Recent reviews by TurtleSwift

Cocoon is an adventure puzzle game focused on atmosphere and gameplay. There is no text, no spoken words, just you and your controller. There's hardly even a menu.

It manages to tell its story through locations and actions rather than the traditional method of text or voice. Though it does rely on the players imagination to fill in the gaps. It is a novel approach to storytelling that doesn't fall flat thanks to the ambience and mood of every scene set by the music and artistic setpieces. The fantastic background music paints you as a small cog in the machine with deep, low, and echoing tones giving a sense of scale while short and sweet pitched effects provide feedback when progressing through areas or solving a puzzle correctly. Visually, the game is presented in appealing colors with not too much detail in texture but rather uses high-contrast pastel solid colors, which reminded me of Wii era Nintendo games or TF2 even. Warm orange rocks and canyons, luscious green water-flooded forests, dark and grey tech landscapes... You are a bug finding your way in the big and scary world.

Gameplay wise, it is a puzzle game at heart. There isn't much in the repertoire of abilities except for movement and the good old 'use' button. The puzzles are the environment blocking your path forward. It is quite similar to games like INSIDE. Which coincidentally is something I've been reminded of every step through playing the game. The atmosphere, the gameplay, the music... no wonder, COCOON comes from the same gameplay designer!

I have very few negative things to say about COCOON. Its short. It ends just as the puzzles start getting recursive and gradually require more brain power to process, thereby increasing the pleasure of solving them. On the other hand, the ambiguous and abstract nature of the world could get tiresome, and the end does come as a sweet conclusion.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3118572305
I enjoyed my time with COCOON. It took about 5 hours to complete and should be a must-play for any fans of atmospheric puzzlers like LIMBO or INSIDE or for any entomophile.

Stacklands is a game about stacking cards. It is not a card game yet has everything to do with cards. Everything is a card and all of them can be stacked as a means of progression.

See a rock? That’s a card. See a villager? Card again. Stack them. Get some stone out of it. That stone? Yup, another card. Stack three stone and you got a block, which is a card. You get the idea. The basic formula is a tried and true one; villagers are workers and get fed once a day or die, resources get worked, farmed and improved, research is done and the game progresses. Oh no, what’s this? An evil witch has sent monsters to kill you? Kill them back, find out where they are coming from and prepare for a boss battle.

The formula works well and Stacklands doesn’t push any new boundaries there but manages to strike the perfect balance between survival, combat and growth. This makes the game easy to get into while packaging it in a card format makes it unique and interesting enough to keep one engaged.

Combat is simple and consists of turn based auto attacking by every card in the bout. No user input required. The meat of the game is resource management and growth anyway so keeping the focus away from micro managing combat is a good way to achieve that. Most of the time will be spent on making sure your villagers have enough to eat by the end of the day and securing enough resources to make the next big thig that will progress you further. Combat comes when progress is halted due to missing key components which can only be obtained through combat. Either you choose to fight or the fight comes to you eventually. Resource progression and advancement doesn’t get too deep which keeps the game short and sweet while the mystery of what’s to come keeps you plugged in and stacking cards.

Sokpop Collective have outdone themselves with this game. Their philosophy of making short games and pumping them out one by one with technical quality and a loving hand proves once again; while these games may not be as deep and lengthy as one hopes, especially when they are at the level of quality as Stacklands, it is reassuring to know we get to try more unique experiences than the collective 20 year output of a triple A studio.

Stacklands is great: fun, easy to pick up, unique and full of references. 10-15 hours to 100% for 4€, dare I even ask?

A few years ago, cookie clicker blew up milk and cookie chunks all over the internet. It got so popular; Valve made their own summer sale clicker game. Good times. This, is the original game that started it all, on steam. The original browser game is still available free online… this is pretty much the same game with a few benefits like steam achievements, cloud saves, steam workshop support and some chill ass music by C418. Runs better too.

