honing in on it worked again. This time it fails. Bland, slow and unrewarding, similar to how life is going for us right now. Too much work and effort for so little outcome and nothing to show for it.

Please bear in mind that this is a repost. There have been slight changes to the post such as spelling and grammar fixes, images added, and things generally organised in the fashion I'd like them presented.  Apart from that, the main context of the review has not changed, opinion has not been altered and everything is sacred. I look forward to writing for you all again.
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[LEGACY] Shape Shift Shaun Episode 1: Tale of the Transmogrified

When strolling through Keymailer, I often look for games I know I can play. This also means that the selection of games that I get can sometimes be rather underwhelming, or just plain shit.
The ease of getting and reviewing bad games has got me this far, being not just a smaller streamer than most, but also relatively newer to streaming, less professional and less social media savvy.
I can now just about get any game I ask for off Keymailer, assuming that it is indie, and it’s cheap enough made. So, when I saw Shape Shift Shaun, this was another game that I could easily get and play. Plus, it’s easy to make a review for a game when everything is so bad that it sticks out like a broken pinkie.

Shape Shift Shaun Episode 1: Tale of the Transmogrified, is a mouthful to say, SSSE1:TT is also ridiculous and the first gripe I have with the game is the length of the title of the game. Why does that need to be the full title? I get that you probably want to make more games in the future, but it all doesn’t need to be in the title.
Nevertheless, I’ll stop bitching about things that don’t really matter all that much.

Shape Shift Shaun is a game where you get bullied at Hallowe’en after you get a bunch of candy, then thrown down a crater that was made by a falling meteor by the bully. You and the bully are now trapped in the centre of the earth, which is reminiscent of the setup of Journey To The Centre Of The Earth or Ice Age 3: Dawn Of The Dinosaur. Inside this area, the Bully, and Shaun freak out as there’s “no food” despite only being there for like 3 minutes, which is hardly enough time to look around for food. The Bully threatens to eat Shaun’s candy, but the candy has been dropped all over the inner planet. After threatening to then eat Shaun, the Bully then eats a little red Soot Sprite that can talk and transforms into a mega-chad bully and goes on a rampage to eat more of them. Using the power of more little red soot sprites, Shaun turns into a dragon and goes on a quest to capture the Bully.

I have no idea whether this is a game for kids or not.
It’s really hard to tell.
It’s a basic platformer where you can run and jump, and you collect candy for points. You can also change into a red dragon at any time during the game to then glide and breathe fire on the enemies, effectively killing them. You also breathe fire on a multitude of obstacles to get them out of the way and progress with the level.
All the controls, bar a few, seem relatively alright and make sense concerning the global platforming controls. The only thing I didn’t like was the controls for switching forms and attacking enemies. They were close to each other and on a side of the keyboard that didn’t make sense to me. This often led me to change forms when I wanted to attack enemies.

The story itself goes on further than that, hinting towards being able to change into multiple things, but I just didn’t get that far. Despite actually feeling quite fluid and easy to control, the enemy placement and the placement of platforms, on the other hand, had me at a complete loss. Only being able to get close to the end of the level out of memory, makes me think that either it’s not a kids game, or it’s just a bad one.

Pros:

  • The game works, has no massive graphical or audio issues/glitches, and does not crash upon load or during the game.
  • Even though it’s not an old game, it has that old, cheap looking aesthetic of older games with the weird moving 3D character models in a 2D game. I hold this as a positive as it’s not entirely ugly, but certainly holds that old-world charm.
  • Everything is clear and self-explanatory, absolutely no guess-work is required to complete this game. Everything is spelt out clear as day and objectives made clear.
  • Most of the controls are the universal norm for most platformers.

Cons:

  • The story is boring, rather drab and a little ridiculous at best. Clearly overexaggerated for the comedy value. The Bully freaking out the tiny red creature talks then promptly eating it seems a little unusual.
  • The controls that are not the universal norm for platforming are very strange. It essentially has you reaching round the keyboard, but also accidentally smacking the wrong one. Despite being relatively easy otherwise, this part of the controls raises the difficulty immensely for no reason.
  • As the controls for platforming are almost perfect, the game had to fail elsewhere. This is where game design came in. The platforms are arranged so strangely that one small move can have you falling off the edge of a platform, despite the image of the platform still being under your feet. You also have to remember exactly where things are, as you can be jumping off a platform at the far right of your screen not knowing where the next platform is.
    Enemy placement as well is a tragedy. Three long and wide purple blob creatures on a tiny platform that I not only need to land on but also destroy the vines AND kill them and progress.

Price: £5.79
Time To Complete: N/A
Achievements: 15
Cards: No
Worth The Money: Nah, not really.

In conclusion, I’m still not really even sure whether this game is a kids game or not. It’s genuinely bland enough in the story department but colourful enough and revolves around sweets. It’s also easy to grasp, apart from the odd controls for switching forms and attacking. It’s a really mixed bag in terms of a game, but my audience absolutely hated it, they could’ve hated how it looked more than me. Overall, the game isn’t that bad, it’s just not really worth the money it wants as while it probably has the content and time/effort put into it for a £5.79 game, it’s just not fun.

Zesty Rating
3 Out Of 10
A boring and bland story paired with a colourful but ugly game. Lovely controlling of the platforming and has everything a platformer needs, except for a good game design. Dodgy platforms, terrible map planning and even worse enemy placement.

