Recent reviews by Alestrius

To quickly frame the context of this review, the demo for Oddsparks had about 3-4 hours of content in it. I enjoyed it so much that I played it for nearly 12 hours, creating sprawling factories and even making a creative project of a maze from hell that was featured on a community creations post. To say that I loved the demo and was looking forward to it would be a massive understatement.

Unfortunately, in the ~2-3 months since that time, the game's progression systems and inventory management controls were HEAVILY revamped, and the linear tutorial (& progression that went with it) yeeted into oblivion.

Before, the gameplay felt fluid. Sure, sometimes I couldn't always make a spark do what I wanted, but I always felt like any problems I had weren't with the game itself, but with me not optimizing well enough. And I was okay with that. Now, I feel like I'm constantly fighting against the controls whenever I'm trying to do basic inventory controls. I played a bit on controller and that felt much better, but the kb+m controls just felt to me like they weren't designed by humans, or at least not ones that had played any other video games before. I can't really explain it except to say that I genuinely did feel like I was fighting against the game any time I needed to interact with my inventory -- which in a game about production lines, automation, and crafting, is the vast majority of the game. I thought it was just me adjusting to change, but after almost 3 hours of the game, no, it still just feels bad.

Additionally, progression was made.... non-linear. That doesn't sound bad at first, but you can get quests for items you haven't unlocked yet. At the point of writing this, just short of 3 hours in, I have a quest that requires stone and treebark. Stone is unlocked from the start of the game, so you might think this is a beginning-tier quest, right? After all, that's easy to get! But no, tree bark is much deeper into the tech tree. To unlock it, I need to unlock swords (which are about 3 techs deep into their own tree, not even including the unlocks to get there to begin with) because I need swords to unlock the center town tech tree which is separate, and in order to do that, I need to hunt through my 8 different quests, at least 6 of which require things I haven't unlocked yet! It's an absolute informational NIGHTMARE, and just results in feeling frustrated stabbing blindly in the dark and praying that maybe, JUST MAYBE, this next quest will unlock *something* useful to finally make progress again. That's how it's been for me for the last hour, and at this point, it's sucked all fun out of the game.

If you had asked me 24 hours ago about Oddsparks, I would have said it was a candidate for Indie GOTY 2024 for me, but now? I can't honestly recommend that a single one of my friends play it. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

Now I can see why the demo was removed: the game of the demo is a very different one that gives people higher expectations of a more fun game than the actual launched product. I wish I could recommend Oddsparks. Even more than that, I wish I could *enjoy* Oddsparks. I had a blast with the demo. But unfortunately, the developers cooked just a bit too long and in the wrong direction and now it's just a game that Could Have Been Great to me. Maybe someday in a few years I'll give it a shot again and see if they've made improvements with the mess at the start of the game, but until then...

No, I cannot recommend Oddsparks, one of the very few games I give this rating to because normally, I prefer to say nothing rather than anything negative, but in this case, I've recommended it to too many people and feel obligated to make sure this is up publicly in case I missed anyone with my "jk, actually, don't buy it." messages.

PSA: Planet Crafter is very fun, but if you play the demo DO NOT continue your save file after buying the game. You will be ineligible for achievements. If you like the demo, just start fresh immediately when playing the full game. Don't realize 12 hours into the game like I did.....

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That specific gripe aside, Planet Crafter has been an enjoyable experience for me personally. The game starts simple like most survival games, with the usual collectathon into basic base building, but then on top of that, Terraforming works idly in the background with satisfying scaling and incremental upgrades that in many ways remind me of an idle game, but with an actual game to play in the foreground that's genuinely fun to play. I know that's a weird way to put it, but that's the only way I can think to phrase my thoughts.

To put into perspective how much I have enjoyed the core gameplay loop of Planet Crafters: I played 12 hours yesterday not realizing it had been more than 3. This morning, I woke up to play more, then realized I hadn't been getting any achievements. After a little trial and error, I discovered that that's because I had started with my demo save file, and the only way to get achievements was to start fresh -- losing those twelve hours (technically 11.9, but still) of progress. Normally, that would be the point where I put down a game for good, however Planet Crafter's core loop is so fun that even though I was in the mid-to-late game (I think), I'm totally okay with resetting and doing it all over again with the only benefit being the knowledge I have from the first time 'round.