The gist of it is clicking, getting cookies and spending them to buy things that click for you. Simple game really. Idle-mania galore. Its all neatly wrapped in a blanket of warm milk beneath the bosom of your grandmother’s teat. Allegorically, it offers a comparison for addiction and greed. The act of playing can become as addictive as sugar is, in the cookies we eat. Playing (or eating) is only met with more playing (and eating).

Deeper still, one’s greed in the game results in an interesting turn of events. One can either play the game by clicking just as a baker (worker) makes cookies. Or one can choose to employ grandmas to bake for them, as a sort of capitalist if you will. Your capital being cookies, naturally. After some time, one gets greedy, as all capitalists do, you employ more and more and bake more and more. One day, the workers realize you do verry little, yet take much more than them (class consciousness) and start turning against you. This is cartoonishly represented by worm-like beings from another dimension who eat at your ‘hard earned’ cookies. Only when this occurs, can you step in, squash the resistance and get your workers back in line. Ironically still, this produces more cookies as the other workers have now seen your disregard for life and now fear your repressive cookie regime. Will they rise up again? Will they overthrow you and sieze the means of production?

The price tag seems fair to relive some old memories, support the dev and enjoy some fine tunes. It’s a fun way to kill a few hours (or a few hundred). After playing, I got hungry. I’ll let you guess what I ate.

Image & Form Games releases a new title every few years to an audience that seems to be dwindling as of late. Their previous titles, Dig, Dig 2 and Heist (all bearing the SteamWorld marque) enjoyed higher praise but weren't necessarily better. I like how this developer chooses to keep the same kind of look and feel across all their products while producing a different game every time (apart from the well-justified sequel Dig 2). Manages to keep them fresh, technically sound and fun at the same time. It is a shame Quest was overlooked by its audience this time round as the former applies to this title just the same.

SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech takes the form of an adventure RPG with turn based battles using decks of cards. Your pick from the classic lineup of RPG characters determines how battles will play out. Warrior, assassin, high DPS/low HP mage, healer/buffer/tank… They're all there, and they all feel fun to play. Party members can be swapped out after each battle, so things don't get to dry. Building or modifying each character's deck is key to success with the larger boss battles towards the end of each chapter. Modification allows for character combos such as magnifying magical, or specific elemental, damage and having two characters do that type of damage… You know, the thing most games do. My favorite combo towards the end was having a character just heal and tank, one buffing my main with critical and a mage main. Progressing further also opens up opportunities for new cards, new combos and new card upgrades.
Card variety does leave something to be desired but for an entry card battler, I wouldn't look too deep into it. A small complaint here is how the game doesn't let you know just how much damage a character will be able to dish out before ending your turn. Each card clearly displays the expected damage based on how buffed the character is, but while throwing an extra power up card before a damage card will clearly up the hurt, you aren't told by how much. The UI doesn't help much either. In a game like this, I'd expect to be given the ability to check whether an enemy is immune to a certain damage type, but the given tools don't provide much info apart from what each icon means.
The damage system with all these cards and combos sounds like a complicated mess, but I'm very glad to say, each character can only have a deck of 8 cards. With three characters bringing your deck to 24 cards. This does make the game a lot more accessible to anyone wanting to try out a card battler while still staying true to the genre.

While the story leaves much to be desired, it feels good enough for what the game is. It's the classic good vs evil, heroes in a world of dragons and magic saving the world fantasy trope you hear all the time. True to their previous titles, the lighthearted humor is still there and the steampunk aesthetic is of course central to everything. The deck of cards you build? They are punch cards for steam driven machines! It works and I like that.

Technically, the game is excellent. I did not encounter any bugs from start to finish of my 19-ish hour play through. The game ends on a high note (the following is optional content, not the ending), giving you a final challenge of 7 consecutive boss battles in an arena. I got to the 6th, asked the audience whether they were entertained or not and stopped playing.

