Recent reviews by duck-mon

TLDR:
Honestly an interesting concept but Peglin so far lacks substance and you can pretty much experience the whole game within one playthrough, two if you decide to do "Cruciball". I'm sure there's more to come since its EA, but 20$ is a lot for a game you can clear way before Steam's refund policy comes around.

Review:
Peglin plays basically like Peggle, but utilizing RPG mechanics over normal points and score multipliers. Artifacts and orbs work similar to Slay the Spire's artifacts and cards respectively. Artifacts will enhance, or cripple, your orbs with additional effects and mechanics, while different orbs will act and behave differently. There's random events, elites, and at the end of every level is a boss. There's only 3 levels and each level takes about 15-30 minutes depending on your decisions during your run. There's not that many synergies in my opinion and some picks are basically must haves in order to deal with enemies later in the run, and some artifacts automatically place you at a disadvantage despite it having such a fun/funny interaction. However, those are issues that are bound to be solved through balancing later down the line. Unfortunately the game currently lacks a progression system that is seen in most "roguelike" games or a dossier/journal to track what you've discovered (artifacts, orbs, monsters, bosses), so there's really no replayability. The average run goes through most of the game and since it only lasts around 1-1/2 hours you have an opportunity to refund if the game left you unsatisfied.

Some bugs/issues I noticed with the physics engine is how inconsistent the ball/orb moves around the pegboard. There are times where duplicate shots don't travel the same route. I'd also appreciate being able to skip the map transition animations and speed up enemy turns as it contributes to a lot of unnecessary idle time.

All in all I believe the game has potential to be loved like how Peggle is but needs a little bit more substance and polishing to make it there. Heck, introducing a steam workshop/mod support while the main game gets updated would keep me satisfied until full release. However, charging 20$ is asking a lot for a game that a casual player can finish in about an hour. I wish I could give the game a mixed review but I decided to not recommend now due to the price model. Just wait for the next sale and by then the game will be worth the price tag.


Only reason why I have almost 18 hours is because I fell asleep on my keyboard waiting for enemies to make their turn lol.

Fun game to play while relaxing. Slow-mo and camera ability allows for nice shots

DRG (Deep Rock Galactic) at it's core is a nice concept and one that I am very fond of. However, currently the game is way too linear for me to enjoy. After playing a couple hours with my friends I've decided to refund the game because of the lack of content the game contains. There's 4 classes with their unique gear and abilities. That's it. There's no alternate weapons for different playstyles or many interesting upgrades to the weapons themselves. Its 4 weapons/tools on your hotkeys, a grenade, and armor. There's perks and upgrades but are either boring and meaningless like: a double barrel shotgun have an extra 3.5 ROF or a legitimate upgrade locked by some scarce rare mineral. Terraforming was pretty buggy as there's no actual block model that's destroyed. I was often stuck in tunnels because of some magical piece of dirt. Combat was ok, very linear but using certain utility tools can spice it up; grappling around terrain or onto enemies with the Scout's dbl barrel was pretty fun. Enemy variety is okay. There's alot of types but I feel like they were all introduced too quickly so they easily became the norm.
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TL:DR
Pros-
Gunplay (It was pretty smooth and it isn't just hitscan)
Perks (Adds some customization but can only equip 4 at a time)
Visuals (Art style reminded me off the Borderlands series)
Level Design (Wasn't many bugs with the procedural generation)

Cons-
Limited gear variety (Can't stand grinding for stuff if it's just meaningless upgrades for the same bland weapon.
And some weapons in some classes I'd like to never use but it's default.)
Enemies (You seem to encounter mostly every type right off the bat, got really repetitive really quick)
Terraforming (I loved being hunted down but couldn't move because there's a pixel of dirt in my way.)
Ammo Limitations (I like mining up excess Nitra to have it flushed away after missions and suddenly get a map where there's 100 enemies per 60 Nitra. At least give me a better melee than a pickaxe)
Upgrades (Some classes have godlike upgrades, while classes like the Scout make you want to just melee the whole time)
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Since it's early access I'm willing to come back but it'll have to be after some content updates. Hopefully classes will have multiple options to pick from or possibly a mmorpg-like weapons variance system; something similar to Borderlands.

ICEY is a fun and challenging game with great visuals and animations. ICEY follows an android and a Stanley Parable-like narrator who occasionally interjects in sake of story. In general I loved the game, but the reason why I do not recommend this game is due to its story. ICEY's story is very linear and fixed, having our protaganist find "Judas". The narrator guiding us onto the "right path". But that's basically it. Despite the game's description gives the idea of questioning the story's path or exploring new routes, you really aren't rewarded for doing so. Many of these side routes and "easter eggs" lead to a end screen and loss of progress. You recieve nothing for exploring maps and it becomes a waste of effort and time. As someone who was led into the game due to the butterfly effect-like mechanic of the game I was very disappointed when I was penalized for trying to explore.

The narration was very unnecessary, it was poorly timed and tried very hard to guilt trip you for deciding to do something, or in some cases, not do something. In one case I was forced to main screen due to not killing a non-combatant, losing 20 minutes of gameplay. Understanding that it's the result for not following the storyline, it's just that they never gave me a motive to kill said character; all they said was that she's Judas's associate.

TL;DR The game's mecahnics were fun loved the comboing and the fluidness of the animations and attacks, but the premise and story of the game were very contradicting and led to unintentional pondering about the story itself. Infuriating forced end game screens with lack of reward paired with bad level designs and checkpoints made the game very unenjoyable. I'd recommend to those for mechanics but not for story.