Nylige anmeldelser av MichaelOmegatron

**Spoiler Free**

Quick Overview: Huntdown is a side-scroller retro arcade shooter and platformer that takes place in a cyberpunk dystopia. The game leans heavily into the pixelated arcade-aesthetic with simple but very difficult gameplay. While this is not a game I would personally recommend to the general audience for anything over $5, I do think it accomplishes what it set out to do successfully, and I might recommend it at full price to a specific niche audience that likes to replay these types of games over and over. Otherwise, the $20 price tag is hard for me to justify.

Gameplay: Huntdown is adequality described by it’s labels as a side-scroller, platformer, and arcade shooter. It doesn’t do anything too novel within this genre that needs to be explained. It’s pretty straight forward, and is exactly what I thought this game would be from the trailer and descriptions. And I get the feeling that was exactly what they were trying to go for: a nostalgic trip down a pixelated retro-arcade lane. The thing that sets this game apart, in my eyes, is the difficulty.

You are a bounty hunter trying to kill 4 gang leaders, and levels are divided accordingly. There are 4 gangs to defeat, each with 5 levels that end with a boss (the bosses are all fairly unique). Each level has 3 optional side objectives: kill x number of enemies, find 3 collectables, and complete the level without dying. There are frequent checkpoints in each level, and there is no respawn limit. So if you die, you respawn before that section and get to try again. This makes the game much more accessibly if you are simply trying to play through it and have some light-hearted fun. Dying doesn’t force you to restart the whole level or anything.

There are 3 bounty hunters to choose from. Each has their own primary weapon with unlimited ammo and a unique throwable item. During the levels, you can pick up a variety of secondary weapons and alternate throwables (each with limited ammo). These add some fun variety, but could be strategically saved for bosses. (Note: You can only carry one additional secondary at a time.) Also, the gunplay is just shooting in front of you. There is no manual aiming with the mouse/stick or even firing up or down. You fight enemies head on.

The platforming is straight forward. Think something like Metal Slug. There are usually a couple of floor tiers to side-scroll on as you fight your way through. So you jump onto and drop down from floor tiers. You can also crouch behind cover, and take cover in doorways. Cover only protects you from ranged attacks. Melee attacks and explosions will damage you even while in cover. But aside from this kind of “platforming” and maneuvering, it’s all pretty linear. This isn’t a Metroidvania where you’re exploring a map. You go from left to right. There is little in terms of timing jumps to not fall to your death or anything like that.

Overall, the game is a linear side-scroller shoot’em up, and it’s very simple to engage with.

Controls:
The controls are simple and straight forward (I played on keyboard, but they recommend playing with a gamepad). For my setup, I used the following:

• Move Left = A
  
• Move Right = D
  
• Crouch = S
  
• Take cover = W
  
• Jump = I (you should probably use spacebar, I’m just weird like that)
  
• Shoot = J
  
• Throw = K
  
• Dash = L
  
• Action/Switch weapon = E

As you can see, the controls are simple. There are a few quirks, like dropping down a floor tier is “hold down + jump”. But otherwise, it’s all very straight forward. Your primary pistol weapon is semi-automatic, and can require you to spam click to shoot. But most weapons you pick up are fully automatic.

Difficulty: I would say there are two ways to play this game: Casual or Hard-Core. For the casual player, playing on Easy (like I did) is a reasonable challenge. There are difficult sections, but with enough persistence and coordination, you can learn how to get past these sections. I probably died 1-2x per level on average. There were a couple of bosses that ticked that number up to 5 or so. (Apparently I only died 9 times on the final boss. But it felt like much more than that). So on easy, the game is challenging, but not unreasonable. There’s no way to lose, unless you give up.

If you want to play this game Hard-Core by 100 precenting every level on Easy, Normal, Hard, and Badass (which is necessary to get 100% achievements) it will probably be one of the hardest games I’ve ever seen. I don’t actually know what the skill level would be that you would need to just beat the game on those difficulties. But since you would need to have a No Death Run on each level to 100% the game, it is my belief that 100 precenting the game on Brutal is not humanly possible. I can’t even fathom the skill you would need to have to accomplish this. It feels like you would need to “Main” this game, learning every spawn event and attack pattern, and acquiring precise muscle memory if you ever hope to accomplish this. So, you have been warned…

As a casual experience, it can be challenging enough. It’s not very mentally stimulating, because it’s just a lot of action and chaos where you die, respawn, and try again. But I imagine as a game you try to master, it would require every moment of your focus and concentration over the course of your training as you attempt to do the impossible.

Atmosphere: The world of Huntdown is a dystopic one, where a cyberpunk reality has made for a depressing existence for the average citizen. Thankfully, you’re not an average citizen, but a bounty hunter. And your bounty hunting contracts require a ton of action, shooting, explosions, and fast-paced mayhem. This game doesn’t take itself too seriously. There is an obvious tongue-and-cheek satire to this game and how it presents itself. Things like the pixel artstyle and animations are very polished and made with care. But the tropes laden throughout and quippy remarks can be quite humorous.

Personally, I found the character designs of the enemies and gangs to be the most amusing. For example, having a gang based around ice hockey is kind of absurd. I appreciated the humor baked into the title. The locations are also quite visually varied, even though they stick to the same world and aesthetic. Each gang has their territory, and it shows.

The game also has a fair amount of gore. Explosions will blow people up into chunks of blood. I found that you don’t really notice this too much because it can be so chaotic, and you are largely looking at your own character since you are concerned with dodging incoming projectiles and trying to survive.

Overall, the game has a fun retro vibe with humor and chaos imbedded throughout. It didn’t really get me immersed in the world, but it was entertaining in a surfacy kind of way.

Conclusion: Huntdown really plays into it’s genre, and is a polished addition to it. It is a short linear experience that can be a mindlessly-entertaining romp. In the end, it wasn’t really my type of game, but that doesn’t make it a bad game.

If you plan on playing this as a casual experience, I wouldn’t pay more than $5 for this, so wait for a sale. There’s not enough content, and I didn’t find it entertaining enough to feel like my time was well spent. But if you plan on trying to master this game, you will need to replay it to a degree that I suspect is well worth the $20. So unless you are a hard-core gamer that likes to chase record-breaking performances, I would wait for a sale. Even then, I wouldn’t really “recommend” this game. But I’m giving it a recommend because I feel like the game succeeds in what it is trying to do. And if that speaks to you, you’ll probably have a good time.

