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.
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: There will be a few spoilers in this review. Not major spoilers, but more to do with the core functioning of the game and not to do with the story. Mentions: EXP, LV (LOVE), Training Dummy, Nature of the game’s “life lessons”, all gameplay routes, that some characters die (but not specified which do), and a brief explanation of the first 5 – 15 minutes of the story.
Undertale is a debated masterpiece by tobyfox, spanning a fandom which has been thriving for years (7 to be generally correct) which still, to this day, sparks the creative fires of its fans.
The last time I played this game was years ago, getting through the game on a pacifist run and getting really fucking stuck on the dummy level. At that point, I didn’t appreciate the music as I was too busy getting super aggravated at the bloody cheating dummy. If I went back to it now, I’m not certain how well I would fare. I’d possibly do better or there is the possibility I’d do worse, as over the years my style of gaming has changed considerably. (From being a COD and Halo player to Skyrim, Oblivion and Indie games).
Undertale is one of those games that tries to teach you life lessons, but has trouble deciding which life lesson to teach you, as there are so many relevant ones. But also, you are changing all the time as well, and what you consider to be the best decision may not be the same as what you once thought. It’s not the most groundbreaking game in terms of “I did a wonderful thing, why did things turn to shit?”, no, no, that award goes to the first 15 minutes of The Captain and a few other games I’ve forgotten.
You can play Undertale one of three ways, kill everything in sight (Genocide), kill every minor enemy in sight and spare every major enemy that has a personality (Neutral), or reason with everything and kill nothing (Pacifist).
What the game does, is set you up.
It gives you the basics of the game. Kill things, and it gives you XP, when you level up, you increase your HP. The point that this game makes however is that it never told you to do those things, and further on you can discover that killing people and the creatures you come across is bad (believe it or not). How bad? Well, if you go on the Genocide Route, one of the main characters reveals to you that EXP is an acronym for “Execution Points”, a commentary on how you’ve mercilessly slaughtered everyone. Okay, that’s pretty bad, but when you get enough EXP you increase your LV, which is short for LOVE, that can’t be bad, right? Nah, bro, you still fucked up. “LOVE, too, is an acronym.” Apparently standing for “Level Of Violence”, you’re executing of all the innocent creatures and people, levelling up just how much of a violent threat you are.
The neutral path isn’t that much to speak of, characters make remarks about your killing of the minor enemies of the world (which are classed as their citizens, no matter how ugly they are or if they attack you). The major characters will not really be pleased with these actions and will make some, but not all, friendly interactions unavailable, especially with the lawful good-type character.
The pacifist route is probably as you would expect, and while I do love grinding for EXP and advancing my levels, knowing that I can be friends with everyone instead is just so heart-warming. There are honestly a few minor characters that have my heart, one in particular is apparently always made fun of for its appearance, and is crying in its sprite (not the drink, the character sprite). You can console it and tell it that it’s good-looking, and the fight will stop because you’ve cheered it up! Just getting your first little “Awh…” moment is always great. Especially when coming to the big bosses as well, you will feel compelled to fight as each of the bosses (which is basically every main character) throws everything at you. You almost feel like turning around, saying “This bitch…” and using ye olde Attack button. Dodging every attack and appealing to their humour or trying to calm them down. Rinsing and repeating this a good few times can have you on their good side, and if you’re lucky, you could get a date with someone really great.
The story, as spoiler-free as I can put it, goes as so. You are a human child who, one day, when frolicking in the land humans occupy, fell into a deep, deep hole, onto a very convenient bed of flowers. Your character, who is called Frisk, apparently, wanders around until she runs into a very nice lady. The thing about this lady is that she’s a monster (but she looks super cute though, so she passes), she nurtures Frisk and looks after them until your character starts wanting to leave. The very pleasant monster lady, Toriel, panics and informs Frisk that they can’t leave. The only way to get back to the human world, above, is to go through the land of monsters, and they will try to kill any human they see.
Of course, the story can’t progress if you just stay, so you push on. Toriel isn’t having any of it, and this becomes your first battle. I’m sure she says something like “I can’t let you leave as they’ll kill you…” and makes reference to her doing it herself, so it’s less painful?? I’m not certain, I have a weird memory of that happening. After you decide whether your child character kills the very nice Toriel or not, you’re out into the land of monsters. From here you meet plenty of other monsters, minor characters, random chance enemies and major characters. Your main objective being “Escape”, but it’s so leisurely as while the monsters are struggling to survive underground… it’s such a beautiful and unique place. You find out how the world of the monsters works and the lengths they go to pursue and catch you, their hopes and dreams, and their ambitions and morals. They see you as a morally evil being due to the stories that were told about humans and their traumatic history with humans. No wonder they’re hell-bent on killing or capturing you.
Make friends or enemies along the way, discover horrible truths about monsters in general and about others more specifically. Even the practise dummy that you were told to hit by Toriel has beef with you, and it’s super pissed. But the end of this game is not the end, as, debatably, the best feature of this game is in its replayability.
From what I could tell, this game does not encourage you to replay the game, but it has a strange tone about you from the start, almost speaking to you like an old friend. But upon restarting the game, it’s immediately made known to you that the game knows you’ve restarted the game and will make commentary on your actions within the last run. Whether you killed everyone, killed no one or didn’t finish the game, it’s onto you. It turns out that you’re still playing the game, the choices that you’ve made impact your next play too. Though this is a “new” playthrough with a “new” Frisk, it’s hinted at that this is the same Frisk. Time rewinds and Frisk has full recollection of what happened in the previous game, whereas only a few of the monsters do, the rest of them are reset and have no memory of what happened. Even dying if you killed them the first time around. I’m sure at one point, a character you killed in the game before said something about dying in a dream when you start a new run. One of said characters directly calls you out on this with it’s always snarky tone, and one alludes to knowing, and depending on the route you take, will reveal to you how much they know.