Please bear in mind that this is a repost. There have been slight changes to the post such as spelling and grammar fixes, images added, and things generally organised in the fashion I'd like them presented.  Apart from that, the main context of the review has not changed, opinion has not been altered and everything is sacred. I look forward to writing for you all again.
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[LEGACY] Receiver 2

I first went into Receiver 2 thinking that this was a first-person shooter game like any other, I was wrong. I’d read the blurb on how it teaches you vaguely how a vast array of guns work, in the most “This Does Not Qualify As Actual Gun Training” way as possible, but still thinking it was a progressive game.

I was also wrong.

You start off by getting this pistol, which it tells you how to fire and such in a tutorial area that’s in the construction site of a city. You’re facing off against robot turrets that have a line of sight you can see via the light it shines to see you. The light is blue when it can’t see you and promptly changes you yellow and starts firing at you when it can. Simple.
After the tutorial area, you’re then further up in a series of buildings full of machine gun turrets, learning how to use the next gun, killing more machine gun turrets, and finding cassette tapes.

From here on, the game is samey, samey, samey. You get to the end of the level, you restart in a different area with a different gun. You get to the end of the level again, restart again with another different gun, more robotic turrets, blah, blah blah.
There is nothing more to this game than restarting in the same building with a different gun each time, I got through about 5 guns until I’d had enough. I’ve actually got to in a point in this review where I’m uncertain if I’ve said the same thing over and over because that’s all there is. Nothing actually… happens…

Pros:

  • The game works, not graphical issues or game breaking bugs.
  • The game feels soooo sleek and smooth, everything about the game feels fluid and responsive, and is precisely what I’d love from a first person Hitman game.
  • The setting (while the same one every single time) is 100% spot on. Everything is believable in an abandoned office building, a work in progress. It’s not a forced scene and sets a really great atmosphere.
  • The actual implementation of learning how to use different guns and them all being finicky and different was appealing. Especially when I reset once and didn’t realise that I was using a different gun, as it looked vaguely the same until I had to reload it, and it was missing one chamber.
  • It gives a sense of infinite possibility to how you can approach how to finish the “level”. Walk down any corridor, up any stairs, and shoot the turrets from any angle.

Cons:

  • While the game works sleekly, and smoothly, it does have a few weird controls for a keyboard. More akin to a console controller. Like for sprinting, you need to ferociously tap the “W” key to start sprinting, and you need to keep it up to keep sprinting. Each action for the gun, firing, reloading, emptying the chamber, opening the chamber, have all separate keys on the keyboard, which makes for a “I need to look at my fingers” moment nearly every time. Not only that, but having to forget all of that for the next gun you use on the next level.
  • The setting is the same at every level, and not in a Groundhog Day way. You get to the top of the level each time and then suddenly appear back downstairs again with a different gun. The story I uncovered within does nothing to really explain why I’m here, but I know who I am. Despite being a well polished and believable building, seeing it for the 5th time was enough to know I would rather not see it again.
  • While I loved the intricacy of using different guns, the learning of it felt clunky and somewhat forced. It lacked the situational learning that you have in most other FPS games where when the player picks up new guns it slowly lets them learn everything. In this, you’re just handed the gun and multiple controls that you’re given to remember and gives you no repetitive learning time. But at the same time, the whole game is learning time, and you don’t feel as if it’s an actual game.
  • As much as I love the whole “telling the story through the tapes and notes” feature, it becomes semi-irrelevant if you can just miss them. This was something I thought about Amnesia as well until I realised that despite seeming like an open game, it wasn’t. This game, however, is very much open, and it’s easy to miss some notes and tapes. I didn’t feel as though I were getting the full story or experience. They’d do better with the Superliminal approach of areas you have to walk through which have the story in them.

Price: £15.49
Time To Complete: 7.5 hours
Achievements: 34
Cards: 5
Worth The Money: Not At All

Overall, there is not a game for me, to the point where I wouldn’t really consider it a game. It’s a simulation (as it’s advertised) but not as much of a game as it feels it is. It’s super polished and is really intuitive to play, and honestly feels like something I’d enjoy playing if the environment/world I was in was enjoyable. It has that high levels of “I am more in control of this character than other games allow me to be” but gave me nothing to do with it. Honestly, it’s not something I can recommend to most of my friends, as they would all get bored with it much quicker than I did.
For a gun nerd who doesn’t give a shit about a story or being entertained by changing aspects of the game, this is for you.

Zesty Rating
3.5 Out Of 10
It’s got the glitz, and it’s got the glamour, but it’s got as much weight as an inflatable hammer. An empty simulation game which gives you the story in miss-able drips and drabs, and really drags when all you do is train, again and again. I apparently felt like rhyming because the itchy trigger finger sends my frustration climbing.

Please bear in mind that this is a repost. There have been slight changes to the post such as spelling and grammar fixes, images added, and things generally organised in the fashion I'd like them presented.  Apart from that, the main context of the review has not changed, opinion has not been altered and everything is sacred. I look forward to writing for you all again.

NOTE: This game is flagged as “Retry”.
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[LEGACY] Lake

Lord bless Keymailer and their forever extensive library of new and upcoming games, waiting to be requested and played by the unsuspecting gaming influencer. With Steam and the Greenlight function being taken away and a mountain-load of shovel-ware sweeping into the marketplace like a landslide from a landfill, it’s hard to request things from the site and not dread what you’re getting into.

Due to its overall look and information, Lake was one of the more promising looking games. It was also one of the few games that provided a different “please read before requesting this game.” This uniqueness before even starting the game or even being accepted to play it was pretty fresh.

The game itself is exactly as you see it. You are a woman who is taking over from her dad as the local postman, which is giving her a needed break from her work, too. It’s a delve into her past, as it’s her returning home to the town she used to live in by a big, beautiful lake.

There’s not much else to this game that I have experienced, which is not a bad thing.

