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I know I have to judge this software for what it is: it's free and it's not a game but an experience ('an art installation', as the developer describes it). So the question is whether or not Blanket Heavy With Nightmares is worth downloading and experiencing. In my opinion, it isn't.

What you get here is 5 short scenes that are supposedly nightmares someone had and described. You're just a spectator in these scenes. You can look around at the scene but you can't move and you can't interact with anything. The whole thing, so all of the 5 scenes, is over in 10 minutes. One of the nightmares ends with a jumpscare (yawn), one just shows some spooky figures walking towards you (shown in the screenshots on the store page), one is a surreal scene but definitely not nightmarish, and the other two are plain boring.

The only thing Blanket Heavy With Nightmares may be good for is to test your VR set for free, as the graphics definitely look alright. I don't have a VR set so speaking as someone who sat through Blanket Heavy With Nightmares using a regular screen, I don't see any value here. As I said, I'm not talking about monetary value here as it's free, but I mean whether or not it's worth downloading and experiencing Blanket Heavy With Nightmares on a regular screen, and for me it's definitely a 'don't bother'. When in doubt, since it's free, by all means check it out and judge for yourself, of course! To each his own, after all...

I know it's just a teaser so I understand your aim isn't to make sure everyone can play it. You just need to make sure enough people can play the teaser so as to get an idea of the general feelings and feedback from the target audience. But unfortunately, the teaser is unplayable with keyboard and mouse for me because I live in a backward country that has decided to adopt the French azerty keyboard layout, even though we don't even speak French in Flanders. Because of this, the movement keys are all over the place and it's impossible to play the game. So that's a first point of critique should the teaser ever result in a full-fledged re-imagining of Gothic.

I may decide to plug in a controller to give the teaser another go, but I'm a keyboard-and-mouse player all the way. Otherwise, I'd be gaming on a console instead of a computer.

From the intro and what I've read in other people's reviews, I do have some things to say. First of all, to a lot of those reviewers: keep in mind the setup is a re-imagining of Gothic, not a remaster! A lot of people are obviously disappointed and even angry "because they changed several things besides updating the graphics and the controls a bit". Yeah, well, a remaster wouldn't be commercially viable so that's not going to happen. THQ needs to make a game that's fit for current-gen players, too, to make any sense. So, dear THQ, maybe a thorough remake would be a better option than a complete re-imagining?

A large part of the charm of Gothic 1 & 2 was due to the protagonist. A nameless nobody, whose only talent at the start of the game was his reserved witty sarcasm. So what's wrong with this protagonist? Well, the thick British (Cockney, even?) accent is completely over the top and doesn't fit the personality of Nameless. Also, he doesn't need to keep talking to himself and commenting on everything that happens, even in the midst of near-certain doom.

But if it's a re-imagining, why not change Nameless, too? Well, then you're throwing too much overboard and if you continue down that path, we'll end up with hardly any resemblance to the original Gothic besides the name of the game. If you'd re-imagine The Witcher, you'd better make sure you nail Geralt's personality, as they did in the original game, or you'd lose too much of the basic necessities to make a The Witcher game. So be careful not to change Nameless too much, he's one of only a handful of basic elements that are required to recapture the original Gothic's atmosphere and the reason why people are still playing Gothic 1 & 2 today.

Sadly, I can't comment on other elements of the teaser, especially NPC interaction and combat. Maybe I'll rewrite this entire piece of feedback if I can conquer my aversion to controllers anytime soon. Until then, I'm grateful and hopeful for the initiative you're taking here, I know it's not an obvious step, but please listen to the fanbase! I remember another time when we were assured many times we'd be listened to, as well, and that resulted in the atrocity called -excuse my foul language for a moment- 'Arcania: Gothic 4'. Don't make the same mistake...

Mad Max is a third-person action game based on the movie franchise of the same name. Although I do understand why many people describe the game as repetitive, I rarely manage to game for more than a few hours in one sitting, so the repetitiveness didn't really hit me. On the contrary, I enjoyed the variety of vehicle activities, the melee battles and the customization of both Max and his car so much that I completed the entire game, including all of the many challenges and achievements.

