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  • #1,001
    The Will of Arthur Flabbington - Initial Thoughts (and last?)

    TL;DR - really well made game, too "old school" for my taste

    Great voice acting, aesthetics, dialog, and music. I got stuck on the very first screen. It's old school logic. It's a long chain of I need item X, but I need to get Item Y to get it. I, however, can't get Item Y without Item Z. It's also got pixel hunting and no means to highlight clickable areas. Some of the puzzling was purely logical and intuitive. There's a carnivorous plant, so you'll probably know you can feed it insects. It also is in a bitey mood - so you'll need to distract it. This makes sense.

    After trying everything on everything else, I gave up and look up a guide to get me progressing again. It was a pixel hunt item, so I was none too pleased. After skimming ahead in the guide, I just tapped out. I can't just pick up an item in the bathroom because the game wants to make things hard and non-intuitive. It's small and I've picked up almost everything else that size with no issue. Contrived obstacles aren't fun to me, nor are silly solutions.

    If you don't mind this old school point and click stuff, I highly recommend the game. There's a demo on Steam to try. It's also on GoG, so they've a very lax refund window if it's not your taste.


    ----

    EDIT: I just watched a playthrough instead and the gameplay - it's more of the same. The demo should give you a very good idea of what the game is like.
     
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  • #1,003
    Call of the Sea doesn't even have all that much backtracking, in my opinion. :) I don't recall any, at least. Now, if you want a game with backtracking, take a look at FATAL FRAME / PROJECT ZERO: Maiden of Black Water. It's a retro-looking Japanese horror adventure with a seriously creepy story and unusual gameplay - you banish ghosts by taking photos of them. It's a rather enjoyable combination, despite some flaws - except there's also the big flaw, and it's the backtracking. The game has three protagonists - and they all go to the same bad place, then go back home, or save someone from the bad place, bring them back home, then return to the bad place. Or maybe the girl you saved returns to the bad place, so you need to save her again... :) Towards the end the game mercifully starts skipping the "backtracking home" part - but it's too late because you're already tired of it. And then the game makes the impression even worse by explicitly spelling out all the things it's been hinting at throughout the game.
     
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  • #1,006
    Small Radios Big Televisions - initial and final thoughts

    TL;DR - It's an experimental game that more experience than game and the navigation is awful

    This is an Adult Swim game. Why? Dunno. It's not tied to any show I know of. Since Warner Brothers is pulling the game from digital stores, you can get it for free: at https://fire-face.com/games/srbt.html

    This is a 2.5D game with a 3D map and disorienting positioning. It's hard to explain, but you're always facing all the exits for the room. Even with a map screen, there's no logical way to navigate. This is the hard part of the game. The light puzzles aren't going to stump many - it's rather intuitive despite being surreal.

    It looks cool and feels cool. The soundtrack reminds be of a John Carpenter movie - it's got that '80s synth feel. There's no instructions or even an explicit goal. You'll figure out that this a lock-and-gate mechanic that blocks progression.

    This game has a bit of the Metroidvania mechanics. Finding that "thing" that works with that other thing you discovered long ago is satisfying. For me, the exploration and discovery just isn't cool enough to suffer the navigation. But it is free ...
     
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  • #1,007
    The Lab - Escape Room

    TL;DR - annoying input, bad/no links between clues and the puzzles, refunded

    This was a game I played the demo of on a Steam Next Fest long ago. I was on the fence about this one, since the demo was literally 3 to 4 puzzles and 1 of them wasn't great. If was half on for the Spring sale, so I gave it a shot.

    After an hour of play, I can say that the game got worse. I had a save from the demo (from late 2022), but I decided to start fresh. One of the clues for a puzzle was rather clever and did a good job of linking the clue to the puzzle. This was the puzzle that made me interested in the game in the first place.

    In general, the quality of the puzzles where above average to poor. There wasn't a good flow where one puzzle leads you to another - sans a few exceptions. For example, there's two completely unrelated puzzles next to a door with red lights on both sides of the doorway. Solving one puzzle makes one of the lights go green, so you can figure out that the lighting is not decoration (like most things in the game are). This all feels very random. You don't find a fingerprint to use on the input, you just rotate to make a specific print - which there is no given reference print. This is just brute force rotating. There's an electrical box with switches showing either red or green and a fingerprint picture that has 5 rotating sections. The electrical box has no interaction with the fingerprint "reader" and it's a "one switch changes 2-3 other switches" puzzle. The door is already powered and has lights on it. None of the objects are linked logically. If feels like bought sci-fi game assets thrown together.

    The last puzzle I remember from the demo was had an annoying input. There were 9 circles cycling though 4 colors and you had to click a button to select the color of the current circle. So, mess up once and you have to start over from the start. The next really annoying puzzle was a "memory" puzzle. There were 5 buttons that blink in the sequence you need to finish. It starts with 2 buttons, then 4, 8, 10. Yes, that's a 24 digit combination you must finish and you start over from the beginning on a missed input. There's also a 4 number combination padlock puzzle that requires over 60 clicks to solve - just awful UI.

