Recent reviews by Poo

Size Matters is a pretty cool puzzle game where you race against time to find an antidote to stop yourself from shrinking before it's too late.

You search for base chemicals and modify them using the formulas written on hidden notes and scrawled on the walls and chalkboard. To modify chemicals, you can use equipment available such as the microwave, combiner, etc. All the equipment take a considerable amount of time so planning ahead to minimize the time lost is a key part of the strategy.

As time progresses and you shrink to a certain height, and you have to use objects around you such as chairs, boxes, etc. to create makeshift ramps and jumping points so you can make your way back to the counter tops that hold the equipment needed. It creates a sense of urgency and another layer of strategy required to make sure you create the antidote in time.

Overall, Size Matters is a neat puzzle game. It's pretty unique, and you can tweak a lot of the settings to make it easier or much harder or even just make it very silly.

Dog Duty is an ok game. It captures the spirit of an old school real time tactical squad combat game.

You control a squad made up of 3 mercenaries, with each mercenary having one special ability. You can change their equipped gun and you have available consumable items such as molotovs to deal damage over a large area and syringes to immediately restore health.

Your goal is to conquer the three bosses in each zone and head on to defeat the final boss.

The tactical part of the combat is enjoyable enough with some minor gripes. It is pretty satisfying clearing the level of all enemies. There are some drawbacks though that take away from the experience though. The abilities do seem to be bugged in that sometimes they do not trigger for all of your allies. For example, one character has an ability that is supposed to heal your entire team. Sometimes it does not heal your entire team and this can lead to frustrating situations where your team wipes. The game does not control that well at times when units overlap and it becomes hard to select the desired target and action.

Gripes aside, the game has some fun to be had. It took me roughly one hour per zone and the final boss so in total it took me roughly 4 hours to complete the game and then an additional 4 hours to get all the achievements.

Additional Info:
Game Received for Free
Game Playthrough: Completed
Time Played: 9.6 Hours
Achievements: 22/22
Achievement Difficulty: Moderate (Side B achievement requires you to beat all 3 bosses without clearing any extra zones)
Recommended For: Fans of retro games, casual real time strategy

Game can be quite corny and unbearable at times.

10/10 - Amaizeing game, would play again.

The game is a slow sci-fi, cyberpunkish walking simulator type of game where you play the role of a detective searching for his lost son. I found the writing for most of the side quests and some of the main quest in this game to be excellent, and reminiscent of shows like Black Mirror. It is some of the best writing and delivery of narrative I have ever seen and the narrative exploration remains as the best part of the game for me.

However it is not without flaws and I personally found some of the memory jacking sequences and a few of the puzzles to be a little lacking. I didn't find most of the things in some of these memory sequences scary at all and just served as an obstacle to getting to the narrative as it didn't really add anything to it in my honest opinion. I also found some of the puzzles to be a bit annoying as there is really no clear design to a few of them, such as the one where you are exploring the hotel in the past. It's not really clear what you're supposed to do or why. I did figure it out but it does ruin the pacing of the narrative a bit in my opinion. Others seem to like these sequences so I'll chalk it up to a difference in personal preferences.

I did find the actual ending to be unsatisfying as well. It felt a little too long and like some of the game play elements were added in to pad the length of the game. That said, I still enjoyed the game and I highly recommend it, due to the strength of the writing and delivery of narrative. It's not perfect but nothing ever is. If you guys like narrative driven, gritty sci-fi, this may be the game for you.

I play a lot of puzzle games and Kine is very well made one. It focuses on rotating anthropomorphic, cube like musical instruments and manipulating limbs to navigate to the destination of a level. The mechanics are simple and intuitive but the puzzles can get quite challenging.

The game also focuses on music and the accompanying sound track is excellent as well. The music slowly builds up as you progress in the levels.

The thing that stuck out to me the most about Kine is that for most puzzle games, I can work back from the solution and solve the puzzle. Most puzzles from other games only have one obvious solution and because of this, deducing the possible paths to that solution is usually simple. Some of the harder puzzles in Kine manage to hide this very well so you have to rely on educated guesses. It managed to give me a satisfactory challenge.