Considering the ridiculously low price point at which I bought Mad Max (€3,49) and the dozens of hours of fun the game provided, I genuinely think it was a steal and I even feel a bit bad about that towards the developers. I highly recommend Mad Max if you're into action games at all. If, like me, you're not into racing games, don't worry: racing is entirely optional in the game, except for one story-related race to struggle through.



In Mad Max's post-apocalyptic world, a decent car is key to freedom and survival if you want to go anywhere. At the start of the game, a vicious man named Scrotus steals Max's car and belongings. Left to die in the wasteland, Max stumbles upon a hunchbacked mechanic named Chumbucket who offers him shelter and a basic vehicle. Max grabs this stroke of luck with both hands, although that means putting up with Chum's zealousness about both the car ('the Magnum Opus') and Max, who he adresses as 'Saint'.

The rest of the story is about how Max and Chum keep upgrading and improving the Magnum Opus so as to get Max back on his feet and be able to kill anyone who stands in his way.

As you may have guessed, Mad Max isn't really the most story-heavy game. Actually, the story only gets depth in the final act of the game, and that comes in the form of an unexpected and emotional climax you'll want to find out for yourself.

Most NPCs in the game have little significance or personality. Only the main characters are fleshed out, but they really are a bunch of colourful, interesting and well-written characters. Chum, for example, offers a lot of welcome information like warning you about a minefield, a sandstorm or a large party of enemy vehicles long before you would have spotted them. And his comments when bad things happen or when he worries about Max or the car gave me many a chuckle.



Max wants to improve his gear and upgrade his new car, which is little more than a rusty frame on worn-out wheels. To get his hands on these upgrades, especially a coveted V8 engine, Max needs the help of the leaders of the strongholds in each of the four main zones of the game world. These leaders will only help Max if he performs certain tasks (quests) for them first.

In order to unlock upgrades for the Magnum Opus, Max needs to reduce the threat level of Scrotus' troops in the region. Threat level can be reduced by destroying Scrotus' totems which only serve to intimidate, by killing snipers or destroying the towers they're hiding in, by destroying Scrotus convoys and, most importantly, by exterminating Scrotus' henchmen and lieutenants who reside in their well-defended camps, as this results in Max claiming the camp for the leader of the stronghold of the region.

For car fights, Max can use his shotgun to shoot at the driver, the tires or the gas tank of an enemy vehicle. He can have Chum fire a harpoon, which can tear off tires from a car, tear away armour that protects the driver or the gas tank of a vehicle, tear down snipers' towers and camps' defense towers, and even grab and kill enemies who are on foot.

It's a lot of fun to continually upgrade every aspect of the Magnum Opus so as to be able to face more challenging opponents: stronger attack grid, better defenses, tires that give more grip on asfalt and/or sand, better suspension to increases handling, better weapons (harpoon upgrades, sniper rifle upgrades and side burners), spikes that damage enemy vehicles or prevent enemies from jumping onto the Magnum Opus, …

Also, there are a lot of esthetic customizations: you'll unlock different colours to paint the Magnum Opus in, decals to decorate it, and hood ornaments that also give a small boost to one of the car's stats.

As for Max, you'll unlock more skills he can use during melee combat and you'll be able to improve his shotgun. Also, each time Max completes one of the 175 challenges in the game, he levels up and gains skill points he can spend to increase his health, hand-to-hand damage, melee weapon damage, health gained from eating food, amount of water found at water sources, and more. You can also change the way Max looks (beard, goggles, war paint, …).

Melee combat is a matter of blocking, parrying, counterattacking, dodging and striking at the right time. Also, you'll want to familiarize yourself with Max's skills as they can deal considerable damage when executed when you get a prompt telling you a certain skill can be used in the current combat situation.

In enemy camps, you'll often be surrounded by a dozen or so enemies. At first, you'll need to learn to think strategically so as not to get overwhelmed during these tense combat situations. Boss fights are exciting as you'll have to use every trick in the book to defeat these bosses.