This game is an expertly crafted machine.
However, the dark side of this game does not really come from within the game itself. People can find this game unappealing if it’s not the type of game for them, they may find the game ugly, or uninteresting, which are all perfectly valid. (But how can you not enjoy the music? I listen to this on repeat unironically.)
The real problem with this game is the toxic fandom. Real, great things come out of the fandom, going on from being completionists to lore hunters and theorists. Branching off that into discussing alternate universe versions of the characters and shipping other characters and art and… I could go on. Fandoms are wonderful. But one thing that this fandom is the absolute worst for is toxic backseat-gaming.
We will look at the case of Markiplier (yes this is the second time I’ve mentioned him in my reviews, I used to be a gigantic fan, leave me alone) and his Undertale experience. Not the video itself, but the mass number of comments in his videos relating to the toxic fandom attacking him over his choices in the game.
Markiplier, of his own volition, heard about the popularity of Undertale and decided to see what the fuss was about. What he was about to learn is that the overwhelmingly positive feedback of the game had led to overwhelmingly expectant fanatics of the game.
“Undertale is just oozing with charm, so get ready for an adventure! Moreover, my friends would not shut up about it, so I had to see the game for myself!”
Alas, he made the mistake of recording it and putting it on YouTube.
He managed to get a few playthroughs into the game before his choices enraged the overly expectant section of the fandom. Bear in mind, like in all cases, political, cultural, religious, fandom-based, the majority are usually never the “problem” when it comes to issues “created” by said group. Instead, it is usually those who shout loudest, the vocal majority that are usually the issue (as typically, the true majority of these groups want to be left to enjoy their shit in peace.) The vocal majority of the Undertale fandom is comparable to the stereotype of ‘feminism’ used to denigrate it, or the many “Karens” used to justify why your cousin’s newborn daughter shouldn’t be called that. So, when people mention the “Undertale Fandom”, they immediately think about the vocal majority, instead of the true majority.
“Everyone was disappointed in the way I was playing it, and ordinarily I would just be like: ‘Y’know, I’m doing it my way. I’m gonna do this,’”
Markiplier only got two videos into Undertale before the pressure of the wave of toxic fans of the game had completely overrun his comment section. A combined total of almost an hour of video, and Mark reading out all the dialogue to make it entertaining, had meant he’d not reached the first town yet. Which, on a solo playthrough without an audience to entertain, would take a lot shorter of a time. Mark did not get to really even experience the game, as something he’d done within the game, had made the toxic fandom so mad they had to harass him.
He gave a fan-favourite character… a “redneck voice”. Oh, the humanity! How dare he give a character which has no voice, a voice that is the wrong voice! How is it the wrong voice? It just is!
Oh, and he’s doing the genocide route instead of being a pacifist and completely missing all the friendships that he could’ve made, and that’s not how the story is supposed to be canonically… Wrong! You HAVE to play it pacifist first so that you can feel the PAIN of killing everyone and tugging at your heartstrings, oh my goodness, it’s just so wrong.
There are more threatening comments than this. This one was the more “on the fence one” before it got nasty.
The wave initially overflowed his chat with a wave of insults towards the voice and the fact that he was killing things because it’s not the way that they believe the game was intended to be played. There were then people trying to “reason with Mark” by pointing out why he should do the pacifist run instead. These explanations were overly detailed and spoiled a lot of the game for him.
“I’m not having fun making these videos because I know that no matter what I do, everyone will think I’m wrong.”
“I feel like I missed out on [Undertale] because people ruined it for me… Even though this game is wonderful, I feel like I missed out on it because people tried to control it too hard. And that’s a lesson to learn about something that you care for very deeply. Allow other people to experience it in the way that it should be because that’s what the game is about. That’s a lesson to learn for both the community that facilitates around Undertale and life in general in anything that’s not Undertale. Let it have room, to breathe…trust the people that you care about to find their own way, and make their own mistakes, and discover new things you may have never seen. It’s about trust, you know?”
~Markiplier at the second attempt of playing through it on a livestream.
It wasn’t only Mark who was affected by this onslaught of negativity, it had hit the entire side of YouTube that was playing the game the way they wanted to. People who had newly started the game, knew nothing of what they were “supposed to do” and were going into it blindly, as you should with games. Attacks were being felt on all fronts. And you can tell how bad a fandom is when it garners the response of the creator.
There is more than this from TobyFox on the whole “bad fandom” thing, but I could only find the one where people were spoiling the game. Which is bad enough in itself, but not as bad as harassment.
I won’t go on for much longer about the fandom, as it’s honestly not something that’s wrong with the game itself. It’s actually a sign as to how, when something is so good, that it brings together everyone to be so passionate about the game. It’s just unfortunate that they turn into mindless drones of “You’re wrong, this is the right way to do it.” Tobyfox was probably one of the people who were most affected by it, seeing their creation as an instrument used to excuse why people are turning so sour against people who are only trying to enjoy the game.
At one point, I’m confident that TobyFox even reached out, on Twitter, to condemn this behaviour. If not, there was something said, as I remember the massive uproar from both sides of the community.