    I can say that finishing a puzzle has really good feedback. If the puzzle triggers something to open, the view will swing to show you the action. Each puzzle does have an included hint, so that's also a nice feature. These, however, don't help if you can't find the associate clue. Since the hints are just pictographs, it's not so easy to tell if you need a clue or if the puzzle is self contained. There's also a bit of a room concept where most puzzles and clues are relatively in the same area. This also is a nice touch, since you can guess you next goal is to get to the next room.

    I'm unsure if this is a dev that might just have a better next game. The dev already has some other games that are very simple - like a free to play jigsaw puzzle. This is the first involved puzzle game they've made.

    -----

    Speaking of "a better next game", TEMPUS (VR or Flatscreen) is 80% off and a $1.39 right now for the Steam sale. It's indie-jank (reviewed previously in this thread), but has that "it" factor that makes the game interesting. I don't know how cool it will play on flatscreen though. Their previous game I played, After You, was terrible but had an inspiring spark. They also had a release in 2023 that I missed, DETECTIVE - Stella Porta case, so I will be trying that game soon.

    EDIT: I'll be as lazy as with my review as the dev for "DETECTIVE - Stella Porta case" was with the game. The dev now has a publisher and did an extremely lazy asset flip. The story and "voice" is obviously AI generated, riddled with errors, and at times impossible to follow. The gameplay is click on some objects to gather evidence, then arrange some photos on a board to "solve" the case. Repeat this three times. The order is also impossible to finish without some brute forcing. This feels like a rushed and unfinished beta of a game and it's very short. Skip this.
     
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  • #1,008

    Her Trees: The Puzzle House​


    TL;DR - It's "A Little to the Left" meets "Rusty Lake"

    This is a 2 dollar (1 hour) game that's all perspective puzzles. If you've ever taken or seen an IQ test, there's a group of puzzles where you need to envision what shapes are representing. This is the feel of the design. There's a demo and it's very representative of the rest of the game. There's also a built in Hint system that shows step by step how to solve the puzzles that doesn't give away the total puzzle unless you flip through all the steps.

    If you like the 2 above mentioned games, this is very likely for you.
     
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  • #1,010
    Jackass JoeJoe said:
    After You not really a review

    TL;DR - didn't like it, it felt exactly like a game made by one person (and it is)
    Click to expand...
    The bundle w/TEMPUS was on sale for like 2 bucks, but this half of it was pretty useless. Kitbashed, sloppy (typos, recycled dialogue), useless communication of any kind of puzzle language. I youtubed several codes and couldn't find anything about how you were supposed to find them. The best thing about it is that it runs well on Steam Deck, otherwise, felt like a waste of a buck.
     
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  • #1,011
    CuriouslySane said:
    The bundle w/TEMPUS was on sale for like 2 bucks, but this half of it was pretty useless.
    Click to expand...
    I don't disagree. The only good thing was that it showed the dev had some charm in their terrible game and it made me try TEMPUS. I liked TEMPUS, so I was happy to discover they released a game (two actually) last year. After playing one of their 2023 shovelware releases, I'm now not interested in their new games. The other game might have been a passion project and I played the "paycheck" game - I'll probably never know.
     
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  • #1,012
    Deep in the Woods

    I don't think I played enough of the game to give it a fair review. I played about a third of the game (the first 2 seasons). The aesthetic is great. The mechanics work well - including the "3D" navigation in a 2D plane. The puzzles are what made me quit. There's a puzzle where you have to click a thing about 9 times for anything to happen - a massive gaming sin. There are also object that have no interaction until something else happens in the game. The same object, with no visual changes, then was interactive. The puzzles are also very abstract. This alone isn't a bad thing, but there's little distinction in the game between decoration and important areas. So, gameplay devolves into clicking on everything trying to find what is interactable and when. There are some good puzzles though, but there are just as many bad puzzles.

    The game, however, is cheap. It's 3 bucks and less than that during the current sale. The game, however, looks like a 10-15 dollar game. I give this game a "maybe", despite me not wanting to finish it. I think if this was more "experience" than "game", I would have loved this game/experience.
     
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  • #1,013
    FYI, if you've VR, there's a new Humble Bundle with 4 adventure/puzzle games in it.

    www.humblebundle.com

    Virtual Realities: Mystery & Mayhem

    Immerse yourself in stories that will set your imagination free with this bundle of VR masterpieces. Your purchase supports Starlight Foundation & Child’s Play!
    www.humblebundle.com www.humblebundle.com

    The adventure games in it are:
    7th Guest
    Firmament
    A Fisherman's Tale
    Another Fisherman's Tale

    The 4 buck 1 item bundle has A Fisherman's Tale - well worth the price.
    The 15 dollar 7 item bundle has both Fisherman's Tale games. A decent price.
    The full 20 dollar 9 item bundle has all the above mentioned games. An excellent price if you're interested in any 3 of the listed games.