Quest is a fun game and an entry card battler. There are better ones out there but being fun to play, easy to start, it is a good choice for anyone looking to get into that. Since better (more difficult, more varied), and cheaper card games exist, I recommend getting it at a discount. But do get it when you can, a rainy weekend will be over much quicker when you do.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2492725322

Banished is getting on in years now with over 6 years since its release and just about as much since it’s last patch. Never the less, I still remember my playthrough of it all those eons ago. It is fair to say it has stuck with me as a competent, pocket sized, town builder.

The game focuses on the smaller village to town setting. Preferring to engage the player with its economy system. I would describe it as similar but more lightweight than Blue Byte’s The Settlers. Villagers are tasked with gathering resources like ore or wood, other villagers process it into usable materials and yet others refine it. Balancing the supply and demand of materials and resources can be tricky but feels rewarding when done right. In some ways It fells like you are THE invisible hand. The point here being… without going too into the meta of what the point of life is, to make everyone happy, allowing a healthy expansion of the town and being self-sufficient in the process.

The settlers, villagers have needs that need to be met or else they leave your paradise on earth. Makes me wonder, where are they going to go? Weren’t they banished from everywhere else? They get hungry, so farms or fishers need to be placed. They get sick so a hospital is needed. They even have the audacity to get cold during the winter. Every job needs a villager assigned to it. This adds more difficult to expanding the town and opening the gameplay up a bit more. The goal here is preventing hunger, disease, cold, pest infestations...

Though it can be difficult at first, the foremost important thing I found was expanding very slowly. Knowing exactly how many people your town can sustain is key.
Helped by a simple interface, the game does a good job at explaining what everything is and how it works. There is no monetary economy and very little trading is done. No combat is present, no diplomacy or politics. Only the people and the land. I think this is what makes Banished great. It is a simple game with enough depth to keep players engaged, has an easy barrier to entry and hooks right away with is steep difficulty that can be mastered swiftly once one uses their head.

The downside is the end game. Once you’ve built everything and have balanced the economy, there is little left to do other than achievement hunting. I’m not going to say it is shallow, but the end game does feel like a swimming pool you’ve outgrown. If you find it particularly fun and don’t mind starting over, the challenge is there to start with fewer resources or on different sized maps. I had fun with my time with Banished. I think the asking price is fair but considering the age and alternatives out there today, I’d buy it on a sale if you enjoy city builders / economy sims.

Mods are supported but active development has ceased.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=281760356

First and foremost, this is a puzzle game. If you don't enjoy puzzle games, you won't enjoy Portal Constructor: Bridged. There is more to do with bridge constructing then there is placing portals. Frankly, you don't get to place portals - ever. You have two tools at your disposal and they both revolve around constructing bridges so paper cutouts of enrichment center workers can drive forklifts around the facility while they contemplate on the story of Shenmue.

Second order of business: Portal. This game does a fantastic job at recreating the Portal atmosphere - the comedic side of it at least. They have the real Glados, companion cubes, turrets, orange goo, blue goo, models and sounds from Portal and sometimes... there's... should I even say it?... cake. Everything is all faithfully represented here.

Third times a charm: I found the game fun all throughout my playing. I did not finish it but completed about 75% of it in my 9 hours of playing. I felt this was enough to warrant a positive review and don't feel like playing anymore would change the experience much. Its good at what it does and lacks only some final polish. I felt like some tools were missing like the ability to remove a whole section of a bridge. In later levels you are required to create very large bridges and when you eventually find out its not going to work, you need to go double clicking on every section to remove it. It gets tedious but I guess I'm just nitpicking..

Fourth and final warning: Puzzle fans only will enjoy this faithfully themed Portal game. The price is right and the product delivers. Glados runs a tight ship.

SteamWorld Dig 2 is a game where you dig. Can you dig it? Don't worry, it's not as cringe as I'm trying to be right now. If you've ever played the first game, I'm happy to report the sequel is more of the same without becoming boring or trying something new to appease the hip new crowds and widen its demographic. The recipe works, hopefully they won't beat that horse too much.