Eating food or drinking water replenishes Max's health. Food is scarce, so you'll want to keep an eye out for sources of water to refill Max's cantine whenever you can.

Finally, you can also find items around the wasteland that allow you to build stronghold upgrades. Completing these upgrades will refill Max's food, water, gas and ammo stock when he visits the stronghold, or they will offer some practical advantages like a scrap crew that automatically collects all the scrap from vehicles Max destroys in the region, so you don't have to exit your car to pick up the scrap after each fight. By the way, scrap is the currency in the world of Mad Max.

In each of the regions, you'll find a couple of race tracks. Winning a race turns the race track into a fast travel point and a place to fill up your car's gas tank.



I think Mad Max's graphics are stunning considering this isn't a triple-A game and considering the game world consists mostly of lifeless wasteland. The colourful characters, the decorated vehicles and the make-do shelters and camps found all over the map turn a 'lifeless wasteland' into a place full of life and adventures to be found, and all of it looks pretty good to boot!

Mad Max's soundtrack is fantastic. Most of the time, you get subdued, atmospheric music in the background, but sometimes it climaxes into a pounding, adrenaline-infusing score that even Bear McCreary would be impressed with.

The voice acting in this game is terrific, with one notable exception: I didn't care for the actor voicing Max. His thick Australian accent sounds forced. And yes, I'm aware of the source material, but nobody else in the game world speaks with an Australian accent, making Max sound all the more out of place. All of the other voice actors greatly add to the immersion by bringing life and personality to the colorful characters they're voicing.



Mad Max has 7 Steam Trading Cards. You'll get 4 while running the game.

The 49 Steam Achievements are varied. Some are story-related and some are unlocked by performing certain optional tasks, most notably by racing. So while racing is optional in this game except for one story-related race, you'll have to do quite a bit of racing to unlock all of the achievements. But since you can use your entire arsenal of weapons during races if you drive the Magnum Opus, racing in Mad Max is actually more fun than it may sound.

Drizzlepath: Deja vu is a pure walking simulator. There is literally nothing else to do but walking the straight path from the starting point to where the simulator ends. From time to time, a woman cites some philosophical musings through a voice over. I wasn't overly impressed by the content of these statements, but at least the woman had a pleasant voice.

The sights you'll see during your simulated one-hour walk are sometimes genuinely beautiful, but not to the extent they're interesting enough to keep you in awe for a whole hour. Also, there is a persistent thin layer of fog that, in my opinion, makes the graphics look less impressive than they could have been.

The music in the first part of the game caught my attention in a positive way. It sounds very nice, relaxing and atmospheric. I'm not sure if I got used to the music after a while and started to notice it much less, or if the music changed after the first zone and became less memorable, but my first impression of the score was definitely a positive one.

I'd been keeping an eye on the walking sims by Tonguç Bodur, the developer, for quite a while now. Most of his walking sims get less-than-stellar reviews for the very reason that they're rather boring, but I wanted to give his work a chance, so I went for Drizzlepath: Deja vu because that one received the best reviews at the time.

I now know why his work isn't praised very highly. These are walking simulators in their purest, rawest form. I know that's what the genre label implies, but I've played dozens of games that have the 'walking simulator' label and I enjoyed a lot of them. The difference is that in all of those other walking sims, there was something to do besides walking. Sometimes you had to find your way through the branching game world, sometimes you had to collect items to be able to proceed, sometimes you had to solve puzzles, sometimes some form of survival mechanics were implemented, and so on.

That is not the case in Drizzlepath: Deja vu nor, from what I gather, in the other walking sims by Tonguç Bodur. If that's the sort of experience you're looking for, you really need to buy this walking simulator and maybe look into the other work by Tonguç Bodur. But I can't generally recommend Drizzlepath: Deja vu to everybody, as there is just nothing to actually do in this simulator to even remotely call it a game.