However… In conclusion, this game is a subjective masterpiece. Not everyone will like the game, and not everyone will like certain parts of the game, be it pacifist or genocide. But this game, single-handedly, made such a significant dent that the impact of it will be felt until the next considerable upset. A game with a core that powerful that it drove people to be toxic (who were probably already just as vain/toxic and needed something to latch onto) to passionate levels and seek those who were in the wrong. All that mattered to me was the tricky boss fights, the freedom to choose and the epic music (which I listen to unironically).
Zest Rating 9.5 Out Of 10. Golden Lemon, super Zesty. This game is a look into the masterpieces that TobyFox can achieve. I’ve still not played deltarune and need to. Powerful enough of a story to give toxic fans a backbone to aggressively backseat regular players. The outstanding soundtrack and plot-loop is genius. I would stream the game, but we all know why I don’t.
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.
Back ages ago, I played a game called Pacify with one of my old buddies on her stream. She absolutely crapped herself, while I remained completely calm for most of the game. Also, under-reacting to the ghost chasing me, which led to my friend getting more of a fright due to “…oh” not being much of a hint of “We should run.”
Hidden Shelter immediately reminded me of this game, but not in a good way.
Hidden Shelter is a game where you and your 3 buddies are in a car driving somewhere, the car crashes and one of your buddies seem to walk off on their own into the woods that the car tumbled into. From here, you and your wuss of a friend (whom both of you have no “inside voices”) venture off from the wreck of the car to find the lost friend. You come across a spooky mansion in the neck of the woods with its lights on and the door unlocked, the wuss character rightfully asks if it’s okay to “just go in without permission”, which your character swiftly disregards. Entering the mansion, the pair think it’s a great idea to walk around shouting and yelling, eventually believing that there’s no one there and start walking around looking for their friend.
From here is where the game turns from interesting, with it’s rendered cutscenes and spooky atmosphere, and flops completely. This game is now a mess of unhinted mini-cutscenes, which will not activate until you get close enough to an object. This in turn forces you to rub your balls on every possible piece of furniture and anything that looks vaguely intriguing to see if it triggers one. There was a point where I had been around the entire house around 3 times, looking for something, anything, and accidentally triggered a mini-cutscene that offered nothing to the game by standing next to a plain stool. It’s, honest-to-god, bullshit.
The reason Pacify comes to mind when thinking about this game is due to the fact that every door in this damn mansion is locked. Big Wuss actually comments on with “Why would you lock every door in the house you live in?”. I wonder why, Big Wuss, I wonder why… Not only this but everything is such a needless trek, why oh why do I need to find this key, to open this door, to find another key which opens this door, to find another key to open this door which helps me un-barricade another door which leads back to the main room? In Pacify, it was fun, okay? In Pacify we were being chased constantly, and the key finding was a race of sorts. Finding the keys was crucial to our survival and if one of us died during finding the keys, we had to be so much quicker to find the rest! If we slacked on finding the living room key which allowed us to find the bedroom key, which in turn led to us finding the attic key which gave us the basement key, we wouldn’t be able to open the door to the room in the basement that allows you to revive! It was the rush, the panic, and the intensity that made Pacify work for that stupid “domino of keys” formula that it used.
Hidden Shelter has none of this. It has no presence after the first few scenes and atmosphere changes.
There are encounters with a ghost, of sorts, which makes use of the 3D objects which have gravity by throwing them at you or using its weird wind powers to make things get in your way as you run. My first gripe with the monster, or whatever it is, is that it’s odd wind power is complete bogus. I’m pretty sure that on death, the physical objects that get thrown around do not reset, either that or the peculiar wind powers randomly chucks things around meaning that whether things get under my feet are not is just luck. This causes me to get caught a lot, but being completely out of my control. The lighting in the game is terrible, so I cannot see if anything is actually on the floor to trip me up, and sometimes I can’t see where I’m going. But, what fucks things up the most is that instead of doing the regular thing that games do and let players make their own mistakes, if the player goes the wrong way during a chase they are immediately caught. For example, in the kitchen scene, I was chased by the monster. I ran out through the corridor and ran into the dead end as per usual out of panic and general… Directional confusion… Correcting myself and running out of the right door, I spin around to try and quickly close it to attempt to slow the creature down (completely disregarding Big Wuss’ safety). Not thinking “I need to run outside because the front door will still be open.” because since when do horror games just let you run out the front door? I run for the stairs to try and maybe find a closet, so I can hide Ao Oni style, but as soon as my foot touches the stairs I get pulled into the mandatory death cutscene. Okay, so perhaps my fumbling in the dead end is what fucked me up there, okay… Let’s try again. Next time, I went straight out of the right door and went straight for the stairs. Mandatory jumpscare again. I tried this a few times, believing that it was me, and if I was just fast enough I could probably make it. It was only when someone in my Twitch chat at the time suggested that I ran outside instead, I actually survived. Not only was this monster not fast at all, but even after tripping on boxes and then waiting in the hallway to test the theory, slowly activating the stairs’ death was it clear that, yes, this is indeed bullshit.
There is obviously much more to this game than what I played through. After wandering through the entire house, clicking on all the doors to find that 3/4 doors gave me the “This Door Is Locked” response, the rest having nothing to say at all, I’d rather not continue. That and that I had to quit the game due to what I found was a checkpoint trap. The ghost had chased me into a room (which was scripted, as if you try to run the wrong way then you get “auto-deaded”) and you’re given no clue what to do in the room but “escape”. Doors were bugged closed from what I could tell, and there was no other way to escape, so I had to quit the game.
Pros:
The game works, and has no graphical or audio bugs from what I can tell.
The game is fully voice acted, which adds a nice feeling of effort put into the game, which most indie horror lacks (from what I’ve played recently).
