Recent reviews by Qaizher

I don't know what I'm doing but I feel powerful

Not bad uh

Goblin Hunter Wizard Emona is an Action Platformer with a 2D Pixel Art style with Adult themes. You control Emona who is followed by an attendant that is there to provide her with more mana for her to carry out her attacks, should she run out of it.

Emona the Wizard, goes out on a mission to find answers about her missing mother. With the goblins seemingly behind it, her hatred for them is shown through bits and pieces of story that is delivered every once in a while after a few mission stages.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2922546731


Those said Goblins however, don’t share the same hatred in the same sense. They in fact like and enjoy humans through their actions, intercourse. So every stage is more or less similar where Emona and her attendant goes through levels by fighting off goblins, and fighting them off (females actually) and rescuing those humans. With each stage Emona needs to rescue a specific amount of trapped females before the mission/level could end.


Typically with games like Goblin Hunter Wizard Emona, the game either does a good job at either the gameplay aspect and have adult themes painted on it or they excel at the adult themes and have little or no gameplay aspect to them. This however falls in between those instances. Not that it does both decently but rather it doesn’t know which to do decently well on.


As an action platformer, Goblin Hunter Wizard Emona does not do a good job at the simplest nature as a platformer. Platforms can be too low on each other for your character to move through to fit. Emona and her attendant feel very floaty, the knockback from attacks feels like a smackback rather where it’ll push you off quite a distance and it’ll disable your controls for longer than necessary.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2922546371


The worst aspect is the fact that it is entirely an escort mission but one with the AI (your attendant) being programmed in a poor way. He will try to mimic your jumps at a slight delay but he often will miss jumps between platforms and will when he does, he won't try to reattempt the jump but rather try to be underneath Emona at the lower level even if that means walking into enemies and traps over and over till he dies.


So the bulk of the mission isn’t fighting off goblins but it is to have Emona repeat navigation steps when the AI screws it up a jump or misses a step and falls. As both characters have their own set of health, you have to ensure the attendant survives or it’ll be game over and you restart the whole level. Furthermore the attendant’s character is much longer than Emona which makes him more vulnerable to attacks.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2922546785


The artstyle feels disjointed where in missions the artstyle is basic and does a decent job. But during the adult scenes the art style is made much better, akin to classic pixel art with slight animations to them. The adult scenes mostly happen during defeat or after missions as a reward for your attendant who played a minor part in rescuing the girls.


Goblin Hunter Wizard Emona feels like a product that skipped the foundation of what it was needed and built promising parts on top of that unsteady foundation. As one can see there’s some good effort being put at the adult bits of the game but it is generally hampered down by its platforming foundation that makes it frustrating to play.

VillageRhapsody is a Farming and Life Simulator where you are the newest inhabitant to a rural town that is suffering the consequences after a mining accident that claimed some of its villagers.


In a simple rural town, you stick out with your level of education compared to the other reasonably educated villagers. Which is why the chief and other villagers take it to you to help out with their various plights.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2911580476


Trying to be a useful new villager, this takes you around all the places of the town and areas in your bid to fulfill all their requests, be it from adults to kids to even “animals”. As with farming/life simulators, the request you get from the villagers primarily pertains to fishing, farming, mining and all along the like.


Every villager in the game will have a request or two for you, not all of which will happen concurrently but rather some will only trigger after you’ve completed a quest or milestone. Most of the achievements for the game are tied to quest completions for the female villagers barring a few. All of which are achievable if you play the game to completion.


At the start you will unlock some basic tools such as wooden axe, pickaxe through quests. Better versions of some of the items can be bought or will be unlocked through quests which will help expedite some of your manual tasks.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2911582046


This is important as you have a limited amount of energy to carry out your farming, mining and collecting tasks. A better pickaxe will use less energy and will take less time to mine. To replenish your energy, you can nap till night time which will regenerate half of your maximum energy.


Running out of energy will prevent you from running or working. Sleeping to the next day will have you back to full health. The good thing is once the time reaches 12 midnight, it will spawn you back to your home with full energy, no matter where you were the previous night.


