Ein ausgezeichnetes und definitiv empfehlenswertes Spiel :)

Ich hab's zwar noch nicht ganz durch (logisch bei so vielen Varianten und Optionen), aber muss einfach jetzt schon meiner Begeisterung Ausdruck verleihen.

Das Puzzle-Gameplay ist einzigartig und ausgezeichnet konzipiert, der Schwierigkeitsgrad steigt genau "richtig" an, das Spiel bietet viel Abwechslung und tollen optionalen Zusatz-Content, die Graphik ist ansprechend sowie stimmungsvoll, und die Musik ist auch sehr fein, das Spieltempo eigentlich relativ locker (obwohl man sich auch optional mit "Speedruns" selbst herausfordern kann) und die einzelnen Zimmer = Level eignen sich prima für ein kleines Spielchen zwischendurch in jeder Arbeitspause oder zum Tagesabschluss ;)

Wer schon 2009 das Prequel "Spider The Secret of Bryce Manor" auf iOS oder Android gespielt hat, wird sich zwar schon auskennen, aber für alle anderen ist vielleicht eine kleine Erläuterung hilfreich: wie man auf den Videos sieht, steuert man eine Spinne durch 2D-Zimmerlandschaften, springt und webt Netze, um leckere Insekten zu verputzen - aber das ist beileibe noch lang nicht alles!

Erstens muss man sich vorsehen, nicht alle verfügbaren Spinnenfäden aufzubrauchen, sondern durch stetiges Insekten-Fressen für Faden-Nachschub zu sorgen. Verbraucht man nämlich (meist durch Fehler) zu viele Fäden, bleibt nicht viel Zeit bis zum (Hunger-)Tod der Spinne - außer, man findet rechtzeitig Insektenarten, auf die sich ohne Fadenverbrauch einfach springen läßt. Je nach Gestaltung der Zimmer = Level und Aufenthaltsort / Bewegungsradius der Insekten wird also Planung zunehmend das A und O, um möglichst viele Insekten mit möglichst wenigen Fäden zu erwischen.

Zweitens sind je nach Insektenart und Umständen immer mal wieder andere Strategien nötig, die Beute zu bezwingen; denn nicht alle Krabbeltierchen lassen sich so einfach in simplen Netzen fangen. Für manche braucht's spezielle Netzarten in der passenden Gegend, andere Krabbler/Flieger muss man mehrmals anspringen, einige erst zu Netzen hinscheuchen, etc.

Trotzdem keine Sorge: auch wenn die strategische Herausforderung manchmal knackiger ist, sind die Level nicht übermäßig lang, und man kann sie jederzeit neustarten. Außerdem ist jedes Level jederzeit erneut spielbar, sodass man seine bisherigen Erfolge (Scores) durch Wiederholungen nochmal "optimieren"versuchen kann, wozu auch "Leaderboards" existieren, an denen man sich messen kann.

Zudem gibt's ein weiteres Schmankerl, das für Wiederspielwert sorgt: von jeder Szenerie gibt es 4 alternative "Ansichten" je nach Wetter und Tageszeit. Gibt man den eigenen (Wohn-)Standort an, werden die aktuelle Tageszeit, die Wetterlage und Mondphase ermittelt, und es wird dann die entsprechende Szenerie-Variante geladen. Hernach kann man die Varianten selbst auswählen, bzw. kann Zeit und Wetter beeinflussen. Achtung: kniffligere Rätsel(-Hinweise) sind nur während bestimmter Mondphasen zu entdecken!

Insgesamt soll es über 30 Level geben (hab sie noch nicht alle durch) - die meisten davon bestehen auch noch aus jeweils mehreren Räumen/Szenerien. Das Portal zum nächsten Level öffnet sich - anders als im Vorgänger "Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor" - durch das Erreichen eines bestimmten Scores, meist erreichbar durchs Fressen von genügend Insekten, aber zusätzlich auch durch Strategien, die den Score erhöhen / vervielfachen.

