Recent reviews by Karrolanth

One of the most beautiful packs, I definitely recommend this one!

A fairly decent game - I loved the art style, and the story seemed promising - but the investigation process eventually becomes tedious and the ending completely takes away any sense of achievement. "So, you think you found the culprit, do you? Well..." *PLOT TWIST!!!* It was just dumb.

If you like the style and the premise, then go for it if it's cheap enough, But don't expect to feel like you really solved the case at the end.

This pack has a gorgeous colour palette, very fun and summery. The images are great, Toastie Labs' new digital artist has made a good first impression! :)

There are (in my opinion anyway) rather too many of the "checkerboard" backgrounds in this pack, but feedback has been taken on board and we probably won't see quite as many in the next packs. There's a good variety of images, and the only one I personally didn't enjoy was "Vacation" - there was just too little going on for an image of that size.

All in all a good pack and worth the money. :)

These pictures are huge, and will keep you busy for plenty of hours!

Note that by choosing to download this pack, you are accepting that there are some mature themes, curse words etc. contained in these images. Some of them, I have to say, may not be obvious to people of a certain age... I saw nothing suggestive about one particular image that was pointed out to me, for example, so I guess it depends on your perception and the sort of things you've been exposed to in the past. YMMV.

I've only completed one of the pictures so far, and have to say that I was a little disappointed by the amount of images that are just initials, names or hearts. I'd have hoped people might be a little more inventive, but there you go. Apparently many good images were wiped out by other groups, though, so I suppose it just goes to show that when a bunch of people get together online to do something there will always be those who want to destroy what others have created. Something something human nature, etc.

There are some great images here, though, and the whole thing is very colourful and fun to complete, although time consuming!

I think the devs must have got a job lot of brown and grey pixels on the cheap! ;)

It's still quite fun to colour these designs, but I feel they're not as nice as the first Isometric book. That one had lots of colour and detail, particularly in the buildings and room scenes, whereas this one seems to be full of dull, muddy colours. The larger designs also have less detail than I expected, considering how good the room scenes from the first book were. I know "blockiness" is part of the deal with these, but the first pack had much more attractive trees, for example, than the bland cuboids we get here.

Overall I would still recommend it as a pleasant way to pass the time, but in my opinion it could have been much better.

A touching, beautifully-presented game following a young girl's journey through grief via the story she is writing. Don't be fooled into thinking this is just for children, although older ones might find it particularly helpful if they are going through a similar loss to Izzy and may find they can relate to her thoughts and feelings.

The game is relatively short, but has some replay value I believe. (I didn't find all the fireflies, and I suspect there are slightly different endings to be discovered.) I would recommend it at full price even so, for the story alone. The platforming sections are very forgiving, so don't let that put you off if you're on the fence about this game. It even has interactive credits! :)

It's been a couple of years now since I last lost a loved one, but it still hurts often. I expected that this game would make me cry, and it did. But it was also a beautiful journey. Get this game, and lose yourself in the power of words for a few hours. It's worth it.

Thank you Rhianna and the team.

As beautiful to look at as the rest of the series, and lots of interesting things to play around with and manipulate! Some items that you can look at are red herrings, but there are clues, if you look for them, as to where certain objects should be placed.

I found the last part very confusing until it dawned on me what I needed to do, and then it was just a case of figuring out how to do it. Clicking on symbols helped me to get a better idea of what to do! I did have to use a few hints throughout the game, but funnily enough not on that last part.

If you enjoyed the other games, I would recommend it. The only thing I didn't like was having to equip the eyepiece every time you wanted to re-enter a room, and sitting through the animation again, which was a particular pain when I accidentally backed out of one and needed to go back in!

I wanted to address a handful of the most common complaints:

1. Yes, there are long queues on certain servers. However, many, many others have no queue times at all. The devs will be offering server transfers in the near future, so consider starting on a less popular world and transferring to a new one with your friends when the time comes. (I know, it sucks to not be able to play with your friends right away! But isn't playing somewhere else for the time being and then meeting up later better than not playing at all? For some people, perhaps not. But I would rather just play.)