Try the demo: the only thing you have to lose is a little bit of your time, and the potential gain of enjoying this game is tremendous.

I hope to write a more in-depth review sooner or later, but for now: Dicefolk is a very engaging, battle-focused roguelike with creature collecting elements. Unlike most creature collectors, you'll only have your creatures on a per-run basis as opposed to keeping them long-term, so I hesitate to call it a true creature collector, but it is nonetheless highly enjoyable.

The core gameplay loop is using your three creatures (and periodically replacing them) to attack the enemy creatures, with rolling dice that you can customize throughout your adventure and change the faces of (they're functionally d6s except with actions instead of numbers, so you can have something like "attack the enemy" on a face, and "guard against an attack" on another). I loved the demo, and I'm loving the core gameplay loop still -- it's an extremely solid game that is just generally really enjoyable to play.

The creatures are extremely important in this kind of game, even if it's not a true creature collector, and they certainly don't disappoint. Each one feels unique and it's super fun to build up strong synergies between them. The art style is one I personally enjoy, and I think the designs are all really solid. As with so many creature collection games, this one has its own rare-color-variant, in this case called Iridescents, but in this game they provide a significant power boost. For example, if you creature may have an ability that requires it to be in the lead position to activate, instead it may trigger from anywhere if it's iridescent. It's a fun power boost, but also doesn't really feel like it's balanced to where they're absolutely necessary or anything.

Overall, the game has felt extremely good and I have almost entirely positives to say about it. Almost. While not quite a negative, I will say that the story cutscenes have felt... out of place to me. It's not a genre where I really expect to have story in my face, and what they showed me felt... I don't want to say 'bland' exactly, but it didn't feel like it really meaningfully contributed to the overall quality of the game at all to me. It feels irrelevant, I guess, and I'm generally the type of gamer that appreciates lore in games. Idk, it's not a huge deal or anything, as it's maybe a minute of cutscenes across two instances thus far in 6+ hours of gameplay, but it was something that stuck with me as being the sole element in the game that just kinda felt out of place, like it was checking a box on a checklist rather than really belonging. But again, not a big deal, just a minor "huh?" kind of thing.

The demo is free and gets you into the gameplay really quickly -- you lose nothing but maybe 10-20min of your time by trying it out, so take my word for it and just try it. I feel pretty confident in saying you'll be glad you did.

I wanted to like Balatro, I really did, but unfortunately, recent experiences leave me with a bad taste in my mouth. Personally, I don't enjoy doing tons of math just to play a game, so if you don't either, I advise that you stay away from this game, much as it's fun initially.

On top of that, Balatro has a very fun gameplay loop, but very poor explanation. How to win, for example, is never explained anywhere (but poker hands, something far more people will be familiar with, are explained in great detail), nor is the exact effect of certain mechanics like the significance of rounds vs ante, etc.

Initially, the game is fairly straight-forward, but the more joker combinations and consumable cards you use, the more it deviates from standard poker and into its own game. That's all well and good, but there is a noticeable lack of communication with the player, with the game seemingly expecting you to do the math by hand. A straight is worth X points, plus the points on the cards, but when you have 6 jokers interacting with it and adding +149 chips, then also +10 +5 +1.5 x1.6 multi, and whatever other different values, it becomes a nightmare of math to try and figure out how much you're going to score, and the game does nothing to help you calculate this.

I made suggestions in the Balatro discord about these aspects and was met with outright hostility. How DARE anyone wish for information clarity? I was leaning negative in my review already because of the lack of information, but that has pushed me over the edge.
(because god forbid we introduce the OPTION to have the game give you a loose score estimate automatically, on an opt-in basis, that would be FER THE CAZUALS)

I wish I could refund my copy, but alas, I'm past the two hour mark. Hopefully, this review can help others like me who don't enjoy doing constant math from making the mistake of buying this game. It's not "just a fun deckbuilder," and there's way too much "do the math yourself or you'll be off by 10 points and screw yourself over" to find it enjoyable after the first few rounds.