**Spoiler Free**

Quick Overview: Fights in Tight Spaces combines roguelike deckbuilding with tactical strategy to much success. Think Slay the Spire combined with Into the Breach. Wrapped in the high-octane aesthetic of a “Superhot” abstraction, this turn-based game manages to create an addicting and engrossing puzzle every level of the way. It’s not without it’s flaws and shortcoming. But if these ingredients add up to something that interests you, this game delivers.

Gameplay: There are two very different yet connected aspects to this roguelike game: deckbuilding and tactical positioning. Like any Slay the Spire-esque roguelike, you go through a series of levels, grouped into chapters, with some branching level choices. Levels will telegraph the number of enemies and potential rewards available upon completing optional objectives. Between levels you can add cards to your deck from a choice of three, or when you arrive at a gym you can edit your deck by adding, upgrading, and removing cards for a price. The end of each chapter has a boss, and the final chapter is basically one long boss fight. There are a variety of difficulty levels you can choose from, with easier ones providing more assistance like undos, and harder ones brutally unconcerned with your mistakes.
The difficulty you choose can have a huge effect on your deckbuilding strategy. Easier modes might guarantee you draw at least one of your movement cards each hand, meaning you want 2-3 good movement cards. But harder modes don’t assist you, so you need a good balance. However, your deck is only half the puzzle.

The tactical strategy element in this game is the other side of the roguelike coin. Much like Into the Breach, the game takes place on what are essentially small grid-based boards, where position is crucial. Enemies telegraph their moves, creating that turn-based puzzle. You must also manage your Momentum (mana) and Combo meters. Momentum is used to play cards, while Combo is used for certain cards as an alternate resource if you have enough (Combo stacks with each attack, but is lost with each space moved). This all leads to lots of satisfying “think-y” moments.
Yet at the same time, the game doesn’t feel too slow or dragged out. It’s a turn-based game with strategy, so obviously it’s not a fast-paced game (despite the theme). But I personally feel the game flows well and doesn’t get hung up on rulesets or overcomplicated variables.

That being said, the biggest hurdle you need to get over before you can experience the flow of combat is “learning the cards”. There are 200+ cards to potentially get familiar with, and due to the theme, they are all seem like slight variations on punches and kicks. It can be hard to identify or remember what each card does. Due to the artwork all looking kind of the same, and all depicting the same kind of combat, it can be hard to remember what each card does. The visual language is not very diverse. You have cards like Quick kick or Front kick, which both show a character kicking. You wouldn’t know at first glance that Front kick is the best card in the game. There are many examples of this. These cards become very familiar though, and you learn what they do at a quick glance. But before then, it can feel very overwhelming because everything kind of looks the same.

The game also seems to have unbalanced cards. Some cards are just not very good compared to others. Some enemies are immune to certain types of attacks, so it’s good to put a variety of answers in your deck. But some enemies (like the final boss) are theoretically impossible to beat if you don’t build a deck with the right kind of variety. So, though there are a decent number of cards, you’re going to typically handle smaller subset, favoring good cards over others. So you will become familiar with the ones you frequently use.

TIP: The biggest tip I can give is to look at this discussion thread on Steam called “Is there a guide to win for every starting deck?”. Users fri_freeman and corvo_corvus talk about some basic strategy. I found this immensely helpful, and regularly referenced it. It’s a really helpful way to orient yourself and learn about the game. It’s brief, but I owe my enjoyment of the game to this thread. You can read it here: https://steamproxy.net/app/1265820/discussions/0/3198115500367499124/

I’ll also add that the pacing of the late meta game is a little unbalanced. If you want to get 100% achievements, you are going to have to grind A LOT. I’ve read players playing 170+ hours without hitting the required XP, so be warned. It’s a grind once you’ve completed everything else the game has to offer, which I probably did in 60-ish hours (I wasn’t keeping track). While the gameplay loop is fun, it gets repetitive once you’ve seen everything.

Overall, this game is a lot of fun to play. Basing a turn-based game around a high-octane martial arts game sounds counter-intuitive, but it actually works really well! It’s like it hones in on the strategic thought process that an outnumbered action hero might be making in real time, but spreads that out so us average folk can engage with the dance. It’s also an accessible way to engage in fight sequences if you can’t in real-time due to injury or slow reaction times.

Atmosphere: I wouldn’t call the atmosphere immersive, as it is very abstract and minimalistic. However, the theme of a special agent fighting thugs in face-to-face combat is very fun. In this case, the gameplay is what’s very engaging, and the theme’s role is to get your attention and focus it to the task at hand. The “Superhot” artistic influence is clearly evident, and the single “color washes” over any character details make them feel more like chess pieces than individual people. There is also little to no story in this game. It’s just flavor text at the beginning of a run. So there’s no world to explore or get lost in, even from merely a backstory perspective. On the contrary, a victory or defeat is very sudden and anti-climactic. A defeat takes you to a defeated screen, and a victory just has flavor text. I wish there was a little more closure.

The techno and dubstep soundtrack might seem antagonistic to a turn-based puzzle game. But it really helps to enforce the theme in this one, and helps you feel like a little bad-ass. So I appreciated it, but I could see some being annoyed by it.

In general, being able to slow an action sequence down into a turn-based action game provides a unique experience unlike most in this genre. As somewhat a counterpoint to this, there is an ability to watch a replay of the level you just completed, so you can watch the action unfold “in real time”, as if it were an action sequence in a movie. I really appreciated this extra feature, and it feels unique. Now. the animation in this game is very stilted and stylized. There are pauses between every move, and it doesn’t flow smoothly. But if you’re someone who can’t play a typical action game like Sifu for whatever reason, it’s an accessible way to get some kind of similar experience.

Overall, I wouldn’t call the atmosphere of Fights in Tight Spaces immersive or fleshed out. But it is very memorable, and it adds an extra fun vibe to a fun game.

