[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”.

[LEGACY] Apsulov: End of Gods

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.

[LEGACY] Super Clown: Lost Diamonds

Keymailer, as much as you save me from having to pay for the trash that consumes Steam’s indie section, you could not save me from this.

Super Clown: Lost Diamonds was another one of those, “Ah, that will be super easy to play, looks like it has a low skill requirement and made with leftover unity assets from a dodgy car-boot sale.” While being one hundred percent correct in that matter, it did not matter.
What is the use of a game if you cannot play it?

As I load up the game, I’m met with a massive spike in GPU in only the menu screen, this continues on through the entire game, but within the loading screen of all things. This should not be something that happens.
Through most of my time gaming, I’ve only every experienced issues like this with indie games. The first of which being AffordaGolf Online, my first-ever shit indie game that brought up this issue.
My computer specs are as follows:
ASUS ROG Strix G15DK Ryzen 7 5800X

  • Processor: AMD Ryzen™ 7-5800X
  • Installed RAM Size: 8GB DDR4 SO-DIMM
  • Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX3070
  • Storage: SSD – 256GB, HDD 2TB

Why is this relevant?
Well on Steam, it so nicely shows the required specs of your PC to be able to handle said game. For AffordaGolf Online, it seemed as though I was going to swimmingly breeze through the game and have no problems with my GPU whatsoever.

AffordaGolf

But no! AffordaGolf drags my GPU through the dirt and slaps it across the face, and with no option to turn any graphics up nor down, it fucked the rest of my stream for the day.
Why, when I have four times the RAM required for indie games, does it shit itself so hard?

Fast-forward a lot of time to my first-ever reviews, grabbing indie games from Keymailer and just taking what I can get. JRPGs, platformers, side scrollers… Anything I can get my hands on that I won’t experience motion sickness playing, give me it all because I want it all.
I came across a game called Rent’s Due: The Game (wow great name, where’d you find that?), and I ran into the same issue. Despite having over both the minimum and the recommended “everything” I am still suffering greatly for playing this game. Dragging my PC through the swamp like a horse for it to eventually sink into the mud as I cry over the sinkhole. Why? Why does this keep happening to me? Why is it only these indie games? And specifically the ones that I either can’t change the settings on or when I do “change the settings” it looks like it does fuck all?

Minimum and Recommended For Rent’s Due (Why is it so high tho lmao)

It became apparent to me after loading up Super Clown, that these indie games all have a few things in common, some of which I listed above.
The lack of having an option to change the graphical settings, or when you do change the graphical settings, it seems not to have any effect.
Another thing however that one of my chatters pointed out to me at the time was the possibility of the game being fully rendered, all at the one time behind the menu-page, not having the levels in a separate instance. When you load up these games, you’re running it all, all the game, all at the same time, even if you can’t see it.
All of these games feature the same visual elements too, either low-poly or cheap looking assets. All with such shiny, shiny surfaces, with Play-Doh features and garishly bright colours and conflict with each other.

Unreal Engine.
Unreal Engine is what these games have in common, and to a lesser extent, Unity as well. While giving people an easy way to make games and making it so “anything is possible!” and give everyone the keys to making games. I much have to agree with Ego when he argues with Guesteu that not just “Anyone Can Cook.”, in Ratatouille. He does continue to go on about how “…a great artist can come from anywhere…” and something about it being much more moving and recognisable if the artist has come from “humble beginnings” which is certainly true. It’s something, a lot of us who play indie games want, that’s why Stardew Valley and Unturned were such huge hitters.
What we get landed with is mostly anything but that!
We get people selling the first-ever game that they’ve attempted to make for £10+, when it barely works and hasn’t been play-tested enough by other people (Red Cap Zombie Hunter). It’s genuinely something that needs to be worked on a lot more before it can be worth any kind of money.
We get people who know how to cheat the system, and will churn out games that have no effort in them whatsoever. Even turning to stealing assets and claiming them as their own, or taking template or sample games, not altering them and selling them as is! (Abscond)

Do you want to know what you see in the images I’ve used for this review?
You see what the developer wants you to see.
Of course, that’s what you always experience when you look at screenshots from a computer game on any platform. However, sometimes, heinous things can be hidden behind screenshots taken at a perfect angle.

When you’re looking at your lovely, smooth game that functions really well, what you want to do when putting your game on Steam is to take the best screenshots that highlight the most stunning parts of your game. The most important features or the most awe-inspiring shots that will make people say “Take my fucking money”.

When you’re adding a game to Steam, you NEED screenshots; otherwise it doesn’t let you post your game (as far as I’m aware). The developer for Super Clown needed screenshots, and as you can see already, the scenes look “okay”, they look “alright”, some are a bit “what the fuck is happening with the shading with those hills?” but it’s reasonable. This is because the rest of the game is such an empty shell. If you spin the camera around from any angle you can see the edge of the game, where the landscape falls off the map, where the ground has randomly been raised and haphazardly spray-painted the terrain. The water looks so out of sorts, appearing to be “super-duper-high def water” with the rest of the map looking like it was made from Magic Sand.

In the first-ever level of this game, you spawn on this plateau where there are at least TWELVE help signs that tell you what to do, or how to do things. For each one, you need to press the interact button but THEN click on the exit window. This is while the world is NOT paused, and you can be attacked by little COVID-19 spores that were placed very close to your character.
Upon dying, you respawn, but the enemy positioning hasn’t reset, and they are right where they were before you died.
On a tutorial level, I’m immediately thrown into a really shitty situation and with no reason for it.
Random coins with weird placements that are probably to teach you what things are, with no way off the big rock other than to make a HUGE jump into the water below. This water being so shallow that I may as well belly-flop and get it over with.
Now, in the Ultra High Def Water, and the inability to change ANY settings, my PC starts levitating with the amount of work it’s having to do and with the fear for my life I “nope” out of the game.

System Requirements For Super Clown

Above all else, reiterating the fact that indie games, of all games, should not be making my computer sound as if it smokes 60 a day. I have 7 Days 2 Die, and it has a lot bigger requirements and only makes my PC sound as if it has a tickly cough on the odd occasion. There is absolutely no need for this.
There will be no pros and cons list because only the cons really matter when the vast majority of people will struggle to load this game up and play it, despite meeting the criteria.

Price: £1.69
Time To Complete: N/A
Achievements: 72
Cards: No
Worth The Money: Even with it being on sale for £0.40, I would STILL not recommend this to anyone.

Overall…
Yeah, just don’t bother. You probably wouldn’t be able to make it function anyway.

Zesty Rating
0 Out Of 10.
A game that looked bearable, easy enough to play, and made with leftover assets. Broken, unpolished, and lack of quality settings for shaders had my gaming PC wheezing like it was winded. Avoid.


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.

NOTE: This game is flagged as “Retry”. Due to my PC being professionally cleaned recently, I'm choosing to give most games in which I have these “Computer sounds like it's dying from the flu” complaints another go, or at least another boot up on my freshness. Bearing in mind, these games were played extremely early on in my reviewing “career” meaning my PC should've been 100% sound to play these games regardless. 

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