Recent reviews by Harp Griffin

I’ve now 100% completed the full release of the game, so I can write this review and free myself from the dungeon (for now - I’ll be back). Dungeon Divers began as a fan game of Binding of Issac over on itch.io. Some of those roots are still obvious to fans of the latter, but no familiarity with it is really necessary (I never played BoI!). It’s a very complicated Minesweeper - instead of numbers, you’re looking for rooms that fit specific parameters. Some of these are simple and some are very finicky. Like Minesweeper, there’s a certain amount of guessing. Rather than completely eliminate all guesswork, the developer has instead turned it into a rogue-like: you have items, health, and armor to work with. Clever application of these can mitigate or entirely remove the guesswork. There’s also a “predictable room generation” option in the accessibility settings that will help if you find the rogue-like elements unfair. I will note that while I tried it out, I didn’t use it to get to full completion. I actually enjoyed some of the unfairness. Also note that unlike Minesweeper, these maps will take significantly longer, and a full dungeon run of the Hard campaign can take an hour for some players (the achievement is for under 20 minutes. I'd say most runs take half an hour once you're used to the game).

It can be a very satisfying puzzle game, as long as you’re ready for some of its quirks. Besides the issue of guesswork (what many people call 50/50s), some of the room types take either significant practice or significant math to figure out, whichever suits you best. I still don’t feel I’ve mastered Black Market rooms, for example, although some may find Outsider more difficult. These rooms measure direct distance from other rooms, rather than square counts. There’s no ruler tool, nor is there a counting tool. I don’t know if there are plans to implement these in the future, but the developer has been very open to accessibility improvements. All achievements can be unlocked regardless of accessibility settings. I played the game with all timers turned off, which means both the final boss map of the Hard campaign and the entire Speedrun Mode didn’t have timers.

There are a ton of different game modes and a heap of items to unlock for completing them. They vary in interest level and difficulty, and they don’t suit everyone (if, for example, Predictable Generation isn’t helping enough, Legacy Mode will be a nightmare). Some of the achievements are quite difficult and RNG dependent, but that’s kind of the point of a rogue-like.

Also note the player has options of simple colored question marks or colored unique icons for room types, and the room type is labeled on mouse-over, so it’s colour-blind friendly. No audio is required to play, and the game’s sounds are simple but effective. The music is almost too relaxing (there’s only one song, yes even on the boss map). This game does require a lot of reading while you learn the room rules, and if you’re not paying close attention, you’ll be screaming about unfairness and guesswork because you simply missed a key detail. It may also be difficult for folks with dyscalculia, since counting and measuring are fundamental to the gameplay and the only tool available are check marks and crosses. The game is mouse and optional keyboard, with all controls remappable. Controller support is incomplete - it didn’t recognize my joystick or D-pad in menus. There’s also an option to reduce visual effects, which is mostly only needed for the boss levels (there’s a glitch effect there that isn’t too bad but some may have trouble with).

This is somehow my most played game of 2024 and I regret nothing.

This is a free game with a set of paid DLC. Achievement hunters need fear not - the DLC are not required to complete the achievements, all of which are achievable with normal game play (with or without assists!).

The gameplay itself is basically jigsaw puzzles without edge pieces. They are all relatively small puzzles, and there's several hint options. These are presented as icons and it may be non-obvious what they do even the tooltips - one orients all pieces correctly and tidily, one shows the object silhouette, and one shows the original picture. There's an option to turn off the cat interruptions, but it turns out they aren't as disruptive as the one in A Little to the Left.

The art is fun and colorful, the music relaxing during solving, and while there's no controller support, picking up pieces is a toggle rather than click-and-hold. It's a fun little game worth the time it takes - no bloat here!

Knowledge of the inspiration (Binding of Issac secret rooms) is absolutely not required for this game. It's a lot like minesweeper, but with more complex rules and some items to help balance out the unfairness of minesweeper. The room generation logic still has some kinks to be worked out - you can definitely lose a run to having to pick between 2 or more equally probable rooms, even once you've learned how the rooms are generated and so can spot some things that otherwise aren't directly room rules. The music doesn't overstay its welcome, and the sound effects are satisfying. The overall aesthetic design is really polished at this point.

It's all just left and right mouse clicking, no controller support as yet. There's good colourblindness support in the revamped icon set for the rooms. Players do need to read, and read carefully. The rules are all explained, but it can take a while to learn all the different room types and how they work. There's a great in-game manual that explains absolutely everything (although it does use red/green colour coding for some graphics - most have additional labels). Sound not required for gameplay.

