Recent reviews by d0sboots

I really want to be able to recommend this, but ultimately, I can't.

First off, at the time I played (and beat) the game, there were *major* engine issues that slowed the game to a crawl (2-3FPS routinely). Also, resource leaks that required me to restart that game every ~15 minutes to get the framerate back up. (I could tell it was a leak because the "save rooms," which are very simple and always the same, would have steadily decreasing FPS the longer I played, and the exact same room would go back to 300FPS after a restart.) Maybe these won't affect you, or maybe they'll be fixed by the time you attempt to play.

What won't change is that the game is only ~3-4 hours long. I enjoyed the gameplay there was (enough to beat it despite the performance issues), but that is still quite short.

Ultimately I feel like I have to compare this to Sonic Spinball, which has a similar premise but came out decades ago. Despite being for the Sega Genesis (an ancient platform by today's standards), Sonic Spinball played smoother and had more consistent performance. It was also longer. Pinball Spire has crisper graphics, being made in the modern era.

This is a solid game. The gameplay is fun, the story is moody (although not deep), and most importantly, it isn't overly long.

However, I don't recommend trying to get all the achievements. I say this as someone who *did* get all the achievements (for the base game), and is generally compelled to do so. Catching all the aberrations (rare fish) added ~7 hours of pure grind to this game that weren't fun at all. The game was over at the ~15 hour mark for me, and that was where it should have ended.

I used to program for work.
Now, I play games that make me program instead!

If you like coding, or think you might like coding, this is the game for you. I've played most of the big games in the "game that involves coding" genre, and this stands out as especially well-polished and well designed.

In particular, the use of a *real, pre-existing language* (Javascript in this case) sets it apart from others (*cough* *cough* Else Heart.Break() I love you, but Sprak is an awful bug-ridden language). Having each API function cost a certain amount of RAM makes you think carefully about how you write programs, and allows a ton of depth in terms of various strategies to reduce RAM use.

Also, the source is on GitHub, allowing for both bugfixes and perusal if you need to dig deeper to see how something works. Both huge pluses in my book!

Cons: If programming is not your thing, this is not for you

A really great art/puzzle game that stands out because there's very little out there like it.

The screenshots give a good sense of what the game looks like, but they don't convey the *depth* of what it feels like to explore and fall through their infinite geometry.

The puzzles are all on the easier side: You're generally not going to be scratching your head wondering how to solve them, but just steadily moving from one to the next. The only times I was briefly stumped (in the main playthrough) where when I just couldn't find a tree that I knew had to be there somewhere. This is OK, because the sheer act of *moving* in this game is a joy.

The main game is about 5-7 hours long. There's a harder mode that involves more difficult puzzling, including some real headscratching "find the secret door"-type elements. That takes a similar amount of time if you bail for a guide when you get really stuck, or maybe 2x as long if you stubborn it out.

This game is a mix of both incremental and idle. It starts out more active (which may be a turn-off to people looking for a strictly-idle game): The first 20-40 hours can be played very actively, with there always being something new to do. The game used to throw a *lot* of different options at you early on, in the form of different buildings that unlock, but that's been restricted to have a bit of a more gradual, guided learning curve.

As you get into the mid and lategame (about 100 hours in), the game starts getting more idle. It definitely helps if you can leave it running all night, although it's not required. By the end, it's pretty much purely idle.

What drew me to this game in particular (aside from it being free-to-play, and without stupid microtransaction gimmicks) is the built-in AI system. Lots of idle/clicker-type games feel repetitive, and you just want to use an out-of-game autoclicker sometimes. This game accepts that, and provides an in-game system for doing that. You can write your own scripts to deal with repetitive tasks, or draw from a large library of existing player-made scripts.

I like roguelikes. I like hyperbolic geometry. Obviously, this game caters to my interests.

However, it's more than the sum of its parts: HyperRogue uses its one big gimmick (hyperbolic geometry) in a multitude of very flexible ways, building from early lands that help you learn basic intuition about this non-intuitive space to later lands where you have to master more advanced concepts. The variety of game modes (and achievements) also let you tailor your playstyle, from the more random main mode to the more strategic Orb Strategy mode, and many others I haven't even tried yet.

I'd highly recommend to anyone who likes a "classic" roguelike with a unique twist, and doesn't mind basic/primitive graphics.