The game is simply experiencing this twist in a person’s life through delivering mail around the lake each day, with different dialogue options leading to better/worse relationships with other characters and possible romance options.

Pros:

  • It’s a game that works. And it works really well.
  • The stylisation of the game is a mix of low-poly and not, which does give the land a unique aesthetic. While not looking super realistic, it all blends in really well together and paints a nice surrounding.
  • 2 (As far as I’m aware) romance options, one with a male character and one with a female character. Film Nerd Chick FTW.
  • All music in the game is played through the “local radio” in the post-van and is actually real, original music recorded for the game, which really ties in that close-knit community vibe.
  • All characters feel believable and the dialogue is not clunky or unnatural. 
  • Whether intentional or not, you can power slide with the van.

Cons:

  • Due to the original music, you do have to email the devs of the game with the link to your VOD/Video to make sure you are not DMCA/Copyright struck. It’s a thoughtful thing to do, but could be tedious if multiple videos have to be made.
  • There is no run function. (Similar to Phasmophobia) The movement speeds are “saunter” and “walk normally”. I know the woman is having a holiday by being there, but I’d like the faster speed to be “That awkward jog where you need to be faster but don’t want to put effort into being faster.”
  • The two relationship options (that I have found) are a wonderful Film Nerd Chick and Hermit Paul Bunyan. For meeting Film Nerd Chick, it’s such a natural progressive flow (AND REALLY FLIRTY), whereas meeting Paul Bunyan you’re hit with a lot of guilt-tripping and pity-partying. Which, when talking to other streamers playing the game, also put them off a relationship with him. He seems like a super chill guy, it’s just shit that every dialogue option starts with you delivering bills to him, and you’re just forced to feel guilty about it.
  • You can’t tell your boss/co-worker who keeps calling you asking you to do work while you’re on holiday to “fuck off”.

Overall, this game is a great game if you like enveloping a story via trivial means, like Power Wash Simulator but better. You learn a lot about the community via delivering mail to them and accepting some odd jobs or such from them while you’re at their houses. Meet old friends, old neighbours, and just chill in the hometown you grew up in. 

For me personally, as much as I am invested in the relationship with Film Nerd Chick, I do find the gameplay super repetitive and would probably struggle to play this game if it wasn’t for that specific relationship. However, it is one of the few games from Keymailer thus far that I can safely say I’d continue to play after trialling it.

This game, however, does deserve a place in the spotlight due to having such a well-crafted and believable little town, which completely carries across the feeling of quaint and homely to the tee. 

So while the game style may not be for everyone, it doesn’t mean that it’s a bad game at all and is certainly not a bad story that’s being told. If you can pick this game up from keymailer or fancy paying £15.99 for this game (which I, personally, would wait for a discount on) give it a decent try. Power through some posting to see if the storyline is worth the slog and share your thoughts about it as well.

Price: £15.99
Time To Complete: 7 Hours
Achievements: 10
Cards: None.
Worth The Money: Yes and No. Having 7 hours worth of playable game is certainly worth £16, but the game is too repetitive and chore-like after a while.

Zest Rating
6.5 out of 10 ~ Fresh-Tasting
Back to hometown aesthetics, postwoman romance simulator. Driving and posting every day isn’t my thing, but the relationship dynamics are worth staying for. She’s as much of a gossip as my dad is, and he’s an actual postman.

Please bear in mind that this is a repost. There have been slight changes to the post such as spelling and grammar fixes, images added, and things generally organised in the fashion I'd like them presented.  Apart from that, the main context of the review has not changed, opinion has not been altered and everything is sacred. I look forward to writing for you all again.

NOTE: This game is flagged as “Retry”.
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[LEGACY] Alwa’s Legacy

Starting off with the sequel to Alwa’s Awakening, what a joy and what a delight after playing the first game. From their game in 2017 to this release in 2020, Alwa’s Legacy is one of the games that I can say visibly and thoroughly improves from the first game to the second. Nearly every point that I had made about the previous game was cleared up, rectified, and that’s always a great thing to see. As if they’ve cleared up those things that so many complained about, it means they are developers who listen, and therefore, developers to follow and trust in. (Just don’t go AAA, please, I beg.)

Despite being a little late to the party, Alwa’s Awakening was something that disappointed me, it felt like a bundle of broken promises and pandering towards those who fall for nostalgia-bait (like the Star Wars Sequels). Despite all the problems still standing, it was a legitimate game and cared about its matters. It stood the test of time for another game to be made and was still good enough to get a mixed rating.
It was always a surprise for me to pick up both Alwa’s Awakening and Alwa’s Legacy on Keymailer, I had just gone through my entire 2k “maybe-list” (steam wishlist) and had no idea what to expect.
Playing Awakening later had me hesitant to play Legacy, I will admit. I remembered my draining experience (further worsened by playing another bad game beforehand, I will admit.) and put off playing Legacy as long as I could. Now, playing it, I realise how silly it was to just assume that those same aspects that I loathed from the game would carry over.

Because it didn’t.
Hence, why this review will be a comparison.


“Most of the platforming requires pixel perfect jumping. I found the platforming some of the easiest to control out of all the games I’ve received from Keymailer, but it takes the happiness of finally having that away from me when showing me the platforms. Granted, not all the jumps are hazardous, death traps, but the ones that are the furthest away from the checkpoint always are, and it hurt my soul.” ~ (Alwa’s Awakening Review)
My soul has been healed. This game still requires some amount of “pixel perfect jumping”, which I would say most platformers need for it to not just be a walk in the park, but in this sense, all the jumping and platforms made sense. Everything made sense. I didn’t feel as if I needed to lean to the side “IRL” (in real life) to make every jump, it was smooth and nurturing but wasn’t afraid to let you fall if you fucked up. The death traps and such are placed appropriately within great consideration of where your last checkpoint was, nothing too unrealistic at all and very considerate while still making it challenging.