The game also introduces new and interesting mechanics at a decent rate. The game should take around 6 hours or more to complete. I recommend this game for fans of puzzle games.

Mayhem in Single Valley is a quirky, retro action adventure game at heart but it changes things up by adding in different segments of platforming, some light puzzle solving, and even stealth (darn you gorilla!).

On top of everything, this game oozes style! It looks and sounds amazing. The chiptune soundtrack is especially great and makes my ears happy.

If you enjoy retro games, platformers, or action adventure games, I recommend checking this demo out. It's free and has about an hour of gameplay the first time through.

Video Preview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KOwCVEz0FE

Edit: I saw some complaints about the wind section. I don't know if I played a different version but it was pretty simple in that the screen literally shows you the direction the wind is blowing so it was pretty easy.

Also, you have a dodge move and the spiders telegraph their attack visually as well as through sound so you have a second to press the dodge button. The game tells you when they're attacking, and gives you the tools to dodge it.

I found the game to be relatively simple and straightforward other than the stealth section but that only took me a couple tries before I min/maxed my routes. You gotta use your brain there for a minute and not just run forward expecting to win.

The only real complaint here is that the move speed is a little bit on the slow end but that's just personal preference and me being impatient.

LUNA The Shadow Dust is a point and click puzzle game that took me by surprise by how amazing the artwork and animation look. It is very reminiscent of older anime as well as the classic Studio Ghibli look. It being point and click in nature may be a turn off to those who want direct control over their characters or faster movement speed in games.

That element aside, the gameplay itself is pretty straightforward and well done. You are climbing a tower room by room and slowly recovering your memories. Each room has a different puzzle to solve before you can exit. As you climb the tower, you gain a very adorable cat like creature as a side kick and you can alternate between the two. The puzzle solving elements are interspersed with adorably animated cut scenes.

The puzzles are not difficult to solve and most are presented in a manner where you can quickly figure out most of them at a glance. It took me around 6 hours to beat the game and around 2 more hours to obtain all the achievements. The Master Chef achievement is the most tedious achievement in the game as it is very time consuming and can be difficult to figure out the requirements.

Overall, LUNA The Shadow Dust is a very solid point and click puzzle game wrapped in amazing artwork and a solid sound track.

Video Preview: https://youtu.be/PllTe5E0DqY

Additional Info:
Game Received for Free
Game Playthrough: Completed
Time Played: 8 Hours
Achievements: 24/24
Achievement Difficulty: Moderate (Master Chef achievement is time consuming)
Recommended For: Fans of point and click puzzle games, 2D animation

The Escaper is a very solid and well made Escape Room game. I enjoy escape room games of all kinds, from the old Japanese flash games, to the more recent iterations, and even real life escape rooms. By far, the Japanese flash games are the most difficult and headache inducing, mind bending (in a good way) kind.

Almost all of the puzzles in the Escaper are fair and can be solved logically from the given hints and pieces available. What I mean by this is that you can work backwards from the problem at hand (i.e. I need a 4 digit number, I need a key, etc.) and sure enough, something in the room will have something that can be translated into a number, open up to give you a key, etc.

There were two puzzles that I did have difficulties with (stupid xylophone and me being tone deaf), but were mostly due to me missing more subtle hints in the rooms. The rest of the puzzles are of easy to moderate difficulty.

The game has four rooms available, and each take around an hour to beat the first time through. I had a blast and I can easily recommend this game to fans of escape room games or those curious about them. It took me around 5 hours to completely beat the game and obtain all achievements.

Video Preview: https://youtu.be/Yrm9tthIMU4

Additional Info:
Game Received for Free
Game Playthrough: Completed
Time Played: 5 Hours
Achievements: 16/16
Achievement Difficulty: Easy
Recommended For: Fans of Escape Room games/logic based puzzles

If you like survival crafting, this is a solid title. Also the campaign mode is excellent in my opinion, had a story that drew me in!

P.S. This guy is literally thirsty all the time. He requires an insane amount of water intake. You may want to go to the doctor if you are consuming an entire lake's worth of water a day.

I am hooman.