Recent reviews by IndigoExe

I absolutely recommend this game for anyone liking this genre.

You can focus on checking the papers of incoming people (and there are quite a few things to keep an eye on!), but there are many other things to do as well! You have to catch smugglers and defend the border post from raids once in a few days. There are side missions you can take for extra cash and fun. Most of these side things, you can freely choose to have in your game or not, depending on your mood.
There is a satisfying progression in the game, you get to gradually upgrade your post from something horribly run down into a nice and neat place.
If you play campaign mode, you get to learn the ropes gradually, starting from checking only a couple things. I liked the story (a couple places seemed a little illogical, but I still had fun).
There are quite a few interesting achievements you can strive for, I am currently enjoying collecting those.

All in all, I think the best thing about this game is how well balanced it is in terms of activities. There are various things breaking up the monotony. I would expect to be bored after 40 hours, but I am still very much into it.

You can spend HOURS lost in this game. Very satisfying cleaning, then choosing all the furnishing. There is a wide enough selection of items to put in the house, your freedom is relatively large. After a few houses, I do notice I tend to do the exact same things, but that is not unexpected.
My only complaint is that the buyers can be quite annoying in their wishes and sometimes when you are trying to make a house specifically for one of them, it might be hard to make them the top buyer. Other people keep wanting to buy it for more, despite having many negative comments about the house. To remove them from the top position, I have had to do some changes that I was not happy with (like removing all pictures or carpets or plants...).
Over all, I think this game is certainly worth your money, if you think this might be your cup of tea.

I do recommend this game if you enjoy survival games with a lot of exploration.
There doesn't seem to be much of a goal to strive towards, but you can explore a very large area with stunning views, many little dungeons, meet many different Pals.
You mainly capture or kill pals to gain materials and XP to unlock more items to use or build. You are allocated limited points, and you have to choose between different unlockables. You build up your base where many of your pals can be let out of the storage to work on farming, crafting, logging and mining... That is something I appreciate - you don't just have to have a huge storage of caught creatures while you only use five favourites the entire game.
I also love that the Pals have their unique personality traits aside from the traits of their species.
I would, however, appreciate an option to release pals back into the wild. You gain XP by repeatedly capturing pals of the same species, which I am not really a fan of altogether, one is more than enough. You then have to either just drop them (but they stay there in the sphere, just tossed aside) or sell them or... uhm, smush them together to make a stronger pal. I dislike every single of those choices almost more than simply killing them. An option to release them would make me incredibly happy. (I know it's a game, but I can still have some moral compass if I want! Lemme have it!)

Now of course I have to address the Palworld vs. Pokemon discussions, so here it goes:
If there is any comparison to be made between those two games it should be that Palworld is like a parody of Pokemon. Where Pokemon is all rose-tinted glasses (while being kinda messed up upon close inspection), Palworld is just messed up and openly displaying it. It took some of the best mechanics from Pokemon and put them into a different video game genre. A very normal thing to do in game development - aren't most games nowadays just taking bits and pieces of existing games and merging them into something new?
Personally, the only blame I find in Palworld is that some of the pal artworks are just TOO similar to existing Pokemon, beyond what can reasonably be explained off as similar artstyle and the concept of animals + elements. That would work if it was meant as a parody, of course. Which it honestly probably is, but they can hardly say that openly, now, can they? Once they admit it is a parody, that can provide a better opportunity for copyright infringement lawsuit. A parody would either need permission or be free - but there is hardly a chance a project of this magnitude could be made for free or receive permission. Which would be a bit of a shame. This is the Pokemon parody we didn't know we need.
Still, for the sake of author laws if nothing else, I am a little torn about them leaving those too similar artworks in game. They feel both wrong (morally) and right (they drive the parody feel). I would understand if they decide to change them, but probably wouldn't mind too much if they kept them.

I greatly recommend this game for anyone looking for a singleplayer ghost hunting experience, especially if you want to play for a long time and want a game with a good progression system.

Where does this game shine in this genre?

- all your tools are on you, no running back and forth, great for singleplayer
- progression - getting (or losing) reputation with guilds (fair warning, can be a littly grindy), gradually unlocking entities, which slowly ups the difficulty
- very fun photo system - many photo types, you can only take one photo of each type per game, you can discard any photos you don't want
- you can reliably reach a perfect game, which (along with the progression system) greatly motivates you in always going for perfection
- you don't just look for the ghost type, but also things like name, how they died etc. - you have more to do than just look for evidence
- nice mix of evidence - some you have to carefully look for, some just sort of happens
- you can randomly receive a challenge that brings you out of your routine

Other characteristics of this game (but not necessarily cons!):

- you figure out the ghost type and banish it with guns using custom ammo
- there is no safe spot -> meaning more tension, and you can't just go to the bathroom in the middle of a contract
- you cannot hide from hunts ("chase") - once you get into the ghost's chase range, it will be almost constantly after you and thus you must have the ghost figured out by this time
- sometimes, particularly on higher difficulties, you might have to leave unfinished or you will die
- there are currently 9 maps (4 small, 3 medium, 2 large)
- on multiplayer, there is shared health, so you cannot mess around with your friends much, and since you don't need help bringing in equipment, I don't think multiplayer brings much to this game
- there is currently not much in terms of customizing your game or character (you can, however, choose characters with different perks)
- decent tutorial
- MUST CHANGE KEYBINDS

I am recommending the game if you are interested in escape rooms, it is definitely worth the money.

