Recent reviews by WoodrowShigeru

What an unexpectedly lovely game. I was gifted it out of the blue and wanted to just check it for half an hour.

That was now 7+ hours of straight playing ago.

The game has lots of charme, and that charme is being used in a smart fashion to turn gameplay limitations into game strengths, I feel.

The gameplay itself is super solid and polished. I was surprised by how much fun the gliding / flying is – especially, near the end game when you've amped your skills.

And the music is just lovely and doesn't get annoying.

The island is quite jam-packed with content and feels genuinely big. And it has a well-crafted sense of verticality.

The game is short – I almost 100%'ed it without guide in these 7+ hours. But I actually prefer it that way, and therefore, see that point as a plus.

I have a few negatives, though:

* The plant sprouts that you're supposed to find and interact with are very, very tough to spot. Even if you're standing right in front of it, I've had a hard time seeing it. It would have helped if they had a border, different … more vibrant color, sparkle effect, animation or anything of that kind.

* A world so large that is all about exploration should totally have an in-game map. It doesn't have to be interactive (like, dynamically unlocked markers) – though, that would be a much appreciated bonus.

* The camera, how it sometimes wips around by ~90° at certain spots … it can be very disruptive. Especially, when flying.

All in all, very recommendable.

8.0 / 10

Very good game. Chiptune music is catchy. Graphics and story are simple because this is pure gameplay fun. Difficulty is tough but not impossible. Great replayability value if you like mastering things, or if simply you enjoy this music.

I don't like how the moving platforms look identical to the dissolving ones. That could have been improved.

7.5/10

(Played on Steam. I bailed in chapter three of who knows how many.)

“The Bridge” is a 2D puzzle platformer where you change the gravity by rotating the map around. Obstacles like rolling boulders to avoid and vortices to wrap your head around are introduced later.

Rotating the world feels slow, though, when you already have a vague idea of how to solve the puzzle but it is required that you hold the RIGHT button for 50 seconds to get there.

The architectural design is reminiscent of M.C. Esher artworks, which is fine. But the art style – especially for the characters … I guess it's not my taste.

The esotheric music doesn't help either. It's not quite a theremin instrument, but the soundtrack sounds like that sort of soundscape.

I don't have many things to say about this game. 4.o / 1o.o

It's sudoku! Everybody knows sudoku: a logical number-based puzzle game where the goal is to have the digits 1 to 9 occur once and only once in each row, column and 3×3 block.

“Sudoku Universe” might not be the most riveting game ever, but it serves that sudoku itch quite well. With dozens of levels categorized by difficulty, there are likely a few challenges for everyone. I dread the day when I reach the higher levels where it will be too difficult for me to continue. And if that's not enough, you can even customize the degree of visual aids, instant feedback for mistakes and such.

The controls are quite intuitive with the mouse-clicking and number-typing. In addition, you can write small numbers with SHIFT as a note. There are also the obvious features like Undo, Redo, Reset.

The canvas is usually bright and colorful, with plenty of contrast, as it randomly picks from and alternates between predefined color schemes. This generally helps keep the canvas visually interesting.

The acoustic guitar in the background does its part to make the "stressful" logic detective work a nice and mellow experience. Whenever I've had enough puzzling and quit the game, I feel a tiny bit bad for interrupting the pleasant music. One might even feel inclined to simply have this game running in the background just for the dreamy tunes.

7.o / 1o.o

(I've beaten at least 20 sets at this point.)

“LYNE” is a logic-based abstract puzzle game where you draw color-coded lines through nodes.

With the simple but elegant visual aesthetics provided by the flat colors and spacious canvas, as well as a soundscape that consists of merely a gong and a pan flute, there is little to distract players from the gameplay, resulting in a nice mellow experience.

The controls are as intuitive as they can get, allowing to stop and resume the drawing of the lines, redo parts of or a whole line, and even switch colors in-between. This makes modifying a previous line to include that one node fairly easy.

The difficulty rises moderately as new node types are introduced, and it gets a bit daunting by the time the four-point cross-section nodes come into play. But with mere practice the difficulty seems to quickly decrease considerably, such that it becomes less trial-and-error and more actual planning and partially seeing the paths and loops.

Furthermore, the daily puzzles provide a randomized challenge, ranging from easy to "haven't even unlocked that yet" difficulty levels.

I think it's a great game to pass the time or engage your brain in light logic exercises. But it's nothing particularly deep, and playing too many levels in succession can get a bit boring.

7.o / 1o.o

(I've played all three early-access ones of supposedly eight chapters.)

“FoxTail” is a click-n-did-you-point adventure game that warms your heart with its beautiful pixel art and very charming world design.

The pace is slow, and the plot revolves around – not an alien conspiracy, not a zombie pirate, not a murder mystery, but – young Leah visiting her grandmother during a vacation. And the heartfelt memories of the grandfather who left the adolescent fox his diary. How lovely.

The puzzles so far are all fair and manageable. Nothing as aggravating as a pixel hunt or inexplicable solution. One might get stuck but can figure it out eventually if you do the ol' "talk to everyone and try everything with everything". And some puzzles feature multiple solutions, too. Plus, the diary helps keep track of the story and goals.