Conclusion: If deck building roguelikes, tactical turn-based combat, and action movie sequences all speak to you, then this game doesn’t disappoint. There’s a puzzle element that is highly addictive, and keeps you wanting to do just one turn more. I wish there was more content to explore, but there’s a decent amount here. It can be hard to get your baring’s at first, but once you learn the ropes the combat flows well and you’ll be punching and kicking bad guys feeling like a turn-based bad-ass. I got the game on sale, but it’s probably worth it at full price. Recommend.

**Spoiler Free**

Quick Overview: The Last Campfire is a cute little puzzle adventure game. Running in at just 6 hours, it’s a short little experience that isn’t very difficult. Wrapped in a cute aesthetic, the deep non-religious philosophical themes about life and death can be experienced fully without feeling frustrated by difficult gameplay. Whether this amount of content is worth the $15 asking price is up to you. But pricing aside, it is a fun quick and simple experience I recommend.

Gameplay: The gameplay is very basic and straightforward. You are a little character known as an Ember, and you need to help free other Embers so they can continue their journey. This will have you running around some hand-crafted environments with different areas as you look for these Embers. When you find one, you will have to solve a puzzle to free them. These are positional/maze-type puzzles. Most of them are easy to figure out, but there might be a few that take a little longer.

The controls are very simple. On keyboard:

• Move: WASD
  
• Dash: X
  
• Inventory: V
  
• Horn: C
  
• Spacebar / Enter: Interact

As you can see, the controls are very simple (there is no rebinding, unfortunately). Camera angles are fixed, so there’s no camera movement required. There is no platforming, no combat, no abilities, and no loot to equip. Everything in the game is there for a specific purpose. Outside of some optional collectables, it’s all a straightforward journey. There are some environmental puzzles outside of the primary puzzle levels, but nothing too crazy.

As small as the puzzles are, they typically reflect the internal obstacle the imprisoned Ember is facing. So the puzzles, and the gameplay, tie into the themes and story of the game. I don’t think this is something you play for the gameplay; it’s a game you play for the experience. And the gameplay complements the that experience in a simple and non-distracting way.

Atmosphere: The themes, story, and accompanying presentation are the main reasons for playing. This is a cute short little game with a focused scope that doesn’t overstay it’s welcome. The game is very philosophical, and wrestles with the questions of life and death in a non-religious way. Feelings of fear, regret, catharsis, and more are explored on this little journey. Whether you agree with the conclusions or not, the game portrays real feelings and concerns of people who are faced with life’s greatest questions. And it leaves you thinking for a little bit after you’re done, reflecting on your own views and feelings around these topics. To clarify, the story itself is not some accomplishment of innovative storytelling. It’s a very simple tale, almost like a children’s story, or a folk tale. But it’s simplicity helps to convey those deep questions in an accessible way.

The presentation is very cute and charming. The artstyle and environments are colorful but simple. I wouldn’t say they look low budget. More like they fit the scope of the game very well. Areas read clearly, and it’s easy to figure out where you need to go. The Embers all look cute, and the small cast of supporting characters all look whimsical.

The sound complements the game well. The narration throughout the game is very integral to the tone. Her light voice almost sounds child-like, and adds that tonal layer of a bedtime story. The music adds a somber tone, and doesn’t feel too repetitive, even though it often is. It’s probably not a soundtrack you’d buy, but it fits the game well enough.

Overall, the story conveys themes that are deep but in a way that’s not too heavy, and the presentation complements this small but focused direction the game aims for. I do want to point out that a lot of the praise I give to this game is based on the context that it is a small short game. It’s trying to do a small focused thing, and I think it does that well. But I also don’t think this game is a technical masterpiece, or an innovator of story. It’s a small contained game, and I think the atmosphere is reflected well within those limitations.

Conclusion: The Last Campfire is a short indie title that’s largely about the experience of playing through easy puzzles that reflect on deeper themes. The gameplay and atmosphere are both simple presentations, which is why the depth of the themes is so surprising when you actually play through it. However, it is a short game, and there’s no replay value here. I got this game on sale for $1.49 and it acted as a nice palette cleanser that I enjoyed my time with. But at $15 it’s up to you if that’s worth a 6 hour light puzzle game with a somber yet charming experience. Do I recommend it? Yes. But it’s up to you how much this experience feels like it’s worth.

**Spoiler Free**

Quick Overview: Fort Triumph is a stylized fantasy tactics game with some RPG elements that is overall a fun little title, but admittedly an unfinished one with some undercooked elements. It’s overworld and RPG mechanics leave something to be desired, and 4 of the 5 faction campaigns were never actualized. But despite it’s shortcomings, the physics-based combat is addictive and keeps you playing “just one more battle”. And I enjoyed my time with it. While I would not recommend this game for the full $20 price tag, I think it’s a fun time for what it is, if you can get it on sale.

Gameplay: Fort Triumph has two overarching gameplay systems: turn-based tactics combat levels, and an overworld map with RPG elements. There are 3 modes to engage with: campaign, skirmish, and multiplayer (I never played multiplayer, so I’m omitting that from this review). The campaign is essentially 3 human-faction skirmishes strung together with a basic story, and minimal progression between them. Skirmishes are essentially map domination vs 2-4 enemies with fog-of-war. You move around the world map, sometimes collecting loot and buffs, but mainly seeking out enemy parties or settlements to defeat, or seeking out overworld NPCs to battle and gain experience. The campaign, on the other hand, will have you completing story objectives rather than eliminating the entire enemy force off the map.

The tactical turn-based combat is the defining strong point of this game. It is a simple straight-forward tactical game, but I think that is a positive in this case. Turns are based on a simple Action Point system. Turns flow easily, though they sometimes take a moment to think through. There are 4 classes (paladin, archer, berserker, mage) each with their own class-specific abilities (you are able to obtain cross-class abilities too). There are also 4 factions to play in skirmish (only human has a campaign), and each one provides a specific trait for your heroes. They also have their own buildings available for their overworld camps, which basically means they have their own pool of in-combat buffs to obtain (capturing enemy bases will also acquire their buffs). As your heroes gain XP, they will level up and you will be able to choose between upgrading their abilities, or learning new abilities from a random pool of 3 (note: permadeath is optional, so if it’s enabled, be careful not to lose your upgraded heroes. If it’s disabled, heroes revive back in town, and need to be rebought. But be warned, at the end of the skirmish-week, they rotate out and are gone.).

