Recent reviews by Guren

It may be free, but at what cost to you? Halo is adopting business pratices in the worst of ways.

Experience to level up an Event Tree or battle pass only comes from constant grinding of missions. Limited missions to complete means you are encouraged to spend real money on fake currency so you can bolster your exp to get cosmetic items.
Killing spree...Bull True... if you helped your team complete a big objective ... none of it matters. Your performance in the game doesn't affect how you rank up. As if 'ranking up' meant anything but getting more cosmetics that are behind a locked experience wall that you can only pay to get past.

That being said. It was alot of fun at first until you can't ignore the limitations and zero room for growth.
Players when playing any public or ranked matches are forced into a "playlist" selection which means you constantly either have to repeat game modes or leave the game. I ended up leaving a few matches because i got tired of fiesta, teams playing badly at oddball, or just had a mission to do that was specific to a match type that you can't pick and must win at. Ended up temp banned without the ability to requeue for the rest of the day with the message "user is banned" at the bottom. Funny considering at first I was having a good amount of fun so the day before i had bought in to support a bit. Not so much anymore. To me I enjoyed campaign before, can't see what thats like so review could change.

Currently this is the most if this is all that they have to offer while in 'beta'. Can't recommend it getting roped in.

Amazing Piece of Art. Can't say enough about it. Good Vibes, great tracks, fun stages. You can even put on warning lights.

It's $2.00 normal price and 99c on sale. Why are you still reading this. Buy it , and for your friends.

Aliens, with guns.

Tl;dr : Do NOT Purchase this game. Short term thrills bridled with hacking, developer greed, performance issues, bots, poor match making, and a dying player base.
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Let’s start off with some key benefits of the game. PUBG long ago took the world by storm with a battle royale that offered many desirable traits; comradery, teamwork, heart pounding action, frustration, etc. The PUBG experience had a lot to offer. In the player reviews many players have played hundreds if not thousands of hours, and return seeking that enjoyment they once had. Sad to say it isn’t there anymore.

Cheating. There is a large population of players who purchase or create hacks. Cheating is prevalent and exists in several forms. There have been efforts to help decrease this, but with multi region game play and focus on profit first it still exists and is widespread. About every 3 games, I encounter a player hacking. The reports are also broken to where you cannot even view the Death Cam if the cheating player knocks you and you die to something else (bleed out, explosion, 3rd party, etc). If that wasn’t enough I have seen clear hacking get a handslapped with a temp ban of 7 days.

Monetization. The PUBG Corp. who is backed by the South Korean company BlueHole has continuously made efforts to prioritize profits over the playability of the game. Let’s start here by saying you can exceed the purchase of the game with the battlepass, and cosmetics that are constantly pushed onto the player. There’s a feeling of encouragement of Experience Points increasing that is locked into a battle pass. I can understand a subscription like service to keep a fledgling game alive , but PUBG is not without a lack of funding. In 2017 they made over $700 according to PCGamesN article. Additionally, there is a plethora of free advertising from community driven content on Youtube and Twitch. For those content creators though they are also seeking to jump on the money train and do not highlight the some of the core issues of the game. The over complicated main menu is even designed in such a way to keep you in the game and feel rewarded for reaching goal lines that are further supplemented by the battle pass. In many games EXP points are a way to ‘level up’ and become a better character. Bluehole uses XP to inflate the player experience and continue to encourage loot crates , keys, cosmetics, battle passes, and every deplorable money making scheme. While all still being behind a paywall. You still have to purchase the game for $29.99 and then be bombarded by the same profit tactics that a F2P game uses.

Toxcity, Solo queuing, and bans. Team building focused enough in the development in the game. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw controlled parachuting, but then was quickly reminded that regardless of the team tools offered to the player, they aren’t used unless they can be rewarded. You play with a team to help you beat the odds and gain victory. However this is offset by players queued together who will setup other teammates for any selective definition of ‘griefing’. I’ve watched one of my teammates shoot another of my team for a gun that he didn’t get to quick enough, take the gun, and then report the killed teammate for griefing. Then other cases where teammates will deliberately run into friendly fire, and crawl away from revive, so they can report later and be rewarded by their indirect banning of another player.