The game tries hard to convey the feeling that Amnesia brings with its puzzle-like environment and room unlocking.
Big Wuss (secondary character) addresses a lot of the common horror tropes in his questioning of the mansion and the main character’s actions, which is honestly a big plus for me, as I love it when idiotic shit is called out on.
The atmosphere at the start of the game is eerie and actually draws you in, especially with the addition of the rendered cutscene, which adds some intensity as well.
Cons:
Despite having no graphical or audio bugs, the game does suffer from game-breaking glitches and game-cues not activating. A part I got soft-locked in was exiting through the conservatory door in the kitchen, not allowing us to leave. Due to the horrible A.I. pathing the monster couldn’t figure out how to get round the corner of the corridor.
Effort and trying your best to draw inspiration from games is something I can admire. However, despite all the effort put into a game, it doesn’t save it from falling flat at the hurdle it tried so hard to create and jump over. This game tries to feel like Amnesia (I’m not sure if it drew inspiration from it or not, but it’s the closest I can relate it to) but fails considerably at the start of the game. Lost is the atmosphere and intensity with the meaningless wandering, unthreatening monster and lack of actual puzzles.
All the notes that are scattered around the mansion are completely incoherent and do nothing to service the story, atmosphere, or the mood. They don’t help progress anything, offer any combination to locked doors, provide hints, or even really provide any interest whatsoever.
The A.I. pathing is terrible. When you’re doing maths in school, you learn about a certain way to calculate things according to maps, distances and real life where there are buildings and walls you need to walk around, completely erasing A to B values. You need to maybe need to include C as well if you need to turn a sharp corner or additional other points if you’re avoiding something. The monster however (from the best I can tell) still uses A to B tracking, leading to it walking into walls as it tries to follow you. Going as far as getting itself stuck if you’re fast enough to run down a corridor and turn a corner.
The lighting is terrible… I wouldn’t list this as a graphical issue/error as I believe that it’s intentional, but god-damn, things are so dark, and you hardly have any light. Sometimes when Big Wuss walks up behind you, and you see him out the corner of your eye, it’s like an oil/tar rendition of the blob monster.
The optimisation of the game is terrible as well. When starting up the game I almost cried a little as for the past couple of times I’ve been reviewing games it’s been sucking up a lot of RAM due to unoptimised shaders. The menu was the worst by far, taking up a lot, but when starting the game it got better. However, I still had to lower the settings a bit due to me running on a lovely 30fps with full quality despite my fully capable PC.
The game gives you no room to fail naturally, if you go the wrong way within the game you’re given a game over jumpscare immediately. It makes sense for JRPGs maybe, but for a game like this (where we’ve already walked up and down that staircase 4 times trying to figure out what to do) there is no justification for it. The A.I. is weak, yes, but at least let the player wander around with the blaring chase music wondering where to go until they get caught or, even better, realise they need to leave the building.
Quick note: all images that I am using in this review are all areas that I have seen, but also picked to highlight just how bad the lighting in this game is. There are better pictures of this game (mainly the one used as the very first screenshot the player sees when looking at this game on Steam to create the false illusion that the game will always look like this) which I will show, but the rest/most of the game just looks like all the pictures above.
I tend to always use only areas that I’ve seen in the game to use in the reviews as it, sort of, concludes my experience. My experience was infinite darkness and weak jumpscares.
Price: £2.99. Previously £7.19 Time To Complete: N/A Achievements: 12 Cards: None Worth The Money: If the game worked, possibly. Because it soft-locked for me, no, not at all.
In conclusion, this game is a product of what happens when two inspired devs take on the role of making a big horror game with inspiration from big games titles and bit off more than they can chew. I feel bad saying that, honestly, but it’s a case of too much being focused on one thing and not in another. A lot of time and effort spent building the area, flooded with ideas and then creating that surprisingly great cutscene, to then flop on the execution. A restrained gameplay, a weak atmosphere after all pouring their work into building it up, and a drab way to execute initial puzzles and consecutive door unlocking. At its price right now, it would be great for the more lenient and less critical horror game enjoyer to play, but due to bugs and game soft-locks, I’d tell most to avoid it.
Zesty Rating 2.5 Out Of 10. Apples that you bought last week but never touched, but now you need to eat them because you bought them. A game with effort from a small dev team. Inspired from bigger games, but lacks at the execution. Bad A.I. pathing, lighting and lack of atmosphere after the initial introduction. I honestly prefer collecting coins to collecting the keys to all these locked doors.
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”.
“Load game Confused immediately Walk outside No directive Get punched by slappy the dummy Uninstall game 10/10”
Once again, another horror game that I was excited to play, once again another horror game that I have uninstalled and will never touch again.
Keymailer once again has supplied me with what I thought was going to be the next Kraven Manor, spooky mannequin-esque looking art puppets, littered around an abandoned and ruined town/village. Instead, what was delivered in this game was a walking simulator where you pick up pieces of paper with information and listen to a radio. I say this because I didn’t get much further than the first area of this game; after having to play through the first area 3 times, I was almost already done.
You start off with the typical horror cliché of waking up somewhere that’s not your bed, I have nothing wrong with this cliché, I just have to point it out. From here you get a torch and are told to leave the room, I, however, could see nothing as when it had told me to grab a battery and to replace it, it was extremely lacking on the part of telling me how to actually “do the thing”.
Restart the game to try again.
