Recent reviews by mad_magzz

INDIKA is Fine
I play a lot of puzzle, story-rich indie games with really dark themes and I feel like if you want a really interesting story and an enjoyable gameplay experience that tackles difficult themes, play Little Misfortune instead.
If you care about how pretty a game is and want to have good atmosphere and are ok with really tedious puzzles, a story that's not unique nor very interesting that sort of kind of edges around dark themes while waxing poetic about the meaning of religion and of life, then this game is perfect for you.
If any of the above sounds like it's not worth $22, like I felt at the end of this game, then wait for a sale.

Some positives: one of the few games to use magical surrealism, which I feel like is missing in the game industry, but I find to be fun to experience. There's also a great sense of humor throughout this game and absurdity. It's also very atmospheric and pretty, but that's about it. INDIKA isn't a Bad game, but it's not a Great game, and to be honest I don't really understand the hype. I am totally fine with a dark story, no payoff at the end of a game and puzzles, but it felt like every aspect of this game was beating me over the head with the theme: life is unfair, nothing really matters, and religion is stupid.

It also took me about 5h to play in total and a lot of that felt like padding.

EDIT:
I've been thinking about this game a lot since I played it initially, which I think makes it fair to say that the game was a bit more impactful than on first glance.
However, I still stand by my initial review, I think the game was just TOO long for what it was and I think if I were to review it as an *experience* vs. a *game* I'd have found it to be enjoyable. But given that, I do think that the game plays on a lot of metaphors, which were effective overall. If it was about half of the length I think I would've loved it, but as it is, it's a bit long, a bit ham-fisted with the "meta" and tried to do too much without enough convincing.

Still definitely recommend waiting for a sale!

I've been keeping up with the news and watching from afar as Arrowhead has handled every fan outrage, huge corporation flop, and bug fix with a sense of humor and patience.
The devs at this company are some of the best I've seen and this game is an absolute blast. I rarely play FPS online anymore since so many communities are toxic, Helldivers is one of the best I've seen in years, on par with Hunt: Showdown.
I love this game, and I especially love the dedication the team has to this game, Super Earth's regiment, and it's fanbase. Thanks for making a great game. (But also when you make the next one can you have DLSS so I can stream it without agony kthnx ♥️)

Still one of my favorite games of all time. Incredible story, art style is amazing and the puzzles are SO fun. I absolutely loved it.

just as good as the first game!

one of my favorite puzzle game series by far

this game has solid vibes, good puzzles and a great sense of humor. i really enjoyed it

pretty interesting story, some cool puzzles and a nice atmosphere. some of the puzzles were INFURIATING however, especially some of the ones late in the game.

only part that was fun was petting the cat. basically "find a key to unlock a door" simulator, the demo was promising, not sure what happened here

I enjoyed the puzzles, the art style & the music a lot in this game. The story was also interesting.

But I can't recommend this game, I hit a game breaking bug on the last mission in the second to last chapter. I also hit multiple bugs throughout the game, the audio was super out of sync during every cut scene to the point of making what should've been emotional moments, quite frankly, hilarious (having the narrator say "X person died" and seeing their loved ones hugging and smiling at the same time was an exceptionally odd one)
The steam port is just clunky, it has issues setting resolution. When I first started the game I had to follow a thread and delete a file in order to adjust the resolution (a fix that actually doesn't always work, I learned later). The game breaking bug I hit was apparently caused by (either? both?) music syncing issues and resolution causing an arrow to not display on the screen for a boss fight, so I got stuck, unable to defeat the boss ever. Overall the game ended up being really frustrating to play because the port just doesn't seem to work. I tried all of the solutions online, uninstalled and reinstalled, to no avail.

I've heard the game is good on Switch, I'd recommend buying it there if you want to enjoy it.

Killed most of my family right off the bat. Woops.