Cosplay Club is a rare miss from Behold Studios that feels like it was shoved to Early Access multiple years before it was ready. While a very strong concept and theme, the implementation is terrible. The battle system is clunky and janky, and the actual costume creation (which is arguably one of the most important parts) is stifling and awful. I wouldn't even recommend this game on sale, and I dearly, dearly hope it fixes itself by launch.

Even for Early Access, this is an unacceptable state, and I sorely wish I could get a refund. Save your money and buy a different Behold Studios game instead.

I hate to have to not recommend this game, but frankly, it feels more like an alpha build than an Early Access title. Some of the foundations are here, but the meat of the game is the battle system, and it's really, really not good. Hopefully someday I'll try this game again, as I quite love Behold Studios and have been a fan of their games every since Knights of Pen and Paper, but this one..?

Movement in battles is particularly troublesome. Theoretically, it's WASD movement, but it feels like your characters are on ice -- you always move too far, like there's set positions they can 'snap' to and anything less isn't feasible. That might not be an issue if movement didn't also delay your turns, but movement (logically) costs you time, so I often find myself moving farther than I really need to and using up extra time/turn initiative because of it. It feels like an exercise in frustration. Additionally, despite having played just under three hours' worth (I know my steam time says over, but I'm excluding time spent dealing with bugs), partnership attacks also feel extremely inconsistent with when they do and don't go off. Both characters in range? *Usually* it will go off, but not always, even if you've been basic attacking the entire time.

It honestly feels like most of the time I'm battling the battle system, not the actual NPC enemies. Additionally, some battles have "challenges" that can include stuff like "do not move more than X amount" -- however, there's no way to move a small amount then skip your turn, making it absolutely impossible to complete that challenge as far as I can tell. (There's others that are difficult to the point of unworkable too, but that one was particularly frustrating for being tied into the janky movement system.) It's also not a matter of "oh, you have the wrong skills" -- this is the very first contest, when you're using essentially the default/"stock" costume, so it's absolutely impossible. The saving grace there is that you don't have to complete every condition (only a couple), but that doesn't stop it from being frustrating that parts of it are LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO COMPLETE.

Additionally, the parts in the cosplay creator initially are way, WAY too limited, like to the point where the basic, default templates include parts you can't use because they're locked until you buy them later. (You can use them if you use that templatee, but this still shows how limited the start is that you don't even have access to a single pair of shoes, for example.) The parts to unlock then have to be purchased with money as you progress through the game, but be warned: money is ALSO used to buy the materials you need to create the costumes to begin with, as well as the skills you might want to equip to your costumes. It feels stifling and awful, and what should be a strength of the game (making your cosplay) instead becomes a frustrating, limited weakness devoid of much creativity -- as showcased by the cosplay creation channel in the Behold Studios discord -- very few have been created because there's just not much you can do with the creator at all, particularly early on. I swear that even the DEMO had better options than the actual full game (making it very clear they know just how un-fun it is to create costumes with so much locked away).

There are also a lot of uh... Not great translations. I have to assume that Behold Studios isn't a native-English-speaking studio, but none of their other games have had this problem. I don't know if they used a different translation service or what, but there's a lot of just small things that made me raise a brow and go, "Is that REALLY how you're going to word that...?" This isn't just on one-off dialogue either. It's on basic battle descriptions and stuff too. This is a relatively small complaint compared to the battle system and cosplay creation, but it's worth mentioning as a definite flaw.

On a whole, despite my fondness for the genre and especially my love of this studio, I absolutely am not enjoying my time with Cosplay Club, and I'm going to have to put it down for now because it's just not fun to play. I'm not even including the various bugs I've run into here either, since I'm giving Behold the benefit of the doubt that they'll be fixed. This is "not recommended" purely on how frustrating battle is and how stifling the Cosplay Creator is. Hopefully, someday it will release with all of this fixed, but man, this is NOT in a state where it's worth even a small fraction of the $20 pricetag; I don't think I'd pay more than $3 for it in its current state, and that's purely on the strength of the concept and not on any of the implementation. I love Behold Studios and I love their games, and I enjoyed the demo of Cosplay Club, but man. The actual EA version feels awful, and I thoroughly regret my purchase. While I don't like leaving negative reviews for game studios that I love, hopefully this will at least save someone else the $20 they can spend on something else. (I personally recommend literally any other game by Behold.)

