Recent reviews by Karrolanth

Recommended with caution.

I like the concept, and the art and music are good. It's certainly an unusual game, and I liked gathering a few stories, sharing them and seeing how they grew and changed.

Unfortunately, the game is soooo very slow! I wasn't expecting quite such a slow pace, and it's not fun for me. I also find it difficult to navigate. I understand that for the kind of game it is, a slower pace is appropriate... this game is all about the journey, not really about "winning". But for me, personally, it was just too awkward and consequently not very enjoyable.

For the right person, who can put up with the glacial pace and the quirky controls and navigation, it's probably an awesome game! If you love stories, you should give this one a try. (I do, and that's why I thought I would enjoy it.)

I wish there was a neutral option, but as there isn't I'm going to give it a cautious recommendation. I think it does what it set out to do, and it does it very stylishly. It's just not right for me, after all.

A very short game - I left it idling for maybe 15 minutes, and also had to look up a hint once or twice when I got a bit stuck, and still completed it in a little under 2 hours.

Despite that, I'd recommend the game - perhaps in a sale, as there's little real substance to it. It's very beautiful, and the music is pleasing. The "construction" of the game is fascinating, and I spent a bit of time in some places just folding and unfolding the scenery to see how it moved. :) I would have liked a bit more to do, rather than just walking (painfully slowly at times) back and forth across the scene in search of the next thing to interact with. A handful of collectables to spot or something like that would have been nice, just to pad it out a bit and make it feel like there was a bit more to it.

It's almost a point & click, but not quite. It's certainly not an "adventure", but I suppose it qualifies as a puzzle. Whatever it is, it was a relatively relaxing couple of hours and I'm glad I played it! I don't know if I would really play through it again, but perhaps one day I might.

Very short but very nice. Soothing, and with pleasant music... just drift along for a few minutes and enjoy!

It's been a rough few weeks... I needed something like this. Thank you, Ondrej!

Sadly, I have to give this one a thumbs down for me personally. I found that the controls and camera angles gave me motion sickness, and I also found the mini games frustrating (climbing chimneys, following suspects, etc.).

The overall concept isn't terrible, but I thought the implementation was lacking. I liked the idea of being a detective and solving cases, but this one is just not for me.

As another reviewer said, this game is "charming and relaxing"!

I found the graphics and colours very pleasing, the sound effects and music were fitting, and the gameplay needed just a little bit of thought from the player but was never frustrating or annoying.

Well worth 30 minutes or so of your time, especially as it's free. :)

Nice work, devs, I hope you go on to bigger and even better things!

"So the sun set on the mammoth."

A sweet and rather sad game, worth a few minutes of your time. The art is nice, the voice acting is pleasant and appropriate.

It takes five to ten minutes, and it's free so you have nothing to lose.

Recommended, but use caution if you have any sensitivities to flashing lights. There are no warnings about this, and it happens towards the end of most chapters. I found it very annoying.

The Room Two is rather creepy and unsettling in comparison to the first episode, particularly the "seance" chapter. Note that if you have an aversion to such things as Tarot, you may want to give this game a miss. However, given the somewhat supernatural nature of both these games, if you enjoyed the first one you probably won't mind this.

In some ways The Room Two was harder than the first game, in that there are sometimes several things you can look at and try to interact with so it can be difficult to know where to start (the final chapter was probably the worst example of this). Hints are available if you get stuck, though, and the game does a fairly good job of leading you around the different rooms. In other ways, though, I felt that it was easier than the first game - especially in the way it often makes it SO obvious where you should use the eyepiece!

I did like this game and I recommend it, but personally I think I enjoyed the first game more. I loved the "tactile" feel of playing with the boxes in that one, and although this episode has more varied locations I missed that tactile feeling. My favourite location here was the ship, because that evoked some of the same feelings as the first episode.

If you like puzzle games then get one or both of these. Don't be put off by the "horror" tags - horror isn't my thing at all but I didn't mind the atmosphere in these games, and as mentioned above I'd describe it as creepy and/or unsettling in places rather than horrifying.