While you have your standard fare of attack, defense, and movement abilities, the really fun part of this game is the PHYSICS abilities (This could be a kick, wind gust, grappling hook, etc). There is something so visually rewarding watching a baddie getting smacked through a wall, or shoving a column onto an unsuspecting foe. The gameplay also rewards your physics mayhem by stunning enemies, meaning they can’t attack next turn, which is vital to your strategy. After a stun, an enemy will get a stun block, meaning the next stun will be avoided. Heroes (yours and enemies) start a level with stun block. This whole physics system adds some fun novelty to your standard tactics gameplay. Positioning units is important to avoid or maximize stuns. Furthermore, cover becomes a risky business. Cover can really protect you from damage, but can leave you susceptible to being stunned. Combine these physics attacks with overwatch abilities or attacks-of-opportunity and you’ve got some fun potential for team combos and chaining damage. It’s simple to engage with but also addicting!

Playing on Legendary difficulty definitely makes you play slower and strategize. Each turn is more consequential, and more of a puzzle. The easier difficulties can feel simple, like popcorn entertainment. So, depending on how you want to play, there’s an option for you. But it’s nice that increasing the difficulty does impact the style of gameplay you employ.

While the combat is a strong but simple offering, much of the rest of the game feels undercooked, or even underfunded (the devs said that a lack of funding prevented them from adding campaigns to the 3 non-human factions). Like I said, the game is relatively simple, which is fine and enjoyable for what it is, but it doesn’t feel quite feature-rich enough to complement the simplicity. Features like the bare-bones tutorial, the anti-climactic endings, and the somewhat inconsequential overworld feel undercooked and needed to be fleshed out. And sometimes bits of missing information feel like a consequence of underfunding.

The overworld feels underbaked. I can’t quite put my finger on why, but it seems underwhelming. Exploring the map doesn’t feel very rewarding, and doesn’t have enough variety to feel bigger than the sum of it’s parts. Any “side quests” you find are just text-box events you make a choice within (Once and a while there is a battle that ensues). But every battle has the same goal: kill all enemies. There are no collecting or fetch quests, no riddles or puzzles, no debates or persuasions, no caves or dungeons. There’s nothing Extra to do that makes the overworld feel like a world. Maybe what I’m trying to say is that the RPG elements feel underwhelming. So while the overworld is a nice addition, it feels lacking.

I wouldn’t recommend this game over $10. If it was given the time and extra love to complete fully, I think this would be a hidden gem at $20. But it definitely feels like some corners were cut, and it’s loss-of-funding is apparent. It’s a shame, because the combat is really simple yet addicting. It’s really easy to just keep playing level after level, kicking enemies into objects and watching it all crumble down. I just wish there was more game wrapped around the combat.

Atmosphere: The stylized and colorful art style of the game is what drew me in from the get go. I guess it has a “Warcraft” look, where characters, items, and environments can be somewhat disproportional. But in my opinion, the color and design really shine. There are different themes to different maps, and each faction has a certain look to their settlements and areas. I personally feel the light-hearted style complements the simple gameplay, and helps ground the vibe of the game.

The music is a bit repetitive. There are a couple tracks for the overworld, and a couple of tracks for the combat levels. This could get annoying, but I didn’t mind. There are a couple of tracks that just have that inspiring fantasy sound that I love. Overall, I feel the music helped immerse me into the atmosphere.

There are two weak-points to the presentation, in my opinion. One, the overworld map is 2D, which kind of works, but does feel a little low-budget. Two, and this is the big negative, the endings to the campaign and skirmishes are super anticlimactic. No spoilers, but the campaign ends with text box descriptions, rather than any visual cutscene. And skirmishes end with a text box that says, “You are victorious”. I need a little more than that to feel satisfied from this world.

Conclusion: I’ve enjoyed my time with Fort Triumph so far, but I would only recommend it at $10…or maybe at $15. Despite it’s fun combat and light-hearted art style, the fact that it feels incomplete and undercooked makes it too difficult to recommend at it’s normal $20 price point. If you want to try out some fun simple physics-based tactical gameplay, wait for a sale. But if you pass on this, you’re not missing the hidden gem this could have been with a bit more time in the oven.

**Spoiler Free**

Quick Overview: Foretales is a charming narrative based card game with a fun cryptic gameplay loop set in a quirky world with some irreverent humor and personalities. The turn-by-turn card play is fun and alluring, and the music and atmosphere is captivating. Any session of Foretales is an enjoyable experience.
So why do I not recommend this game? Well, despite the gameplay loop being solid, the overarching structure of the game is so grating and irritating that pushing myself to sit down and play this is like pulling teeth. The overarching story progression is full of restarts, replays, and dead-end narrative branches that really make it overstay its welcome.

If the idea of sinking multiple hours into a story branch to see if it even leads anywhere is not appealing to you, I would not buy this gaming expecting to ever truly complete it.

Gameplay: Foretales incorporates a refreshing blend between card play and narrative story telling that really engages your investigative intuition. Each mission plays out on a table with a field of location cards that elicit different narrative results based on the card you place over them from your hand.

The main entertainment comes from figuring out what narrative consequence will happen if you play cards from your hand on each location card. (There are various visual icons and clues that help you understand what will happen). For example, playing a gold card on a location with refugees might earn you favor or even a one-use ally, but playing a steal card might net you some cash along with grim points and more guards in the patrol deck to worry about. Interacting with the world through cards is actually really fun!

Each character in your party has a deck of cards with unique abilities. If you run out of cards of any character, you lose, so you have to manage the distribution and replenishing of character cards you play. You also have a second hand of resource and item cards.

Battles take a second to get used to. There is a pre-battle phase where you can try to bribe or scare enemy cards away, or buff up your own cards. Each turn of the actual battle has your characters attacking enemies opposite them in the same column. After you get used to how it plays out, it’s easy to understand. Typically, avoiding actually having to deal damage is usually ideal.

In general, there is a lot of reading in this game; not lengthy paragraphs or anything. But every part of the game takes place with at least a line of dialogue text that carries the story forward (outside of the narration, there is no voice acting for the characters). Often, critical information for your mission is explained in these dialogues. To help, a collection of dialogue you’ve seen is available in the upper left corner, and hints to your current objective are in the upper right. Sometimes what you need to do is so cryptic that the hints can almost feel necessary.

