Recent reviews by gogauze

This game really does hit a specific niche. It's full of aha! moments. You'll sometimes just have to walk away and imagine a new way through the scenario, over a smoke and some coffee, becuase your last approach fell apart. If you want the joy that comes from coding your way around an obsticle and besting a ball-bustingly difficult puzzle at the same time, then this is your game.

There's nothing wrong with the concept, but it's unsatisfying.

You control the terrain instead of your surfer, which is fine. But the gameplay ends there. You collect stars, but they don't serve the game. The collisions are a little wonky.

A couple pieces of extra mechanics could have made it better. I understand wrecking into a higher piece of terrain, but why can't you drop from a wave? A cool down so you couldn't do it consecutively would have made it more interesting. If you get a star combo, the character could jump a wave you missed once per combo (to incentivize going for them). And no way to save progression. Making sure you'll be very familiar with the aesthetic of the first part of the first level and nothing else.

It could have been good, but it isn't. Even for only a few bucks.

tl;dr: it's really hard to regret this purchase, even at full price. Some of the darkest environmental storytelling I've ever seen. Approach with caution because of the subject matter.

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The game is starting out with negative points because It was going to take a special theme and aesthetic to get me to play a point and click adventure game, with inventory puzzles no less, in the first place. But then it dropped the mic with choosing psychosis and the abuse of the mentally ill... Alright, let's do this.

I'm actually ill equipped to talk about the technical side of the game. The P&C Adventure genre isn't my cup of tea. I guess the only thing I can say about the game is that, like others, you can stumble through it rubbing things on all the other things to brute force your way through it. But then you see an achievement that you missed in the first chapter for not meeting an objective. And the chapters are so tight that it's not a chore to go back and see how a different, more thoughtful, approach could have gotten you to the same end. So it's got some replayability in there, and an incentive to think things through from multiple vectors.

The storytelling and the art style is where this thing comes alive and turns from a game into an all out experience. If you've ever had the displeasure of being in an inpatient, in a mental health facility, you are going to find some terrifying themes of abuse that are all too real in the american healthcare system. Add to that some of the most pitch black background storytelling, based around ethics so crooked that would make Nazi scientists from the 1st half of the 20th century cringe, and characters that are so despicable that you want to cave their skulls in as a player, and you've effectively produced lasting engagement.

Finally, there is the games' primary mechanic. Take a pill from the bottle that is supposed to make you "better," and things go to a level that would make Silent Hill just a bit nauseous. The difference between the grimy world you seemingly exist in and cosmic horror that you experience while on your meds is jarring. But for anyone who’s undergone an actual psychotic episode, the transition will feel familiar. And here is where I think the place between the mechanics and the story meet seamlessly. More than once you’ll find an inventory item in one of the two worlds that advance the story in another. Making you think “is this horror solely confined to Fran’s mind?”