“Speaking of checkpoints, Red Cap Zombie Hunter, eat your heart out because you have NOTHING on the placement of these checkpoints when it comes to distance. The placement overall of the checkpoints is actually fine and is nowhere near the randomness that Red Cap does with their haphazard tornado lightshows, but the distance is actually heart-breaking and forced me to recline in my chair for a few minutes on multiple occasions.”
Red Cap Zombie Hunter…. Bro this is how you do it. It’s not about putting checkpoints, it’s about listening to criticism, taking it on board, and not having a hissy fit because people are finding problems with your game. Legacy took the absolutely atrocious checkpoint spacing of Awakening and improved TENFOLD on it. There was almost a point that I thought there were too many, but after unlocking new dangers I realised that checkpoints were necessary everywhere that they were. The game had become a lot more difficult, but at the same time a lot more achievable without throwing your hands up in rage, and it’s all due to the checkpoint placements.

“So if it wasn’t for the amount of dying I was doing sending me back, I also have to do A LOT of backtracking as well. I know it was very common in most older platformers, but with everything combined I genuinely felt as if I was losing the will to live, passing the same area so many times with nothing to gain from it. I only found out that there were quicker ways of going around things, like hidden walls/doors/ceilings/floors, yet I wasn’t to know as they looked the same as everything else!”
Okay, so apart from the one place that I got completely lost looking for an old woman who was the key to me moving on in the game… Once again, such a big improvement. The maps are the same way, in which you could easily get a bit lost, or a bit turned around looking for the way you need to go, but it’s different! The rooms are a tad smaller, they look better, they matter just a bit more. Not only that, but the way that you traverse the map is a lot different too. Many rooms are “one-way” making you a tad nervous as you can’t get back, but then, boom, you get your little power to summon a cube out of nowhere, and you can get back now! Every room and direction is much more purposeful, with fewer dead ends. You can only wander down a route if you have the right powers to do so. No backtracking because you went the wrong way. I still haven’t found any hidden walls/floors/ceilings/doors but seen as this game was a lot more enjoyable than the last, I might go back to it.

“As if backtracking and losing progress to things wasn’t enough, your character is also very slow in comparison to big empty and expanding rooms with not much filling them but maybe one or two measly enemies which will be super stingy about their drops.”
I’m trying so hard not to write vocalised expressions of satisfaction, just thinking back to the change on just how smooth the character is when walking… Your character is faster, smoother at walking, jumps are more responsive and rooms are not big and empty. Everything is fucking tight and fluid, and it’s lovely. I’m not so mad about enemies being stingy with heart drops because my slow-ass isn’t being grabbed as much any more, I’m not getting bored in a room, I’m not actually getting lost or having to backtrack as much. It’s honestly just “mmmmmmm”, as a change from one game to the other, it’s honestly a great feeling, almost as if I’m gliding with each step. (Not to be mistaken for the character being slippery when walking, the character is very much rooted it’s just the change is that blissful)

It’s honestly a great experience, and not just the game itself, but the rise from complaint ridden game to game I genuinely have only small complaints for.
— I still don’t really know the story, but that also seems unimportant.
— I got lost trying to find the old woman because I didn’t realise I could jump through the big orange column, as it literally looked like a wall.
— I don’t understand if I can swim? Or how to swim? Or if it’s a special power I’m missing.

But besides that, take all my positive comments from the previous game, smack them in this review and add some sparkle.
“The art style is cute and nostalgic with appropriate colour palettes, nothing is ugly or “meh” to look at.”
This, but without my apathetic language. The colours are now popping, and while the style of the game is still very much the same, there have been some tweaks to let things pop so much more and be more attractive to the eye.
“The music fits the purpose. It’s chiptune and 8-bit, and most soundtracks fit the appropriate setting they are put in. Boss battle areas seem to lack a little, but most of the others are great.”
Likewise, the soundtracks are a lot better, but I still have the same gripe about boss battle tunes, sometimes they don’t actually exist at all, which makes me wonder if it’s actually a boss battle, but on the game goes anyway.
“There are NPCs all over the map that all have some sort of dialogue (whether relevant or not) which really brings a bit more life to the otherwise empty feeling game.”
The NPCs are so much more real now, they look better, they have better, more believable dialogue and just genuinely, overall feel so much better. Despite me still not knowing what the fuck is going on within the game, everything reads so much better and has me a lot more invested than what I was with the last game.

“The powers learned by the protagonist within the game (specifically the first one where you summon cubes) were generally surprising to me and a lot more refreshing than the generic powerups most games would give you to get around obstacles.”
Same as above, I don’t think the powers have changed much since the last game (since I didn’t actually get all that far in Awakening) but it’s still such a refreshing premise on superpowers. Replacing your typical double jump with something different that allows you to mostly get the same desired effect.
“Not all enemies are the same one. There are different enemies and also different variations of the same enemies that take more hits to kill. That and the bosses are interesting and while not outstanding or grandiose were still a nice bunch of pixels.”
Oh my god, this, but so much more. Yes, the staple enemy to this game is skeletons, but within the first minutes of this game, it shows you so much more. Hidden behind a door you can’t open, in the first area with the old woman, are so many new creatures. You get hit with skeletons at the start, but later on, there’s flower demons, and evil flowers and moving statues and… It’s just great, and the art style switch I think was also key to making these guys look wonderful too. It gives you such a better grasp early on of how much this world has to offer.