Not sure why this one has the tag "horror" on the store page - atmospheric, yes; eerie, possibly. Not "horror".

I also wouldn't really call it a "hidden object" game, even though you do have to look around and find things. It's nothing like the sort of hidden object games that companies like Artifex Mundi produce, for example, although I do love those.

This is a puzzle - or more accurately a series of puzzle boxes. They are beautifully detailed and I want to own real, tactile versions of them! (Since the devs are based in my old home town, I also liked seeing "Guildford, England" in various places on the boxes! :) ) Perhaps Fireproof Games will one day make a VR version of this game, so that we can get close to the physical feeling of turning, twisting, pulling and sliding all the various bits and pieces of these boxes... I'd buy that!

I was expecting to get stuck playing this, to be honest, especially since some reviewers said people who liked Myst would probably like The Room. I didn't like Myst, I found it too difficult! But I loved this game, and the hint system was very handy in a couple of spots where I couldn't quite figure out what I needed to do next. I believe you can disable hints if you want a bit more of a challenge, and I think I probably could have figured it out myself eventually. Really, you just have to pay attention, look closely at everything, and if in doubt try using the eyepiece and see if you spot anything new!

The mouse controls were a little awkward at times, especially when trying to turn handles, and I presume this is a result of the game originally being designed for mobile touchscreen devices. Other than that I had no issues and thoroughly enjoyed the game!

I don't feel I can recommend this game at full price, but unless abrupt endings are a definite deal-breaker for you then it's worth a playthrough if you get it on sale.

As other reviewers have said, the last chapter is short and very easy compared to the others and it feels rushed, like they ran out of time or money. The ending is non-existent. After the opening scenes, and the subsequent journey through Alice's hopes and fears (presumably while she tries to decide if she wants to continue with her life and change direction to follow her dreams, or just let go), I was expecting an ending that tied things up and explained how she changed her life. Or at least a short scene to end things a bit more neatly than the single sentence we get in the game. Sadly, no.

However, I did very much enjoy the game apart from the ending, so I'm still giving it a thumbs up at a reduced price. Be aware going into it that you're not going to get a satisfying ending, and just enjoy it for what it is. :)

Whether or not you consider Amphora worth the price (on sale or otherwise) might depend on your tolerance for frustration.

I really wanted to love this game - I've been attracted to the look of it since I first saw it, and finally decided to buy it on sale. It is stunningly beautiful, and I feel very sorry to give it a thumbs down but it's just too irritating!

I don't mind having to put some thought into a puzzle solution, and it can be a great feeling when you finally get it, but if the physics are unpredictable it just becomes an exercise in frustration. As an example, in the "fireworks" level I could see what I needed to do after a moment. But getting it done? (Potential spoilers.) I finally got one bench positioned just right so that a rocket went straight outside where it needed to - great! Now I just have to get the other one in the correct place to direct the rocket into the sky, right? Except that the next 8 or so rockets I fired all went in slightly different directions to the first one and not one of them made it outside. The amount of precision needed to get the rocket at the exact same angle in the lantern every time (I'm presuming that was the issue) took any fun out of the endeavour for me. I eventually got it done after maybe 25 minutes or so (more through luck than judgement), had a quick go at the following level, and gave up for the night when that one looked to be even more frustration just waiting to happen.

Added to that is the issue mentioned by another reviewer of not being sure what the chains are actually capable of and when they might break, which often seems illogical and just adds to the frustration when you finally get something right and then moving something else breaks that perfect positioning.

Perhaps a tutorial with more information might be helpful here, or at least a couple of levels where learning the tolerances of the chains and objects might be easier and not cause so much irritation. Figuring out how to play in the beginning was fun, but the difficulty of understanding the apparently-unpredictable physics after a few levels took that fun away.

I'm sorry, developers - you've made an incredibly beautiful game that just isn't very much fun for me, and fun is more important than looks in the end. Although it was relatively cheap on sale, my funds are too limited to waste right now so I'm afraid I'll be requesting a refund. :(