I expected this game to be a dumb edgy joke, but it's a well-crafted survival+pokemon+monster hunter game with a lot of love, and I'm hooked. 13 hours in one day, and I expect that to keep going up. If you like cute monster collecting and want to play a survival game themed around that, this is definitely a game to pick up. If the edgy "BUT THERE'S GUNS AND YOU CAN BUTCHER YOUR PALS" puts you off -- don't worry, it's not a huge aspect and can be largely ignored without missing anything.

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I expected this to be "dumb, edgy pokemon survival: the genre parody." An emphasis on guns on collected monsters? Killing said cute monsters? Survival elements? It all sounded like edge-for-the-sake-of-edge to me, and so when a friend asked me to play it with them, I told them I'd give it a 2 hour refund try first on my own. Just over 7 hours later, I realized what time it was and messaged them apologizing for not getting back to them.

Palworld is a GENUINELY good game. It takes the Pokemon formula and puts on well-thought-out survival mechanics, then throws in a small dash of Monster Hunter, and the resulting game is genuinely compelling. There's still a few moments of those edgy glimpses (as an example, you can use a butcher's cleaver to butcher your spare Pals, which has gratuitous butcher sounds and a censor filter), but for the most part if you're not into that, that's fine. It's a solid survival game that thoughtfully incorporates the Pals.

There are pretty much three core aspects to the game that are woven together with the premise beautifully -- base management, world exploration, and Pal collecting.

When it comes to base management, pretty much every task within your base can be automated by the right type of Pal, making it so that if you put enough effort in, you can go out with your Pals creature-collecting and return with everything having continued along without needing your touch. That's the case in many survival games, but having cute little (or not so little) monsters powering the automation, in my eyes, is a perfect extension of the genre. Taking care of their needs (stress, food) has enough to it to feel meaningful without feeling annoying and tedious either. My one complaint in this respect is that even if you SPECIFICALLY assign a monster to a certain perpetual task, sometimes they'll run off and do something else instead. As an example, I have a frosty Pal designated to chill my food to keep it from rotting -- but sometimes it will run off to go help deliver goods to my chest, or my previous one loved to run off and water plants. Hopefully this is something that will get fixed in EA, but for now, it's not a big dealbreaker. (And finding/picking more specialized Pals that can do fewer tasks does help with this.)

Exploration is really solid too. The world is hand-crafted and lovely. There are enough fast-travel points to get anywhere conveniently, but not so many that it feels like an Assassin's Creed level of jam-packed-with-nothing-meaningful map. I have a flying mount, and just flying around the landscape is genuinely fun to see the beauty of the world. My one complaint is that it doesn't really feel like there are 'biomes' in this game -- e.g. you can't really seek out an icy climate to hunt icy Pals, or a volcano for fire Pals. Instead, they're spread out over the entire map everywhere, which is fine, but I do wish there were visible and thematic biomes as well. There turn out to be a few biome areas, so this complaint is no longer relevant. It does take until VERY late into the game to actually get to them, which is a little disappointing, but they exist so I'm happy enough with that.

Probably one of the best (but most expected) strengths of the game is the Pals though. I'm not sure how many Pals are in the game, but certainly more than I expected from an Early Access survival game (where the genre standard is to launch in barebones states and maybe hopefully get more content later). The designs are largely simple but iconic -- think some of the middle generations of Pokemon (not just the "it's a crab with a face," nor the overdesigned messes of the ultrabeasts and some recent gens). I'm not going into specifics so that you can discover them yourself, but they tend to all have wonderful personality and a strong theme, and within minutes of starting, I had already found "Goals to Catch" pokemon even in the starter area.

Palworld is a game that takes two genres (creature collecting and survival) and merges them together almost flawlessly. It's clear that the devs are big fans of both genres and put the time and care in to make sure it was done right, despite launching as an Early Access game, and I strongly recommend playing this game if you like either and are down enough with the other.

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PS. Devs, if you see this. Sleeping Chillet plushie WHEN??



Edit: A previous version of this review mentioned slight procedural generation. That turned out to be wrong, so I removed it. The review otherwise stands.

Edit2: A previous version of this review mentioned a lack of biomes. I've adjusted that section as I got further into the game.