Zusätzlich gibt's Hinweise zu entdecken und damit geheime Gebiete zu erschließen - und manche dieser optionalen Rätsel sind ganz schön knackig (z.B. Notenlesen). Insgesamt sind 7 große Rätsel versteckt, für die aber zunächst immer mehrere Hinweise gesammelt werden "müssen".

Tatsächlich hat das Spiel nämlich eine Art "Hintergrundstory" - von Zimmer zu Zimmer enthüllt sich langsam, was sich in diesem Haus abgespielt hat, was mit Verbrechen, der Erfindung einer Zeitmaschine, einem Kind und einem Abenteurer zu tun hat. Es schadet nicht, sich im Internet über einige der verzwickteren Rätsel ein bißchen schlau zu machen - sowie über die Geheimgesellschaft, die hier in Spider eine Rolle spielt. Für alle, die sich irgendwann überfordert fühlen, gibt's sogar einen Walkthrough (auf Englisch) am Netz ;)

48 "Achievements" sind optional zu meistern, und für Sammel-Wütige (wie mich) ist eine große Sammlung von Insekten vervollständigbar - was eine Herausforderung für sich darstellt. Der Inhalt der Level ist nämlich immer mal wieder ein wenig zufällig und es sind nicht immer dieselben Insekten unterwegs.

Dasselbe kann auch mit Tageszeit (Grillen, Motten oder Leuchtkäfer gibt's nur z.B. nachts) oder Wetter (Vorsicht vor Blitzschlag) zusammenhängen - und seltene Insektenarten sind sogar nur zu bestimmten Mondphasen (Vollmond) unterwegs. Will man alle Insekten in einem Level erwischen, sollte man akribisch erkunden, an Lampen oder Gefäße springen, um sie in Bewegung zu versetzen, Papierknäuel umschubsen, und so weiter.

Ich finde Spinnen im richtigen Leben eklig, aber sie sind doch auch faszinierende Tiere; von daher habe ich kein Problem, virtuelle Arachnida in Spielen zu sehen oder sie wie hier sogar selbst zu steuern. Eigentlich sind die Achtbeiner in diesem Spiel sogar irgendwie niedlich, vor allem die nach und nach freischaltbaren bunten Varianten :)

Ein kleines Manko ist die fehlende Möglichkeit, eigene Tastenbelegungen für die Steuerung zu definieren, was aber bei Puzzlespielen oft üblich ist und bei Jump & Runs mit hohem Schwierigkeitsgrad viel stärker ins Gewicht fällt als hier. Anfangs fand ich das Start-"Menü" auch noch verwirrend - man muß auf die unten angezeigten Icons bis zum Zahnrad weiterklicken, um zum das Spiel beenden zu können. Auf der Karte kann man statt gleich auf "Los!" die Häuser anklicken und dann die Zimmer, um die noch nicht gespielten Varianten übersichtlich zu sehen - eine Lupe zeigt an, wo man noch einen Hinweis zu finden hat, und unter welchen (selbst einstellbaren) Bedingungen er verfügbar ist.

In dieses Spiel wurde eindeutig viel Liebe gesteckt, und ein nachträgliches Update / Bugfix beweist, dass die Entwickler an der positiven Spielerfahrung der Käufer interessiert sind. Also ohne jeden Zweifel absolut unterstützenswert! :)

Bottom line: A fun, easy-going, strategic spider game that I am incapable of griping too much about, and I'm a real complainer. Excellently polished.

Full Review:

I've been playing this great little game since the beta.

It's a fun game that's a bit difficult to categorize. You play as a spider, you make webs, and, for the most part, these webs catch bugs that you in turn eat. Move from level to level, rinse, wash, repeat. Yet it's a lot better than that, and a lot more interesting. The lovely backgrounds --- which likely look better on the small screen than on the large screen --- are for the attentive suggestive of a story, and the story is told this way without dialogue or, indeed, a plot. Intrigue is in the background, and entirely in the mind of the player. Your little spider avatar is just busy eating bugs.