To conclude, a short word about Steam's extra features. Drizzlepath: Deja vu has no Steam Trading Cards but it does have three achievements. One is awarded for finishing the simulator and one is awarded for starting the simulator anew after having finished it. The third achievement at least gives you something to do in the first half of Drizzlepath: Deja vu, as it requires you to startle 24 birds found around the first zone you'll be walking through. Due to the linearity of the simulator, though, this isn't really a challenge, but still, it's something to do besides walking ever forward.

The Fan is a very short point-and-click adventure game that uses photographs to tell its story instead of drawings or FMV. You play the obsessed serial killer, so the subject matter and especially the point of view of the game can make this a bit of a disturbing experience. If you think you can stomach that, I do recommend playing The Fan, but definitely don't buy it for €5,99 as it'll take you not much longer than half an hour to complete.



In the prologue, you learn that women are being kidnapped, raped and murdered by a psychopath who obsesses over his victims for a long time, stalking them and learning about their private lives, which has earned him the nickname 'The Fan'. Guess what, you play this psychopath and you've just kidnapped your latest victim. Now it's time to start the ritual…

As you can probably tell by now, this isn't exactly a Disney adventure. The Steam Store page mentions: "The game isn't rated yet but I wouldn't recommend if if you're under 16, due to the themes and some violent sequences". I completely agree, especially since there is a scene containing violence against a woman that could have easily been omitted from the game because it wasn't really necessary given the circumstances. I know, you're playing a violent murdering psychopath and all, but still…



Basically, The Fan is a point-and-click adventure game like any other, but due to the photographic scenes rather than animated scenes, navigating through this game does take some getting used to.

In three short chapters, your goal is to collect three or four items from the place you're at. Acquiring these items are part of the obsessive ritual the psychopath observes. There are two choices to be made in the game, leading to a different ending in the form of a different newspaper article to read through at the end of the game.



The photographs are sharp and beautifully shot. The ambient music is heavy, doomy, and thus serves to emphasize the dark atmosphere of the game. There is no voice acting and there are few sound effects.



The Fan has 9 Steam Trading Cards. You'll get 5 while running the game. Since you'll finish the game in 30 or 40 minutes' time, you'll need to idle the game for a while longer to get all the cards to drop.

The game has no Steam Achievements.

Morph Girl is an interactive Full Motion Video (FMV). Unfortunately, interactivity is very limited and the only thing about the story that could have been interesting or exciting, is a direct and complete ripoff from a well-known horror movie.



It takes about 30 minutes to play through Morph Girl, so I won't tell you much about the story or I'd be revealing the entirety of it. Suffice to say, you'll be following a young woman called Elana who's dealing with the recent death of her wife.

The biggest problem with Morph Girl's story is that it's painfully boring. You watch Elana wake up, get out of bed, make coffee, eat breakfast, take a bath, and many other menial activities. Then something strange happens and you're given a choice to either check it out or ignore it. If you decide to have Elana check it out, she shrugs and goes on with her day as usual.

There is only one thing that happens in Morph Girl that might have been interesting, exciting or even scary, but the problem is it's a direct and complete ripoff from the movie The Ring. I'll use spoiler tags here but there is little reason for it since the screenshots on the Steam Store page clearly show it: A girl with long black hair that covers pretty much her entire face emerges from a well -er, sorry… I mean: from a bathtub- and she hauntingly wanders around the place.

So storywise, Morph Girl is 95% boring and 5% pure ripoff. The narrative doesn't make much sense, either. I'll limit myself to giving one example to prove my point. If you decide that Elana should pull the plug on her terminally ill wife, and then read the wife's diary, the diary says "you murdered me". Well, Elana doesn't react to that at all and just puts down the diary, showing no emotion whatsoever. That's because the cutscene of her putting the diary down is the same, regardless of what's written in it. Most of the endings are pure nonsense to boot.



Morph Girl tells two stories at the same time. One is the story I talked about in the previous section. This story is shown by means of FMV cutscenes but without any voice acting. So the narrative is told by text only. The only voices you'll hear are coming from the television. Half a dozen times you'll be prompted to make a choice what Elana should do. These choices decide the outcome of Morph Girl, which has 5 different endings.