Once again waking up, paying SUPER close attention to the instructions and picking up the battery, once again I stand right in front of the door that I assume I will be exiting the building via before my battery runs out. Assuming that this area, considering it was literally a wall of windows and the door itself had windows, maybe I’d be able to see? Nope, the lighting in this game is terrible. And again, paying close attention to the instruction did me no service, the battery would not change in the torch, the light went out, and the door would not open. I got understandably irritated and started jumping everywhere around the room I was currently locked in, completely blind due to the lack of battery changing, and managed to glitch myself into a bed.
Restart.
Zoom, up out of bed I got, I picked up that battery and I looked everywhere. Anything, anything, have I missed anything at all???. I found nothing, it was only that one battery and only that one door, and as the torch started to fail on me, I did what I had before and darted back over to that door. All this time, in all my “playthroughs” the music had been unnecessarily suspenseful, like the darkness was dawning on me, trying to eat me, but as much as I would’ve blamed it on my inability to change the battery it’s my 3rd attempt, the music is not phasing me any more and is actually annoying me.
The light went out, and I stood at the door, I reclined back in my chair, defeated. Gaining back some will to play, I pressed every button on my keyboard to no avail. My chat pointing out to me that the game was bad, all I can manage is a cynical and snarky “Yes, yes it is…”.
So once again I let out my frustration on the game, this time by pressing my “R” key just about as hard and fast as someone trying to take over their local Pokémon Gym on Pokémon Go, but with just a sprinkle of hate. And suddenly, on maybe one of the longer pushes, or perhaps it needed to be hated, it worked. Wow, amazing.
Okay, so I’m out now. What do I do? The game has completely no directive or incentive to do something and has you aimlessly wander around gawking at things that aren’t scary (perhaps for people who’re afraid of mannequins, possibly…) and suffer the game’s fatal attempt to create a terrifying environment.
Don’t get me wrong, this game, without all its jumpscares and loud noises and blatant attempts to be scary, is actually very eerie. The setting and the placement of the mannequins really work, the environment outside the playable area is excellent too, eerie as heck. I feel like this game has done too much in some areas and not enough in others. Trying way too hard to be scary too early and not enough on the actual playability of the game and the ease of playing.
To put it down to a tee, this game has the makings of a standard horror game. It uses tropes such as the refillable battery that has been overused since Outlast, the concept having existed before then, Outlast making every horror developer thinking they need it in their game. You don’t need it in your game for it to be a good horror game. Using wandering around with a semi-cut path for you, using the one road up the centre of the town/village to navigate your way through, finding notes with people’s personal logs and mostly irrelevant information. Only one of these notes is actually helpful, being right beside the padlock with the number combination, a little too easy, but it’s the only one that actually was relevant.
After walking around the entire village, seeing a mannequin walk all creakily, rub my groin against every fence to see if I was missing a way out to get to the big factory behind the town, parkouring into ruined buildings that had nothing in it and getting right up in every mannequin’s personal space I was then socked in the face by the very last mannequin I encountered. I’m calling him Barry. Barry socked me in the face. I’d walked past Barry before, and he was a regular mannequin, he looked as if he was having an argument with his mannequin buddies with the way he was posed, but I never went up to see what was happening before, other things took priority. On coming back to see if sticking my face in Barry’s face would advance the game any further, it initiated an in-game cutscene where he just started moving, grabbed me and socked me in the face. Rude. Oh, and to note, this restarted the entire game and all my progress was lost. Barry, who looked like every other mannequin, has the ability to kill me and my game. With no warning or “eerie music” or anything to ward me away from doing such a thing, Barry has the ability to just smite me.
Screenshot from Kraven Manor, an infinitely better mannequin horror game.
There will be no pros and cons. It’s unfair to list cons when the pros will hardly do me writing a list any justice. Especially when it will mostly just be “Game works and looks and sounds good, but that’s about it.” So onto the little chart, conclusion and rating.
Price:£3.99 (Originally £6.99) Time To Complete: N/A Achievements: None Cards: None Worth The Money: No. This game was quickly reduced to £3.99 for a reason. If worked on, I’d say it has the potential to meet being worth it’s original price, but not right now.
Overall, this game is another one I add to the pile of games that could’ve been something great or even just “okay”, but falls so hard due to paying attention to one aspect of the game over more important aspects. With the massive potential to be another one of those great mannequin horror games that have become horror connoisseur household names, falling flat on it’s face at nearly every hurdle right off the bat. It’s honestly not worth trying to figure out how to progress to the next area.
Zesty Rating 1.5 Out Of 10. As full of flavour as that lemon I bit into at a showroom. Polystyrene. Another indie horror game that falls flat at every hurdle it attempts right off the bat. Eerie and spooky mannequins, ruined by bad playability and trying way too hard to scare the player too early in the game. Barry slapped me good, right back to the start, so I said “nope.”.
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”.
ARIDA: Backland’s Awakening is an open world game that I was really looking forward to, I saw on Keymailer and immediately requested it. It’s a desert/backlands survival game where you have to keep tabs of your food and hunger while trying to reach a specific place, also picking up side-quests along the way. (Reminding me a tad of the vibe of The Flame in the Flood) It’s definitely not a catfish game, where it misleads me into thinking something it isn’t or saying that it’s something or not, but I still feel a little empty playing it.
ARIDA: Backlands Awakening starts off really well, having a good starting story and nice little picture by picture cutscenes, representing their situation really well. The town that the main character lives in, used to be a lush, bountiful town, producing lots in terms of cattle and food produce (as it would not make much sense to make a town in a barren wasteland). At some point, the town was engulfed with a drought which severely affected everything within the town. With limited water supply, they could no longer grow enough food, support the cattle they had, and everything eventually started withering and dying.