So far all of this is good fun, and I found the gameplay very intriguing. It’s definitely at its best when you are moving the story forward and things are working out smoothly. But my grief began once I started to experience the repetitive “death-then-replay” meta-narrative design that this game resides within.

Negatives: Dying in this game, only to realize you need to replay the story from the beginning, feels really bad. I don’t mean dying in a mission where you just have to replay that mission. I mean dying where you fail to save the world in the narrative branch you chose, and you now enter a new universe timeline where you start from the beginning again. I didn’t understand this is how the game was structured. I couldn’t understand why I had to keep restarting the story. Was I doing something wrong? Was I just bad at this game? Was I expected to die and restart again? It wasn’t clear.

I later learned in forums that you are indeed supposed to go down certain narrative branches, which lead to you failing, in order to unlock knowledge and therefore narrative branches for future timelines where you can reach actual endings. I was very disappointed to find this out…

I’ve played many roguelike games where you play a run, die, and try again. Often these have been roguelites where there’s some meta-progression where you unlock or something. Or you at least better learn how to beat the levels, like in a true roguelike. And this could feel rewarding, enticing you to try one more run. But those runs were always short enough to justify the repetitive gameplay loops. Maybe they ask an hour of your time per run.
But Foretales asks that you play multiple missions on a timeline before telling you “sorry, the decision you made a few missions ago actually doomed this timeline” without telling you what you did wrong or why this timeline was doomed, so there’s no way to really learn from your mistakes. It’s too cryptic. I don’t know if going through a timeline I was in and failing actually unlocked some knowledge or progressed the meta-story in some way, or if I just played through a wasted timeline because I went down a dead-end branch. It’s extremely frustrating not knowing if what I’m doing is actually moving me closer to finishing the story, or if I’m just going around in circles.

Foretales is a fun game mechanically. But its overall meta-structure is so cryptic and unclear that it ends up staying way past its welcome. I feel it is poor design to have narrative paths (that you’ve invested substantial time in) lead into what feels like total failures, only to put you back at the first mission after a quick throwaway cutscene. It feels so bad to find yourself at the beginning yet again, staring at the first mission after all that time you put into the narrative, realizing you have to go through it all yet again. With there being no clear way to understand if what you did progressed the meta-game at all, it leaves you feeling lost and frustrated. So, unlike a well-made roguelike, this game does not feel good to replay. It feels like pulling teeth.

Atmosphere: Just like the basic gameplay mechanics, the atmosphere is inviting and refreshing. The presentation of each location in the narrative is basically done with different lighting, card art, sound effects, and music. And it all comes together so well that you forget your looking down at a table. You really become engrossed in the world and feel like you’re at a new location. It’s visually a well-polished game and it works really well.

Conclusion: Foretales is a game with great gameplay mechanics and atmospheric presentation, but is seriously disappointing by its implementation within a repetitive and frustrating meta-story progression system. If this were a game I felt was satisfying enough to play through a single timeline and experience an ending, I would say it’s worth at least checking out. But because your timeline run, and many after that, are guaranteed to end in failure and essentially a restart, I don’t think I can even recommend you check this game out. Which is a shame, because there is a good game in here. My advice is pass on this one.

(P.S. I always strive to at least complete the story of my games. Ideally, I like to try for 100% completion, if I feel the achievements are reasonable for me….I think Foretales might need to be a game I leave incomplete. For my own sanity.)

A very healing and relaxing soundtrack. Fits the game perfectly, and is so soothing to listen to on its own.

**Spoiler Free (not applicable honestly)**

Quick Overview: Islanders is a relaxing puzzle game very much comparable to Dorfromantik. It has it’s similarities and differences: the similarities being in the general Objective and Feel of the game, while the differences being mostly in the gameplay mechanics. Basically, if you liked Dorfromantik and want more of that type of chill and light puzzle experience, this is the game for you.

Gameplay: Much like Dorfromantik, the basic premise in Islanders is you are placing pieces down to score enough points to unlock more pieces so you can continue to place more pieces down. You have to pay close attention not only to where you place your current piece down, but if you’re more advanced, you can try to think ahead and preplan your board to make the most optimized plays. The gameplay is slow-paced, and encourages strategic decisions. Yet, it is a very accessible and light game. Just like Dorfromantik, it achieves a nice balance between engaging gameplay and a relaxed vibe. Even though the overall experience between the 2 games is very similar, the differences lie in how Islanders packages it’s interaction.

So unlike Dorfromantik, Islanders does not use board tiles or start you off on a blank slate. Instead, it opts for more of a free-form area-of-influence placement style as you try to populate a procedurally generated island with various buildings. A key difference of this premise is that you are inherently limited in your space, meaning you have to focus more on placing your buildings in smart locations. So instead of trying to expand your board like in Dorfromantik, you are trying to optimize the space that you have already.

Dorfromantik plays out one single map. Islanders has you try to complete an island by obtaining enough points before you can move on to a new island, erasing the old one, and starting on a new procedural one with your current score. So, there is a different sense of progression in a playthrough. In islanders, you don’t get to see a final massive landscape. Instead, you work through little objectives, completing each island with it’s own flavor.

Islanders also uses “building sets” instead of forcing you to place the top piece from a stack (like in Dorfromantik). As you try to obtain enough points to unlock the next island, you also have to earn enough points to unlock enough “turns” to complete the island. You do this by unlocking building sets, which will populate your inventory with different buildings you can choose to place in any order. This means you make decisions for what sets to unlock based on your island and situation, and you get to choose which order you want to place buildings. And placement order can be important because some buildings will score more if placed before or after other types of buildings in the vicinity.

The more you play, the more you will familiarize yourself with which buildings combine best with which other buildings, which will help you plan ahead when you first see your island. Eventually you will know all the available buildings, when they typically unlock in the building cycle, and what combos to prioritize given your current island layout. Until you get familiar with the specific building combos, the UI visually assists you in which buildings benefit or hinder placement bonuses. It’s a very simple but effective visual aid that make the game much more enjoyable.

The procedural generation of each island is what keeps each puzzle fresh. It can really change your building strategy on any playthrough. Learning the scope of available buildings will become important if you want to reach higher scores, so you know how to work the island you are given.