I want to say that this is a puzzler, and it is in a way, but its points-and-combos scoring system is about all it has in common with one. Is it a platformer when it isn't run-and-jump from left to right? Playing the part of a spider means that you're only nominally susceptible to gravity, and so the feeling of being a platformer is lost entirely. I spend most of the game upside-down or sideways on walls or, what's more interesting, on a web I've carefully planned at the nexus of the flight paths of several bugs.

Not only this, but each level has four different versions --- while the landscape is the same, the number of and kinds of bugs are different, and this radically changes the best approach for the level. It's like four games in one this way. In-game weather is based on your actual IRL local precipitation, though you can change the weather in the game options.

Beefs: My favorite parts of the game are the calm bits, where I can strategize where to wait and what to do and do it at my own pace. I can easily place webs because the landscape doesn't move and the threads which make up my webs are stable. That is, until the middle to the end of the game when several levels begin to have moving landscape. When some stable bit of the level itself moves, a thread connecting that moving piece of scenery to anywhere else will break. Suddenly, a game I enjoyed for being relaxed became very tense instead. In these levels, I now have to rely on quick movement to chain the combo from bug to bug.

Secondly, during the beta --- I don't know about the finished game, so I hope this changes --- the weather machine has a limited number of uses and it refreshes based pn the phases of the moon, (see title.) IRL interaction is a fun little feature for mobile gaming --- think Pokemon Gold/Silver, when nighttime was based on real-world time --- but in PC gaming that kind of real-world interaction is more a hassle and less interesting. I hope they change it so that the PC user has complete control over the in-game weather.

Though I disagree with these two minor design decisions, they are still not bad design decisions! I can't emphasize this enough. With all the crap on Steam these days, it's wonderful to see an indie dev hit every note they mean to play just right.

Bottom line: A fun strategic spider game that I am incapable of griping too much about, and I'm a real complainer. Excellently polished.

Great for playing casually, pain to complete fully.

You need to do certain actions when real-world weather in your georgaphical location has certain properties (raining, full moon, and so forth), and I'm not kind of pearson to play a game in selective bursts.

But gameplay is very fluid, music is nice, and this game's subplot is very interesting, so I urge you to try it anyway.

OMG, I'm a tiny spider.

As I'm catching different kind of flies, bugs and other insects I witness what happend in this old and spooky mansion. Catching bugs is cool (dofferent bugs needs different techniques), Revealing the story even cooler.

Not to mention that in-game weather changes according to that in your location (as the game says "looking through your window") - this is scary. Looking at the world through spider's lens is exciting!

Music is not good thou. It doesn't add anything to the game theme (neither to spider story nor mansion story).

I know I'm not the best review-writer in the world, but I still wanted to share how much I love this game.
There's something deeply satisfying about forming the webs and eating the insects in this game.
It's quite zen-like.

The game is gorgeous. And fun.
On the surface, you can just enjoy trying to collect the insects on each level. But then you find the subtle mystery underneath.
And you can re-play a level to try different strategies to aim for the leaderboard, if you're into that sort of thing.
And there's achievements to help encourage you to try things you may not normally try.

I love it all.

Spider leaves me feeling very satisfied.
I want so desperately to see more games that perfects this level of subtle satisfaction.

This is not just a game about being a spider and eating bugs. It could end there, easily, but there's a lot under the surface of this simple-looking puzzle game. I beat all the main levels in 4.5 hours, but I barely scratched the surface of the unexplained puzzles that permeate every level, detailing a long history of family conspiracies and secret societies and implied drama over hundreds of years. To go beyond the basics would extend the playtime by two or three times.

I still haven't really solved all those puzzles, but looking into it's a rabbit hole of complex alternate reality games and involved research. If you're interested in storytelling in games, Tiger Style's experiment with the Spider games is extremely creative, unique, and admirable. Give it some attention.