To start farming the various crops you may need for your quest, you’re mostly visiting the shop in order to buy the seeds you need. After planting them, you’re required to water them once a day or else they will not grow a day or two longer depending on the amount of day/s you didn’t water them.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2911580091


At the start most of your income will come from mining. If you’re lucky you’ll get a gold ore once in a while to sell off so you can buy stuff that you may need. The ore you mine can also be sent to the carpenter to craft items for you. Fishing works as you'd expect.


Gameplay-wise VillageRhapsody is the run of the mill well made farming simulator but on the simpler side. Your watering can carry unlimited amounts of water, your equipment won’t break, you don’t have stats to worry about.


Visually the game is of good quality artstyle. During the dialogue sections, the art brings it up to a higher level of its aesthetics. There’s a slight animation during the adult scenes, of which are very well drawn and are partially voice-acted (i.e. the moans and slurps and such).


The main reward for completing the quest for the female (human and non-human) villagers are adult scenes. With a mixture of various positions with nothing too crazy. During those scenes, you have a choice of a close-up and non close-up view, this is solely for the non-story related scenes. Which you have two positions to view and the climax happens after some time has passed where you’ve built enough “steam”.


VillageRhapsody though simple in its gameplay, it plays well from start to finish (apart from some minor mistranslation). With a silly story to boot with a well made artstyle especially for the adult scenes, it is one that will be enjoyable for those who are looking for some casual farming sim together with a good variety of adult scenes thrown in to spice up the interest.

IXION is a Strategy City Builder set in Space where you are an Administrator for a space station called Tiqqun. In search for a new home for humanity that’s expedited tenfold after a botched take off decimated Earth, making your mission even more crucial than it was before.

Getting to work to find humanity’s next home won’t be so quick and easy as first you’re tasked to take care of the crew onboard the Tiqqun. The game does a decent job at teaching you the game mechanics with objectives. Albeit to fully know what exactly a thing or mechanic is about, you’re given a wall of text to read through, so there’s little in terms or active teaching. Missing out on reading some of those will be costly as some aspects are hidden away in there.


At the start, the place you have to build and gather resources is limited to a single sector within the Tiqqun and increases depending on the speed of your progress. So things can get cramped initially and it is crucial to decide and figure out how to build and what is needed to build.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2901811978


Unlike most City Builders, in IXION to increase your population, you have to scour the solar system or other planets in search of folks to rescue from events or to probe areas and retrieve cryopods. To retrieve those pods, you have to send your cargo ship for retrieval. Once you get the cryo pods back to Tiqqun, you have to shift them to a storage room and then build a designated building to extract the person in it.


As the sequence of even to get a single person through either way has multiple bits of action to take, it takes quite a bit of time. Delaying important actions such as this makes or breaks your game. Unlike other city builders where increasing population is as simple as having enough resources and building a house and waiting for a little bit, IXION has more steps for the same outcome, and this is for every bit of task in the game.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2901811936


Due to this, IXION feels more like a puzzle game. As you have to carry out a step by step process and feel directed and not open for you to decide how you’d like to complete those objectives. Taking a little time at completing a task or making a small mistake has the ability to bite you back in the future, so expect to reload past saves or restart the game/chapter. As shortage of workers, resources and power are some of the aspects that you will find yourself balancing most of the time.


Visually IXION looks really good from a certain distance, with everything looking polished. The cutscenes are a step higher in terms of workmanship, together with the top audio design, it simply exudes with quality that you’d want from a space opera type of game. Just remember to block out the preachy story bit in the cutscene after the prologue then and you’ll have a blast.


The game introduces you to some interesting characters through the introduction that feel should be recurring every once in a while, as they are positioned to have some interesting tie-in into the lore.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2901812172


IXION is a tricky one to talk about. As a casual, at the start it feels welcoming and interesting in the manner the story and mechanics are spoon fed to you bit by bit. But after you cross a certain threshold, things will fall apart very quickly and you’ll feel like you’ve hit a wall that prevents progress.


But at the same time, IXION feels the kind that expects the players to be veterans of the genre and know what to prioritize or that if you aren’t, it expects you to restart after a failed run and do better by min-maxing what you’ve learned. If you’re either or that then what you’ll get is a game of certain quality that is challenging or punishing depending on how you look at it.

Space Menace is a Sci-fi RTS where you play a captain who will eventually decide the fate of the world/universe. Whichever faction that does take over the world depends on who you choose to ally with.