However, the procedural nature of each island can be the game’s downfall. By around island 10, the islands become pretty small. Or at least the usable area can be very unforgiving. It doesn’t feel great having a really good run, only to get to an island that looks not fun to work with. I think it would have been a good idea to let you choose between two islands to go to next, or something to help curb the randomness of the island generator. So while the procedural nature is what gives the game it’s unique challenge, it can also force you into a dead end. If you are an achievement hunter, be warned that this is going to give you a run for your money to get to island 21. (I’ve only made it to island 10).

In addition, Islanders has a sandbox mode to just build around in. And you can save your sandbox islands for later. You can also enter the photo mode to take a picture of your island, in sandbox mode or highscore mode.

While I have detailed the differences between Islanders and Dorfromantik, I am very comfortable describing islanders “like Dorfromantik”. The mechanics are different. But the overall gameplay experience feels very similar, whether you’re trying to beat your score or just chill out.

Atmosphere: The atmosphere is basically more of Dorfromantik, which is not a bad thing. It’s just the most apt description of what it feels like to engage with this game.
The artwork has a low poly style, and it works for this game. The colors are simple and vibrant, and there isn’t too much in the way of animation. There is a day/night cycle which is really nice. And it’s so fun to see all of your little houses light up at night.

The music is very relaxing, invoking some kind of keyboard vibraphone soundtrack most of the time. It’s probably repetitive, but you really don’t notice. It does a very good job setting a mood without getting stuck in your head or being distracting. Also, hearing the crickets during the night cycle is a really nice touch. The soundscape is just super relaxing, and it’s the kind of game you could have running in the background, and I couldn’t imagine anyone complaining about it.
The overall presentation is simple and the artistic elements are simple. And I think that’s what you want in a game like this. Nothing distracts you from the core puzzle, yet the atmosphere is what provides all the cozy charm. This is a game that invites you to start an island, and captures your focus to stay until it’s complete.

Conclusion: Islanders is very successful at what it aims to do. It provides a simple, strategic, and relaxing puzzle game that is easy to hop in and out of. It is very similar to Dorfromantik, yet provides it’s own spin on how it achieves the same meditative experience. Working through puzzles and seeing the end result after each island makes it a more piece-meal approach than Dorfromantik, and might even provide you with more decisions. Also, with modes for both creative and challenging playstyles, it’s a game that can appeal to a wider audience than if it just stuck with one. Just be aware that in High Score mode, the procedural nature will eventually be your downfall.

(As for playtime and price, it’s a cheap game and I think your mileage may vary. I’ve played it for 20 hours, and I’ve acquired all but one achievement. I feel like I've had my fill of the game.)

If you liked Dorfromantik, or if you want a chill puzzle game where you build little islands, this is your game. Recommend.

**Spoiler Free**

Quick Overview: Serial Cleaner is your basic stealth game that sets itself apart with its fun premise, retro theme, quirky artstyle, and silly humor. It doesn’t take itself seriously, with various nods and references to cult movie classics and tropes. However, while the artstyle is one of it’s strengths, it’s also a weakness when it obscures the visibility of gameplay. And the limited control remapping is a bit frustrating. Overall, it is a solid little title that doesn’t overstay it’s welcome.

Gameplay: The premise of Serial Cleaner is that you are a crime scene scrubber for hire in the 1970’s to help pay off your gambling debts. In each level you will have to meet the clean up requirements: dump all bodies, collect all evidence, clean up the blood (to the required %), and get away without being caught by the cops.

You can interact with a few features in the levels to help you out. You can move certain objects to open or block patrol paths, hide in certain features, use path shortcuts, and turn on sound distractions. Picking up evidence is straight forward and immediately collected, and cleaning blood requires you to walk over it with a vacuum cleaner. You can also use your Cleaner Sense, which zooms the camera out to see the whole map but prevents your movement. Also, running over blood makes you move faster, as you slip over it (like I said, silly humor).

Picking up and dumping bodies is a slightly more involved mechanic. Holding a body will slow you down and prevent you from interacting with the environment (though you can still use path shortcuts, which is a blessing). You will need to dump the body at a location to complete the body requirement.
There are a few different enemy types with slightly different behaviors. But there is no way to fight back against any of them. You cannot stealth kill or incapacitate anyone, which adds to the tension, and fits the theme of an average guy risking it all to make a quick buck. So if you’re seen, you will either have to outrun the slower enemies, or jump into a hiding spot. The AI is based on a field of vision cone. So once you are out of it, no matter how ridiculous it may seem, the AI will forget about you. This includes standing in front of them, but outside their vision cone, or even jumping into a closet while in their vision cone. (It’s just a game, so don’t think too hard about it.)
If you are caught, you simply restart the level. And it restarts very quickly, so you don’t have to wait around after each attempt. (I actually would have preferred a slightly longer “you failed” screen to give more weight to the end of an attempt).
There are also a few secrets to collect, which will unlock new costumes and bonus levels. Plus, there’s a decent number of challenges you can try for every level (but I found them ultimately uninteresting).
Overall, this game uses a simple set of stealth mechanics, but it’s actually quite a fun gameplay loop. I found myself choosing to play it far more often than I anticipated for what it has to offer. So it adds up to a fun experience.

Controls: One of the frustrating parts of this game is the lack of control customization. There are 3 control profiles for keyboard, and you can only choose between them:

• Option 1:
  
  • Arrow Keys = Move
    
  • S = Pick up/drop body
    
  • A = Interact
    
  • Shift = Vacuum
    
  • Space = Cleaner sense
    
• Profile 2:
  
  • W/A/S/D = Move
    
  • K = Pick up/Drop body
    
  • L = Interact
    
  • Shift = Vacuum
    
  • Space = Cleaner sense
    
• Profile 3
  
  • Z/Q/S/D = Move
    
  • K = Pick up/Drop body
    
  • L = Interact
    
  • Shift = Vacuum
    
  • Space = Cleaner sense
    

(I chose Profile 2 for WASD. The others felt weird.)

Also, the menus require that you use these key bindings to navigate. You can’t use a mouse, which is annoying.

It’s a simple game to control, so these rigid limitations are not deal breakers. But they are annoying and kind of lame.