I'm very much looking forward to the full game and all the different game modes that are hinted in the menu, although perhaps not "speedrun" (I can't do things fast).

The "Find All" series of hidden object games definitely shows a lot of heart. The scenes are partially animated (movement can be reduced in the settings), and everything fills in as you find items. The majority of items are usually in logical places, or reasonable "hiding" places - phones are mostly inside windows, for example, but paintbrushes will usually be near a straight edge, regardless of place. The player looks for items in sets, rather than being given the entire assortment to hunt down all at once, which is a pretty neat way to increase the difficulty and lends a lot more variety to the charming scenes than "find 100 of this critter".

I will say that if you want to get just one Find All game, you're better off with Find All 4, as each iteration has improved on accessibility and 4 finally adds the critical features of edge scrolling and a zoom function, which are missing here. This one at least has a hint available every 3 minutes, brightness slider, controller support, and the ability to turn off timer visibility. There's 3 difficulty levels, all available from the outset, though that's not obvious from the UI design (the filigree under the level pictures in level selection is actually an arrow), and a medal system tracks your time - fastest gets the gold, but there's no punishment for taking as long as you need.

This was 6 minutes of slightly unhinged delight. I do not regret my purchase or my decisions in life. Well, at least not this one.

Excellent iteration on the relaxing hidden object game genre. Really good accessibility and quality of life features: fully customize the colour palette, choose between 4 song tracks and 12 mouse cursors, zoom functionality, edge scrolling, infinite hints on a refresh timer, no button hold actions and neither sound nor reading required. They added a cool little "colour the picture" mode in this one, and a button to the Google form to add your cat to the growing pool of cats for future games. Achievement hunters will be happy to know all the achievements can be earned in the free base game - the DLC is not required. Note that speedrun mode disables the hint system!

It's a fun little hidden object game - the cats are not really that hidden for the most part. Each cat has a name and description, which is fun. One feature that sets this series apart is the ability to adjust the colour palette to your exact preference, in addition to a brightness slider and volume controls for every aspect of the game.

This is a great little puzzle game with interesting takes on the concept of mazes. It's a cohesive whole and not just 20 cheap little mazes throw together, with a lot of charm and polish. The layered puzzling reminds me a little of the MIT Treasure Hunts, where one puzzle provides parts to another puzzle, and also where unlike puzzles get combined into a new concept entirely. None of the mazes is all that difficult, but they aren't so simple as to be trivial, or if they are one still has a good time because it doesn't feel rote or like filler, but rather like a little experiment the player is sharing with the developer. The sliding puzzle, like all sliding puzzles, is a bit fiendish, but really quite clever and fair.

Currently, it's mouse and keyboard with limited controller support, but that's being worked on. Audio is not required; some reading is required. Color is not a component of any of the mazes, but colourblind users may have a little difficulty seeing that some of the puzzles are there if a red maze is laying on top of the green hill, for example. I really appreciated the brightness slider, as well.

Note: my play time is inaccurate since I played it through first on a friend's account, so this is my second playthrough.

Identify fossils, ignore your sibling's emails, possibly romance your former coworker. 10/10 experience

Accessibility notes: resolution quality options, fullscreen toggle, individual volume sliders, colourblind mode, particle effects. Only supports mouse and keyboard natively, though it can be controlled entirely with mouse (and only right mouse button). The colourblind is a little inelegant, but effective.

Note: it is impossible to collect all possible fossil combinations. The game is not designed to manage such a collection, and you'll likely break something trying, as the fossil generation system is fairly huge. We're talking hundreds of thousands of possible fossils. Just don't.

Swim around, clean some toxic waste, pet a loddle, feel better about everything. But also a little bit sad, because the work never ends. That's kind of the point. There's hints of a really interesting story and world building, but we never get the full story. The gameplay is extremely chill, with the oxygen system being the only nod to the "survival" genre, and easily and quickly overcome for most players, so it quickly gets out of the way of the cosy atmosphere.

Accessibility notes: The game features a number of nice accessibility options, include settings for degree of pixelation of the art, control remapping (both mouse+keyboard and controller are natively supported), individual volume controls, screen resolution and framerate adjustments, camera adjustments, and even removing some of the in-game text. There’s a map to help orient the player, and a log book to keep track of current goals. The latter two features are well-integrated into the theme of the game, much like the multiple indicators for the oxygen and boost meters.