    My 7th Guest thoughts
    My Firmament thoughts
    My A Fisherman's Tale thoughts
    My Another Fisherman's Tale thoughts

    TL;DR - all these games range from good to great, but Firmament was terribly buggy at launch and only "less buggy" after all the updates. I've not played it since the updates, but the latest Steam reviews all still mention bugs as an issue.
     
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  • #1,015
    CuriouslySane said:
    I've been interested in Firmament despite its faults, and that's a good price for it by itself.
    Click to expand...
    Just make sure to use both save slots and alternate saves. If you read my review, I got softlocked a few times and this saved me from losing hours of play. I still enjoyed the game, but I just couldn't really recommend it with how rough it was at launch.
     
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  • #1,016
    DYSCHRONIA: Chronos Alternate - Dual Edition

    initial thoughts

    TL;DR - it's way more interactive than the previous game in the series, but it's still a VN at heart

    I've only played the first episode, so I've no idea if it gets better or worse as the game progresses. The Steam release is the entire game - all 3 episodes - for 30 bucks. It's also way cheaper than the initial Quest release that is still 20 bucks and then 15 for each of the other episodes. The Steam version also supports VR and Flatscreen, but I've only played it as VR.

    Everything I said before about the demo still stands for Episode 1. The game requires patience - the dialog is slow an can only partially be fast forwarded. I played with Japanese voice and English subtitles, but there's English VA is you don't want to read. The town feels sparse and empty. The story reason for the "empty" area is that everyone is asleep and quarantined because of a murder. The last game also had story reasons for the empty city - but it's just less work for the devs to do and less character models to create and animate.

    You'll spend a lot of time backtracking. The game re-uses the same 4 or 5 areas constantly. There is a time-travel element and some things do change, so it's not completely monotonous. I'm just hoping they don't re-use the same areas for the next episodes. There's a weird mechanic where you switch into AD (a dreamland version of the current area), but the only purpose is a mini-game. As far as I can tell, this just unlocks lore. The mini-game is you counselling upset people stuck in AD by playing a memory game.

    The VR controls are good and well thought out. Locomotion is smooth, teleport, or a hybrid ( my choice of play). You have to press and hold controls to activate, so there's no accidental button pushes.

    While billed as a detective game, it's not. You just find all the clues and for the first trial, you can't make a wrong choice. You have an ability to see memories when holding special objects. This gives you story beats as well as a game mechanic to make different choices than showed in the person's memory. In the first episode, only 3 times are you able to change things. So, there's not much of a variety of events.

    You do replay part of a day. However, it deviates from the story pretty quick. So, it's not as repetitive as it sounds. I've no idea how many times this mechanic will be used in the rest of the game. There's an entire room and interface dedicated to this ability, so I'd expect it to be used for each episode. This is much better implemented that the previous game. It shows a visual graph of where things branch in the timeline. It's not as intricate as a game like Detroit Become Human, but it's still helpful for visualizing.

    This is going to be a very niche game. If you think it's your type of game - play the demo first. This is pretty representational of the rest of the game. So far, the game is all about dangling a mystery carrot in front of you and very slowly revealing any details about the mystery. At the end of Episode 1, it wraps things up for one part of the mystery and introduces a new mystery and probably a new event to prevent using time-travel.
     
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  • #1,017
    DYSCHRONIA: Chronos Alternate - Dual Edition

    Final Thoughts

    TL;DR - Just tedious overall, but still some good things to see

    I gave up played about an hour before the end of the game and just watched the ending(s) on Youtube at x1.25 speed. Oddly enough, this speed feels normal.

    Episode 2 adds some action to the game in the form of stealth areas. I, however, didn't hate these areas. You could see the area and the patrol lines, so you could formulate a plan ahead of time. The game re-uses the same areas of the game, but adds new rooms to explore and an entire new floor to explore. It doesn't feel repetitive and there's not as much backtracking as Episode 1.

    Episode 3 is all exposition and lore dumps. The pacing is all wrong. You're in a "hurry" to make it to your goal and also need to stand around talking and checking every single item in every room. Yes, it's a massive contradiction. The game tells you "there's no time" to pick up certain items early on and then that's all you do for the rest of the game. This episode also ads some action to the game, but in the wrong way. You're viewing a memory that you'll want to change. Then, you view the cutscene again and change something to change the future. If you mess up, you have to view the unskippable cutscene again. And it's almost all 1 hit kills - awful design. In the previous episode, if you get hit, you get to start an a reasonable checkpoint.