In the universe of Space Menace, there are 2 main factions apart from the Pirates (denoted as Red on the Starmap), they are the Athon Federation (Orange) and the Dracorian Empire (Blue). Both are opposing forces of one another, adding in the Pirates, it is essentially a 3 way fight.


At the start all 3 are neutral to you. You’re then essentially free to do missions for either the Athon and Dracorian at the same time if you wish. Missions come in 3 types, Intercept, Defend the Station and Pirate Hunting.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2901396976


Defend the Station has you defending a station of either of the 2 main factions and you will fight off against the other faction. Intercept is the opposite and Pirate Hunting is exactly what it says. So doing either Intercept and Defend the Station will increase your Reputation for the faction who gave you that mission. Pirate Hunting is the same but your reputation for the Pirates will reduce.


Each mission has 3 difficulty types, all will reward you according to their level and the enemies you face will scale according to it as well. One thing in common is all the missions will have a time limit for you to complete them. Failing to do so won’t have you penalised for it.


Missions are given at sectors that have a Station and it is listed under the Job Board. Also at the station, you can buy and sell weapons, utilities and ships. There’s a small amount of utilities and weapons that are available in game which will help better your ship/s via the load out tab after you’ve purchased or looted it from destroyed ships.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2901396629


As an RTS, Space Menace is simple to pick up and play. Attacks are done automatically so all you have to do is pick where to move your ship and adjust whether you want your ship to use weapons or shields or to have them off to conserve power. Power is needed to fire weapons and to jump between sectors.


The gameplay loop is very simple in that it is basically pick a mission, go to a location, do the mission (destroy enemies and stay alive) and then once that’s done you can upgrade or sell stuff at the station. Rinse and repeat. Initially it can get monotonous while grinding for money in order to upgrade your ship. But once you have enough money to buy your second or third ship, things will pick up faster in terms of progression.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2901396682


Aesthetically Space Menace looks good enough, with its animation & audio (albeit repetitive) is up to par with everything in that regard. However the way the game looks, especially the UI and the text and such, has a sort of glow effect to them which can make some player’s eyes hurt as it makes things seem blurry and unclear. This might be depending on the individual but one that is very noticeable and new to me.


Space Menace might be one of the most accessible RTS out there as the gameplay loop, mechanics and skills needed (or lack of) makes it an easy pick up and play type of game. It is simple in nature and can have that effect of “just one more turn/mission” on the player. However due to its simplicity, it may not be for everyone, especially those who are looking for something deep and challenging.

Harmony's Odyssey is a Puzzle Adventure game in a colourful fantasy world filled with one of a kind fabled creatures, where you play a young witch who tries her best to fix all the troubles her cat caused.

The cat, after being wrongfully assumed to have started the sequence of events that altered the layout of the environment, steals your wand and runs off to cause mischief himself.


Trying to fix all the destruction and disruption your cat left behind, you break up and alter the environment to protect your cat from unhappy characters. The main puzzle in the game will have you fix these altered environments and return it back to how it was. In a diorama style, you’ll be moving portions of the environment and fixing them back to their correct positions.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2895599225


Each level’s environment has their own story that is going on, with characters minding and doing their own business. So picking up on clues such as that, together with the structures in the environment as how it should be will help you to “re-piece” them back correctly.


What may be tricky but is neat to see is that characters when pieced back to the wrong surrounding can also interact with them, but in a different way and it changes the “story” that is going on in that diorama. For example, placing a tile with a certain character beside you, the witch, will have that character being all angry. But placing that character’s tile elsewhere will have it look around searching for you or your cat.

The game does well at slowly adding more mechanics to the game as you progress and tutorializing it well. As subsequent puzzles will use those mechanics and are helpful for you to utilize them.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2895598281


After every few levels with those main puzzles, you’ll get a mini game once in a while to help break the monotonous feel of doing the same type of puzzle every time. The minigames that help change the pace include, Spot the Difference, Pacman-like minigame, jigsaw puzzle-like and more.


There are a number of biomes with certain themes to them and a number of levels in those biomes. Each scene/level has their own story to them. At the start of each biome, you’re given a small number of tiles to arrange. The subsequent levels build on that scene and story, making it bigger and bigger and you’ll see how it all comes together. At the beginning and ending (sometimes in between as well) of the chapters, there will be cutscenes.