The town was, however, considered a holy town, and leaving it was taboo, until pilgrimages to a new town where it rained every other day started, splitting the community in two. Those who saw it taboo to leave the holy town, and those who saw the pilgrimage to the new town as a new holy journey and the drought a message from their belief to leave.
After being served the harsh truth about the world a few quests in, you’re also handed your situation, the pilgrimage that you were supposed to join already happened. Something else shit happens, which I’m not going to spoil, and you’re forced to make this pilgrimage all by yourself and leave the stupid priest to preach to an empty town. (sorry, but I think the priest is a bloody idiot, the town is dire, and he still wants to stay despite the conditions. I get being determined, but this is just blind stubbornness due to being overly invested in their religion and sacrificing themselves to trying to prove a point that will eventually kill them.)
So from here you mostly already know what you need to do, you can gather water, make campfires and cook food with the campfire to fill both your food and water bars. The game also has a “heat” meters (I forget what it’s actually called), so in areas where the heat is intense, your meters deplete faster.
As much as I love the absolutely dire depiction of this landscape, barns full of the corpses of dead cows and the horrid sound of swarms of flies in that area, this game “runs like an indie game”. Of course, we need to break the stigma of indie = bad, but when I say that “it runs like an indie game”, people know what I mean. It’s clunky, unresponsive and when walking over objects you can pick up, or being next to them, the prompt to interact with them doesn’t always pop up. Failing that, the crafting is a little weird, and using things from your inventory. I made sure to double-check it wasn’t my mouse being fuck-y (I’ve had mouse problems in the past from my Razor Deathadder, despite my Logitech G502 being a sexy fuck, I’d never question your loyalty to me my sexy, sexy computer mouse.) When trying to craft things, the crafting inventory was stubborn to come up, I had to trick it into thinking I wasn’t going to click it to sneakily click it and make it open. When using items in my inventory, for example the drinking water, I had 3 stacks, I clicked to consume 1, and usually, I’d consume 2, sometimes I’d consume them all?
Nevertheless, I feel that this would be a good game to continue and actually go back to if the potentially game-ruining kinks were ironed out. Maybe a solid 6 or 7 out of 10 if it worked the way it should. Currently, with this, and also being another game that kind of bores me after a great initial plot then suddenly bland side-quests and not a lot of urgency, it’s looking about as dry as the drought they’re having.
List, please!
Pros:
The game works, it doesn’t crash and has no audio or graphical issues. (As far as I saw)
The game is survival, crafting, which is a genre I really enjoy. It focuses on food and drink and not much else, which keeps it nice and simple. The type of crafting that happens is similar to Raft in the sense that there is not a lot that you can craft, but everything that you do craft is almost essential to the plot/survival of your character.
Things that can be picked up that are necessary for survival sometimes require an additional tool to harvest them, adding another layer to the game focusing on maintaining and crafting tools to aid in your survival.
There are two strong emotional elements at the start of the game involving goats and your grandpa, both really set the tone for the game very well, and just how dire the atmosphere is. For a family friendly tagged game, this game is super bleak, and I love it.
Cons:
While the game technically works, it has a few bugs as mentioned. Double-using items in your inventory when you only wanted to use one, being really tricky to operate menus, and being generally tedious in terms of the UI.
While the game is a survival game, and elements that are used to make the game harder in some aspects are great, the use of the heat to make things degrade faster is a little too strong (in my opinion). In comparison to the resources that you’re given to survive, I really don’t feel that it’s too balanced.
Things being picked up for intended use when crafting would be nice if the option to do so came up when it’s supposed to and not on your 5th attempt rubbing your crotch against it. The action buttons for the game aren’t very responsive, in the way that they don’t always appear where they’re supposed to. Me being a person who loves to pick everything up, this is both annoying, frustrating and tedious.
Price: £5.19 Time To Complete: 2.5 hours Achievements: 26 Cards: 5 Worth The Money: Honestly, for about £5, yeah, go for it. It’s only a 2-3 hour experience and while it has its bugs, it’s still a reasonable game.
In conclusion, this game is a game that I want, but it’s missing a lot of the polish that I would’ve hoped it came with before being released. If the game was Early Access, then I could forgive it a little more, but due to being a full release, it’s a little more inexcusable. Sure, patches can come for games regardless of EA state, but purchasing a game that still is wonky enough to impact on a player’s experience isn’t something you should expect of a final product. It’s gritty and realistic, while also being a bit unrealistic in some parts. Somewhat aimed towards a younger audience, with character design and simplicity of playing and language, but somewhat not with its realistic portrayal of death and what comes with drought.
Hands down, a game that should be experienced, but with a fair mind that it is wonky as shit.
Zest Rating 4.5 Out Of 10. It looks delicious on the outside, but disappointing on the inside. Like a white dragon fruit.
The type of game that I love and wished to see in this new, unique setting, let down by a handful of experience hindering bugs and slow pacing after the initial deaths. Bugs making me consume all my water instead of just one canister really hinder gameplay, as the character has sloshing sounds coming from their stomach as they walkdue to water overindulgence.
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”.
Apsulov: End of Gods was a game that I was really excited to play. It was one of the first games that I’d received from Keymailer that actually looked worth the price that it was. Looking like a finely polished, first-person adventure which had very different elements to it than previous games. It struck my interest and when I actually received the game, I was genuinely shocked and excited considering that the game was released in 2019.