    How's the story? Well, the pacing is awful. The big review of "the bad guy" happens so long after that I don't even know if there was a good setup for it. There are characters in the game that do almost nothing (I'm looking at you Noel) and reveals that have no plot or emotional relevance. There are interesting pieces and the framework is all good, but the execution is lacking. So, it's good in spots but messy overall. Also, watching the Youtube ending, I found the English VA ranges from decent to awful. So, I'm glad I played with Japanese VA.

    It's a long game that justifies the price tag, but the wrong kind of long. The game has so many slow animations and line reads that will test your patience. The game will interrupt and block you until you exhaust dialog very, very often. In VR, this is a big no-no. There's no visual distinction between "free to move" mode and "blocked until animations and dialog is exhausted" mode. It's irritating. So, I enjoyed half of the game and not the other half. The game gets oxymoronically better and worse in later episodes.
     
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  • #1,018
    A Divine Guide To Puzzle Solving - initial thoughts

    TL;DR - it's a Portal-Like without portals

    I didn't play enough to form a good review (EDIT: I played 8 levels, which is half the game). I played the first section, which introduced the main "switch object" mechanic (your only interaction besides some simple platforming) and part of the next section which introduced timed based physics. The latter isn't my taste, even when it's done very well. The implementation here was done OK. The initial section, however, I really liked. Nothing was too hard, but it really made you think about a chain of events.

    The game loop is simple. Enter a gate, solve a puzzle level by activating the exit portal, enter a "hub" level with a single exit and listen to some voice-over. Repeat. If you don't want to wait around, you can just skip the dialog. The story is you're a "mortal" and a being is making you do puzzles and will kill you eventually. Yes, it's the same Portal relationship where you're mocked between levels.

    I don't remember the video, but I watched a game dev talking about timing between figuring out a puzzle and then executing that puzzle. His philosophy was that puzzles that take a long time to execute after mentally solving aren't satisfying. I might agree with this. I remember back to a game where you'd have to re-start an entire puzzle contraption on fail. The puzzles didn't get harder - just longer. So, there were more opportunities to fail (EDIT: It was Relicta). I don't know how much of Divine Guide is repetitive gameplay, since I just lost interest in the game rather quickly. (EDIT: I skimmed a video and the game seems to lean more towards "action" as it progresses).

    It's a good price(about 7 bucks), but it's short. Most will probably finish the game in about 1.5 hours. There's a demo on Steam, if this sounds like your type of game. It is well done, but just not my style these days.
     
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    Artichoke Sap

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  • #1,019
    Jackass JoeJoe said:
    I don't remember the video, but I watched a game dev talking about timing between figuring out a puzzle and then executing that puzzle. His philosophy was that puzzles that take a long time to execute after mentally solving aren't satisfying.
    Click to expand...
    Was it maybe this clip from Design Delve? (from about 0:30 to 2:00)

    Also, yes, Relicta isn't fun to complete, and I also dropped it. Thanks for elucidating why I did.
     
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  • #1,020
    Artichoke Sap said:
    Was it maybe this clip from Design Delve? (from about 0:30 to 2:00)

    Also, yes, Relicta isn't fun to complete, and I also dropped it. Thanks for elucidating why I did.
    Click to expand...
    Yep, that's the video. At 1:22 he says the thing. (Side Note: The "worst puzzle" in Obduction he mentions I just looked up a solution because it's so tedious and unfun. The massive load times and backtracking was my major issue with the game in the first place, so it gives credit to the following argument: )

    "Any length of time between them diminishes the overall satisfaction of the puzzle". In this case "them" is figuring out the puzzle and implementing the solve. This is probably why I like sequential discovery puzzles so much (ala The Room series), because you get to have many "aha!" moments of discovery solving the entire puzzle.

    There, however, is a good counter argument - multi-solution puzzles. A game like "The Last Clockwinder" has optional repetition. You can figure out a solution and then look at the secondary goals to create a new "harder" solution. You can figure out a minimalist solution, but have to repeat it several times to get your Rube-Goldberg contraption to work just right. SpaceChem had the same thing (like many of the Zachtronic games), where you can find better/different solutions and compete with others via a leaderboard. Fantastic contraption also comes to mind.

    ​

     
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  • #1,024
    CuriouslySane said:
    Harold Halibut is on Game Pass. It was one of the notables from the recent Next Fest. It sounds somewhat linear, but the art style is Neverhood-ish stop-motion which always gets my attention.
    Click to expand...
    It was not my personal cup of tea. The visuals are stunning. The gameplay, on the other hand? Absolutely not for me.
     
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  • #1,025
    I made the "mistake" of getting DLC for the Cracking the Cryptic variant Sudoku game. I'm 40 hours into it and probably have another 30 hours left, so I've not been playing much of any other games.