The cutscenes will help set the tone for the story before and after the biomes are solved. All of the cutscenes are animated well, with characters that are interesting and bring to life the game’s story.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2895598880


Outside of the campaign, you can unlock music, 2D levels (plays like the jigsaw-puzzle minigame) and the Dragonmice Dungeons with the Star that you earn from solving the puzzles in the campaign. The higher the difficulty you set, the more stars you earn.


The bugs encountered so far are that after selecting and swapping a tile’s position, the original spot will be left vacant, instead of the tile that was swapped going to that spot. In the whole playthrough of the campaign this happened just twice but it resulted in restarting the level. A minor nitpick would be that the game does not tell you what is what when navigating in the Home section and such. As everything is so colourful, it can be a bit distracting as everything stands out.


Harmony's Odyssey is a very charming game. The main puzzle itself feels very fresh and different even though it’s simple to understand. The introduction of different puzzles between levels every now and then is a smart choice as it helps maintain interest and prevents it from getting stale. Campaign isn’t that long, roughly 3 hours on medium (for a casual player) but it varies on how quick you can solve it, so with more meat to bite out from outside of the campaign is very much welcome. You’ll definitely have a pleasant time playing through Harmony's Odyssey and can help but fall in love with the wonderful characters in it.

Doors: Paradox is an escape room-esque puzzle game where you’re presented with a locked door and you’re tasked to open the locked door, by finding and interacting with items around the door in order to unlock it.

As a puzzle game, Doors: Paradox is on the casual side where things begin to make sense once you’ve understood some of the nuances of the puzzles. Initially for a casual player, the language of the puzzles may seem incoherent and difficult but as the game progresses, you’ll start to see the flow or links each puzzle has.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2894830617


However if you’re an avid puzzle fan with some decent chunk of experience, Doors: Paradox will definitely be a walk in the park for you as every item that leads up to a smaller puzzle and in whole the main puzzle is found in the small area of interaction that is surrounding and even on top of the locked door.


With each level, you will be finding bits and pieces hidden or laid out around the lock door area. Very often the bits and pieces you find will be the missing pieces to the puzzles within the level. To find these missing pieces, it’s often as easy as interacting with an item to reveal that piece or simply click on it as it lay in the section of the environment.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2894830817


From there on you will combine the pieces and start solving the puzzles for that level. The puzzles themselves vary from one another quite a bit throughout the game. At times you will see puzzles with the same or similar mechanic but not that often, which makes it interesting.


The puzzles together with the level and their theme are all wonderfully crafted. Sure the puzzles aren’t that complex but for how they combine with the main theme of the level is neat. At times you might be sitting there for a few seconds watching how solving a puzzle will “unfold” the next sequence of events, when a mechanism triggers another to reveal something such as it unlocks the door and such.


Each level is interestingly crafted and has their own theme to them as mentioned earlier. However they don’t feel coherent from one another in that aspect and don’t exactly make sense. The only commonality that’s obvious to them are the story bits you find in each level. But even with that, the level of ideas for the level should be commended.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2894831332


The longer you play Doors: Paradox, the more you will be accustomed to the game’s puzzle language and the more you’d risk it feeling bored. If that happens, pacing through it helps. Solving 3 to 5 puzzles after a long day just to unwind and then doing it again the next day, certainly helps.


Doors: Paradox is very much a good escape puzzle game that is accessible to everyone. But puzzle experts may want to look elsewhere due to its difficulty being on the easier side. The varying theme and quality of Doors: Paradox is one of its strengths that won’t go unnoticed.

The Rat Plague is a 2D platformer with visual effects (CRT TV filter) that’ll remind you of the 90’s, by GouHong Studio.
You play a Rat whose spaceship crash landed on an unknown planet. However he/she is separated from it during the crash, so you’re left to find clues and make your way to it.

At the start you have a gun (one that is super loud mind you), the ability to double jump (holding the jump button longer will have you reach higher heights). As you progress, you will have more abilities that will help you to navigate and fight against enemies.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2891647423


Abilities are introduced at the start of a new level and this brings in newer mechanics for fighting and navigation of the levels. Some early abilities include dealing damage by stomping on enemies and air dash, which helps you reach platforms that are further away.