Price: £13.99
Time To Complete: 9 Hours
Achievements: 24
Cards: No
Worth The Money: Maybe. It’s almost always on discount, however, so a definite yes on discount.

Overall, this game is so much better than its predecessor, and it strongly suggests that they listen to their fanbase/community/players. From what I can see in the reviews for this one, compared to the last game, there is so much more positivity towards the game and the developers and a genuine want for a third game. It’s not a game I would play on stream and something I’d pick up in my downtime (if I let such a thing exist) and complete casually in my own time. I recommend, if you have both Awakening and Legacy, play Awakening first just to make yourself love Legacy all that much more.

Zesty Rating
9 Out Of 10.
A remarkable difference from the previous game. Improved in all aspects and actually a joy to play. Smooth characters and amazing game design. Diverse enemies and not frustrating to play, but provides a worthy challenge. Massive improvement.

Please bear in mind that this is a repost. There have been slight changes to the post such as spelling and grammar fixes, images added, and things generally organised in the fashion I'd like them presented. 
Apart from that, the main context of the review has not changed, opinion has not been altered and everything is sacred.
I look forward to writing for you all again.
0

The Captain

The Captain is one of those games that takes me back to the old days of NewGrounds and Armour Games, a plethora of flash games, all of my favourites being point and click adventure games. (I tried to recreate that magic on Twitch once by only playing flash games on Fridays, but I can safely say that no one was interested.) Despite the very long intro with screeds of text that I ended up skipping most of, I was taken back to that era rather abruptly so that it gave me a bit of whiplash.

The Captain starts out with a whole bunch of story I didn’t ultimately read, but I got the fair gist of it. Bad people have a big army and are going to use a weapon to destroy the sun surrounding a planet of great stature, Earth. To make the shield, that was created to protect the sun work, a costly and time-consuming battery must be made at this station that’s on the outer rim of the galaxy.
In the process of transporting this cell back to Earth, something unfortunate happens with the experimental “warp hole” technology, which leaves your protagonist stranded on the outer rim of the galaxy without the cell and a broken ship.
The BBEG is still en route to s’plode the sun, so you now need to grab the cells and head home ASAP before the sun goes splat.

The reason this game gave me whiplash, however, is because during one of the very first choices, a person died.
A person died because I can’t lie to people, in-game characters or not. I’m not a liar, and especially with a situation as dire as it was… I just can’t lie. Spoiler. It hurt my soul so much.
This reeks of early point and click games, throwing you into situations like that so quickly and without any forewarning. This game went from boring, clicking through all the dialogue that I’m not concerned about, to “Fuck, I almost cried.” Not everyone will have the same reaction as me, however, as I feel things too deeply, but I love it when games take me off guard.

Pros:

  • The game works.
  • The game’s art style is another one I love. Tiny pixels all arranged to make a detailed picture, but still pixelated. I love pixel art so much, as there’s so much you can do with it.
  • The characters are believable, and the situations are gritty and dire, in the best way. Challenging dilemmas that really have you trying to think so widely out the box, but you struggle to know what to do as it’s the first playthrough.
  • The concept of time in this game is handled great. There have been so many games that I’ve played before that I felt handled time and time-based challenges in such a shit way. (Dead Rising 2) I genuinely felt as if I was racing against time in a way that I could genuinely handle, but also felt I had absolutely no grip on. Nothing I could do would give me more time, I just had to make the best use of it.
  • The puzzle elements to this game are VERY flash point and click game. Combining and searching high and low for things. No hints, but the solutions are simple once you get around to them. Minimal puzzles, but always very meaningful.

Cons:

  • Once again, the text in this game is overbearing. There is a lot of dialogue in this game that’s not very much needed. It does give depth to the characters and everything that’s happening in the game, but the amount necessary is way less than the amount provided, and it’s somewhat of a drag.
  • The game is predominantly made for replayability. Any game that has the number of choices, consequences, outcomes and just sheer “anxiety via indecision” inherently wants to be replayed. What lets the game down is the lack of a skip button for things that you’ve already seen and experienced.

I genuinely can’t think of any more cons for this game.
This is literally one of the first games that I have ever played that one of the people watching me at the time came back to me and said, “Yeah, I went and bought this after I saw you play it.”

Price: 15.49
Time To Complete: N/A
Achievements: None
Cards: No
Worth The Money: Yes, play it again and again.

In conclusion, it’s not the best game there is out there for point and click adventures. It also certainly doesn’t rival any of my favourites of the flash era, but is it good? Yes, undoubtedly so. It’s more than definitely worth buying and playing, as it promises a better playthrough every restart and multiple different routes to the path of success.
It’s not the most riveting or inspiring, but it’s another good space story that I can easily say is worth the money and the time you put into it. If you want something that’s as close to a 5/5 as I can give, then try the Don’t Escape series. It’s honestly gamegasm material for point and click adventure/puzzle games.

Zesty Rating
7 Out Of 10
A refreshing return to flash point and click routes. Gripping and gritty decisions ensue, with lots of space travel and sci-fi themes. Replayability is off the charts, make your horrible decisions all over again…

NOTE: This game is flagged as “Replay”.
0

[LEGACY] Alwa’s Awakening

This instance for me was a first from Keymailer. What I’d done was go through my entire Steam Wishlist (Over 2k Games, it’s a story for another time) and requested EVERY KEY that I could for all the games on my wishlist. This took mostly the entire night until 4am in the morning, provided that I’d also watched my friend’s stream until midnight that night, and was also being distracted by everything and anything.
Lo and behold, I get not one but two games from the same dev, both being the same franchise and being from as early as 2017.

