Recent reviews by kieran

35 minutes of trying everyone's different random 'fixes'

then i found my own random fix

and then it still didn't work, bad cfg implementation, bad settings, bad ux,

also, non adjustable split axis sens by default lmao

is good, easy to lose hours to

music's wonderful too

cosy game with an interesting narrative approach, while also allowing you to fill your own gaps, be creative, find some zen
8.5/10

music/animation/art in general are highpoints- 8 (distant sprite scaling has some quirks, especially at high res)
ambience/audio is p good - 6
voice acting is decent for the most part, Thomasina feels flat pretty quickly by comparison to a lot of the others, which is unfortunate given whose voice you hear for the most of the game. - 7

story started out meaning well and fell on it's face, and it's probably the biggest detractor, and the main reason i can't recommend. the intrigue dies off a bit due to a lot of direct exposition that kills the tension. a few key points that just seem to go nowhere; dead leads are one thing, but having no dialogue with characters that are directly involved makes it feel forgotten/unfinished in some cases (one example, the cobbler's wife.

the "illusion of choice" dialogues could be handled better, a lot of 'immediate' turnarounds. could do with some parallel sequences just to add a bit more weight to trying to/committing to a choice, before it gets reigned back in.

no agbs/pixel hunting is good, but the 'puzzles' were pretty lacking, early on the sequence felt obvious or handed to you at times, more like a VN (not necessarily a problem, it's a marmite situation, or held up against expectation etc.)

not sure if the ending sequence was an homage to old broken sword-y puzzle-dungeoning, but having the majority of the solutions handed to you felt a bit goofy, but i was already mentally checked out by then so, bit of a boon

overall by the end I just felt very underwhelmed and unsatisfied by it. okay for the first couple hours but didn't use it's potential, and choked on it's exposition. a good art piece, though. appreciated the accents.

probs a 3-4 final score

except herbert 10/10 would pet regardless of what he eats.

tl;dr: very pretty - designed to please the senses, but the 'exploration' tag is a cruel joke for a game that doesn't reward (some should as 'actively punishes') exploration, and the "gameplay loop" (if you can call it as such) is boring to the point where any desire to replay to go through the few different endings via the very few binary choice points is drained out of me.

there are better games predating this, that it feels like SH leans very heavily on, which get less attention, and less praise for doing -the same thing- better. If it's a coincidence, so be it. But if the 'alchemy' isn't a simpler, reduced version of potion craft's, i'll be damned.

pros;
nice design (clearly a large proportion of the total effort went into it),
some of the "card" puzzles were fun/esoteric.
the purring cat sound is very cathartic.

big list of cons;

could be and should be so much more, a good 30-40% of playtime felt like faffing just trying to LOOK for more to do, outside of watering plants. maybe 10% petting the cat,

no real incentive/reward for general exploration, as in something akin to Potion Craft (would recommend instead for a more gameplay focused experience with a similar idea; some parallels, is one of the many 'shopkeeper' games coming out over the last couple of years) combined with lacklustre map puzzle hints + the plant watering mechanic didn't really make for totally cohesive gameplay.

It just didn't feel like there was a satisfying gameplay loop, given how repetitive your tasks are. The post-credits where you go back and identify the rest of the plants that you've gathered and literally done *nothing with* felt like a cop-out.

I did play this before the update that had checkmarks for identified plants (which felt like a necessary feature, though I did just end up labelling everything anyway) but some of the UI detail felt a little unnecessary, as though features were intended and either never implemented, or because it was a good idea on paper. Things like the notes archive, and sorting, some of the tool snapping, and map navigation felt a bit clumsy etc.

Expansion of things like the invisible ink lens for fun stuff/easter eggs/hints/secrets whatever would be good.

The major story 'choice' points felt very binary, and are very few in nature, there's not a whole lot of deviation from the rails or fun things you can do with "wrong" plants. Given the earlier point about post-ending, the story does feel like it throws a lot at you towards the end, both in terms of the sheer number of plants you just seem to accumulate (and not use) and the fact the final few main events just seem to happen in quick succession after quite a lull.

cliche af, shock horror/body horror/almost hr giger-esque presentation. don't get me wrong the art is pretty cool, abe goldfarb does a pretty nice job too.
but the story sucks, metaphors suck, the entire ride sucks, and the excessive amount of time padding almost made me not come back to this game.

the "puzzles" are lazy
the stupid word play is lazy
the "story" is so painfully phoned in
and maybe it was part of the process but the repetition, false leads, and pixel hunting definitely don't add some metaphorical edge to the game. if it wasn't trying so hard to be weird, i'd just brush it off as classic AGBS

it has an option to have foreshadowing and references made pointed out to you, recommended for a second playthrough, and an apparent choice system, but honestly it fell so flat I'm not close to considering playing it again.

oh and the tutorial saying that all the information will be present, and given to you at any time so you don't have to remember anything? big fat lie.

tldr it's dark and edgy in a boring, phoned in, almost smug/masturbatory way, like a teenager wearing tight jeans writing song lyrics and that analogy spreads to the story, subject matter, written dialogue.
to quote the scribe; "there is nothing new under the sun"

post-script edit;

I appreciate the dev response, and I want to be transparent in that I'm really not trying to be harsh, but I will concede that this was written soon after the first playthrough, and came from a place of disappointment having loved all of the wadjet eye games I've played. I thought it would be better if I added some more refined thoughts:

There are plenty of positives to this game, as i mentioned the art, but the sound design, the voice acting, etc. also. it's a very aesthetic game, and it shows. Even looking past the aesthetic and metaphoric tropes, the game part falls down hard imo. It's hard to give specifics without directly giving spoilers, and I'm not down for that, even marked up. Lets just say pacing and timing need work. some of the uncontrollable delays just felt tedious. along with some more thought to ag stuff, puzzles etc. For such an esoteric and abstract setting, the old combining inventory things and using items was surprisingly common garden and mundane in a lot of ways. Even some of the more imaginative sections are squandered by the game immediately spoonfeeding you the solution or making itself very apparent.

Without trying to go too far onto a tangent, i may also be biased by a personal gripe i have with some of the themes and ideas approached by not just this game, in that as someone who suffers with such an antagonist, there's always some disconnect and discomfort when it comes to handling the parallels and differences expressed and abstracted by someone else. It can make going through games like this more effort than it should be.

Finally, I don't want anyone to be sorry or ashamed for what they've made here, there are plenty of great, positive reviews, and a lot of people are happy with the game as a whole. There's good work in there, honest. But personally I just can't recommend it.

craig said its good

the guy who makes it has a real good sense for good/fun/synergistic playstyles, and it really shows with the chars/items.

is good ♥♥♥♥. definitely the proper way to do a sequel to the original, and take it to 3d.

When someone says to you, battle royale based on mini games, you'd expect there to be a focus on mini games and gameplay; instead we get a focus on aesthetics, season passes, and cosmetic microtransactions, with a lack of imagination when it comes to minigames where the same few gimmicks are stretched over a single, or (very) few, maps at most.

Definitely not worth the asking price.

Pretty well featured for an early access game, and I haven't even breached every aspect of it yet, such as prisoner management, wars/ceasefires, additional ships/fleet management or visited many star systems. So far I've been enjoying it a fair bit.

However it is an early access game, and as such there are very demoralising, save breaking bugs, such as causing random irreparable holes to spontaneously appear in your ship, in every save/autosave within a slot. There are also the obvious systematic balance tweaks that need to be made. The material economy and requirements for manufacture are a little screwy still, and a lot of ships tend to be trading high end materials that don't seem to have any real use yet.