The levels that you navigate through don’t have a similar formula in terms of layout, which makes it somewhat unpredictable. So going exploration is key if you want to collect the “stars” that are scattered around the level. Every level has 3 stars and they act as secrets in a way and also will provide some story and information about the planet you're on.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2891647239


As the game has a closer view, some areas may not be apparent to the player such as possible dangers. Without the ability to look around with things such as panning the camera lower to see if there’s a platform below or not, doesn’t help. And the game at times has the failings that some platformers have which is to have the player take that leap of faith when moving/jumping across or dropping down without the full knowledge of what awaits them. This tends to end in death. The good thing is that for the most part the checkpoints aren’t placed too far apart.


The enemy variety is decent enough that you won’t feel that you’ve seen an enemy type too many times. Each enemy has their own attack type but most have a similar character in terms as if they see you, they will move towards you. The boss fights, especially the first one came by without any signs of it coming, but are generally interesting and pose more of a challenge.
Graphically the art in The Rat Plague is not the prettiest but it is decent enough that you’re able to tell what is what.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2891646961


Minor issues encountered are clipping into a moving platform, lack of translation for text to what seems to be achievements that pop up once in a while. Some story bits you get don’t fully make sense. Text dialogue either takes so fast or too long to disappear and it can cover almost half of the screen.


The Rat Plague in all is a platformer that is alright, it does what it intends to do well enough. The story is decent but doesn’t come frequently, making it forgettable. Most of the parts to it feel rough but serviceable. It does nothing new but is good enough if you’re a fan of platformers.

Oakenfold is a Turn-Based Strategy with Roguelike elements with a TimeScrubber (Time manipulation) mechanic. Set on earth, you play Asha, one of the last humans (possibly the last) on earth who is motivated to continue her father’s mission.


To retrieve the last few crates of Dilithium that will be used to power up Oakenfold, a biodome spacecraft that will be her ticket off this planet and away from the dangers of the Biocides.


Oakenfold is first and foremost a turn-based strategy game, one that brings along the troubles of decision making that’s the main point of the genre. But to add to the difficulty is the roguelike nature to it, where there’s perma-death and failure will end your run, putting you back to the start.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2889884252


However, to balance these heavy consequences, are one main mechanic along with other points to make Oakenfold an accessible turn-based strategy game. Some of us are guilty of save scumming when it comes to games, a turn-based strategy game is no exception. So instead of giving the players to save (which will negate the perma-death), the game has a TimeScrubber™, which essentially is a redo or reload button/mechanic that works on the fly.


Instead of going full on the punishing route, the game lets you carry out your moves, but if you aren’t happy or want to experiment with another course of action, you can just scroll down on your mouse wheel to redo all the moves that were played. Giving the player the opportunity to try out different moves and tactics and see it play out instantly. The only thing to note is that if your move ends and you die or lose all your crates, it is game over.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2889884232


The missions are randomised so no two runs are the same. You’re given the opportunity to pick the next mission type in most cases while knowing the enemy types, the amount of waves and the main and side objectives of the mission on the mission screen.


Missions include protecting robots that will help you in your cause (by giving you more crates, killing the enemy or simply energy for research), eliminating enemies, destroying/killing a specific unit, reaching point B to escape and so on. There isn’t a sheer amount of mission types but it has enough variety to make it not stale.


The crates in most missions are your life that carries throughout your campaign/run. Running out of it will result in game over. Unlike the crates, you have 3 lives in each mission, and it does not carry over between them.


Asha has 3 mindset to choose from at the start of your run. This will determine her style and moves that she can do. Moves can be upgraded in missions at a crafting station using the energy you pick up after killing enemies or completing objectives. If the enemy picks up that energy, they will level up and become stronger.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2889883835


The variety of enemies are good with each of them having unique attacks and perks, such as being able to shoot through multiple objects in a straight line or respawning after death unless you land on their corpse tile.


Oakenfold manages to make turn-based strategy feel and play more accessible with its instant TimeScrubber™, that makes the challenge of perma-death not seem so daunting as instills the feeling of “one more run” when you lose. For a turn-based game, this feels different. And different is good in this case.