Recent reviews by Egg

Found this through the youtuber DangerouslyFunny about 8 months ago and decided to try it for myself. I'm glad I did. Even just the demo was great. I find the art, the animations, the movement, and the automation so satisfying. Glad to see the dev paid homage to the demo with the one achievement, that got me a laugh cause I was actually attempting to avoid the water for quite a while. Great game.

I don't often leave reviews (even though I should), but I feel this is one of the times I would be mad at myself for not leaving one. This review is SPOILER FREE

TL;DR
Gameplay loop/core mechanics: 9.5/10
UI design: 9/10
Controls/settings: 7/10
Environment design: 9/10
Music/sound design: 9/10
Creature design: 10/10
Partner deisgn: 8/10
Character customization: 8/10
Final score: 9.5/10

Long Version:
Gameplay: the gameplay is fun, though I am biased as a big pokemon fan. That said, this isn't just a pokemon clone. It more than feels like its own game in the same genre rather than a re-skinned pokemon game due in part to the evolutions but also the characters you travel with. Objectively I couldn't give it a 10 due to the tedium I know some people will find if they aren't into the completionism like I am (which is also a problem people have with pokemon to be fair), but personally I love it so subjectively I would. The only complaint I personally have with the game is the difficulty scaling. Its open world so if you go too far forward that's on you but some of the special monsters in the base area are unreasonably strong. There were a few times I nearly lost to a special in area 1 but blew a special in area 3 out of the water by comparison even with type advantages and solid strategies.

UI design: the various UIs are non-intrusive and generally easy to navigate. You can get to any of the menus from either a shortcut or the default menu button, so one or two inputs. The layouts are for the most part intuitive with the exception of the settings menu which requires you to press the FN button plus the arrow keys to swap pages. The battle interface is easy to read and understand, and turn indicators are more subtle but for the most part effective. The selection menu in battle is very clever but also clearly labeled to avoid any confusion which is nice. There's no flee prompt, and while it would be nice not having one isn't really too big a deal in my personal opinion.

Controls/settings: it's a pretty standard control scheme (WASD to move, space to jump, shift to dash), and it can be customized. The only weird choice is the "page up" "page down" option, because I have to hold the FN key in order to use those keys rather than just the arrow keys. And from what I can tell you can't assign the regular arrow keys. The customization is a little confusing as it's the only place that requires you to use the mouse which isn't intuitive when everything else can be done keyboard only. But when you figure it out it's not really a hassle. I can't remember off the top of my head if it has controller support, but if it doesn't that would be the other thing I'd dock points for. Controller support is a big thing for me because it allows people with disabilities to have a better experience with the game.

Environment design: in terms of visuals, I really love the aesthetic. It's cute but not overdone. The environment doesn't distract from the characters in it too much, things that are interactive are not made so painfully obvious they distract you but also don't entirely blend in with static environment pieces either, and for the most part the sprites align everywhere they should. The physics can be a little weird but all things considered it's very smooth. The amount of the world that gets loaded doesn't lag anything on my computer and having only 1 loading boarder in the whole overworld makes it far less intrusive which is a big plus in an open world game. The loading screen itself only takes a few seconds at most, so it doesn't really throw off the flow of exploration. The only difficulty I had was one that just comes with the design by default. Navigating a 2D sprite on a 3D plane can make platforming a bit confusing but as you play your understanding of exactly "where" you sit in the world gets better, allowing you to make more precision maneuvers. The map itself is big enough to be initially confusing (in the way that encourages exploration), but small enough to be learned and navigated which is a different kind of rewarding.

Music/sound design: It's just good. Plain and simple. The individual themes of each area are unique but all follow a more relaxed overall theme. The choice to include lyrics is apparently a controversial one but I quite enjoy it, and they only appear indoors. It does distract from the reading at first, but after you hear it a few times it fades into the background almost as well as plain instrumental music. Other times the lyrics are a very nice surprise. Voice acting isn't AAA grade which is expected but as far as indie games go its one of the more smooth implementations, and it's quite light-hearted which fits the theme of the game very well. Personally I think the voice acting here feels much more fitting to the game's atmosphere than the more "big industry standard" style of voice acting. The dialog is not fully voiced but the vocal interjections generally do a good job conveying the tone of whatever text is on screen. The battle cries of NPCs are a little funny. I'm not sure if they're randomized or if maybe I just had a bug happen but a character that was very clearly supposed to be a male figure (he was a reference to a real person) made a much higher pitch sound when he saw me.

Creature design: in terms of aesthetics I love the creatures. It gives me the same excitement I had when I was a kid playing the pokemon games for the first time. They're full of clever references and cheeky nods to so many different things I had fun trying to guess them all, Each new monster is unique and interesting in its own right, and makes me wonder what it might become, if anything. And the main mechanics give you so many forms to discover, meaning you'll really have to be doing your due diligence if you want to see all of them. And speaking of; mechanics wise, I'm actually quite impressed. This is where it differs from pokemon the most in my opinion. Because of the way the move system works you really can turn just about any of your creatures into a powerhouse who does not stop to ask for directions. They won't be invincible, and no one strategy will work for all occasions, but you can very reliably make a team of just your favorite monsters and you can get to most places and win most fights just fine. They're all versatile and balanced enough to hold their own if you take the time to build them up. Even unevolved forms can bring you pretty far into the main game without needing an absurd amount of knowledge about stats and mechanics.

see comments for part 2

Oddly fun. One of the hidden achievements seems to be based on a very rare event which is a little annoying but other than that a pretty decent idle game with good progression flow

Potato/10

I remember playing these back on various flash websites. So glad to see them here. Its definitely worth buying.

The Good:
Incredible atmosphere created with both visual and auditory elements
A complex story with interconnecting pieces
Environmental storytelling is great considering each level (or game) only has 5 main screens
The hidden achievements are usually rewarding to earn, even if you find them on accident
It still feels like a flash game, it even opens in a smaller window

The Bad:
I'm kinda sad the "set pieces" don't sit on their own layer so to speak in the steam version. Its such a cool visual effect especially when you "turn" and they settle into place.
There are 2 levels in Case 23 that can cause motion sickness (the culprits being a ceiling fan and a hallucination texture). It's not too bad but noticeable enough to mention.
Some of the puzzles are very complex and feel like they require leaps of logic on a first playthrough (though they make more sense in subsequent runs.)

Overall:
This game embodied a lot of what I loved in flash games I played in my childhood with darker/creepier themes I enjoyed as a teen. I'm so happy it's still around and that Rusty Lake Studio is still making games. It's well worth the money if you loved the point-and-click/escape the room genre of flash games and still a pretty good creepy puzzle based game even if you're relatively new to the genre.

You can pet the dog.