You’re dropped into the game with a very cranky-ass GLADOS repairing you and shouting at you for being a failure. This part of the game sets up the basics, walking, movement in general and interacting with things. Not only that, but gives you the tone straight away. Lulling you into a false sense of security with being nice, and funny, and then literally screaming at you for being a failure for reasons you can’t understand as the player. (which genuinely triggered some fear for me, a bit of trauma, but we okay). From there you escape into vents, run, and get sucked into a giant, glow-y, magical butthole then transported to the Ashlands where you’re attacked by Demodogs, they eat your arm, but you’re then rescued.
The man who rescues you infuses you with a weird robot arm, which you can conveniently charge up with green ion cells lying around everywhere. With said arm, you can unlock doors using biosignatures which you’ve stolen from the hands of dead corpses. Not only that, but you can also use it to force push people and things, and that’s how you solve a lot of the travel-based obstacles.
Honestly, I couldn’t really tell you what the plot was. I have no idea if I just wasn’t listening, or if I’d zoned out because I was bored, or if it was actually given to me. In my head, all I had was “Zap, Zap, out of battery, refill battery, Zap, Ooo that looks cool, Zap.” Which is not an entirely bad thing.
The game tries to combine numerous things together, and as much as I enjoyed the game, I think that is its downfall. Once I stopped to breathe, or got tripped up on an obstacle I couldn’t solve it hit me, I don’t really know what’s going on. This game is supposed to be horror, but I, personally, don’t find it scary at all. There was only one good jumpscare/scary moment, but I forget what it was and where it was. The game also is supposed to be a mix between Sci-Fi and Viking themes. The humans within the game have “found Asgard” and therefore found items associated with the gods of that realm. Artefacts from the one that is known for raising undead, now there are undead everywhere. It’s a classic DOOM story, humans got too ballsy with their inventions, found Hell and were like “Yeah we could use Literal Hell to power our machines.” but instead it’s all the nasty Viking gods. After DOOM, looking at this game, you could replace the fact it’s Viking gods with anything at all, or take it out completely. I love it, don’t get me wrong, but I’m more interested in why GLADOS is a dick because this robot thing is apparently sentient and really fucking pissed off at me for reasons I still don’t understand.
Pros:
The game works, no major graphical errors, bugs, or audio glitches.
The game looks absolutely stunning for being an indie game, and as visual quality goes, justifies the price of the game. It sets scenes amazingly and is not afraid to make things look grandiose, spectacular, and foreboding.
The use of colour in this game is also great, not in an atmospherical sense but from a game design perspective. You always know what something is due to the colour and the glow. The big purple horned monoliths are save points, the big green glowing items on the walls are cell refill stations.
All the controls are really intuitive and there’s no sense of mucking up what you’re doing. Everything is simple and to the point and is really “handy” when solving the puzzles.
The puzzles within the game are easy to spot, as always highlighted with light or made extremely obvious with a bright yellow valve or an obvious ladder you need to blast down to gain access.
Cons:
Despite wanting to be a horror game, the atmosphere just isn’t foreboding enough, and the enemies are not scary. There are no pivotal moments where you feel in imminent danger, apart from the cutscene where the demodogs are out to get you. Otherwise, the game is just dark corridors, boopy doors and the Iron Man gloves. The lack of fear this game supplied meant that things that I would usually find scary were just not doing it for me.
While it’s good that the exploring puzzles are easy and easy to find, so far, there is only finding the hand that opens a door, blasting a ladder down and blasting doors open. Otherwise, there is nothing else but exploring and picking up bits of dialogue from journal entries and other lore snippets.
I’m not sure what the game was really hoping to achieve. It mixes a lot of different cool elements that really catch your interest. I can’t help but feel as though it sounds like an unfinished thought, or a “what if…” statement that was expanded on but never solidified. As said before, it’s essentially DOOM, but instead of it being Hell that humans stupidly messed with, it’s Asgard and the world is at threat of the angry god people’s bad antics.
The story of the game, while convoluted, was also either barely present or easy enough for me to ignore. Generally, I was happy enough in this bliss of ignorance, happily zapping things, but when it came to puzzles that slowed me down, it dawned on me how empty the game felt.
Price: £15.49 Time To Complete: 5 Hours Achievements: 39 Cards: 7 Worth The Money: No, but yes on a discount, putting it under £10, maybe.
Overall, this is a stunning looking and feeling game, which creates a great awe-inspiring atmosphere well, but not a scary or spooky one. It has great mechanics used for environmental puzzles and opening up new areas to explore, but no other puzzles that vary enough to excite the brain. A very mixed review from me, but it’s genuinely a game that if I got around to, I would try to finish it. It has my interest, but not my heart.
In conclusion, this game would’ve been a better game if they’d been trying to rip off DOOM in a way. Taking the fast-paced action and combining it with the “I don’t really know what’s going on because things are going super fast, but I’m having fun” aspect combined with quick and easy puzzles. Throw in a few horror aspects to have the player fuelled not only with the energy of excitement, but the energy of “Oh shit, OH SHIT, AHH! AHHH!” with some horror elements.
Zesty Rating 6.5 Out Of 10. Stunning visually and gameplay wise, but the story is lacking just enough to make you feel something is missing. Interesting premise, but crams a little too much in, making everything feel a tad unfinished. Still a great game for mindless exploration of the fantastic environments created.
Please bear in mind that this is a repost. There have been slight changed 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.
Another game from Keymailer, this time one that I had high hopes for. Promising classic open-world RPG elements and fun adventures, Gedonia looked like it was a bit of a break from the burden of AAA adventure games without being an indie MMO. Allowing almost full control of doing whatever the fuck you wanted and building yourself from there. And while the promise was fulfilled, I feel like it was fulfilled in the more lacklustre way.