WHAT I LIKE:
- Nice art.
- Easy to understand mechanics.
- There are 27 escape rooms in total in the basic version, 4 more in each of the DLCs. You are looking at >10 hours of fun. - - Additionally, there are many community built rooms (and you can also build some yourself).
- The vast majority of puzzles are intuitive enough that you can figure them out without help. They are also clever and interesting, with different themes.
- Hints on how to proceed are provided if you do get stuck.

WHAT I DISLIKE:
- Some, though thankfully only few, puzzles are too unintuitive and I would never have thought of the solution without using the hint. Like, there is absolutely no reason for me to think about breaking down a bar of soap to look for a pin inside.
- The tropheys. Each room has a time limit and if you can get out fast enough, you get a trophey. May seem like a good idea, but I find that it pushes me to use hints more than I would otherwise, to proceed faster and get the trophey first time. If you do not get it first time, you have to replay it (my completionist mind cannot NOT get the trophey if it's there). However, the rooms are not very replayable in short succession. Nothing is procedurally generated, every code is exactly the same, so replaying is a matter of a few minutes. Therefore, I don't really understand the point of the trophey. I would rather have a trophey for not using any hints, to motivate me to take my time and think.
- The tokens. Each room has 8 tokens hidden around it. Not really a bad idea, I like this type of thing, but not if it is nigh impossible to find. They are hidden too well. Despite consciously looking everywhere, I can rarely find more than 4 of them! It just gets frustrating. You have to be really stubborn and motivated to search for them all without resorting to guides. I wish the tokens were more conspicuous, bright coloured or sth. It would still be fairly hard to find them all, but not frustratingly so.

This game is an absolutely amazing experience for any SCP lovers, but also would be great as an introduction into the SCP universe. The entire playthrough took me about 7 hours, but I went very slow to enjoy it.

Positives:
- You have 5 different stories you play through, each for a specific SCP (and they all are very uniquely done, with different play and art styles) and additionally, they offer you a few SCPs to just read through.
- The selection of SCP is amazing. They are not the most widely known ones, so it's not boring if you have already played other SCP games. There is a variety of SCP types that lets you taste the vastness of SCP universe, which includes, but is not limited to just horror.
- The music is chef kiss. Epic, absolutely perfect to make the right atmosphere.
- I like that the majority of the achievements are doable with only minimal additional effort. They are not for hardcore players only.

Negatives are mostly smaller inconveniences that really should be fixable, but the devs have been kinda MIA lately:
- Keybindings are not changeable. Neither are keyboards. If you don't use QWERTZ/Y, you are gonna have an issue.
- The game is kinda dark in some of the stories. Not metaphorically (well, that too sometimes, but definitely not complaining about that). I had to push up the gamma setting + screen brightness to the max to be able to play SCP-239 and SCP-701. That unfortunately makes some other parts of the story too bright, so it really could use some balancing there.
- There was one point when my game started crashing during SCP-239 story. Not 100% certain about the cause, but the game may have considered my hardware to be too weak to handle it. So I advise a good graphics card.

Overall, I'd say it is definitely worth the money, it's an unforgettable, very atmospheric experience. I have originally seen this game's playthrough on youtube, which usually means I would not buy the game (since it is a story game, so there is not much difference between playing yourself and watching someone else). But this game was so great I felt like I wanted to see it again and also to pay the devs for letting me have such an amazing experience. Seems more than fair.

I love this Observation Duty style game the most because of how user friendly it is - the anomaly reporting mechanic is very easy to use, simply clicking on the anomaly. There is no frustration of incorrectly identifying the anomaly type (because of vagueness or too many types to choose from) or forgetting to select the correct camera.
Another reason to love the game is the progression - on each map, you start off with only four cameras and low anomaly spawn, then each difficulty adds a camera and spawn rate. It lets you gradually learn the map, doesn't just overwhelm you from the beginning. It keeps giving you just the right difficulty - challenging to do first try, but not too hard to make you repeat a level often. I have only failed a game maybe two or three times, but I have been just on the verge of failing a lot more times than that (and those runs are the most satisfying).
Additionally, there is a shuffle mode, which randomly assigns you cameras from all the maps. A very unique and fun idea. Depending on your luck with cameras, you can have an easy game or something hellish.
The game also allows you to gain in-game currency by playing games (it's not real money purchase) and you can use it to buy additional packs of anomalies (relatively cheaply as well, you earn enough soon). Another great concept and I hope we will see more anomaly packs added in the future.
The vast majority of anomalies are fairly easy to spot, but there are also a few very sneaky ones that you have to learn to keep an eye on. It's well balanced in this area. The game also tells you what anomalies you missed at the end, which helps out a lot if you kept completely missing something.

