Recent reviews by ZiZ

ten out of ten, would tweak the nose of my grandfather who is literally Time again by pausing mid-fight and just going away for a while

Fun little puzzle-platformer that reminds me of the Alwa games. There's only a handful of items but they all have various clever interactions. Plenty of timing-based puzzles but nothing I've run into that requires serious reflexes yet, having picked up one of the four Major MacGuffin items. The game is extremely forgiving about saving progress even through death, which is good, because it's also very, very easy to die - sometimes a lot! ...but it's also often the case that if you're dying a lot, there's an easier way to do what you're trying to do.

All in all: a delight. If you enjoyed the Alwa's games or Environmental Station Alpha, give this a shot.

Sixty minutes of delightful puzzling, with a few satisfying aha moments, no difficulty spikes, and a warm fuzzy feeling of accomplishment after finishing everything.

Relaxing and fun even as it's tense - the games are so short that the sometimes punishing difficulty of the higher challenge levels is never a frustration, and it's incredibly satisfying when cards and planning come together to let you slip through a dicey situation unscathed.

Blasting into a new timeline and getting absolutely bodied by the Vek never gets old.

Likely dog

Could this be a dog?

dog, O dog

Behold, dog!

A charming monster collector with metroidvania-esque exploration skills on a sidescrolling platformer with a turn-based battle system. It's fun! It's got good pixels! I like it.

RESCUE THE PUGS (or sacrifice them). COLLECT THE GOLD. DIE HORRIBLY ON SPIKES. REPEAT. I know it's possible to win, and maybe one day I will, but in the meantime, I'm perfectly happy accidentally honking a shopkeeper's nose by throwing a rock across the level and then dying in a convoluted way involving at least two arrow traps.

spoiler: this is Frog Fractions

This game, which I picked up on the strength of recommendations about its writing, has what I find to be such painfully wooden, unengaging writing that I could barely finish the first tutorial battle before I quit in exhaustion. The story has some promise - it seems to be a typical "chosen one has to Save The World" framework, which I'm always happy for, with some potentially interesting specifics - but it is presented in a way that I could simply not get through.

The single combat I played - the introductory battle, basically impossible to lose - also seemed promising; the real-time-with-slowdown/pause is fluid and smooth, slow enough to feel like it would almost be managable without slowdown (at least on easier difficulties) but fast enough not to feel like a drag.

So, if writing styles don't bother you and that sort of combat sounds appealing, perhaps give it a shot.