At the same time, the story of Elana's wife's illness and death is told through text-only screens. Here, you'll also be prompted to make half a dozen choices, but by the developers' own admission on the forum, these choices have no influence at all on the outcome of the game.

Apart from that, there are two times where you're able to interact with a few items in the house like the television and some photos. And that's all of the interactivity Morph Girl offers. So basically, half a dozen choices to be made that don't change anything but the very ending of the game, which consists of a cutscene of 10 to 30 seconds at the end of this anguish.



The FMV are black and white, and the picture isn't sharp at all. Maybe this is a deliberate artistic choice, which one can't argue about, but personally, I think Morph Girl has the ugliest FMV I've ever seen, and that includes the FMV from the 1980s and 1990s.

The fact that we see Elana talk but can't hear her voice is another strange choice that may be another deliberate artistic choice, but it severely diminishes Morph Girl's potential. This is pretty much a text-based adventure with a lot of silent, black-and-white cutscenes added to it.



Morph Girl has no Steam Trading Cards.

Most of the 13 Steam Achievements are a chore. You need to trigger each of the five different endings. That means sitting through Morph Girl at least three times, and you can't skip any of the cutscenes or speed up the text. Also, there are two achievements that are unlocked by watching two horrible B-movies from the 1950s or so, which would make them F-movies by today's standards. Together, the two movies take about two and a half hours. So you'll want to idle the game, mute its sound and find something interesting to do in the meantime.

'The Room Three' is as great as the previous two 'The Room' games. If you played one or both of those, all you may want to know is that 'The Room Three' is basically more of the same. Yay!

The main difference is that this time, you find yourself in some sort of dungeon with a central room that branches out into half a dozen hallways, each of which contains one or more rooms full of puzzles. You open up new areas by completing puzzles in the currently accessible areas. And sometimes, you find an item that's required in an area you visited earlier on, so as to continue puzzling over there. All this makes the game feel a lot less linear than it is. 'The Room Three' is still a puzzle game, so you could easily write a step-by-step solution for it, but because of the more complex setting, this game offers a feeling of exploration and adventure that wasn't present in its predecessors.

'The Room', 'The Room Two' and 'The Room Three' are the best puzzle games I have ever played and I've been playing them since the 1990s. It's puzzling in its most basic form: there is almost no story; you take on one huge puzzle by tackling dozens of smaller-sized puzzles, which often consist of several mini-puzzles.

Solving the puzzles feels exciting and rewarding, and it's just a lot of fun. I think that's mainly because the puzzles feel very 'physical' compared to most other puzzle games. In the 'The Room' games it almost feels like you could reach out and touch the puzzles and solve them that way.

The game is not overly difficult. I think all three 'The Room' games are just challenging enough to be fun, but if you're the sadistic kind of puzzler who only likes being challenged to the point of migraine, you will not find that here. There is a hint system in the game so if you feel stumped at any time, you can click a button to give you some pointers on what to do next.

'The Room Three' has 5 Steam Trading Cards. You'll get 3 while running the game.

The Steam Achievements are basic stuff: one achievement for completing each chapter of the game, and one achievement for getting each of the four endings. But getting those different endings isn't easy. It will require paying special attention to objects that don't appear to be part of the puzzles you're currently solving, because they may turn out to have something to do with getting those different endings. I took notes and was glad I did. The hint system won't help you at all to get the different endings, as these require solving several optional puzzles, which aren't necessary to simply finish the game (with the 'standard' ending that is).

You don't need to play through the whole game four times, though. After finishing the game, you can select 'Change your fate' from the game menu to find yourself back at the door that leads to the final room, with your inventory intact.

To summarize, I recommend this game to everyone, not just to people who like playing puzzle games. It's really that good! I even feel the third game is the best in the series but it's entirely possible I'm biased because I just played 'The Room Three', whereas it's been a while since I've played the previous games.

I finally decided to play Alan Wake and I'm very disappointed. The main reason not to recommend this overhyped game is because its story isn't nearly as good as most reviewers would have you believe, and neither is the gameplay. I'll elaborate on both of those points in their respective sections below.

