Recent reviews by DaVinMan

I found my god and saved my human!

Thanks Casper!

"Duck with a Fiddle" provides the perfect review for this game that reflects my own opinions, so see that for an actual review. Personally I did not finish this because I encountered the spiky end game difficulty due to the game's awkward control mechanics. Given that, how lackluster the ending is, and because I wanted leave this game with good memories, I ended it there. I did love the inclusion of all the great heavy metal music though and I'll do my penance for not finishing the game with an appropriate amount of head banging to the playlist for this game (not the DLC mind you - the full playlist). 🤘🕯️

Personally, I didn't enjoy this game at all. I won't begrudge the devs the little bit of money I spent on it given the obvious care and attention that's been put into the music and aesthetic, but the gameplay style just left me cold. It really requires an absurd level of repetition to get through any part of the game in order to just learn the mechanics, and that's just not my cup of tea. The in-game brutality is matched only by how brutally the game treats the player. If that sort of gaming masochism is your thing, then have at it. For reference sake, I think Super Meat Boys is hard too. But this is harder a LOT harder. I enjoyed SMB up to a point. This, not so much.

Games like this deserve their own genre. I would affectionately call this genre the "#$%! you, git gud!" genre. Personally, I like games that allow me to make mistakes, cocoon me in a nice warm sense of false safety, and then help me build up skills before they smack me back down to a realization of skill issue driven mediocrity.

If you enjoyed Vampire Survivors or Brotato and other games of that type, and you expect this might be similar, then NOPE! right on out of here and give this a pass. But for most people, I simply can't recommend this. The game design is a case study in what not to do in building a broader audience.

Nope. While having some nice production values, this game lacks any kind of direction other than to become more powerful. There isn't a story arc to speak of that I saw in my couple hours. And if you want to play this for the adult fun factor, then there isn't really anything to see here beyond some ridiculous proportioned 3D models; never mind trying to use the Nexus mod for this because dependent mods are hidden by the author now because of issues. The music is nice and there a ton of freebie DLCs for this, and those seemed interesting, but ultimately wouldn't even show up in the game for me.

Gameplay wise, there is a pseudo turn based strategy game in this, but it's very shallow and you'll hit soft paywalls very quickly. They REALLY want you to spend that first $5 on the game to get to level 10 or beyond. Or maybe not and I was just doing it wrong. But really, there wasn't any point. It was not fun and it's a bit of a mess getting to the actual game part of this thing.

Sweet game! It's not really a pure shmup, but more in the vein of Vampire Survivors sort of, and its upgrade system is very similar to their later game Bore Blasters. Anyway, I very much recommend it for anyone who likes a chill shmup/survivors style game that isn't all that difficult but provides a satisfaction all its own once you get into the later game, get OP, and feel like a complete badass. 8bit is good at making games like this!

This is a kind of an addictive casual shmup with some low key RPG mechanics. Visually it's pixel art 2D game, with progressively chaotic gameplay with the player eventually becoming so overpowered that you can wipe out the entire map virtually without seeing it.

This definitely won't appeal to gamers who thrive on punishing challenges. However, for a chill relatively easy gaming experience where the player is increasingly made to feel like a complete badass, this definitely has its appeal.

I'm hoping there will be some DLC to expand on the initial starting map. Once completed, there is little incentive to keep playing, but there's a lot of potential here to add more of those, make the game infinitely progressive, or just add new skins, world types, add playable ship types & races, etc.

This is a basic "twitch-former" which is extremely touchy on the controls. Monsters do come through too, like others say, which was a neat twist. However, I personally found it to be too frustrating to be fun, and the mechanics overall are on a timer that's set WAY too fast for my taste. This has been compared to Super Meat Boy, and that's somewhat fair, but this title has a lot less personality and needed a lot more tuning on the controls, some difficulty options, and a way to remap controls. It's really rough, so unless you simply adore horribly rough unfair platformers, I cannot recommend it.

Good game for a specific kind of gamer: those that like puzzle platformers where you will need to perform sections over, and over, and over, and over ... and so on. Yes, there are a decent number of checkpoints, but then again the cancer that is the checkpoint system continues to infect the PC gaming single player ecosystem and I am not a fan. On top of that, someone on the design team said "#$@! it let's put lasers and poison clouds everywhere!" at some point, and that just totally kills the immersion and the mood. It an obvious ploy to draw out gameplay for no good reason. And then so much for multiple pathways through a level, finding secrets, trying for the stealth path, etc... nope, cuz all your time at that point gets put into memorizing which side of a crate to cling to next in order to dodge the next laser beam, and god help you if you miss, because you'll have to do the section over.. and over.. and over again.

This is a well made game like everyone says, and it even has the good fortune to work on a Steam Deck in 2025, but it's not the masterpiece it's made out to be IMO. Checkpoints and cheap design tactics are a pet peeve of mine.

I give this a thumbs up overall for production value, but that's the only reason.

Decent puzzle game a la Minesweeper. Mechanics are familiar, but added rules are confusing with the walls and arrows. Where do I get help with these? The game doesn't have a key for them or a help page. Clicking help brings me to a shady Discord channel. No thanks.