Panning opening scenes and great panoramic views, all done with a low poly, but still nice enough looking design. A great deal of time spent on the opening of the game, making the player lean on the edge of their seats, drawn in and ready for an experience. You exclaim to your dad, who is not your dad, that you had DREAMS! And those dreams make you absolutely sure that if you go to the cave that’s at the top of the mountain… The TRUTH would be REVEALED!!! Cut to your character clipping through the rocks as they climb the mountain and find a cave. You gain control of the character to walk a few metres to find a shrine of some sort when the “ooga-booga” happens, you see some visions and then nothing. That’s it, come back out the other side and make your way back and your character hints to knowing things but never says it.
From here on, I’m a little lost. I feel like the story has just been dropped and there’s nothing, just tumbleweeds. Don’t get me wrong, there’s apparently lots to do, and there are lots that I can find, but usually these games have some sort of overarching bigger quest. While I know that there is a bigger quest, after all the hype and the “exploration” and the big overwhelming seeming “ooga-booga” stuff, it’s just dropped. It’s almost as if it weren’t relevant or never existed in the first place, or like it never really mattered. What I loved about The Elder Scrolls games is that while you have this overarching quest that you knew that you needed to do, and it was very prominent, you could go out and do anything. While you can still very much do the same here, the importance of this quest isn’t gripping enough to give me a pull to the game, and that’s the whole difficulty of balancing aspects of a game like this. In The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, the threat was there and it was very real. Within the first 10 minutes of playthrough you’re already introduced to the characters and the types of characters you meet along the way, not only that, but the enemies and the overarching threats are also shown as well. The gravity of the situation hits you as the emperor is killed right in front of you, as the cultists also try to kill you as well. You’re given the royal heirloom that will save the day as a constant reminder of your task and escape the sewers into this free world where you can do anything. This is what Gedonia is missing, this overarching weight and threat. While I feel that it was trying to do that at the start, which is so crucial, it fell flat, which meant the rest of the game as well followed suit.
Pros:
The game works, no game-breaking graphical errors or audio glitches.
The game, while low poly, which is not to everyone’s tastes, looks great for what it is. Bright colour palettes for the first zone which is bright and cheery which contrasts lovely with other areas such as the swamp and the dead-lands.
The focus on exploration is great for an indie game. It has such a vast and open world with lots to discover. Off-stream, I played a bit more of the game and delved a lot further than I had on-stream, and found that the developer puts a lot of great detail into the places of interest.
This game has the start of a great character developer. With a different build for different types of characters and playthroughs, it really allows for some ‘re-specing’ or replayability.
While still a bit clunky and not polished, the crafting system is simple and is tailored to the level or level range of your character. The things you need to craft are not outrageous in comparison to the time and effort needed to find the resources, in tie with how hard it would be to obtain such resources at your level. It’s well-thought-out.
There appears to be an array of puzzles within the quests available. I’ve only came across one puzzle so far, but it was simple enough to solve but just as good. A good balance of being simple yet challenging is hard to find within indie games.
Cons:
This game is in early access, everything is unpolished and unfinished, it is not a finished product. This is more of a disclaimer than a con, but is probably the reason a lot of the cons I have so far exist.
There is a lot of character clipping in the cutscenes (and a little in the game itself) which is a minor flaw, but when watching it took me out of the game a bit.
The “main quest” of this game almost has no weight, which when starting a game like this you need some sort of momentum to propel the player forward, a little push or shove to get the ball rolling. For me, the quick intro and cutscene just didn’t hammer the nail in enough, and more or less hammered it into the coffin for the game. It left me with no motivation to explore or actually see the quest through as I had no urgency, and no sense of wonder as to what the character meant in all this.
The other quests in the game don’t really hit home either. The only quest so far I vaguely had any interest in was the person being constantly hit by lightening, but just like the main quest, something fell flat within the quest that just made me uninterested again.
The environment of the game, while being nice looking and scenic for the art style that it has, it’s very dead, there’s nothing else to it but what it is. Seeming to be full of life, but lifeless all at the same time. The NPCs, as well, also lifeless. While of course, we can’t all have wandering A.I. that have their jobs and schedules, but their animations are also rather flat and dead as well.
The combat for the game is very clunky, stiff, and slow. The dodging is more of a roll or sidestep, and when you’re a low level, it’s REALLY tricky for you to level up when suddenly ambushed by a bear or group of bandits. It’s difficult to tell where I’m supposed to level up because I don’t see any levels above the bar and always feel a bit overwhelmed being a new character.
Price: £9.29 Time To Complete: N/A Achievements: 16 Cards: None Worth The Money: Yes, when it’s a finished game. Not right now, however.
Overall, this game is in Early Access, there’s not much else to say. Gedonia has been in development for some time and from what I can see in the other reviews and the community for this game, it just keeps getting better and better. It also seems to be another lone dev game, which is something I love. It’s still in Early Access, for good reason, but doesn’t claim to be anywhere near finished. I can wholeheartedly recommend this game to people who want something to follow and love as time goes on, a work in progress and hopefully not a project that may get abandoned at some point. I cannot recommend this to people who want a full game, who long for an experience without pause, who require a robust adventure to fill their soul. I believe that there will be a time that I can recommend this game for that, but that time is not now.
Zesty Rating 4.5 Out Of 10 A work in progress by a lone dev, a promising outlook. Adventure and endless possibilities promised and a great journey to be had when finished. The unfinished part is the only negative, and it’s a little empty, but it’s acceptable by Early Access standards.
Please bear in mind that this is a repost. There have been slight changed 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.
jinxlgamez
Leighann Paige
Doubtful Player 