Alan Wake tries to be all kinds of things but it does none of them very well: story-heavy adventure game, survival horror game, third-person shooter, and even a bit of parkour and platformer game.

The game is a lot more combat-heavy than I'd have suspected. And the combat is bad. If you check some of the more than 2000 negative reviews, you'll notice the most recurring keyword to describe it is "repetitive(ness)".



You play as Alan Wake, a writer whose wife disappears after a strange occurrence. That strange occurrence is a preview of the entire story: there is a 'Dark Presence' that stalks and even attacks Alan, but then sometimes it's gone and it's as if Alan is imagining the whole thing. Alan will spend the entire game figuring out what's real and what's not, so what really happened and what was imaginary.

At the end of the game, you get little to no clear answers from the game's narrative. You can then play two DLC chapters that add to the unfinished story, but the second of those DLC's also ends in an open ending and provides no clear answer as to what the hell has been going on for the last 20 to 30 hours of your gaming life.

It feels as if every chapter of the game was written by a different author, without them ever talking to each other about where they're taking the story. The whole thing felt a bit like the television series 'Lost', which started out with a couple of loose ideas that could make an interesting story, but it turned out the writers didn't have a clue how they were going to tie everything up later on, so they just made it up as they went along, which resulted in a slow but continuous decline in quality of writing, and a disastrous finale.

Alan Wake's story, too, is all over the place. Even if you find a conclusion in its open-ended narrative, you can't honestly say Alan Wake contains a deep story in any way. Moreover, all of the characters in the game are as shallow as can be. Not one of them shows any sign of an interesting personality, including the main protagonist the game is named after!



Alan Wake starts out as a mystery adventure game that will probably tickle your fancy if you're into that genre. Soon after, you'll encounter your first (tutorial) combat situation, which makes things even more exciting. You'll find it refreshing that you first have to shine your flashlight at an opponent long enough until you see its 'dark shield' disappear, after which you can kill it with conventional firearms.

But after playing for a while, you realize the game is very combat-heavy. And that's a bad thing because the combat system is shallow and extremely repetitive. Throughout the game, there will be a few hundred instances where the exact same combat situation takes place: you hear the combat music, you see two or three Taken (as they're called – don't ask) in front of you and two or three Taken behind you. So each and every fight is an ambush, which has half a dozen opponents just appear all around you, effectively surrounding you.

You can try to run away to a better position but most Taken are a lot faster than you, so you will get hit several times while trying to get out of the ambush circle, which means instant death on higher difficulties.

There are, of course, ways of coping with these constant ambushes. You'll learn to look for spots you can run to where you can take the group of Taken head-on, you'll learn to pop a flare to blind the Taken while you're running out of their ambush circle, or you'll just use your most powerful weapons to survive the ambush. But every time, you know the exact same thing is about to happen again and again and again… ad nauseam. (Note: 'ad nauseam' is Latin for 'until you get so bored and frustrated with the repetitiveness you'll want to poke out a piece of your brain through your nose by means of a rusty corkscrew').

The Taken come in four or five types, but that only means they look slightly different i.e. one is a bit heavier-set than the other, and they act a bit different i.e. one will come at you swinging an axe whereas another will throw knives at you from a distance, but in the end they're the most boring opponents in any horror game -and I use the term very loosely here- ever. They even look boring: they're just black. Yeah I get it, they're pure darkness etc. I call it lazy design.

I repeat, you'll have to fight through hundreds of these boring-as-hell Taken opponents. The only variation in combat comes from two things: sometimes you have to fight flocks of birds that attack you and sometimes you have to fight junk objects like tires, fridges, pieces of sheet metal, etc. that have been possessed by the Darkness.

The weapon arsenal Alan has at his disposal is small and uninspired: a handgun, a shotgun OR a rifle (no, you can't carry both!) and three light-based weapons (flares, flare gun, flash grenades). These weapons stay the same throughout the entire game so there are no weapon upgrades or the likes. You do find a better type of flashlight from time to time, though.