    I saw the Harold Halibut release and read the negative reviews first. This sounds like one of those games that I could just watch a playthrough and get the same experience, since there's almost no gameplay. The consensus seems to be "great visuals" but filler dialog, bland characters/story, and fetching as the only game mechanic.
     
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  • #1,026
    I finally got around to trying Infinifactory, a Zachtronics game. I've put about 3 hours into it so far with mixed results.

    TL;DR - it's a lot like 20th Century Food Court and SpaceChem, but with "terrible" controls in 3D

    The goal of each puzzle is simple - create the thing the collector shows (in the same 3D orientation). In this case, it's SpaceChem. You twist, move, and combine pieces of stuff to make gadgets/components. The difference is some pieces can now have verticality.

    The puzzles are well ordered. You'll learn how to stall a pipeline and weld before you need to use both of those mechanics in a more involved puzzle. The goal is usually to do a task without the normally needed control. How do you weld only two items together without a sensor? You'll need to find a way for that third item to not get welded to the existing pieces but also move along the other pieces.

    The difficulty of the game is really just undefined behavior. As you play, you're introduced to new building blocks that don't tell you how they work. Here's a "Rotator" piece, but it won't rotate if another item is next to it. Here's a "Welder" piece, but they must work in groups of 2 and the game implies they must be at opposite poles to weld the two inner items. When a welded set of pieces travel over two conveyors with differing direction, what happens?

    Being in First Person means you get all the baggage of a FP game. Building in FP is not trivial. Trying to get a conduit (electrical pipe) built between two items never works as you expect. This also means you need to "fly" around using jump/lower keys - and yes, you can fall to your death. There is a "select all" option and it kinda works, so you can move parts of your creation around without having to remake the entire thing. Like the rest of the game, how it actually behaves is undefined behavior. You have to fiddle around to find what makes it move vertical compared to horizontal. This does feel like a 10 year old game.

    If you've played 20th Century Food Court, you'll get flashbacks as soon as you're introduced to the Sensor block. It's a much simpler, stripped down version of the sensor. If an item is "here", send a signal to activate another control. So far, a Pusher is the only triggerable control I have. So, this is the only branching mechanic the game has introduced.

    I got this for free on EGS, but the normal price is 25 bucks. This feels like a 5/10 dollar game. It, however, is a long game. It looks like the average playthrough is about 30 hours and the leaderboard try-hards will double that time easy. For me, I'm liking the game but I find it tedious to work with. "Tedious" is the word I see most used as a negative describing the game. Maybe in 7 more hours I'll have a better feel for the game.
     
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  • #1,027
    Jackass JoeJoe said:
    For me, I'm liking the game but I find it tedious to work with. "Tedious" is the word I see most used as a negative describing the game. Maybe in 7 more hours I'll have a better feel for the game.
    Click to expand...

    Sounds a bit like the frustration of the delay between inspiration and execution we were just posting about. In SpaceChem you have immediate global access to the the entire puzzle "phase space," where with Infinifactory, you have to navigate it, and navigating isn't puzzle solving.

    Kind of adjacent to why hub worlds without things to explore feel like a wasted opportunity to just be a menu.
     
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  • #1,028
    As I was playing As Dusk Falls, I sometimes wondered, "Haven't the developers played Beyond: Two Souls? Then they would have noticed that frequently switching between different stories, past and present, very consequential and very inconsequential choices, can end up being detrimental eventually - to the point that Beyond: Two Souls added a linear mode after a while". It turns out this game's developer is headed by the lead game designer of Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls! :D


    On top of the jumpy presentation, there's no skip button, so multiple walkthroughs are problematic. And the ending is a major cliffhanger. Still, the characters are colorful and well-written, with great voice acting, and the narrative is one of the best of this type. The game is on Game Pass, so you might want to give it a try.
     
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  • #1,029
    Jackass JoeJoe said:
    I finally got around to trying Infinifactory, a Zachtronics game. I've put about 3 hours into it so far with mixed results.

    TL;DR - it's a lot like 20th Century Food Court and SpaceChem, but with "terrible" controls in 3D

    The goal of each puzzle is simple - create the thing the collector shows (in the same 3D orientation). In this case, it's SpaceChem. You twist, move, and combine pieces of stuff to make gadgets/components. The difference is some pieces can now have verticality.

    The puzzles are well ordered. You'll learn how to stall a pipeline and weld before you need to use both of those mechanics in a more involved puzzle. The goal is usually to do a task without the normally needed control. How do you weld only two items together without a sensor? You'll need to find a way for that third item to not get welded to the existing pieces but also move along the other pieces.

    The difficulty of the game is really just undefined behavior. As you play, you're introduced to new building blocks that don't tell you how they work. Here's a "Rotator" piece, but it won't rotate if another item is next to it. Here's a "Welder" piece, but they must work in groups of 2 and the game implies they must be at opposite poles to weld the two inner items. When a welded set of pieces travel over two conveyors with differing direction, what happens?