Seriously, I have only praise for this game and greatly recommend it to anyone who wants to play a 'spot the difference' game. Absolutely worth the money.

I recommend it, it is very fun and addictive. All the cases are generated randomly (at least in most ways), so you really do have to use your own brain. You will find almost anything you can think of that belongs to an investigation - all the people in the city have fingerprints, footprints, e-mails, phone calls, schedules, lists of acquitances, coworkers, even things like bank statements. In between murder cases, you can take on various smaller investigative jobs.
It will probably get repetitive eventually, you will end up just doing the investigation in mostly the same way every time. But it should take some time before you get to that.
Unfortunately, at this point in time, the game bugs out a LOT. In the last three hours of playing, I had to reload four times and the game completely crushed three times (two of which were after I tried to buy newspaper from a vending machine, so it was probably just one issue). It can definitely get frustrating (also, the game does not autosave, so you must keep saving every x minutes). I think it should have gone through at least a bit more testing before entering early release.
I do recommend it despite all that, because I am still enjoying playing it and do not regret the spent money in the least. Plus, I have high faith that the bugs will be worked on. And if the devs keep true to their promises for future content? 100% worth the money they ask for it.

I am enjoying this game very much. It is addictive and time flies by, at least at the beginning. Unfotunately as you play longer, you realize there are some issues with the gameplay - if they were changed, it would make the game amazing. It is still worth the money, at least when on sale. Mainly, I have three complaints:

• When you take in a new pet, all it takes for it to be adoptable is letting it eat, drink and petting it (+ potentially clean and treat at the vet's). This means that there is actually no reason for me to adopt more than one pet at a time - when it comes to how fast I can adopt out pets, it makes no difference. In fact, taking in more pets just means you have to occassionally treat them for sickness, keep cleaning enclosures and check in on them constantly. I really wish the pets had to stay longer in the shelter before they can go up for adoption (a quarantine maybe?) - it would actually give me incentive to get more animals and expand the shelter beyond just my own play-pretend!
  
• As it seems, the goal of the game is to expand the shelter, get more stars and reputation. It wants you to buy more land and bigger higher level buildings. But I don't actually want that at all. Bigger space and bigger buildings just mean more time spent running around. A bigger building doesn't do absolutely anything apart from taking up more space! There is no advantage to the gameplay! Even having bigger enclosures and having more cages means little to me, as explained in the point above! If you could play with friends, then sure, but not when I'm the only one doing everything!
  
• When looking for new owners, you first match the traits of the pet to the wants of the candidate, then you pay money to disclose their living situation to match to the needs of the pet. You have to wait 10 seconds for the reveal. Pretty boring and annoying when you have to do it all the time. The time spent just staring at the timer adds up. I really don't know who thought that would make the game better. Additionally, you can look at the traits of one pet at a time as you look through the candidates. To make things efficient, it means you have to remember all traits of all your pets to try match them to the human. It would have been so much better if you only could see the traits of all your pets at once.

There are other, smaller things I am not that pleased about, like the very small variety in dog shapes (it seems there are only two medium sized breeds? with multiple colors for each) and cat shapes. The pets do not have an animation for using beds and pillows, they are purely decorations (I have also yet to see dogs using their toys). Sometimes, there are little bugs - but thankfully nothing too game breaking and they disappear if you restart the game.

Overall, this game feels more like an early access than a fully finished game. There is still room for balancing things out, adding more content and bug-fixing.

I am enjoying this game quite a bit.
I love the fact there is a feeling of progression - you have goals to fulfill (identifying and killing a certain number of each creature) and various things to unlock. And it is not like most ghost hunting games where you only need a few hours to unlock everything, in Metaphysical you will gradually be working your way up for tens of hours!
They already have many maps, from smallest to giant, and although they are not extremely detailed, I do not think it is really needed for the concept of this game. There are also many different types of creatures and they each have some uniqueness to them (some are really cool). You also gradually unlock further information on them which can help you more quickly identify them if you pay enough attention. It really feels like a good investigation that stimulates your brain.
What I really appreciate is that you only lose items you are holding when you die. It allows me to be way braver if I don't have to worry about losing heaps of money. That you are able to hold way more items than in most similar games and have infinite sprint are perks that I extremely appreciate. It makes the game different, more relaxed and focused on the investigation and getting rid of the creature than on fighting to stay alive.
Currently the only part I am not that happy with are the controls. There are still some things that need improvement to make the experience of controling the character and using some of the tools smoother. Also I believe there is a need to improve the performance to make the whole game run better. I was forced to really go down on the quality to avoid lagging, more than I usually have to for similar games.
The best thing, though, is that the developers seems to be very enthusiastic about their game and are constantly working on improvements. So I have high hopes for the future of this already pretty good game.