There's one recurring mechanic that I found rather interesting, which is that there are spendable items – but there's an endless supply of them. So nice. Granted, this causes a little bit of running back and forth to get more … but I feel like the traversal helps you think about the puzzles. To counteract the hording and permutation explosion, Leah throws away items that become irrelevant at the beginning of each chapter.

Speaking of chapters: the third one is all about music, and the devs went out of their way to make it as accessible as possible. Colors, symbols, position. Which is good. Even if (you think) you are not good at music; even if you're color blind – you can still beat this chapter. Kudos!

I must say, I am left wanting more. I would rate higher if the game was more complete, but for something this short, I reckon it's a good score.

[]

Atrocious game design from the ~~mid 90's~~ (I stand corrected: mid noughties, actually; feels like mid 90's). Dated graphics with lots of interesting brown tones. Unrelatable summer camp backdrop. Annoying children in the focus. Horrible controls in the default Steam controller config (which admittedly is not the game's fault). Laggy animations (which could maybe stem from a too slow laptop, and therefore admittedly is not the game's fault either). Overwhelming amount of immersion breaking popups. Early militarism of young innocent minds. Boring and too many cutscenes.

I understand that a lot of people love it but … it's just not for me.

2/10 — Let's uninstall and play something else.

"Collisions" is a physics-based puzzle game that reminds me of Limbo and The Incredible Machine. You have to bring the ball to the exit in ~5o levels (I didn't really count). I like the optional harder difficulty via the "find the bonus stages" and "complete without a mistake" challenges.

You can easily complete the game in a day. Not sure about the achievements, though … they are weird. For instance, many achievements are tied to this odd unlockable in-game calendar where dates can only be "entered" by spinning a single wheel (which takes forever), let alone, knowing what to set the calendar to requires outside knowledge – which is just bad game design. Nothing about these dates is mentioned in the game, bar from the achievements screen. And even then, most people have to go to Wikipedia or the game's discussion boards.

You control everything about the gameplay with the mouse, even though keyboard controls would sometimes make more sense; i.e. a lack of left and right SHIFT keys in the pinball mini-game is a clearly missed opportunity.

Indeed, there are a handful of unlockable mini-games which don't have anything to do with the main game – like, pinball or killing ants, or playing with an oscillator. I don't really like these because they are so vastly different … what a drastic turn. The main game should have been longer instead, imo. This feels like I paid for a mini-game collection which was falsely advertised.

A lot, in general, isn't really communicated well – or at all – to the player. Oddly enough, the puzzles of the main game don't have that problem. These are rather problems with the meta controls, or the mini-games. Some examples:

- There are hidden keyboard controls [R] for restarting a level (which I only discovered late) and [‹—] and [—›] arrows for navigating to the previous / next level.

- There's a sound cue when the game considers a level as failed – which is good – but a stronger visual differentiation between "level clear" and "level still has open challenges" states would be nice; white border vs. gray border is too subtle and will only be noticed by keen observers.

- In the calendar, what do the many symbols mean? Which ring stands for what? Why does the red arrow not move? What exactly do you have to do once you have "set" a date?

- How does the ant mini-game work? Or the one with the triangle and plus symbols? (That last one was too obscure for me, I didn't even bother)

As I described, some of those things I eventually figured out on my own. But the remaining mysteries are too confusing and off-putting for me to spend any more time with "Collisions".

Overall: the game's good but it's short and could have been designed better. Still, better than garbage.

6.o/1o.o

"The Room Two" is a short first-person puzzle game where boxes are often just as mysterious as the table they're standing on.

The puzzles are not as intriguing as in the first game. And … did the first one have horror elements? I don't remember that part at all.

The puzzle solving in this game feels like a script-heavy on-rails action campaign in a first-person shooter does. Hand-holding. You get an item that has a unique shape and you put it in the obvious place that has a matching unique hole. If that wasn't enough, the contraptions and boxes are locked in such a way that there is no other way *but* to solve them linearly.

Which is fine, I guess. But I'd just like to know *why* I'm trying to repair this crossbow. The Why of these puzzles isn't established well. Oftentimes I wasn't even sure what my end goal for a level was.

The game tries to have *some* lore via letters scattered throughout, but the mentioned characters and events are all mentioned only once when they're introduced, with all *new* characters and events in each level, and thus, have neither a relation to one another, nor meaning to the player.

Mystical black doors appearing out of nowhere only further underlines that there is no direction of the player. Other than the linearity of the puzzles, of course.

Meh, play the first one. Skip the second one.

5.5/1o.o

In "TorqueL" you control a man in a square in a 2D platformer environment.

The design is very minimalistic, but not necessarily in a good way. It feels like dev art, honestly; not like "Hero Core"-style well-done minimalism that still looks pleasant.

The controls are … just bad. You have four colored buttons and four faces of the square; pressing the respective button extends the side into a pillar. A modification that helps you reach high places and traverse pits of lava. But you're also rotating the square – and thus, those faces as well – as you move forward, so you never know when "up" / yellow is down or right or what. The devs should have considered absolute directions rather than relative ones, to give the player more control, and thus, more fun.

I think this game is unplayable because succeeding is based on luck, not skill. If there is any finesse about, I dunno, shifting weight or propelling oneself, then those techniques are definitely not tutorialized well.

It's probably fun as a party game when everybody is drunk and in loss of control anyway.

The chiptune music is kinda nice.

3.5/1o.o