    Being in First Person means you get all the baggage of a FP game. Building in FP is not trivial. Trying to get a conduit (electrical pipe) built between two items never works as you expect. This also means you need to "fly" around using jump/lower keys - and yes, you can fall to your death. There is a "select all" option and it kinda works, so you can move parts of your creation around without having to remake the entire thing. Like the rest of the game, how it actually behaves is undefined behavior. You have to fiddle around to find what makes it move vertical compared to horizontal. This does feel like a 10 year old game.

    If you've played 20th Century Food Court, you'll get flashbacks as soon as you're introduced to the Sensor block. It's a much simpler, stripped down version of the sensor. If an item is "here", send a signal to activate another control. So far, a Pusher is the only triggerable control I have. So, this is the only branching mechanic the game has introduced.

    I got this for free on EGS, but the normal price is 25 bucks. This feels like a 5/10 dollar game. It, however, is a long game. It looks like the average playthrough is about 30 hours and the leaderboard try-hards will double that time easy. For me, I'm liking the game but I find it tedious to work with. "Tedious" is the word I see most used as a negative describing the game. Maybe in 7 more hours I'll have a better feel for the game.
    Click to expand...
    As the game progresses and solutions become more involved, the issue becomes the time it takes to make a small adjustment and then run the whole simulation back to that point to see if it works. More granular iteration would be hard because any change might have an impact beyond just where it's focused, but without checkpointing or instant fast-forward it becomes more and more of a chore to experiment. The actual building gets tedious as well with no ability to nudge placed elements. I enjoyed learning and applying the solution language, but I was also glad to be done with it by the end. I ended up bailing on the last puzzle because I realized that a solution I'd spent hours on was doomed by a misunderstanding, and there was just no fun left in it.
     
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  • #1,030
    Artichoke Sap said:
    Sounds a bit like the frustration of the delay between inspiration and execution we were just posting about. In SpaceChem you have immediate global access to the the entire puzzle "phase space," where with Infinifactory, you have to navigate it, and navigating isn't puzzle solving.
    Click to expand...
    It's definitely a bit of that. Debugging in the game is pretty slow iteration, but there is a "fast forward" button that helps with the delay. One difference is that in Infinifactory, I know how I want to execute a piece of the puzzle but not the whole puzzle. Then, I have to tweak to get those smaller pieces to work together.

    Now that I've figured out how the game wants to do building - and not what I'd intuitively try - building is better. It's still time consuming and definitely not puzzle solving.

    The new things 3D brings to the puzzle solving is just outweighed by the negatives. After 8 hours of play (finishing 4 of the 10 areas), I still like it, but only in small doses. I still think 20th Century Food Court is just a better version of the game - even though it leans very heavy into programming as puzzle solving and it's much shorter.
     
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  • #1,031
    Gave up on Infinifactory. Even only playing 1 or 2 puzzles a day, they newer puzzles where just more tedious than interesting. 26 hours in was enough for me (and about 70% finished). I watched solves of the remaining and only 1 or 2 were interesting or new. The builds just got more and more massive.

    ---

    I've started Lacuna, a freebie I picked up on GoG a while ago. It's currently 80% off on Steam and GoG for 3 bucks. This is kind of interactive story with light detective work. I read the negative reviews on Steam and they almost all say the same thing "on rails with no real choices" and "repetitive gameplay of looking at clues and filling in a sheet". I agree those are the cons of the game, but I've enjoyed the first 1/3rd of the game (about 2 hours worth). In the first chapter (1 of 3), my choices only seem to affect if I do a side quest or not - looking at a walkthrough confirms most of this. I can say one choice I made ending up giving me a phone call that gave me more information about the suspect. I've no idea how much this will change the game.

    How much I like the game overall is going to depend on how they end the story. Chapter 1 is mostly setup and on the hunt for an assassin. As said above, the gameplay is fine but light. It reminds me like a very , very simplified version of The Case of the Golden Idol - except there's a lot of dialog and very little in the way of clues to find. The only thing I find exceptional in the game, so far, is the aesthetics.

    Both GoG and Steam have a demo called Lacuna: Prologue. I'd highly recommend trying the demo if this sounds like your type of game - since it's so cheap right now.

    ​

     
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  • #1,032
    Lacuna - final thoughts

    TL;DR - great visuals, decent story, meh gameplay

    Didn't love it. Didn't hate it. The 3 dollar currently on-sale price tag is the major positive for this 4-5 hour interactive story.