I had the privilege of being able to test this game in beta testing, and to see it evolve over time into the shape it's in today. As you may note, I have over 50 hours played in dotAGE, and I've had so, so much fun. The developer was receptive throughout the whole of testing, and genuinely takes feedback into account to make this the best game it can be, and I cannot possibly praise that highly enough.

dotAGE starts simple enough, with a small civilization that doesn't take much to manage, but as time goes by, your village develops, and threats start mounting, it never once takes its foot off the gas. As a more casual gamer who isn't the best at these types of games, I was nervous going into it, but the various difficulty levels are a godsend for that. Once I found the right one (for me, one below default), I had a brilliant time and so much fun.

I have had hours and hours and hours of fun with dotAGE, and I cannot possibly express how great of a time it's been. Genuinely, I super strongly recommend this game to people with an interest in the genre, because it is SO CUTE while also being a genuine challenge.

tl;dr Moonstone Island combines some of the best elements of Creature Collecting (Pokemon), Farming/Life Sims (Stardew Valley), and deckbuilding roguelites (Slay the Spire), all wrapped up in an adorable pixel art style with a cozy feel to make a fantastic game that's in contention for my GOTY 2023. If you liked Stardew Valley, buy Moonstone Island, no question or hesitation.

Hopefully I'll remember to write up a longer version of this review later, but frankly, I just want to get back to playing right now. Seriously, just buy the damn game. It's so good.

At its core, this game is a birthday cake. It's sweet and sugary and the experience of eating it is one of unfettered, pure joy, however, there isn't a lot of nutritional value if you're looking for a meal rather than the joy of eating cake.

You will see a lot of the word 'joyful' in this review -- I can think of no other better way to sum up this game. Sorry for the repetition.

Graphics/Aesthetics/VFX/OST:
Before anything else, I need to say that this game is absolutely ADORABLE. 'Sugary' doesn't even get nearly close enough to describing how sweet and joyful it is, and I can honestly say that there isn't a single game that's filled me with such pure joy in the last year. Legitimately, I really can't sum it up better than with the birthday cake analogy, but essentially, this game makes me unreasonably happy playing it. The art style is super cute and the pixel art well-crafted. The colours are pastel enough to be adorable but still diverse enough of a colour pallet to make everything visually distinct. The soundtrack is cutesy, if a bit limited, but that low variation hasn't yet really struck me all that much in my ~5 hours of playing so far today alone. (It really only ever occurred to me when I sat down to write this review.) But above all else, oh my god are the sound effects happiness-enducing. I legitimately don't know what words to use, but there's a soft whimsy to everything that legitimately just does make me feel absolutely joyful all the time while playing. It's serene, it's calming, it's happy, it's wonderful.

Gameplay Mechanics:
April 30th Update:
As of yesterday, there was a patch to the game that seems to have rebalanced skills, skill levels, and damage. To quote the patch notes: "In addition, some parameters have been adjusted so that the game can be played comfortably.・ Sky Island expansion cost・The amount of effect of some skills・Drop probability of some items・Strength of some monsters" -- loading into the game today it's IMMEDIATELY noticeable. Previously, I had said that there were dozens of low-value skill upgrades that didn't have a meaningful effect on healing or damage. That is no longer true. I'd say that my damage went up 5-8x overnight at least, and that there was a very noticeable jump in my player strength. Additionally, expanding my island is no longer painfully slow. Base building before felt like an incremental game to me where it was slow as molasses and didn't do very much. Now, it genuinely feels like the skill levels have had an effect. I don't think there are meaningful CHOICES, because it's still very much 'what can I afford to build' and there's no limitations (which is a good thing!!), however, the base building now does feel like it's having an actual visible impact on player strength. This is a very good change, and needed to be acknowledged in my review.

I'm leaving the following paragraph up but heavily edited, and will leave the old version in the comments of this review in case you want the context because I had poorly worded the updated changes or something.