But in the end, it doesn't matter what you manage to find and especially what you manage to save, as at the end of each major portion of the game, all of your gear is removed (often for no explainable reason) and you have to start empty-handed again. This takes away the most important and fun aspect about 'survival horror": trying to conserve ammo and other supplies as much as you can for when you may need it later on.

Besides the constant boring combat situations, Alan Wake doesn't have much else going for it, either. As I've said in the previous section, the story is confusing, boring and leading nowhere. The game is also extremely linear and it doesn't allow any creativity for how the player may try to handle certain situations. The game keeps reminding you, "It's my way or no way!" until you give up trying to be smart.

The only reason to explore the very linear world of Alan Wake would be to find the hundreds (!) of collectibles for the Steam Achievements, but more on that below.



Alan Wake's graphics weren't bad for a 2012 game, but by today's standards, they look average to bad, especially the faces. Facial expressions look weird and ugly and they're a lot scarier than any of the Taken the game throws at you as opponents.

Voice acting isn't great but it is decent. I mean, it's nothing to write home about, but it doesn't sound amateurish and it certainly isn't laughably bad.



Alan Wake has 8 Steam Trading Cards. You'll get 4 while running the game.

Of the 67 Steam Achievements, 50 are related to the main game, 8 to the first DLC chapter and 9 to the second DLC chapter. Some achievements are story-related and unmissable. Some are combat-related and should mostly trigger naturally (like 'Kill 50 Taken with a shotgun') or by accident (like 'Kill two Taken with a single shotgun blast').

About a dozen of the achievements are awarded for feats like beating a chapter without dying or restarting, completing part of the game without firing a single shot or completing part of the game within a time limit. Most of those achievements are very challenging, so this game isn't easy to 100%.

Lastly, there are some 300 (yes, three hundred) collectibles to gather for achievements, so unless you're the luckiest person ever, you will want to use a guide to find them all. This means constantly looking at the guide to keep an eye out for the next collectible, making these achievements feel like a mind-numbingly boring chore.

The Frostrune is a point-and-click adventure game. It's set in ancient times on a Nordic island, and its story is drenched in Norse mythology.

As soon as you launch the game, it's clear The Frostrune is a basic production. You'll find an option to change the game's resolution and language, and that's it. The latter option is crucial, though. Since the entire game's narrative is in Old Norse speech, you'll rely on subtitles to understand what's actually being said. Subtitles are available in English, Italian, Castilian Spanish, Arabic, Norwegian, Russian, French and German.

The devs state: "We have taken extra care to make The Frostrune as authentic and historically accurate as possible." It's clear that they have. And for the most part, it works very well. Although it's impossible to understand the words being spoken, I think the voice acting was commendable. The narrative even contains a song in Old Norse speech. The game's whole soundtrack oozes Nordic folklore, as well. All of this makes The Frostrune sound authentic to a fault.

The Frostrune's graphics are hand-drawn, which definitely adds even more authenticity and personality to this production. But although the graphics look very artistic, I wouldn't personally call them beautiful, although such an opinion is entirely subjective, of course.

The story of The Frostrune is pretty thin. I don't mean to sound contradictory: the game does contain a decent amount of lore and folklore, but the actual story of the game, i.e. the story of the young girl you play as and what she ends up doing on the island by solving puzzle after puzzle, is very thin and can easily be summarized in one concise sentence.

The main part of The Frostrune's gameplay is solving puzzles while enjoying the authentic folkloristic background. The puzzles aren't easy. Often, you perform an action or you solve a puzzle and you know that means 'something changed somewhere', but it's not always clear what or where. So you'll find yourself walking back and forth on the island a lot, looking for something that's different or for a new area that has become accessible. There is a 'Hint' option in the game, but using it even once forfaits one of the Steam Achievements, so I didn't use that function. I do have to admit I resorted to consulting a guide a few times and almost every time I did, I found the next step wasn't necessarily illogical but pretty darned hard to have to come up with myself.