    What didn't I like? The walking speed was a crawl and there's no always run toggle. There's no rebindable keys. At one point, I was forced to make an important choice that didn't fit the character. You've given the choices plenty of times before this for your detective character - mostly being play by the rules or bend the rules. The "good" news is that you can alter that choice at a later time - but I lost a lot of interest in the story until then. The dialog is just plain bad in spots. The very beginning of the game was a huge missed opportunity for a great reveal at the end of the story - it went nowhere. There are mechanics in the game that were just useless or rarely used - smoking and the keypad are major examples. It feels like a lot of unfinished ideas were just left in the game.

    What did I like? The aesthetics were really good for "just pixel art". Most of your choices do change the game, but mostly only slightly. The story had a few tropes, but was interesting enough on it's own to want to finish out the game. I was able to make choices in the story that fit how I was playing the character - even to his detriment. The "no manual saves" was an interesting choice, so your actions are final for the playthrough. The "sheet" mechanic was a good way to give you nudges for what information you should know or understand about the story. I would have liked to have more of this gameplay mechanic, since it slightly reminded me of The Case of the Golden Idol.

    "It's cheap right now" isn't glowing praise, but there was enough there to get me interested in their new release Between Horizons - which has a demo.
     
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  • #1,033
    We replayed The Forgotten City with my younger kid, finishing this weekend. She enjoyed the look, the characters, and the layers of Roman and Greek mythology, as well as both of the big twists.

    What makes me extra-glad is that we either missed or didn't have the option in the last conversation to be persuasive instead of threatening, which also requires grabbing Persephone's crown and running out, which is a frustratingly hard run, especially if you didn't save just before shooting the glass, and worse still if you didn't realize you can skip the conversation with Pluto by shooting the glass before walking too close to him, triggering the conversation. I've seen several complaints of people having to watch the ending YouTube because they couldn't execute that part.

    Also interesting is that the golden bow task (with Dulius, the squirrely merchant, sending you to the palace, with all the peeled golden statues) is completely optional, a prompt I didn't notice before. Combining those two things, I think you can technically complete the game without any fancy footwork at all. I know there are some unexplained active statues in the Egyptian section, but there's a ramp that goes across the top that appears to let you sneak past them all, so I think it still works.

    Still a solid game. Not without it's plot holes (why do the plaques remain in the obelisk from loop to loop, and Pluto not notice this somehow?), for sure, but still my favorite "one of those" (time loops) I think I've ever played.
     
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  • #1,034
    Artichoke Sap said:
    We replayed The Forgotten City with my
    Click to expand...
    Perfect timing. This game is available to "claim" on Prime Gaming (included with Amazon Prime). I've had this on my "to play" list for a while, since it won the best non-traditional Aggie award for 2021:

    adventuregamers.com

    The Aggie Awards – The Best Adventure Games of 2021 - page 15 | Adventure Gamers

    Over two hundred contenders, but only the best of the best adventures took home the coveted Aggie hardware... Time to unveil the winners! - page 15 |
    adventuregamers.com adventuregamers.com

    At the price of "I'm already paying for it", I can't pass it up now.
     
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  • #1,035
    Some quick gaming impressions ...


    Unnamed Experiment
    Looks like it was made in MSPaint, but they nailed the weird vibe. The clues for this game, however, are so obtuse that I had to look up where to even start. If this dev figures out how to to puzzles, I'll be happy with the next release. This release, however, is a pass for me.

    Animal Well
    It's Metroid without combat. The looks have to be Pac-man inspired. There are hazards and you can "die", but exploration and puzzle solving is the main goal of this platforming game.

    It's more accessible a game than I thought it would be. There are some difficulty action spikes, but it's mostly fair. Falling in water is an instant death, but you respawn from the last platform you were on. There's plenty of save points, so getting hit 4 times and dying isn't too much of a penalty most of the time. If you run into a hard part of the game, most of the time it's end-game/post-end-game content that you can skip.

    The "bad" part is there's so much backtracking and fast-travel is a hidden upgrade. The openness of the game means you'll probably miss key items until way later. Also, almost nothing is explained. You'll have to discover a lot of mechanics just on accident. It's neat to find things out, but you may just hit a brick wall sometimes. For example, getting the bubble wand is a complete "softlock" until you figure out bubbles don't pop when you ride them until you jump -- despite the game implicitly telling you that bubbles seems to pop after a short period of time.

    The "good" part of the openness is you can watch someone else's playthrough and be surprised by the route they take and how/if they discover mechanics. The "credits" ending of the game is also not the final end. There's a ton of secrets to discover is you want to play the harder parts of the game.

    The Forgotten City
    Claim it if you have Amazon Prime (via Prime Gaming). The story telling of this mod-turned-standalone-game is surprisingly good. How they did the exposition for The Golden Rule was just so well done. A lot of this game is open and makes it hard to digest for a new player. Due to the mechanics of this game, I understand why there's so little guidance. It's just overwhelming how many quests and new people you are introduced to in such a short period of time. I'm sure it makes repeated playthroughs a much better experience, so I get that this is a trade-off.