That said, the format of this game is very shallow. I understand that it's an early access game, but the format/structure of the game itself isn't one that lends itself well to particular depth. The progression comes from upgrading your base, but there are no meaningful choices to be made -- everything is just a straight upgrade to one of dozens of skill upgrades that do seem to over time add up to meaningful upgrades, but which don't require particular thought or decision-making. One upgrade may give you increased damage to flying monsters. Another may give you small ticks of health regen during the day time, or heal you after chopping down a tree. Choosing what decorations to place is less about strategy and optimization and more just "What resources do I have on-hand/what can I craft right now?" It's essentially a "build what you can when you can and just do whatever" game as far as the base customization/building, with a cute little fighting game for the main world. The most immediately noticeably impactful skill is one that allowed me to damage an otherwise-invulnerable enemy, however, after the rebalancing patch, my damage and skill levels have increased to levels where I'm visibly very clearly stronger than before. Given that everything changed LITERALLY overnight, I don't know how quickly that power accumulated (since I have at least 6 hours of play on the original balance), but it's very clear now that skills are having an impact on player power.

Difficulty:
April 30th Update:
Again as of the patch, my experience here has changed. I did another boss today and while it was an easier one, it was absolutely trivial at my new level of increased power. I suspect, but cannot definitively prove given the state of my save file progress, that the difficulty curve has been made much more gentle. However, as I stated, these changes were literally overnight. The game feels GREAT to play now balance-wise and makes me realize how HP spongey it was before, but I can't give a reasonable estimate for difficulty curve for a fresh player starting today.

I have also since experimented with turning off auto-aim and that does seem to have significantly helped with the issue I was having.

As a whole since the April 29th update (that I just got today oops), combat feels fantastic and things don't feel overly difficult to me. I haven't explored much in the higher level areas, so I can't speak to that, but as a whole, the current state of balance feels great to me and I can't wait to play more and discover new bosses and get into higher level zones.

This game isn't complete, but what's there is a joy-inducing, beautiful experience. The core gameplay loop is solid, and if you're just looking for a game to pick up periodically for bite-sized chunks of happiness, I think Crystarise is a great option for that. (I could definitely see someone playing it as a stress relief from frustration points in other games, for example.) Even considering early access considerations, I don't really expect to see a whole lot of depth added to the game, but personally, I'm okay with that. I think this game is well-suited to being a bite-sized, shallow, beautiful experience.

Normally, I wouldn't recommend most games lacking depth like Crystarise at $15, but this is actually one place where I think the strength of the joy found in this game conditionally warrants the current price, even in early access with limited content. My personal recommendation is -- IF you are looking for a cutesy, joyful experience and you won't be too upset if there's not a lot of optimization and crunching of game mechanics, Crystarise is absolutely worth your time. Don't hesitate to pick it up at $15, but also on the same note, if you're not enjoying it within the first 30-60 minutes, also don't hesitate to refund it. You should be able to tell quite quickly what the core gameplay loop is like and whether you will enjoy it enough to consider it worth your time.

I was on the fence about this game because I enjoy Runeterra's lore, but I've never really liked how they've handled Sylas' lore. However, because I adored Moonlighter, I was willing to give it a shot figuring that even if I hated the story, the gameplay would at least be great, and also hoping that just as Ruined King was good despite the source material, that Mageseeker would be good despite Sylas' heavy involvement in it.

tl;dr, the gameplay SUCKED. The gameplay to me felt extremely clunky, with grabbing and using spells feeling like it overall detracted from the general fighter/brawler gameplay rather than being seamlessly integrated. If their goal was to make sure the magic didn't feel natural to Sylas, well, they succeeded on that, but ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, did it feel legitimately clunky as hell to play. I started dreading every combat because the whole point is to use magic, but then also dreading every cutscene because they were blatantly setting Sylas up to be "the accidental hero who stepped up when no one else would." There wasn't a single part of the game I enjoyed other than "the art style" but that really isn't enough to justify the purchase of the game.

Ultimately, I sincerely hope they kept with the "Sylas is doing this for the wrong reasons" that they at least started strong on, but I won't personally ever find out. I will be refunding this game now, as the gameplay and combat are just unplayably bad for me. Guess I'll just stick to Moonlighter.

PS. RiotForge, if you REALLY needed a rebellion narrative with a sympathetic protagonist to portray as The Good Guy with all sorts of cool magic, you really would have been better served with something centered around Xayah and Rakan. Just trying to "Sylas is a good guy we swear, you'll see" is just not convincing.