So, basically you play a cowboy robot stuck in a wild western town that has trouble coming its way. Now you get to dig down, collect gems, sell said gems, upgrade your gear and dig some more. Sometimes you will find gears that help you upgrade some more stuff and sometimes you will bump into evil creatures that lurk deep in the depths of the massive hole you've dug yourself into. These provide some simple combat with enemy variety being in the lower digits but the game isn't that long, so I'll give it a pass. The monotony of digging is also broken down with smaller challenge levels offering environmental puzzles and rewarding with upgradable gear and collectibles.

That's generally all there is to it. The main loop consists of dig to collect gems > return to town to sell & upgrade > return to digging. It's a simple formula that works well. It feels fun, the controls feel right and on point, visuals are sharp and colorful. The game world is open (limited to gear level) and the environments in it are diverse enough to not feel monotone. Levels designed to hide secrets that either offer gear upgrades or a secondary objective of finding collectibles - and a reward that goes beyond the overdone collect X items achievement.

I liked SteamWorld Dig 2. It's a sit back, relax kind of game. Plays wonderfully well on a controller, looks great and took me ~11 hours to beat.

In a dark hangar they stood, the three soldiers of time. Saying goodbye to what they hold dear to their hearts. For the day after, they will be gone. Gone from space, but not from time. Armed with powerful mechs, only they can prevent humanity's demise. Hold on for dear life and fight to the very last end, for you are humanity's last hope. Push on hard into the breach!

Ok, the game is not as corny as that, sorry. Into the breach is a turn-based combat game in which you control three powerful mechs with different abilities to defeat waves of enemies.
This is not your traditional turn based strategy mind you. The battles take place on small maps in a few rounds and are usually over under 5 minutes. Battles are connected in a series after which comes a boss battle. Win enough boss battles and go for the end game boss. After each battle you get to pick the map you will fight on next, which allows you to plan on the resources you will be fighting for in the battle. Said resources allow you to upgrade your mechs. I feel like this mechanic is used well here. The short battles do feel more like something you'd expect on a mobile platform. It is a far cry from the 40+ min dota games or even the 15+ min xcom battles. But it feels right. Battles never feel like they've overstayed their welcome. Environments change rapidly and each presents its own set of challenges. Smaller maps mean you do have the overview of the whole playing field and can explore every possible angle of attack. All moves are shown before you commit to an attack so you know exactly how each turn is gonna go down beforehand.

Mechs are presented as sets of a squad. Each of which has three mechs - usually one support, one ranged and one tank. There are 8 (+1 secret) squads available with each having its own play style. This is what gives the gameplay its flavor. Some focus on brute force kinetic energy destruction, some on disabling the enemies, some on pushing them out of harms way - or into harms way!

And yes, a passive play through is possible! Enemies come in similar colors, but usually focus on destruction - either of you or other objectives or buildings you are there to protect.
I don't want to make the comparison with FTL because it is a vastly different game and Into the breach is generally shorter with less replayability as well. The soul is there but it is embodied by a whole different game entirely. Into the breach relies on achievements as challenges to unlock different squads. This creates a circular dependency chain in which you 1. play the game - 2. earn achievements (beat challenges) - 3. unlock squads to play the game differently.

So how does it play? Like I said, the characters are the gameplay. Each presents its own restrictions and solutions to each problem. I've rarely encountered a problematic battle I couldn't solve - It happens, but if it does, Its usually your own fault. A little bit of logical thinking goes a long way.

Into the breach is a fun little gem. It took me 36 hours to complete 100% (though this time includes a lot of time wasting just to have some fun). This doesn't mean the game is this long, A full playthrough can be done in usually 30 minutes to an hour if you take your time. If you like turn based combat where thinking and planing out your moves is actually beneficial give this a shot. Its one of the best games to come out of 2018.