Alwa’s Awakening is the first of two games, the other being Alwa’s Legacy, which I am yet to play and review, and should promptly be doing it this week. From looks only and the trailer, it looks to be a nostalgic revisit to the old 8-bit platformers coming out nearer the end of the 8-bit era, graphics and movement promising to be an absolute gem and reprise many people’s memories.
I was met with this, but also met with the other thing that happens when I go back and play old games.
“Hmm, something’s not right. Something just feels a little off, like something is missing. It has everything I knew it would have, but why don’t I enjoy it?”
But this isn’t an old game? It’s not something I played in my childhood, yet it comes with that anticipated nostalgia haze, with the emptiness ensuing.

You are this fabled character that’s supposed to save this village/town/city of Alwa. I read the plot and one part said city, but the image was literally like 10 houses, and it threw me off, I think. You go through a mass dungeon crawl where there are enemies everywhere, destructible objects and permanent powerups that unlock more sections of the map for you to explore and conquer.
It gives exactly what’s promised and delivers exactly what’s expected, but why do I feel so let down?

Well, I think after going back to the game after the stream and literally meditating on it, which you’ll never get me to do for anything else, I’ve put my finger on it.
Most of which are things that other games do, but I think the overall combination of these things are what brings it down to a boring, grindy, flavourless halt.
So from here, instead of doing the pros first, here come the cons.

Cons:

  • Most of the platforming requires pixel perfect jumping. I found the platforming some of the easiest to control out of all the games I’ve received from Keymailer, but it takes the happiness of finally having that away from me when showing me the platforms. Granted, not all the jumps are hazardous, death traps, but the ones that are the furthest away from the checkpoint always are, and it hurt my soul.
  • Speaking of checkpoints, Red Cap Zombie Hunter, eat your heart out because you have NOTHING on the placement of these checkpoints when it comes to distance. The overall arrangement of the checkpoints is actually acceptable, and is not as chaotic as the haphazard tornado light show by Red Cap. However, the distance is actually heartbreaking and forced me to recline in my chair on multiple occasions.
  • So if it wasn’t for the amount of dying I was doing sending me back, I also have to do A LOT of backtracking as well. I know it was very common in most older platformers, but with everything combined I genuinely felt as if I was losing the will to live, passing the same area so many times with nothing to gain from it. I only found out that there were quicker ways of going around things, like hidden walls/doors/ceilings/floors, yet I wasn’t to know as they looked the same as everything else!
  • As if backtracking and losing progress on things wasn’t enough, your character is also very slow in comparison to big empty and expanding rooms. With not much filling them but maybe one or two measly enemies which will be super stingy about their drops.

I could probably think of more, but I honestly think that’s enough to rag on the game to make you have a second-hand experience of what happened. I have hope for playing its successor as it too also has a good amount of positive reviews. I’m hoping the next game will have expanded on these Pros I now have to list to keep the review balanced.

Pros:

  • The game works. 💖
  • The art style is cute and nostalgic with appropriate colour palettes, nothing is ugly or “meh” to look at.
  • The music fits the purpose. It’s chiptune and 8-bit, and most soundtracks fit the appropriate setting they are put in. Boss battle areas seem to lack a little, but most of the others are great.
  • There are NPCs all over the map that all have some sort of dialogue (whether relevant or not) which really brings a bit more life to the otherwise empty feeling game.
  • The powers learned by the protagonist within the game (specifically the first one where you summon cubes) were generally surprising to me and a lot more refreshing than the generic powerups most games would give you to get around obstacles.
  • Not all enemies are the same one. There are different enemies and also different variations of the same enemies that take more hits to kill. That and the bosses are interesting and, while not spectacular or grandiose, were still a nice bunch of pixels.

This is honestly a review that I did not want to do. When I look at this game from afar when not having played it, I see what I want. An enjoyable look back on a previous era of gaming, brought back into the modern day, but when played it brings back all the same problems that early day gaming had with it. While £6.99 is a great price for a game with 5 – 10 hours of playtime it’s honestly, mostly filler, retracing your steps, taking the wrong route that leads to nowhere, being punished and not liking it.

Zesty Rating
4 Out Of 10

A great-looking and sounding game, but that’s about it. Has everything about a game from the 1980s including all the unintuitive and punishing game design. Nostalgia-vision encapsulated, leaves you tired, sapped of your enjoyment because it’s not as good as you remember it being, despite never having played it before.

Please bear in mind that this is a repost. There have been slight changes to the post such as spelling and grammar fixes, images added, and things generally organised in the fashion I'd like them presented.  Apart from that, the main context of the review has not changed, opinion has not been altered and everything is sacred. I look forward to writing for you all again.
0

[LEGACY] Berserker’s Descent

Keymailer strikes once again with a lovely looking indie game for me to have a look at, and this time, when a game says it’s “hand-drawn” you can just about smell it through the screen.

Berserker’s Descent is a 2D sidescrolling, zone arena-type game. In each instance of the game the map and what you face will be randomly generated as you make your way through, the amount of enemies and the enemies you face will be generated via RNG as well. You make your way through small segments of the level, parkouring and smiting enemies in your way using the variety of attacks you possess, until you reach a combat zone.

Just before this combat zone, the souls you will have picked up along the way and earned via slaughtering your enemies can be used to buy abilities or to heal your character. It’s up to you to spend them wisely before you enter the place of your possible, imminent demise.