Bots. In a recent update there was the silent addition of bots to the game. These bots have poor movement, accuracy, tracking, target identification, etc. Now these bots are not strictly labeled or have something like a dunce cap or “BOT” in the player name that they are indeed a non-player. Gaining kills give you an artificial simulation of a kill that releases dopamine. You feel good, rewarded, and you have not died in a ditch somewhere by circumstances out of your control after looting for 40 minutes. So it seems like a positive change, but the thrill wears quickly, and even forces you to reveal player position and misjudge true player targets. Not to mention this artificial stimulation is not what helps the game to be rewarding. Battle Royale is a test of skill and good fortune in combating enemy players. Players, not bots. Additionally, why are bots not used in matchmaking where you are squaded with replacement players until someone can fill the role. Bots are an independent party designed to run into trees and shoot at the sky. Now we will get plenty of advertised communication surrounding new events, cosmetics, battle pass etc, but not so much around bots. Many new and returning players are not even aware of the change, because they are deceptively integrated in player names and cosmetics so you believe they are players. Why is it such a problem over a mechanic used in many games? The reason comes from a far more pressing issue for the game. Player count.

Previously the player count totaled an outstanding 3,092, 549 Players in DEC2017 and then has been decreasing over the last 3 years by over 80 % to what is now 506,989 Players in JUN2020 (https://steamdb.info/app/578080/graphs ) . So what happened? Well a lot.. In podcasts they go into detail about the significant tracking of the player experience, so why hasn’t it improved for the better? Primarily there were options and competition. Players begin to see the writing on the wall when they have BR they can play that follows the same BR format. Let’s face it PUBG is a dying game that the developers clearly hold a higher regard for profit than they do the experience of the game.

[tl;dr] do not install ...don't buy ASF games. Not recommended. Bait and switch by developer.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~UPDATED REVIEW 4/18/2020~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Release Date 4/16/2020 - Release date and announcement .
Server Issues 4/17/2020 - ASF announces struggles and changes
Patch Date 4/18/2020 - Decreased Chances to 5% Drop rate of promised game
End of Giveaway 4/18/2020 (3 hours after patch) - Developer announces end of giveway
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Cryano story is a puzzle based 'game' as a prelude into other games dveloped by ASF. There are hidden object games and more of "stories" than games that perform this well. However this is not one of them. Many were enticed by the developers to play this game on the pretext that if they play it long enough they would be rewarded with a steam key for a better game for Moons of Madness. This is not true. In fact the developers have built in drop tables that they decided to lessen the chances on, because they did not like how it was going.

Patch Date 4/18/2020 - Decreased Chances to 5% Drop rate of promised game
|| We ran a new patch including the following changes to the drop system. In the last hours, we registered more than 18 000 speed runs! To be sure keys are left for players of the ARG, we have added a restriction of 1 chance per account.However, for anyone who just joined today, we added more games to the drop table. ||

Your input results are logged to an outside service for Google AI so the developers can scrape feedback as part of an 'experimental' run. Check your data going out and your google search results. Something the developer is not honest in advertising on their steam store page.
|| This PARG is our first experiment with Google A.I. and is the most advanced game we have created to date. The A.I. was taught to recognize 298 phobias to allow it to identify the player's worst fears and respond with emotions, whispers, sounds and visuals. This game is also one of our more challenging experiences. ||


The visuals and backgrounds are interesting to look at for the first puzzle, but quickly lose their luster, and it is the same puzzle type after another. Nothing varies. You cannot consider this game to stand on its own. The sound track, visuals , and puzzle challenges offer little in the way of game play. The puzzles are guessing and the developers encourage "community work" that opens it up to shortcutting and cheating the game in such a way they call it "speed running". When you open it up to player guides, of course you will decrease the game play length. Then push out a broken product that does not function until you "try" enough times.


End of Giveaway 4/18/2020 (3 hours after patch) - Developer announces end of giveway
If the ASF "giveaway event" was only a limited time. Then this game should only be on steam for a limited time. It offers nothing in the way of entertainment, and has wasted countless players times for those that decided to give it a chance.


Less than a hour of 'gameplay' . This is puzzle' game which is more or less a guessing game of what the end goal is and not anything challenging. it has all of the thrills and challenge of a "pop quiz" that you already have the answers for in another browser.

As far as keys go I ended up getting a key for "Black Watchmen", because i downloaded it in early release, and played it after the patch when through. Tried that to give it a chance. I wouldn't recommend it either. It is a requirement to register for an account so it can call home while play. Similar what you have to go through for 3rd Party DRM games (but it isn't labeled as such in the steam store). I only wish that I could remove it from my account and give the key to someone who might actually want it, but it's locked in place now.


There is also the case of the developer provisioning duplicate keys when you finally did get to the end. Multiple players were not aware of this and ended up locking out their own accounts. The ban is temporary and is meant as a Steam protection against duplicate and stolen keys. So why create a giveaway that is so broken it triggers lockouts? Another case is why make it limited at all? Is there a comparable cost associated into copying digital content versus physical media on the shelf? No, there isn't. It's very low and easy to generate a large amount of keys. Why even have keys at all? Why not do your advertising by giving away coupons to those who played this game? Or how about just registering the games directly to the account for owners of Cyrano Story? This has been done by other developers in the past when new editions of a game come out. They have offered either targeted sales or worked with Steam to put the game directly into your account without any issue of CD Key redemption.

