Recent reviews by Angus McHangrus

This game made me feel like I was 9 years old, playing Myst on my dad's new computer that came with a CD-ROM drive and Microsoft Encarta.

I'm not joking. I wrote notes. Lots of notes. Partway through I realized I needed a second notepad for a (no spoilers) second, and even third meta puzzle I was also trying to solve.

It took me 32 days of in game time to find the 46th room, and then the game politely informed me (again, no spoilers) that I was only part of the way towards actually completing it. I foresee many, many more hours of trying to solve the meta puzzles, discovering the story, finding the answers.

Jesus Christ, somebody throw this studio some more money.

Edit: I thought of something else I wanted to say. When I was like 16, I worked at Blockbuster Video. I'd heard some good things about Castlevania, Symphony of the Night, so I rented it. I took it home, and beat it that night, killing Richter in like, just under 4 hours or so of playing. I was pissed. This was so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ easy! TOO easy. I brought it back and "un"rented it so I could get my free rental back, talking ♥♥♥♥ about how easy and dumb the game was the whole time.

A few months later, I got an EGM magazine (or something) and saw what many of you already know - killing Richter was a false ending. By properly playing the game, having curiosity, and putting some extra effort in, you could FREE Richter, and unlock the entire inverse castle version of the game that was the ACTUAL game. I immediately rented it again, and had a wonderful, rich, experience.

If you're the type of person who does one or two days worth of the Billiards Room puzzle, or the Truth/Lie boxes puzzle, and you're like "This is dumb, it's too easy," you are shorting yourself out on something that is absurdly rich and complex. There are *layers* in this game. And they get thicker and stranger the more you play it, the more you take screenshots of strange puzzles, the more you try to logic your way around how colors, shapes, lines, and symbols actually come into effect as the game goes on.

Do not flag, and do not unrent it. Stick with it. You will see.

Oddly deep idler with charmingly understated graphics. Recommended for time killing.

This is an excellent game if you have a group of friends that are like *this close* to not being friends anymore.

So, here's the thing. I bought this game DESPITE the negative reviews from EA folks. Picked it up TODAY. Started the "tutorial" or whatever quest on the prebuilt world thingy. 2.7 hours in, I'm enjoying it, it's really neat and interesting. Having a good time.

I'm examining a second murder victim when all of a sudden, there's no more keyboard controls except move. Jump doesn't work, crouch doesn't work. I can't highlight items. Escape doesn't work, so I can't check settings. So I alt+F4.

And that's how I discovered that there's no autosave in the game. I hadn't manually saved my game, so my 2.7 hours were just... erased. My only options now are New Game, and Load Game - and Load Game doesn't have any data in it.

I don't think I'm going to be playing again. Just an absolute dump taken on the value of my time.

I'm really tired of the normalization of "Shareholder's Special" 1.0 releases. If the devs are done treating it as early access, here's a review of the "finished" product. Don't play it. What a waste.

So I've played Breachway a bit, and my tl;dr review is that it's an incredibly deep and complex game, which feels fun sometimes, and feels like it drags on other times.

There's SO MANY RESOURCES to manage. Like you have resources you get each turn to play cards, but it's more like Magic than something like Slay the Spire - there's red "mana" for attacks, green "mana" for defense, and blue "mana" for support cards. You use your reactor energy points to determine how much of each color you get each turn. But also, you have Command Points, which let you use special abilities from your crew, and how many you get each step on the map is determined by your crew Morale. And all your cards are divided up into small decks, based on the equipment you've slotted onto your ship, and then shuffled all together at the start of combat. So if you, for example, find a better Laser Cannon Mk II to replace your Laser Cannon Mk I with, you lose the cards that are attached to the Laser Cannon Mk I when you remove it, and gain whatever 2-3 cards the Mk II came with. Also, there are faction points which determine how different map nodes react when you enter them. And Fuel for your ship to go off the beaten path for side nodes. And money to spend on cards, hardware upgrades, reactor upgrades, hiring new crew, etc. And, and, and.

That's a lot of paragraph, but I think it takes something like FTL or Slay The Spire and really turns it into like, Civilization. On the surface, it's a deckbuilding roguelike that follows the familiar STS formula of 3 maps and a final boss with meta unlocks, but in practical terms, you really need to take a few hours per run.

To put this into practical terms, I'm literally still on my first run, and I just started the second map at 2.5 hours in. Compare that to something like FTL where a single run will take less than an hour and unlock some new things, and it feels a little bit... sloggy. I stopped playing yesterday not because I needed to do a work thing, or because it was dinner time or something, but because I just didn't want to play it anymore. I honestly don't know if that's good or bad.

I think for the right person, the graphics, the space theme, the "Expanse" style PDC cannons, the absurd amounts of possibility and depth will all go down really smooth, but this game really seems to want to be your "only" game, while most other roguelikes are designed to be bite-sized hour drainers. I don't know if it's for me, but I'll give it some more time before I put it all the way aside in favor of something that fits in better with my idea of a "roguelike deckbuilder."

Short little roguelite/not-so-idle game that just oozes brilliance and addictiveness. Quick sub-5 hour game, but very worth the light price. Wish there was a much longer game, maybe this is a manifesto? Highly recommended!

Game is fixed.

Disappointed in the very small number of alt skills for the three new characters, unlocking alt skills and new playstyles is part of what keeps the game alive and fresh. Please consider a free content patch to add a couple of new skills.

Game is a lot of fun, and has tight controls and feels good.

Problem is, it's $30 and doesn't have Steam Workshop support, which all mini golf games need for longevity.

If Workshop support gets added, I'll pick it up again, but for now, this is just a refund for me.

Don't do it for her. Do it for Karl.

Day 37: I am deep beneath what I think might be hell, but there is an awful lot of money here. I've managed to take two pieces of wood, a rubber band, and roughly 37 rusted saw blades, and turned them into a makeshift weapon. I can't quite decipher what the arcane runes along the length of the "wand" say, but the symbols look suspiciously similar to a boomerang.

The light has gone out all around me. The howls are getting closer. Time to see what this puppy can do.