From here, you will be limited to the one area while enemies spawn and crawl on from offscreen, multiple attacking you at one time.
Here, you can see where the game really picks up. Using different combos of your varied attacks and keeping the kill combo going, you can rack up lots of souls in a single wave. After going through a number of these arena zones, you’ll eventually be confronted with one of these zones having a boss.
Each zone gets progressively harder with damage modifiers, you get offered more power-ups and things become more expensive.
This game is a roguelike game, however, so your progress does not save, and when you die you are returned to the very start of the game. Your progress is stored on a leaderboard though, which is a nice feature, making the game more repayable with the added competitiveness.

Before moving onto the pros and the cons of this game, I’d like to address the game’s art style.
This game is not the best looking game ever, and in terms of visuals it’s very simple.
A lot of reviews for this game on steam regard this game as ugly or looking unpolished, the latter I can agree somewhat. To say this game is ugly, I think is a bit of a fetch, while this game doesn’t have the most detailed visuals or the nicest artwork, it still serves its purpose in a clear and concise way. It’s overall, a very decent attempt at game artwork and is nothing short of acceptable. If you want an ugly game then might I refer you to Spherecraft, there is absolutely no reason why Spherecraft should exist.

Spherecraft – Minecraft worked because with cubes you don’t have gaps.

Pros:

  • The game fully works, no audio or graphical glitches/errors/bugs.
  • The game has mechanics for both attack and defence, both have many different combos and with the added power-ups and special attack move styles make for really addictive gameplay. Not only do you have to use different keys for different attacks, but also need to use specific keys for directional attacks as well. An addicting challenge to master.
  • The added power-ups pre-zone creates for so many styles of gameplay, leading to character types. While the RNG prevents you from being able to get exactly what you want, you can create similar character builds most of the time, making it really fun to test different methods of approaching bosses.
  • The game has online co-op, I’ve not seen it played nor did I find anyone online that wanted to play it with me, but imagining tackling these bosses and levels together with someone else is definitely interesting, and I would love to feel just how powerful we are with two people.

Cons:

  • The platforming rooms are the weakest part of this game, the character is quite heavy and can land quite quickly after having a floaty jump. Enemies in this area are hard to dodge too, or are just placed in difficult areas for you to hit them from. These resulting rooms feel slow to the rest of the game and contribute to you getting a lower score due to it killing your combo.
  • The hitboxes on some creatures are way off, on others it’s slightly off, while on most it’s fine. It’s one thing that you feel as if you get used to, up until you come across a new enemy type, but there are a lot of times in the game you’re swinging and missing despite the character’s sword visibly swing through the enemy.
  • The early game bosses are punishingly hard. I will admit that if I wasn’t so interested in the game, I may have given up in my first playthrough due to the first boss’ difficulty. It is a learning curve, and it does beat you down, and as much as I can say that it’s part of the game, and it’s to make you step up your game a little in regard to skill, it can be really off-putting to come up again something that hard that soon.
  • I do not consider this a con, but as it’s a con for a lot of others in the steam review section, I’ll pop it here. The game doesn’t look the best. It looks like a game that you wouldn’t look at a second time if you had a quick glance. This is largely to do with the dark, grim and bland colour palette that’s displayed in at least 65% of the game. (I feel as though the colour choice is apt, and the grim, scruffiness of the artwork is charming and fits) The artwork is heavily under-polished, and regarded to as ugly a lot of the time.

Price: £7.19
Time To Complete: N/A
Achievements: 27
Cards: No
Worth The Money: Not quite. With a decent discount, yes.

Overall, this is a neat little game. While not having a lot to do entirely and everything being down to RNG, it’s set up in a way where it gives a lot of replay-ability due to the permadeath nature of the game, leaderboards and the addicting difficulty of “Maybe if I’d just taken that power-up instead”. The dark theme and design, coupled with the almost bedraggled state of the artwork, create for a dire looking game with the bleakness of your chance at victory with your huge, dull sword.

Zesty Rating
4.5 Out Of 10
A small roguelike game where you run and slice everything in site, referred to as an “ugly” game, but instead in its roughness I see character. Difficult and unforgiving, challenging to it’s core. Could do with some refining in animation and cleaner hitboxes. 

Please bear in mind that this is a repost. There have been slight changes to the post such as spelling and grammar fixes, images added, and things generally organised in the fashion I'd like them presented.  Apart from that, the main context of the review has not changed, opinion has not been altered and everything is sacred. I look forward to writing for you all again.
0

[LEGACY] Fisherman’s House

I am an avid lover of horror games, ever since way back in 2012 I found Markiplier’s first ever SCP – Containment Breach video, where he had streamed his very first interaction with the game.
Since then, I was a regular watcher of not just his content, but horror game content in general. Watching people play Cry of Fear and Resident Evil games.
I remember specifically going onto Wikipedia and searching “All Horror Games” and looking at each one of them on YouTube to find playthroughs of them all, because at the time I was limited to my Xbox and Xbox360 which never had “a lot” of horror games despite having things like Dead Space.

From there to here, I’ve had an obsession with horror games, having now got a PC and not just having the full extent of Steam to explore, but GOG and Epic Games Store (despite Epic Game Store being quite barren apart from their exclusives IMO). Not just that but sites like Itch.io and Gamejolt where people upload their creations, and you can access them for free most of the time.

So, when it comes to Keymailer, the moment I see a horror game, I throw myself at it. Fisherman’s House is no different to that, I threw myself right on that game hoping that by the looks of it, it was another Granny game. While I was correct, it was not only a complete rip-off of Granny while also completely failing to do what Granny did.