If you choose to try this, please unburden yourself from the grind. This isn't a full guide, but it is a quick runthrough so you can get your own opinions.
[Sane]Sleep
[Sane]Yes
[ontheedge] Photon Sphere
[crazy]Stem Cell
[crazy]Yes
[Insane] Bury
[Mental Breakdown] Ra
[higher plane] Filth
[???] Type 'manticore' anywhere
[Year] Change your Windows time to future date

I think the developers had a chance to do something interesting here, but they chose to have too much control on what was supposed to be a community process. Really , a waste of everyone's time. Screw you ASF

I can't say how well this game holds up to today's standards for puzzles. Though this was one of the very first opportunities of gaming I had and enjoyed. Somewhat unforgiving in some areas, but still challenging.The music and sound effects can be noisy if you aren't adjusted to it. I'm sure along with many , that this game holds nostalgic value, and if you have forgotten it over the years, you can pick it up again for a decent price. It is 50 cents on sale now and is normally 2 dollars. Playing through a few levels it still holds it's fun since playing it the first time.

UPDATE: New action by the developer. See details at the bottom of review.
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Stay Far away. Never got to play the game, the content of the game could be ok. I could not tell you though, as the game is now revoked by the Developers. If i had the game I would be able to write a more indepth review.Though I'm going to write mostly on the situation at hand.

There is a plethora of issues with indie games on steam, and Hardcube is another testament to the lack of Quality Control for games on steam. Typically, you will hear of games being revoked as part of a trade scam, someone gives you a key for a game, you trade, and later the key or gift is revoked. Leaving you holding the bag, as many people who received the game as part of a giveaway through WGN are doing now.
The Russian Developers ,Unique Interactive, claim that part of their staff or publisher gained access to the administrator control panel and dumped keys on the nearest place they could find. It is hard to tell who is at fault here given the developer’s … questionable statements. I mean to say that they both strike me with suspicion, and leave me scratching my head with their broken English. According to a statement by the developer
"He is the publisher of our game and asked illegally in valve 40 000 keys! We once saw at once broke the contract and cancel the keys"||[i.gyazo.com]

However, deflecting blame and mass revoke of keys isn't all too unfamiliar. A game called "Drunk Wizards" recently went through this ordeal, and was banned completely from the promotions and site their game was bundled with. When something goes awry, a knee jerk reaction like this usually takes place.
Giving them the benefit of the doubt, and they were the victims of some internal conflict. There is a clear lack of structure and trust in the staff of the developer and publisher here. Not to mention, should a company that could not protect the means of key distribution or even be aware of it until some days later deserve to handle your money?
No.

Would the game stand on its own merit, regardless of all of the issues currently?
Probably not.

The game seems mediocre, even on a mobile device where it seems it should have been developed for. The same concept follows through, roll around, avoid the obstacles, get to the finish in time, and don’t fall. There are some games that have used this premise very well, however Hardcube has fallen short, and leaped right off the edge.
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UPDATE Details:
In a recent news announcement from Unique Interactive it was stated that the developer would return revoked keys through a Return of Key, Google Docs Form . This shows some amount of effort for effort to try and set things right. The developers sent an email back promptly, and the key was returned the same day it was requested. It is a step in the right direction, but doesn't necessarily wipe the slate clean.

As for my review goes, I still cannot not recommend it to someone who asked with its track record thus far. No one likes to see a large 'ACCOUNT ALERT' in their steam client, and forced to read and agree to terms in order to dismiss it. Incidents like this also leave potential room as a black mark on your account record. A small unconfirmed consequence of having a game revoked, is the increase to the base time before cards will drop in a game. This restriction can be attributed to other factors and is difficult to confirm, but nonetheless a possibility. The form to request a key return has scattered English, and asks for potentially more information then some may wish to give.

Overall if you were involved in this ordeal, or any mass revoked key incident on steam you need to ask yourself a few things.Will the revoked keys be returned, or given away again? If they are given out again, should you support the developer’s bad practices by adding to card revenue and to their player base? If the reasoning for the revoked keys was legitimate and out of the developers hands, is it right for them to take no action out of fear of a backlash by the community? Do large giveaways and the sites that host them potentially foster occurrences of large scale revoking of keys? Do you risk having the game revoked again, by redeeming another key?

Given the current circumstances and actions by the developer, I will later update the review to be based on the content of the game.