105
Products
reviewed
6972
Products
in account

Recent reviews by murderbits

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Showing 1-10 of 105 entries
6 people found this review helpful
8.3 hrs on record (1.9 hrs at review time)
It's Threes! -- exactly what you want and expect out of the game, but now on your desktop/laptop.
Posted February 6.
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3 people found this review helpful
1 person found this review funny
10.5 hrs on record (0.4 hrs at review time)
Early Access Review
Gotta catch 'em all!



I'm too old to have been caught up in the whole Pokémon thing. I tried playing one of the games when I was in my 20s. I tried another in my 30s. I tried another in my 40s. I've never stuck with it for more than one or two play sessions before quitting. I just haven't ever been able to get into them. I don't like the "get some creatures and use them to fight each other" type of RPG. However . . . I've been very drawn to this game. Mixing it with the survival genre is exactly what was needed to draw my interest. It's such a blast, too. It really is more than you initially expect. I truly never thought I'd be enjoying this type of game at all.
Posted January 19. Last edited January 19.
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1 person found this review helpful
1.6 hrs on record
Early Access Review
Froguelike is a legit survivors-like with a fair amount of difficulty. It's a really novel take on the genre, thematically, while embracing the hallmarks of the genre mechanically. Different types of frogs, tongues, bugs and such. It's far more than I expected it to be.
Posted January 7.
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2 people found this review helpful
1.4 hrs on record
A simple, but atmospheric experience to unsettle you if you play alone, in the dark. If you enjoy YouTube ARGs and found-footage stories like "Channel 58", then you'll enjoy this. The only thing that would have made it more enjoyable would have been if it were voice-acted, instead of just text.
Posted December 20, 2023.
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No one has rated this review as helpful yet
3.5 hrs on record (1.0 hrs at review time)
What a clever and enjoyable take on the vampire-survivors-like genre. If you enjoy these games, but are getting a little exhausted by so many that are just the same thing, give Cursorblade a try.
Posted December 2, 2023.
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1 person found this review helpful
1 person found this review funny
1.3 hrs on record
Entertaining, thought-provoking, and humorous. Unfortunately, the injection of heavy-handed politics detracts significantly. The narrator has a lovely voice, though, and the game is overall a really intriguing experience. Do note that it's very short (an hour or two).
Posted December 1, 2023.
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30 people found this review helpful
1 person found this review funny
0.3 hrs on record
To celebrate the tenth anniversary since Skull Girls launched, the developers (after having forced the founder out of the company and turning it into a "collective") have removed voice lines, entire voice actors, animations, artwork, and even content from the art book, because of their ideologies. And, in keeping with the standards of people who tend to have those ideologies, they refuse to listen to anyone else's opinion and essentially label anyone who disagree with them as scum.

Do not ever support this developer or the publisher through this or any other game. Even with everything else pushed aside, the simple fact that they went in a decade after people bought a game and removed all sorts of single player content "just because" is abhorrent and should not be accepted. It is bad enough that people who legitimately paid for access to games have the soundtracks and other elements removed from games after launch. This is ridiculous.

They are a bad-faith company with bad-faith arguments who treat their customers with bad-faith.
Posted July 6, 2023. Last edited July 8, 2023.
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No one has rated this review as helpful yet
0.3 hrs on record (0.1 hrs at review time)
You will face great anxiety, fear, and certain insanity, but you must press unrelentingly onward into the gloam.
Posted May 8, 2023.
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90 people found this review helpful
3
2
4
2
4.5 hrs on record (0.4 hrs at review time)
Early Access Review
Swarm Grinder has a whole lot going for it that sets it apart from the herd of auto-shooter action roguelike (whatever it is we're calling this genre) games.

It has a fantastic color pallet and art style. It feels cohesive and lends to the dire atmosphere. A lot of care clearly went into the visuals.

It has a number of interesting twists and new concepts, such as having the goal of clearing areas for mining facilities instead of just racking up experience points. The creeping crawling alien bug miasma is another neat concept. It's one part "fog of war", one part "mob generator", and one part "motivation to keep moving". The fuel and heart system is also interesting. It'll keep you moving and killing.

The soundtrack is a banger. It feels great when a swarm arrives and the music switches-up. I can't wait to hear more of this soundtrack through development and release.

You can view the roadmap from within the game (it's to the side of the main menu). More characters/suits, more modes, more upgrades. What's here is compelling; it just needs more of it, which is exactly what their Early Access readme says is the plan. Really looking forward to the progression of this one.

The pacing and flow may feel slightly "off" if you're coming from a number of other games in this genre, but after a few runs, you'll start to slip into it and it'll start feeling "right". This isn't a complaint or fault of the game design whatsoever -- in fact, I welcome it.

Also, if you feel like you're having a real rough time keeping up at first, just keep at it. Once you start unlocking the meta-upgrades in the workshop, you and your suit will survive a lot more. After all, if you started out fast and tough and loaded for bear, what would there be to do, right? In less than an hour of play, I got all of the upgrades in the first workshop "box" and one in the second. I think the workshop meta upgrades are relatively fine, though there's room for fine-tuning and it would be nice to see more impactful perks at the end of the tiers. I did not feel that I was going too long without being able to improve something nor that I was being inundated with countless improvements.

I do hope that there will be an expansion to the selection of per-run upgrades, though. The variety seems quite limited. I enjoy having such a vast number of potential options that you can really construct your own interesting progression path each run and this feels more constrained.

Overall, I feel that Swarm Grinder has everything going for it, but just needs more of what's there and expansion on the variety of what's there. More variety to the upgrades, meta-perks, suits/characters, environment. Eager to see where this one goes.

Tip: If you run under one of the upgrades, it'll automatically trigger. If you don't want this, there is an option in the settings to require a button press (E) to activate them. I prefer this, so I can move more freely instead of slamming into bugs while trying to avoid triggering the wrong upgrade by accidentally walking under it.
Posted May 5, 2023. Last edited May 6, 2023.
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1 person found this review helpful
1.5 hrs on record
Great atmosphere, great gameplay, beautiful artwork. Everything about this game is a delight. The only downside is that there are very few people playing. At the moment, there are fewer than three dozen people playing and that seems to have been the norm for the last six months. It blew up for two weeks and then... fizzled. A real shame, because this is tremendously fun.
Posted April 21, 2023.
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Showing 1-10 of 105 entries