+Fun gameplay
+many alternative scenarios based on time and weather
+unique and interesting puzzles
+fantastic atmosphere
+good visual effects and designs
+great soundtrack
+large variety of bugs to collect
+plenty of level layouts implementing obstacles and gameplay changes
+good for speedruns
+alternatives available for arachnaphobes

-sometimes very cryptic puzzles
-a little pricey for such a small game, but definitely worth it on sales for $10 or lower

The game really feels like it just has heart put into it, I'd suggest the crap out of it

Spider: Rite of the Shrouded Moon despite the fact that at first glance it looks very poor is really playable.

Being a spider, we find ourselves in a mansion (although not only because there is a whole map on which you can travel) where our task is to eat everything that moves, using the web created. Of course, different rooms require us to take a different approach, because some worms crawl, while moths fly to the light (we have a limited number of nets to build). Depending on how many and what kind of worms we ate we get points which are compiled in a global ranking which is the main incentive to play.

Another interesting feature is the weather meter - at the start the game takes information about where we live and on the basis of the weather we have outside the window selects the types and amount of vermin. However, it's hard to say whether it's just a gimmick or an actual working feature.

I like the game, it's light and pleasant, it's worth spending some time on it, because it's addictive.

A really cool little game I learned about on r/spiders of reddit. Basically, you play a cute little jumping spider with leaping abilities to put Jordan to shame and the ability to make webs once a geometric pattern of criss crossing silk has been made. You use these webs to catch wandering bugs (many with different AI patterns), such as flies and crickets, while other techniques, such as tackling, are needed to take down hornets. Similarly, these insects give you more silk to work with as your supply is finite. You make use of the web's design and the insects you eat to get points as you clear your way to the next area. Meanwhile, there's secrets to be found throughout the stages as you try to uncover the background story of the manor you're hunting in.

The game is one of those 'easy to learn, hard to master' sorts. You have to plan out the best way to keep your point modifiers high (leaping web from web, instead of touching the ground) and you need to strategize how to make your approach, which is made harder with obstacles, finite resources, and bugs that don't necessarily stay where you want them to. All of this adds up to a surprisingly cerebral game.

Sure, people who don't like spiders or bugs to point of burning their house down and screaming like a little girl miiiight not like the imagery used, but nothing is terribly graphic. The imagery is realistic, but don't expect to see more macabre stuff for the most part. There's really a damn good title to be had here that I don't think will squeam out the nervous crowd too much.

There's a lot to do in this game, from the planning, to figuring out the web physics, finding secrets, unlocking new spider skins(!), and even getting a bestiary of sorts of the insects you've defeated on a small board, where you can see a little information about them. Btw, this game utilizes an option to mirror the local weather and time of day of your ISP's location (assuming you allow it), so you might play in Spider's world during a night time rain storm or on a clear sunny day, given your location. How cool!

I have nothing but good things to say about this title, honestly. I wish the developers the best and hope they make more content for Spider. I think the only thing I can give as constructive criticism is I would have preferred a slightly more involved tutorial for the various mechanics of the game. It can be fine to figure out things on your own but some bugs don't get special descriptions concerning what needs to be done versus others, for example.

Spider is a very fun, satisfying experience.
Stacking up multiple bugs in one web, after you've carefully strategised the best way to do it, feels badass.
A video showcasing all the features I'm about to talk about
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPOYTVii62E
The controls make sense and feel good in your hand, which is important for a game like this.
Different bugs react differently, which means you need to alter your strategy. Be it simply tackling them to eat them, or needing to scare them into your web.

You have a finite amount of web to spin, but you regain the amount of silk you hold by eating bugs.
You can either eat bugs immediately to refill it, or save multiple bugs in one web to achieve a combo for the highest score possible.
This game has very good replay value because of that reason, and if you are a fan of getting high-scores, then this is a very good choice.

The game has a very interesting IP detection system, which looks at your time of day and weather in your city. (You have the option to turn it off). This will change the type of bugs in levels according to your environment outside.

To sum up, the game is a very fun, unique experience that you should give a go!