Speaking of Steam Achievements, there are 20 to unlock. Thirteen of those are story-related and unmissable. Six more are awarded for performing some optional tasks, most of which are near impossible to figure out yourself (especially since the names of the achievements are in Old Norse speech and their descriptions are extremely cryptic), so completionists will want to use a guide and check the game's discussion forum.

The 20th and final achievement is unlocked by performing a speedrun. You're required to finish the game in 30 minutes or less. That's extremely close! Even when I made a step-by-step guide for myself and knew exactly what to do, only losing a few seconds from time to time while I checked my instructions, I failed on my first try. I immediately tried again, knowing I'd have to check my instructions less that time, and I just barely made it. I like a challenge and I'm fine with speedrun challenges in game genres like platformers, shooters or other action games (e.g. clear a level or mission within a time limit), but I don't think a speedrun achievement has any place in a point-and-click adventure game. The fact that you can't skip any dialogue (and yes, the clock keeps ticking during dialogue) only adds to the frustration of trying to unlock that last, unnecessarily difficult achievement, which is a pain the developers should have left out.

The Frostrune does not have any Steam Trading Cards.

AntVentor is a point-and-click adventure game. You play as an ant who's an inventor (knowing that, at least the title of the game starts to make sense now, doesn't it? :D). AntVentor created a machine to automate his tasks in the anthill. When the machine breaks down, he goes out looking for a replacement part for it.

Gameplay is typical point-and-click adventure gaming: you collect items and use them on the correct spot in the game world, sometimes after combining several items into a more useful item in your inventory first.

The graphics of AntVentor are beautiful and vibrant, and the game deserves a lot of praise in that department. Sound effects are crisp. There isn't any voice acting except for a man who speaks a few sentences at the very start of the game and who manages to add impressive gravitas to those few lines, as if spoken by an old, wise sage.

Although danger lurks around every corner when you're a tiny ant, the world of AntVentor is a charming place. And although its inhabitants are mostly filthy insects (apologies to all entomologists out there, but I don't share your love for small critters at all :s), strangely, there is beauty and even a speck of personality to be found in most of them, although none of them ever speak a single word.

I think it's clear why I recommend AntVentor. But I do have to point out some letdowns, too.

For starters, the game is very short and will take you less than an hour to complete (unless you find yourself completely stuck once or twice and refuse to look for a guide). The developers acknowledge in the game's description and in the end credits that AntVentor is actually just the first chapter of the full game they have in mind. AntVentor does have a decent ending to its 'story', but that ending makes it all the more clear this game is just an introduction to a much larger adventure (game) the team intends to develop.

Then there's the price. I'm aware creating quality games requires a lot of resources, and indie developers should be adequately compensated for their efforts so they can keep making those quality games. But a fiver for a game that can be finished in 30 to 45 minutes by a seasoned point-and-click adventure gamer is pushing it, knowing we live in a world where a fiver can easily buy a good game that brings several dozens of hours of fun. So I would not advise paying full price for this game, unless to make a point (supporting a small group of talented indie developers, I mean).

The puzzles mostly make sense and are fun to solve, but the few times they don't make sense, they're just… completely nuts. I had to look for a guide and was glad I did, because I'd never have guessed AntVentor has telekinetic powers, allowing him to interact with an object that's all the way on the other side of the anthill. Also, while hiding from a guard, AntVentor can magically place items in a spot he couldn't possibly reach from where he's in hiding. Luckily, these few instances that don't make sense occur in the first part of the game, after which the puzzles do make sense.

To conclude, a word on Steam's extra features. AntVentor has 8 Steam Trading Cards. You'll get 4 while running the game. You'll unlock most of the 13 Steam Achievements by playing through the game, although a few achievements require some optional actions that completionists will want to find a guide for. Unfortunately, there isn't a simple achievements guide out there. The only available resources are YouTube movies and complete walkthroughs, both revealing way too much and therefore spoiling the game. As the game is very short anyway, I suggest playing through it once, and then look for a guide to find out how to unlock the remaining achievements during a quick second playthrough. Not that there's any need to rush, as one of the achievements requires you to run the game for 2.5 hours.