Recent reviews by Forbis

Having played Myst Masterpiece edition as a younger child, I was fully prepared for a new journey in that same universe as an adult. While this game can certainly stand alone as its own game, I recommend playing through Myst (remake or original) before playing Riven.

Because this is a remake my words will focus mostly on this game from a technical standpoint as well as compare it to the original 1997 release. I have to say, this remake beautifully and faithfully re-creates the "fifth age" in full 3D. I think Cyan did an amazing job staying as close to the source material as possible here, with a few creative and technical liberties in order to make the game more appropriate for full 3D, some of which are general improvements over the original game.

The only negative I see to this remake is that there is some poor graphics optimizations in some spots, what mainly felt like transitions between areas. I have a new computer of fairly high specs (including an AMD 7900 XT GPU and loading from an NVMe SSD) and the game would stutter rather badly when walking between some areas. Seeing as this release is just shy of three weeks old at the time of this writing, and the game doesn't require precise inputs, this gripe is somewhat forgivable. I hope that Cyan will get some of this fixed/optimized in the coming weeks/months.

The puzzles and story in Riven are engaging, logical, and (to me, at least) just the right amount of challenge. I was never really left wondering why a puzzle was engineered a certain way, only appreciating how it was designed. Many of the puzzles have answers in plain sight, you just need to have the right mindset when observing them.

Overall, whether you are new to the Myst series or wanting to enjoy a remake of a classic, I highly recommend this game if you are a fan of adventure/puzzle type games. I also commend Cyan for putting out such a faithful re-creation of a classic game.

I have a relatively small amount of time in this game. In that relatively small time, though, I've seen all I need to see to know that this is a well-made, creative, and unconventional (in the most positive way possible) game. The developers describe this as an "incremental," however, the term "idle game" also fits well and I am a fan of that genre as well.

I am currently a full-time software developer and I work with TypeScript almost daily. It is nice to have some knowledge carry back and forth between this game and real-world problems. I have barely scratched the surface of what's possible with the scripting API in this game, and have already had to refresh myself on asynchronous JavaScript (oh boy!) and a couple other language-specific quirks.

The learning curve may be steep for someone who has never written a line of JavaScript in their life, but there are some good tutorials and data out there made specifically for this game that should serve as a good resource for a newcomer. This game would likely serve as an excellent stand-in for a real-world situation or problem that someone starting out could attempt to solve. It's also addicting.

Overall, great job by the development team on this one. Looking forward to seeing how the story line/narrative progresses and how much deeper I will go with my scripts.

This game. This. Game.

I purchased ARK very soon after it first "came out" (I'll get to that in a minute) and played it with my friends for a good bit of time. I know very well how the game works, I ran my own dedicated server and explored almost every aspect of this game and its workings. Don't even get me started on PAID DLC for an Early-Access Game. Absolutely ridiculous.

That being said, I'm thoroughly disappointed.

ARK: Survival Evolved is the poster-child of the worthless Early-Access Game that will never make it out of Early Access. I disagree with the idea of allowing Early-Access Games to be PURCHASED. It gives the developers the excuse to "release" a steaming pile of sh*t and actually make money off of it. The development team, whether they even consciously acknowledge this or not, is taking advantage of that and is getting away with doing the bare-minimum to make a few bucks (or more than just a few).

Neglecting the fact that it's WRONG to publish and set a price on a game this bad, here are just a few of my issues with ARK:

- Optimisation and performance are STILL an issue even over a year after its initial "release"
- The interface STILL looks atrocious, is hard to navigate, and breaks is STILL an issue even over a year after its initla "release"
- Dedicated server setup is a pain; sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't - and there is very little documentation about it
- Mods are basically a nightmare - or rather the system the game uses to download them. Joining a modded server is when you need to start praying
- When you do get in a server and are playing, the objectives take so long to achieve that it gets incredibly tedious and boring after just a few hours. "Hold on, let me run 15 minutes away from the base to go get some supplies that will last us 30 minutes even though I've got a 50/50 chance of dying on the way there and back"

It's sad because this game had a ton of potential. Unfortunately I don't see it going anywhere since the devs have probably already made enough money to retire, so why would they invest more money into a game that's already paid off?

TL;DR don't buy this game because it's a money pit and it isn't worth the dino dung you can collect in it.

Yes, this game is short, as indicated by its description. This game perfectly preserves and arguably even extends the feeling and atmosphere that the Half-Life 2 series gave me, which is a feat in itself. This could pass as a beta for Half-Life 3 if you're judging it by atmosphere alone. The genuine quality, eeriness and mystery that surround it are akin to what you encounter in the other Half-Life games. I SO wish this was a complete game and not just a sort of demo, and I'm sure that the developers will be working on it continually and perhaps adding in more of a storyline that somehow merges with the Half-Life universe's.

That being said, even though this game is short and is demo-esque in nature, it's a brilliant one nonetheless. I'll be sure to follow anything that these developers come out with in the future. Please keep up the good, quality work! I always think quality over quantity is the best.

Addicting! Fun! Hard! It's good to see a game that actually takes a lot of time to play through and actually win - this game is actually pretty hard to beat on EASY difficulty. Highly recommend this game.