Recent reviews by enc0unter

The game has adorable graphics, teaches you about bird species, has a somewhat fresh setting with a diverse cast and deals with important environmental topics.

However there is a discrepancy between the core game mechanic of taking pictures and the story. Taking a snapshot, especially of moving birds is rather difficult and not too forgiving, creating frustrated in people that are not very experienced with a controller, say kids.
At the same time, that is where the narrative level of the story is. It is a basic "capitalism bad" story about the evil money corporation building a hotel in a nature reserve. It is entirely free of any dilemma or subtext, reminding me of books we read in primary school.

In this vein, much of the games message felt "cheap":
- There is an entangled dolphin beached, let's put it back into the water to "fix" the problem instead of even hinting at things like overfishing on the island, while there is a paella chef constantly coooking paella ten metres away.
- Constructing unnecessary bird feeders to watch birds without thinking about the consequence on the local fauna
- Ending the game with a giant firework on a warm & dry spanish Island full of endangered wildlife
RIght after a giant wildfire
- What meaning does fixing the ruins of an entire historical castle even have, when you can do everything with a single button press in ten minutes?

I understand you might not care about these points or find them petty, but they are things that further made me loose interest and suspension of disbelief in a story I struggled with. Which is said, because I would rather be encouraging of a game trying than tear it down.

That said, I did enjoy many things, cute character interactions, had fun hunting for birds and I am happy we are seeing games deal with many of the topics this game raises. I just can't think of a lot of people I would recommend this game to, although I am sure it does have an audience.

Annoying EA launcher that's difficult to get through on deck. The game itself is all right, mechanically not very inspired and I didn't like the way that the themes were dealt with. Parts felt clunky, like having to turn my gamma to the max for a dark corridor scene or mechanics just being repeated without adding to it or recontextualizing them in fun ways. There is also cool stuff in there, love the style and art but I feel like there are better and more fun games out there

This game has a lot of unique towers and ideas I didn't see in other games. Therefore I would recommend it to anyone interested in the genre. I do think that it gets repetetive/grindy in a way that makes it obvious it comes from browser games/mobile, so if you are into the genre it's a must play, but no masterpiece

A great little game that blurs the line between puzzle and experience. Melancholic and morbid drawings, cute characters and a fun little twist, some parts break the flow just a little bit. Any and all dislikes are from landlords

Inscryption is a roguelite Card builder that is balanced and created for a very different experience than Slay the Spire and it's sucessors. Instead of being a technical game, optimized for hundreds of hours of replayability, it's balanced for a specific narrative experience, so don't be afraid if you are not really into deckbuilders or rougelites. And what an experience it is! If you have watched the trailers or are familiar with Mullins other work, you should be aware that the game is not just about the core gameplay loop, but that there is something else hidden. Something big. However, these other things are best enjoyed unspoiled, so I would encourage you to just take a leap of faith and give it a shot, preferably without looking up more than the trailers, not even an average time to play through it a single time. This is especially true, if you are interested in escape rooms or at least the idea of it, in that case I feel confident saying that this game would be right for you

A game that established the fourth-wall breaking theme of "the player vs the game". Later titles such as "There is no game: wrong dimension" improved on the concept and play a lot smoother, pony island can be a bit tedious and repetetive. However, it does not overstay is welcome, has fresh and unique ideas and should be appreciated for the things it introduced.

On the steam deck, you have to make regular use of the onscreen keyboard and drag and drop which can lead to hand cranmps while dragging and dropping, so I recommend using the shoulder buttons to simulate clicks

What a lovely little piece of art! Fun mechanic, easy to grasp, respects your time. You could also play this with a non-gamer or child. Be aware that it's only between one and two hours long, depending on how much attention to detail you want to pay

Widely popular game, but so far had a terrible time with it. It is the type of game where the objective seems to enter a flow state and feel like a powerful parkour runner, but the game seemingly does everything to break that immersion. I do understand that most people might not have these issues, but I can't recommend it in good conscience:
For a game from 2009, it runs terribly on my steamdeck. Even with low settings at 720p my fps drop to five when there are enemies close to me. In other scenes, I can keep my steady 60.
In theory, the art style is unique and appealing. In practice (I am playing on a projector) the whites contrast is so low, that between entering buildings or vents and going outside again, I have to enter the options and crank the brightness to either the maximum or minimum in order to see.
Some levels feel more like riddles to me, where I fall or get shot over and over again, until I figure out that I missed a button the entire time or I that there is a hanging plattform over the hole that sinks when you enter it from a specific side.
There is also other weirdness like small stacks of boxes you can't get over, things that seem like you should be able to climb them but actually can't, Doors coming down that crush you while sliding under them while they are at least a meter away from the ground still that break any immersion.
The story is also the most boring and predictable cyberpunk conspiracy ever

Decided to buy this and play with my linguist partner as they are not overly into most games after hearing the games novel mechanic and plot praised a few times. The game certainly delivered on these aspects, but felt a bit tedious at some points.
Getting around on the nightingale feels a bit clumsy at times, sometimes you have to re-place words five times while translating a phrase because you guessed some apostrophes wrong, stuff like that.
That being said, we probably tried to complete the game too hard. After finishing the story, you are allowed to restart the game while keeping your knowledge of the ancient language you acquired. Since there is a lot of optional content and various choices to be made, it's probably better to decide to go for two playthroughs instead of one very grindy one.
The game made care about it's characters, world and history. Many twists and suprises caught me off guard as they steered clear of many tropes. Characters have actual agency rather than being just puzzles for the player to solve and you can sense that this was made by people with experiences that differ from most other studios and care about the games they create.
Overall, I would definetly pick this up if you are into creative indie games, care about novel narrative experiences and are willing to power through some dry points in the story.

If you like card games and roguelikes, this game is a safe bet to buy. It's polished, adds creative and uniqe mechanics to the formula and has plenty of content to discover. To me it just kind of lacks ...charm? I am on ascension 18 in Slay the spire and for now can't really imagine sinking a similar amount of time into this game