Atmosphere: This is where Serial Cleaner sets itself apart from other stealth games. The unique setting of having to clean up a crime scene combined with the fun artsyle and quirky retro humor really adds to the enjoyment of the experience. The environmental art is a 2D isometric retro style, with all those sharp corners from the era (but the characters are simple 3D blocky models). It’s a refreshing style to look at and brings a lot of character and charm to the table.

I also feel like the hard bop/funk music that accompanies the game is a HUGE part of the appeal. It creates a kind of chaotic soundscape that accompanies the absurd yet tense situation you can find yourself in.

However, the strength that is the artstyle is also one of it’s greater weaknesses. Due to the camera angle being “straight-on isometric” instead of “diagonally isometric”, and due to the 2D artstyle, it can be hard to read the level layout, understand what is considered a wall or an opening, and to see blood that might be hiding behind a wall. When your character walks behind a wall, he is highlighted in red, so you can see where you are. But I found myself often spending time trying to figure out what I was looking at. Is this an elevated platform? Or it is on the same level? Will the cop see me if I’m standing over here? What about over here? The level design is undeniably harder to comprehend due to the chosen artstyle. However, once you get to know the level, the vagueness does become a moot point. Basically, a new level might be hard to understand, but once you play it, you figure it out. It’s not a deal breaker, but it is annoying.

I should also mention that the story is very simple and just adds enough context to sell you on the cleaner’s situation. There’s a quick “rest area” in between each level at your house (where you’re living with your mom). I felt like it added to the charm of the game. Though once I was trying to 100% the levels, it was a little annoying having to skip my way through these parts.
Overall, Serial Cleaner provides an enjoyable atmosphere and style to the stealth genre that brings you into a zany little world for a small fun time.

Conclusion: Despite some shortcomings, Serial Cleaner is a fun quirky stealth game packaged in a unique world of retro crime scrubbing. It doesn’t take itself very seriously, which is a big part of the charm. The lack in control options and obscuring artstyle can get annoying, but doesn’t take away from what the game strives to offer. Overall, I would recommend this as a fun stealthy palette cleanser. It’s a light game that isn’t a time suck, and sometimes that just what you need. Recommend.

**Spoiler Free**

Quick Overview: Laika: Aged Through Blood is an excellent “motorvania” with some great bullet-time action, emergent bad-ass moments, and substantive adult themes, all while packaged in a poignant post-apocalyptic world with a memorable soundtrack and anthropomorphic characters. It does a great job of balancing between fun action, explorative gameplay, and world building. And did I mention all of the 2D gore? This is a very satisfying game to play and experience (once you acclimate to the control scheme) and should be on your list of games-to-play.

Gameplay: First and foremost, Laika is a metroidvania on a motorcycle, and it’s a genius combination. The thrill of exploring a 2D map while handling motorcycle physics makes movement itself a fun mechanic to build from. But it further commits to the vehicular traversal by incorporating back/front flips into the gameplay. Backflips reload your weapon, and front flips replenish your deflect ability. Why does this work thematically? No idea, and I don’t care, because it’s a ton a fun! On top of that, aiming your gun activates a bullet-time mode, allowing you to line up your shot accurately while you’re driving around. Combine this with all the flipping and reloading, and you get a constant sense of bad-assery! It never gets old flipping through the air to reload mid-gunplay, aligning your motorcycle to deflect the bullets, and then coming around and finishing off the enemy in a blaze of bloody galore! It’s such a strong basic gameplay loop that will keep you coming back for more.

This is also a game where you’ll die all the time, but it’s not that big of a deal. Whether you get hit with a bullet, or miss your landing and smash into the ground, you’ll just respawn at the last checkpoint, which are all over the place. Furthermore, the death/revive function is incorporated into the story as a special ability, so you don’t feel like the story is ignoring your player deaths like most games do. It helps to keep your suspension-of-disbelief.

Objective wise, you’re trying to fight back against a colonizing force. Luckily, your home tribe is hidden from the enemy and gives you a safe place to rest, collect small quests, and upgrade your gear. Having a home base to retreat to was a nice expansion of gameplay I wasn’t expecting in this title. There are no upgrade trees or anything, but you have some weapons to unlock and upgrade with materials you scavenge from the world map. There’s even a little blackjack side game you can play, though it’s mostly a gimmick.

It also takes a novel thematic approach to currency: the viscera of your dead enemies. After every kill, instead of collecting coins, bloody viscera will fly to you in their bloody trails, often leaving you totally drenched in red blood. In case you had any doubts about the title “Aged Through Blood”…there’s plenty of it here.

Overall, this is a very fun and satisfying game to play.


Controls: The controls are going to take a minute to get comfortable with. I played on PC, and the default control scheme to move is:
- W = Accelerate (facing left or right)
- S = Brake
- A = Flip Counterclockwise
- D = Flip Clockwise
- Space = Drift (deflect)
- Dash = Left Shift

This can be a little tricky to get used to. Intuitively, I wanted to default to holding A or D to move left/right, and then use W and S to flip clockwise or counterclockwise. But then there wouldn’t be an easy key to brake with. Space and Left Shift are already used for other actions. Anyway, it took a little bit to get used to. But once I did it made perfect sense and the game flowed really smoothly. (Since I’m weird and wanted to avoid using the spacebar, I set Drift to Left Shift and Dash to Left CTRL, and it worked fine for me.)

If you’re turned off by the controls at first, don’t let it soar you to the game. Just stick with it and it’ll click.

Atmosphere: The atmosphere is an immersive one that pulls you in from the very first cutscene. You are a mother Coyote trying to protect her daughter and what’s left of her tribe (different types of animals) while dealing in bloody vengeance against the occupying army of Birds. I really like the idea of mixing a violent and heavy post-apocalyptic world populated with anthropomorphic characters. Mixing these two juxtaposing vibes gives the game a unique character while also making the heavy subject matter more digestible. It adds a nice artistic flare, instead of simply looking like some generic “realistic” rendering.

The artstyle is really pleasing to watch on the screen. The colors can play on the emotions of the story really well, and allows for highly saturated effects to come out without feeling out of place. The animation of characters has a low frame-rate style, which works surprisingly well considering the action that can take place. There are also some really cool animated cutscenes that have some fantastic animation and presentation. Unfortunately, these are few and far between. I would have loved to see more of these.

