Recent reviews by RoryDiesALot

This was a gift from a friend. The graphics are very cute!

I'm not done playing this, but holy cow, this is AMAZING. This is the coolest game I've ever seen. I'm not joking. Effortlessly, ridiculous cool. It's unique, stylish, and electrifying. From the moment you load in, the soundtrack pulses, filling you with a sense of urgency. The color scheme is vivid, neon, and aggressive. The puzzles are simple enough, but they feel immensely rewarding when finished. I hope there is eventually a sequel to this, and that this game eventually gets the recognition it deserves.

The Umbridge Estate has a fair amount of bugs in it, but they're diminished by the game's charm and spooky atmosphere. Even in the starting areas, you never really feel safe. The haunting lullaby reaches just far enough to reduce you to jelly while still allowing you to do your tasks, and the growling creature will have your entire party literally walking on tip-toes. (And no, I didn't use "literally" wrong. The animation is silly and cute.)

While this game is the opposite of polished, it's scary, exciting, and a lot of fun to play with friends. For $2, you'll get your money's worth if you get a few screams out of it.

This is so much fun! I feel like I put a lot of time into my game so far, and I recently realized there was more content to unlock. I play this with my friends, but I also enjoy playing it solo. Some of the missions are very tough, but there is no penalty to swapping them out, and you can restart failed missions.

I've always been intimidated by pixel art. I've done it before (grudgingly, taking a really long time, hating the world the entire time), and was loathe to get back into it. I've even told my friends that I'd never, ever touch pixel art again. But I saw Pixel Studio and thought, "Well, I could just fiddle with it for fun..." Now I'm so glad that I got it!

My favorite elements of the program: [/list]

• Super easy to learn. I didn't have to look anything up or rummage through a tutorial. Very user-friendly.
  
• Extremely forgiving. It's so easy to save backups, revert to previous versions, undo mistakes, and correct for errors!
  
• Easy on my computer! I can run Pixel Studio while I have Photoshop and games up. It never crashes or lags.

I don't actually have any cons for it! If you're interested in pixel art, get it! Get it now! :)

This game in a three words: meditative, creative, beautiful!

Townscaper is not flashy--the developer is correct in saying that it's more of a toy to be played with rather than your traditional game. It does one thing, but it does that one thing exceptionally well. Building these little ocean villas is such a treat. Will the next piece you put down become a star-shaped town home? A turret? A veranda overlooking the ocean? Seeing the pieces change as you build is so satisfying. The sound effects complement the gameplay nicely and aren't overwhelming or annoying. It's just you, a gorgeously lit cityscape, and some gentle plink, splish, ploonk noises as you explore your creativity and make art. The ability to adjust the time of day and lighting angle help you create the mood you're going for.

It's also surprisingly versatile. In one hour, I made a lovely, manicured little town in a cheery sunrise palette, as well as a giant pixelated cat, and a stark white city stuffed with all sorts of neat hidey-holes, pathways, and secret gardens. My favorite thing that I made, though, is something I actually made with my eyes closed! I shut my eyes and randomly clicked about thirty times. The result was a very cute, surprisingly intentional-looking town. (If you want to see screenshots of some of the things I made, check out my profile.) That's the beauty of Townscaper: everything is gorgeous, and your mistakes--accidental apartments that tower ten floors over the ocean, a mistakenly removed flat that leaves a private veranda in its place, and hell, even a tiny city that you make with your eyes closed--are all exquisitely rendered, beautiful to look at, and enchantingly cohesive in their design.

The thing I like most about this game, though, is that there's no way to build a straight line with your base. When I design things, I find that I'm very rigid in how I go about creating something: there is always perfect symmetry, with nothing out of place. Because of this, I find that a lot of the things I make lack movement or spontaneity. But as Townscaper twists, turns, and curves, it challenges you to go with the flow, to build something new, to do something different.

This isn't the kind of game that you'll put hundreds of hours into, but it's currently about five bucks, which I think is perfectly fair for such a well-engineered piece of art. I'd definitely recommend checking this out if you want to chill out and make something pretty!

I wanted to like this. These open world survival-esque games are my favorite thing, so I tried really hard to find the good in it. Sadly, there's not a lot of good, and way too much bad. In fact, I tried to make a pros & cons list, but couldn't think of any pros outside of the genre itself.

Do you want to get this game because you love building? What about holding E to place predesigned and predecorated buildings in very specific plots that are completely immovable? Because that's what you get.

Do you want to get this game because you love the idea of hunting your food and growing your own crops? What about collecting some meat from an unmoving bear and then selling it to the shop because there's no food or hunger system? Because that's what you get.

Do you love exploration, the thrill of an open world and countless things to explore? What about a closed world with a small number of shops, tons of empty structures, and dead space with absolutely no possibility of interaction? Because that's. What. You get.

I know that that is is Early Access, but the fact that it costs $20 on sale is ridiculous. What work went into this game? This honestly feels like someone bought an asset pack, threw down a couple of buildings, and called it a day. My friends and I got through everything possible it was to do in about an hour and a half--and about 1/3 of that was character customization and jumping around on the road because the jumping animations are funny.

It's not like even adding more shops and content will fix this game. The building-for-dummies function works as intended--it's just limiting and boring, and doesn't give players any sense of challenge or creativity.

Nuke the high price point and release the EA version of this game for $4.99 and maybe it's worth it. But it costs so much and is so underdeveloped that I'm literally a little offended, and I'm refunding it out of principle.

For people who are obsessed with restaurant sims, this is a great start!

1. Tastemaker has a very cute style, with a charming feel given to it by the design of its furniture and decor items. I particularly love the gramophone, which plays music once placed. The three included plants (Plant, Cactus, and Flower) are also very cute!

2. I like how the game approaches owning a restaurant from a more realistic side--you actually need to order ingredients, which involves knowing what your customers like to order most, and you need physical storage to keep your ingredients in-house. You also need to have an appropriate number of plates, glasses, bowls, etc. and dishwashers to keep them clean.

3. I know it's a bit strange, but I like the fact that you have to add bathrooms. I don't think any other restaurant sim I've played has included bathroom mechanics. There's even little bits of poo in toilets after use that your poor waitstaff has to clean up! I experienced a moment of delight when I thought I saw someone sitting on a toilet with no pants on. Then I realized his pants were just the same color as his skin.

4. The tutorial is simple, easy to use, and not obnoxious. Some tutorials really overwhelm your game and take way too long, but this one was well-designed.

1. Extremely limited features. I know this is in Alpha, so I didn't consider this aspect when rating the game. I found that after about an hour of gameplay, I was clicking every button, looking for new features. Once you have your basic setup, though, it's really a "what you see is what you get" thing--you can buy squares of land, build walls, and add doors and windows. You can hire and fire employees (who are all identical, besides the names). You can place a very limited selection of furniture, and delete it. You can add a total of nine premade items to your menu (and set prices), and order plates and ingredients. Besides that and looking at your reviews, that's it. I'd love to see more features in the future, like ingredient customization, staff stats, and different customer types.

2. Limited aesthetics. There are very few options for changing the look and feel of your restaurant. For example, there are only four floor options, and two of them look more or less identical. If you want to decorate with art, there is one painting available. That said, the actual look of the options is very cute!

3. Everybody's white, for some reason. Please fix this.


I like this game. I think it definitely still needs a lot of work, but hey, it's in alpha! If you like restaurant sims, I would recommend keeping an eye on the updates and springing for it once it's a little more fleshed-out.

It's a ridiculous amount of fun, especially if you have friends to play with. The killer playstyles are very different from each other, so it always seems like there's a new challenge.