2. Yes, there are no mounts. There is a valid lore-related reason for this. The world isn't that huge - slow down, relax; take your time to explore, enjoy the scenery, and find all the little notes, letters and books that are lying around. Experience the thrill of accidentally crossing over into an area where the enemies are a way higher level than you, and running like crazy to get away from them... ;) My theory is that many of the people complaining about lack of mounts and limited fast travel options are those who value XP/minute and just completing things as fast as possible, or those who have no patience. Personally, I don't mind the lack of mounts. Wandering through some of the regions is just a beautiful experience... when you're not being chased by something that wants to eat you!

3. Some people have said that the quests are grindy and repetitive. Perhaps - I haven't got far enough into the game yet to notice, maybe. (My highest character is level 20.) My counter argument is, what MMO is NOT grindy at some point?! They all are, some are just better at disguising the grind than others. I have not been bored so far.

4. The lack of quest sharing is a valid concern... it's very annoying to find that your group's Town or Faction quests are different to yours, and then to see that the one you just helped your partner with has now popped up on your own board and you have to do it all over again if you want to run it for yourself. The quests do change frequently - especially the Faction ones - and you can also take and then abandon quests to clear the board for fresh ones in the hope of getting what you want. Sometimes you can find Faction missions in an area you have to go to anyway for another quest. I would agree with others who want quest sharing to be a thing, though, at least for this type of quest. I would disagree for story or side missions - go speak to the relevant person and hear the story! But for Faction missions, yes.

All in all, I have enjoyed my time in the game so far. I like seeing what's around that corner, over that ridge, in that farmhouse... What's that plant over there, can I harvest it? How high a level is that alligator? Can I get in and out of this higher level area to find the quest items I need? Which is the best route to follow to this other town I need to get to? Do I need help to kill these things, or can I manage alone? Is there a cave behind that waterfall?

The game has issues, for sure. But honestly, is there an MMO that doesn't have at least a few problems on launch? The long queues have really hurt New World, and I hope it can recover from that because, for me at least, it's an enjoyable game. I'm in no rush to get to level 60, I'm happy to take my time and explore. If you like to take things at a slower pace, perhaps this is a game you'll also enjoy. Just choose your server with care. :)

I really enjoyed most of this book - many people don't seem to like the "pixellated photo" type of picture, but I had fun with them. "Wall" is awful though (very dull), and "Leaf" wasn't much better but at least it had more than four colours! They do all look very good when zoomed waaaaay out on completion (or in the menu images).

I have two to finish in this pack. The "Great Wall" is one of the big ones I've been working on a little at a time, when I feel like it, and I'm about 40% done. It has some strangely-coloured pixels here and there, like a couple of random blue and white ones in the middle of a bunch of beige, and they are still noticeable even when zoomed quite far out. (The nebula picture in the Space book had the same sort of issue, and I presume these are the compression artefacts other people have mentioned elsewhere.) I haven't started the "Pyramids" design yet so can't comment on that one.

All in all, an enjoyable book and a worthwhile purchase if you don't mind this style - most of the pictures are mid to large size too. If you don't like the photos in other DLC for the game, though, steer clear of this one as it'll drive you nuts!

I had hoped for more realistic images, but most of them are cartoonish and on the smaller side. The majority were still fun to colour despite that. The "Snow Leopord" (yep, it's spelled that way in-game and it bugs the heck out of me! ;) ) has been my favourite, though time-consuming.

I have to admit I haven't finished this pack yet, I still have the last two to colour. I've been slowly working on Safari in between other pictures, and it's only 20% done so far. I haven't even started the infamous Clownfish, and am not particularly looking forward to it - but maybe it won't be quite as bad as I expect, considering I didn't mind the leopard.