The music is also another hidden gem in this game. There’s a “game soundtrack” but also a soundtrack for the cassettes you play diegetically in-game. The acoustic songs from the cassette player throw in another fun twist to the "post-apocolypse + anthropomorphic" formula. I bought the cassette soundtrack as soon as I beat the game.

The presentation in Laika is very strong, and creates a cohesive immersive experience.


Game Length: It’s probably about 25 hours or so to beat with 100%. However, I can’t be sure because my computer crashed and corrupted my file right before the final boss (you can only use one save slot for your playthrough). Thankfully, a kind soul on the Discord gave me their save file that I could continue from, so I didn’t have to replay the whole game. My advice, manually backup your game while you play this…


Conclusion: Laika: Aged Through Blood is a fantastic game that you should definitely invest in. It’s strong gameplay loop, slick visuals, heavy adult themes, and great art and soundtrack make it a solid experience you can sink your teeth into...once you're used to the controls. It’s just a really fun game. If they ever make a sequel, I will pick it up immediately. Easy Recommend.

**Spoiler Free**

Update: After the Vita Nova update, the game feels more polished and meaty. There are now more missions and a new animal system which requires you to manage mood levels. So it's a better package now than when I wrote my review below.

Quick Overview: Terra Nil is a puzzle “city builder” game with a wholesome eco-friendly message that I found very enjoyable and calming to play. Managing your one resource while growing each biome adds a slight challenge to help with engagement, while flora that populates your map is so satisfying to watch animate to life. It’s a short game, with effectively 8 levels at 15hrs to 100%. But it’s all well worth your time.

Gameplay: Terra Nil has a unique premise where you build up natural biomes with technology, and then recycle the tech so you can leave the space untouched by any human trace. This takes place over 3 mini phases on each level. It’s essentially a very light city builder game with the added task of removing your buildings. It might sound like a gimmick abstractly, but in practice it really highlights a wholesome eco-friendly message, almost to a storybook extent. For example, if you’ve recycled 99% of your buildings, but there’s one random pole left on the outskirts, you must build a system to go recycle that one remaining artifact, and then recycle everything you built to get there. Would a real-life organization ever go through that kind of Herculean effort for one random pole? Most certainly not. But it’s this type of idealization of a nurturing restoration project that makes Terra Nil such a pleasure to experience. I could see this game being used in classrooms as a fun way to teach eco-positive values.

I find Terra Nil to be a light puzzler with light city-builder elements. You do place buildings around a map, but buildings don’t continuously provide resources. You’re not trying to establish an economic engine, build a permanent presence, or fight off any enemies or impending doom. Contrary to all of these potential “city-builder” tropes, you only have one resource to manage, resources are spent or earned only during building placement, buildings will be removed once ecological goals are reached, and there’s no threat to losing against an AI antagonist.

Your "one resource" is where the lite puzzle-challenge of Terra Nil comes through (though there is also a Zen Mode which removes this). Since you only gain resources when you place down a building, you need to make sure you place it down in an optimal spot to get as many resources as possible. This payoff is usually due to placing these buildings in proximity to other buildings you’ve placed before.

For example, the building that creates a forest is based on the grassland tiles in its range. And you get those grassland tiles from watering healthy soil within your irrigator’s range. And you get healthy soil by placing a toxin scrubber on wasteland spaces. But you can only place a toxin scrubber within range of a windmill. And a windmill must be placed on rocks, which are either naturally there or else created by a salinator. But you need water for a salinator. And so on. As you can see, your return on your resource can come from a long chain of decisions you made. So there is a thinking element to this game, more so on later levels, or higher difficulties. But in general it is not a hard game. You get resources throughout the entire chain of your building placements. And as long as you follow what you need to do for each phase to continue, you’ll most likely be primed to beat the level without too much of a problem. On the last two levels, I found I had to restart a few times because I ran out of resources and viable methods to produce more, since I used up most of the map. It wasn’t a big deal, but it did make me plan my future moves more carefully on my retries.

Overall, I very much enjoyed the gameplay, but there were a couple of issues I ran into. I did have one game breaking bug where it didn’t recognize I had built a certain building required to complete the final location, so I had to restart the level. I also found some of the buildings not well explained on how they work. For example, there is a monorail you need to build to transport resources. But it took some trial and error to understand how it worked. So there’s some fiddling around necessary on your part. There were also a variety of minor visual glitches, like water tiles hovering after terraforming them, etc. It’s a lower budget game, so I didn’t find it anything to get upset about. Also, it’s good to note that the further zoomed out your camera is, the harder your PC will be taxed. So if you find it running a little hot, just zoom in a bit and it should help. (You can always lower resolution in options too).

Atmosphere: Terra Nil has such a relaxing vibe. From the ecological theme, to the pacing, to the music, it’s all very meditative. There is no story, other than the planet has rotted away into a polluted wasteland, and you need to restore the wildlife. But I find the ecological theme to be quite strong nevertheless. It’s so satisfying to see the green grasslands populate the first time you place down an irrigator. The tiles just paint themselves onto the drab wasteland. And the more biomes and climate goals you complete, the more subtle signs of life begin to arise. You’ll suddenly notice birds, and kelp, little fireflies, and even rain. The landscape transforms before your eyes as you focus on your little gamified puzzle goals. It’s always such a pleasure to step back and see the natural vibrancy where there used to be a wasteland.

The music is also very relaxing. It’s primarily some light solo piano, but other instruments bring themselves into the fold at times. Sometimes at subtle event moment there will be an appropriate musical cue. For example, the first time there is a fire in the level, the music briefly becomes a bit more somber. It’s a nice little touch. My main complaint is that the audio seems kind of soft from this game. So I often had to raise my speaker volume to hear the music and soundscape at a loud enough level.

Overall, this is a very inviting eco-friendly game, and it feels kind of special. Not many games that I’ve played hold a space for this kind of positive message, and I really appreciate that. It is a great atmosphere, even if it is a bit simple due to the lower budget of this game.

Conclusion: Terra Nil is definitely a game I would recommend if you either want an eco-friendly message, or want a lite puzzle city-builder. It’s a relaxing and meditative experience with a twist that seems to draw the curiosity of everyone I’ve talked to about this game. The premise is just so wholesome, and I think is rather accessible to anyone interested in restoring a planet to its natural life. Definitely recommend.