Fisherman’s House is a game where you don’t wake up in your own room, or your own house. Spend the best of 5 minutes at the start, looking for your torch because it’s very obscurely placed in your room, while being groaned at from whatever direction the “Fisherman” is.
From there, you will wander around the house aimlessly looking for what you can assume is a means of escape, finding various things such as a generator you need to get working, a sledgehammer, a crowbar, and a paddle. You need to figure out how all of these things fit together in order for you to escape not only the house but the vicinity as well.

The items used in the game are set out the exact same way from Granny, which is not too bad, Granny however has sequels where the mechanics and gameplay have been massively improved on. However, Fisherman’s House falls flat in the entirety of the rest of the game.
Where other games have tension and add fear, Fisherman’s House does not build on it, nor does it add any. You are pretty much always being chased when you’re close to the guy, walking slowly does nothing, nor does losing him in a loop, he will always know where you are when you come within a certain distance of him.
Once you realise that there is no consequence for getting caught, the game crumbles. I was caught for the first time very quickly into the game, as that’s how I deal with my games, the first try is always to test your limit, test the enemy and see what you’re up against. I was jump-scared, despite already knowing the Fisherman was running right at me, then left. The Fisherman just left me, exactly where I was, after saying (not literally) “Ooga-booga” in my face and running away. There was no sign of me being injured or my character suffering from acute shock that they needed to recover from, I was free to move again immediately.

Is this game possible to win and finish?
Yes, I do not doubt it. The A.I. may flip dramatically between extremely stupid and constantly on your tail, but this game is simple enough to beat. However, it’s more of a test of whether you can be bothered or not to actually finish it due to the lack of fun and fear.
Did I finish it?
No, after completing the game nearly halfway, I got extremely bored and leaned into my audience at the time questioning whether you can really die in the game or not, considering I seemed to have no consequence of being caught. The answer was “Yes”, I could die, but only after I’d been caught at least 7 times. At that point, after the Fisherman ran away from me after catching me, I ended up chasing him, to find he always “restarts” his behaviour in the same area, right outside the attic. Lazy A.I. programming.

Pros:

  • The game works, has no visual or audio bugs from what I’ve found
  • The starting atmosphere is genuinely unnerving, and the first sighting of the “ghost” Fisherman is actually really good for what it is.
  • The actual level design is okay, it feels like a believable house with lots of floors. Maybe not your standard British house, mind you, but I’ve definitely seen layouts similar to this in big American country estates.
  • The item placement being random gives a good level of difficulty to the game, not just being able to go to where you know everything is, proving a challenge that every instance of the object placement will be different each game.
  • The game provides loops and hiding spaces very frequently to avoid the Fisherman, letting you (in theory) manoeuvre around with ease.

Cons:

  • The atmosphere completely disappears, however, after your first encounter with the Fisherman, as nothing happens. You get a spook and that’s it. The atmosphere and the sight of the Fisherman does nothing anymore as the stakes are not high enough.
  • No consequences are where this game fails massively, as said before it takes away everything this game builds up and doesn’t even give you a slap on the wrist for being caught. I was caught at least seven times before I actually died. There was no “You have a boo-boo from being caught” or “You’re now so close to death that the next capture will make you die.”, absolutely nothing to hint to the player that being caught is bad, just endless chasing and jump-scares.
  • The A.I. for this game is horrible, as said before, once you got into the vicinity of the Fisherman he would “just know” you’re there. In a game like Granny, it made sense as Granny is visually impaired yet has enhanced hearing, the entire floor of the game either being covered in something like glass or twigs, or the floorboards being squeaky. Fisherman’s House offers absolutely none of this and resorts to just chasing you when you’re in range. This doesn’t cause as many you, many you problems as you might think however, as the Fisherman constantly walks into walls and even if you hide while he’s looking right at you, he’ll treat you as if you’ve just disappeared, even if you’re shining your torch right in his face from under the futon.
  • While RNG creates an amazing aptitude for challenge, it can also really take away from the game if applied incorrectly. Developers not taking into account what bigger items like the “generator” looking like in the same place as the crowbar, making the graphic glitch uncontrollably, is something that may have happened. Or maybe just the fact that items randomly move around the house to places you’d never consider keeping those things, but it’s a game, why should things make sense?
  • Some items are broken, I believe, as during my playthrough there were named items such as the “crowbar” that I couldn’t pick up, despite seeing in the trailer that you can utilise that tool. It seems to be a persistent problem within this game.

Price: £3.99
Time To Complete: N/A (Could probably speedrun it 10 min)
Achievements: 7
Cards: None
Worth The Money: No, as cheap as it is, I’d rather play Granny at the exact same price.

Overall, this game is a shadow of the game it draws inspiration from. While it does all the same things as the role-model game, it does them in a more lacklustre way, lacking in nearly every aspect in comparison. While I can appreciate that this is the developer’s first game (on Steam), Granny was also a “Dev’s First” game as well, and it’s significantly better at what it does, while also being the exact same price as Fisherman’s House. Fisherman’s House is just another one of the Granny clone games that come with the flood of the game’s popularity, as soon as a game/show gets popular you can sit back and shake your head while you watch the cheap rehashes and clones appear everywhere. This game is no different.

Zesty Rating
2 Out Of 10.
When a game becomes popular, you’re hit with a wave of copies and shameless rip-offs, this is one of them. Literally the same price as all the Granny games, just go and play that instead. Bland, boring and not scary after the first encounter. Just another RNG-based, find-em-all to find-a-way-out, best to be ignored.

Please bear in mind that this is a repost. There have been slight changes to the post such as spelling and grammar fixes, images added, and things generally organised in the fashion I'd like them presented.  Apart from that, the main context of the review has not changed, opinion has not been altered and everything is sacred. I look forward to writing for you all again.

NOTE: This game is flagged as “Retry”.
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