Shadwen is a 3rd person stealth game taking place in a medieval town in which you play the role of... well Shadwen, a female assassin tasked with getting a little girl out of there because she stole an apple. Ehh.. the story is a little lackluster and doesn't make very much sense. At least the gameplay is good right? Well, sort of. Graphics are good though.

There's a lot wrong with Shadwen (the game, not the girl). The art assets well reflect a medieval town drenched in rain and darkness with facades and town rooves matching the fairy tale like time period. But the setting is overused and uninspiring. Level after level feels like you are walking down the same cobblestone corridors, seeing the same crates and barrels and bathing in the same moonlight blue glow mixing with orange from fires lit to keep the town guards warm. The gameplay consists of hiding and if you want, killing guards. Shadwen uses a grappling hook to ascent onto ledges from which she can traverse most of the levels fairly quickly. The use of this mechanic is simple but is not without its hindrances. I found myself jumping over ledges instead of just grappling onto them more times than I'd like and I'd attribute this to just bad control design. The game does make this not much of a nuisance by freezing time when you aren't moving. When you jump, for instance. you stay frozen mid air and only make time move forward by pressing a certain button or making another action. In addition to this you are able to move time backwards indefinitely. Not as any powers Shadwen may posses but just as a godlike game mechanic. I think it fits well with the assassin like gameplay. So as mentioned before, guards are the enemies and you can either kill or distract them so your apple stealing thief friend can move past them. I found the lethal method to be the most fun and dynamic. You are given certain tools you can craft by finding items in levels and most of these tools are lethal ones like bombs, mines and poison darts. The non lethal one is basically just a mouse under a bucket let go to distract the guards. And even that one can be used to stick a bomb to it. It feels like the lethal approach was designed first in mind with the non lethal a distant second. Killing is done by one hitting guards in the back on close range and failing is done by being seen by other guards.

Making heavy use of gravitational physics and fairy tale like English accent (and setting), the game certainly has tokens of that Frozenbyte flair. Surmising, I can say Shadwen is a fun game but lacks any real depth in any of its gameplay mechanics or story. Albeit overused, it does feel esthetically pleasing. It took me 6 hours to beat once (lethal). I would recommend it at a reduced price so if you like assassin games, there is some fun to be had here, just don't set your hopes up too high.

There's something about Undertale... something one cannot ignore or forget. Indeed the community has been vocal about this particular title, putting John Lennon's immortal words of being bigger than Jesus to shame. Sorry John, Undertale now ranks above the lord. But just to put it back on solid ground: it is just a game with just a little out of hand fan base. Still an unforgettable experience mind you.

I will not go into much detail about what makes Undertale... Undertale, but a summation would boil it down to fantastic 8bit music, quirky lovable characters and the range of emotions it is capable of invoking in you. Gameplay consists of linear exploration of a 2D top down world, interacting with characters and battling it out (or not) in short bullet hell combat sequences. Writing is comedic most of the time, drawing influence from internet culture, but can be serious or more relaxed when there is call for it. The excellent background music fits each character interaction well and tonality of the situation and the character can be sensed from the music alone. Even before a new character says anything, the music playing will tell you their intentions. Visually the game may feel a little behind at times but you will be moving through the world at a steady pace, nothing will feel repetitive. The great thing about Undertale is that every interaction feels unique. You move to new locations with different climates portrayed in with different colors, meeting different characters with different traits, battling different ways and doing different things all while listening to different music. It doesn't get old. An impressive feat for an one man developer to achieve.

I'd recommend this game to anyone with just a little bit of an open mind. The music is great and you can expect internet culture referenced humor with a bit of an anime flair to it. Combat optional but bullet hell based. I did only one playthrough in six hours but apparently the more you do, the more you will love the game. I'd say ignore the fandom and judge the game for what it is. A high quality experience at an affordable price. And yes, expect the soundtrack to be making top ten lists for a while.