    While there is a quick save/load, this game autosaves a lot. You are stuck with your choices. I'm fine with this type of game, but I'm unsure if I can make the game "unwinnable" early and not know it. There's also a hidden damage system, and I've not discovered if death is permanent and the game is over. I don't want to waste hours into a run that's already doomed, so I've been reluctant to return to the game. I also don't want to try to look it up because it will surely spoil other parts of the game. In the first 30 minutes of gameplay I pretty much figured out everyone is dead already, and my first Google attempt would have spoiled this reveal otherwise.
     
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  • #1,036
    Lorelei and the Laser Eyes - initial thoughts

    TL;DR - it's Killer7's looks with Resident Evil's everything else minus the combat

    I've over 3 hours in the game (about 30% complete according to game stats). I've a good idea what the gameplay is about and the story is just as impenetrable as you'd expect from a surreal game.

    This is a puzzle game with a healthy dose of old-school mechanics. It's static camera tank controls navigation. Your character, however, has QoL upgrades. Photographic memory means you can look at any item you've seen before, without having to backtrack. You're notes tell you what your goals are and crosses off completed items automatically. All rooms clearly mark the exit points on the ground. Almost all of this great QoL is locked behind tank controls and a single button. There's no back button - just a single context sensitive action button. So, if you open a puzzle, you can't cancel it. The menu navigation is a pain with these same controls and you'll spend a great deal of time in these menus.

    For some reason, maps, however are not a freebie. You'll need to solve puzzles to get maps area maps. Maps are also still in the same cumbersome menu as everything else. Want to walk faster than a stroll? This also is locked behind puzzles and I've still not found this yet (seen it unlocked in a video, thought). When you discover new areas, you'll usually find one of 20 "shortcut" door, which are also locked behind puzzles. Usually, you'll discover the other side of the shortcut which will just say "this door is bolted from the other side).

    Currently, my in-game TODO list is 8 pages long. There's no "main quest", so any and all tasks that are locked behind a task/puzzle show up here. You'll have to intuit what the next main goal is. So far, the tasks added after cinematics seem to be the main quest tasks. This isn't always the case.

    So, how are the puzzles? Plentiful. As said before, everything is locked behind a puzzle. Sometimes the clues needed to open a lock or safe are right next to the item. This is a nice change of pace, since you've a large 3 story hotel to traverse and clues can be anywhere. Having some context for their location is really needed. The puzzles are well done, but mostly standard. A few are pretty tricky and I've seen one puzzle I'd never figure out on my own. You, however, can't logic your way to figure out where to go for puzzles with obvious missing items. You'll get these elsewhere, but you'll not know where. You'll, unfortunately, have a lot of these tasks left open ended at once (hence the 8 page TODO list I currently have).

    EDIT: It's not tank controls (but there is a section in the game with tank controls). It is, however, still static camera but you go in the direction you press the controller (sort of, because of dutch angles)

    So far, this is a B- game. Even with all the QoL added, it's still an 1996 Resident Evil puzzle game at heart. The controls suck, the information overload is high, and I've barely had any story in the first 3 hours of play. I still want to play more, but I need a break first. It's a taxing game.
     
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  • #1,038
    Diabolical said:
    Thanks for your thoughts on Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, JJJ. I really wish there was a demo for it, because there are things you highlight that make me go "ooooooh" in a good way and alternatively "ewwwwwwwww!" and want to close my browser window!
    Click to expand...
    It's got the "cool" factor, but it also has some baffling choices. I just got back in today and made a new discovery and was really happy to be progressing. I got to unlock 3 shortcut and then I'm back to a brick wall not knowing what to do to progress. This was all in 30 minutes. I also accidentally spent money (which is finite), so I had to exit out and lose some progress because I didn't want to spend it yet.

    I think for most people, your enjoyment will depend on how OK you are with looking up solutions. I just did a sequence where I found toy letter blocks, tried to place all for of them in pictures, and only one worked. So, after a while, I took the coin I got for the one solve and took it to another location. Then I unlocked one of 4 puzzles. So, I'm stuck with an unfinished puzzle and a second unfinished puzzle not knowing if this is correct, or I'm missing something. I've at least 12 of these unfinished items laying around - and some of these items might just be finished and I don't know it.
     
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  • #1,040
    Diabolical said:
    PSA:
    Machinka: Museum is free until the 27th on Steam. It’s a puzzle box game. Looks like a cheaper version of The Room, if I’m honest. But Free == Free!
    Click to expand...
    I had this "ignored" in Steam, but I remember playing it elsewhere (maybe on Android?).

    Then, I found my review of it here : https://arstechnica.com/civis/threads/the-adventure-games-thread.1257233/post-39856594

    It's exactly a cheap version of The Room, but it's rather casual. I liked it, but for the price of FREE, I've no problems recommending it.
     
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