Recent reviews by Malkavian

This is a cool concept for Observation Duty style spot-the-difference gameplay. I had a couple of genuinely creepy moments, and there's a good balance of difficulty. While it is cheap, I initially beat the game in under 15 minutes, so some folk might feel there's a lack of value there, but it's worth considering the replayability. It took me 6 or 7 completions to find all the anomalies, so I reckon the price is fine for about an hour of fun. I would love to see more levels added to the game, with different places and more anomalies, e.g. a hospital hallway or a stretch of garden. Lots of possibilities here. Overall, I enjoyed the experience, and hope the developer adds to it or releases another title in the same vein.

I wasn't planning on being dragged through the emotional wringer today, but here we are.

I finally decided to play, after a long time of having the game wishlisted and then in my library, and I'm so glad I did. It's the sort of game a lot of people would complain doesn't have enough gameplay, but I really enjoy narrative experiences like this. The story is well-told, engaging, relatable, and the VA is solid. The minimalist art style works well, it forces the focus on the unfolding story, and the music was well chosen. The wholesome LGBTQ+ representation is much appreciated, too.

I went through a lot of emotions while playing, and regret that I didn't play sooner. There's practically nothing to critique here. Highly recommended, if you are content to enjoy an emotional slice of life and humanity without having to do much in-game.

I went into the game expecting a cutesy, chilled time; I finished it feeling thoroughly depressed, but still very glad of the journey. I greatly enjoyed this game, as deceptively gloomy as it was.

The simplistic vector art style is lovely; I especially enjoyed the sun-dappled meadow of chapter two, I swear I could almost feel the warmth of the sunshine. The music is spectacular, always fitting the scene to great dramatic effect. It's one of the rare times I've enjoyed a soundtrack so much that I would listen to it independently of the game. The story is simple, but engaging; while we are playing as a mother fox seeking her lost cubs, she is a small part of a larger story, one that I would think is highly relatable to a good many people. The bigger picture is relentlessly melancholy, and the fox's experience along the way is not pleasant, despite the beauty of the landscape, yet the game managed to give me a feeling of hope the entire time too. Some reviewers have criticised the voice acting of the developer and his wife but I personally thought they did very well, and I never found the dialogue to be stilted. While the areas per chapter are mostly large (chapters three and five in particular) they are finite, and despite what some reviewers say, I don't think getting 'lost' is easy.

In criticism, some of the controls are a bit clunky, although fairly forgiving. There are invisible barriers at the map edges, and you may have Skyrim-esque moments of fruitlessly difficult landscape-scaling while you hunt for a few of the more elusive stars. The jump animation of the fox looks less fluid than her other movement.

Overall, despite how sad the tone of the game left me, I would recommend the beautiful experience highly, and I'd like to play more from this developer.

Leaving Lyndow is a very pleasant experience, which made me sad that it's so painfully short; I completed the game in under 50 minutes, and 10 of those were idling for achievements. Still, at least the price more or less reflects the short playtime, and the brief length is my only complaint.

The game is a fairly typical exploration/walking sim, and centres around young wannabe-explorer Clara, who is preparing to leave her town on a sea voyage to the unknown. Your task is to prepare her for leaving, which involves the usual routine of investigating things, stirring up memories, chatting to some people, plus a few mini-games. Standard gameplay for the genre, yes but despite this, the game manages a genuine feeling of warmth that can be lacking in these games; I felt a real sense of Clara's nostalgia. The people in Lyndow are strange-looking and speak in gibberish, but they are oddly endearing, and once again I must refer to how disappointing the lenth of the game is, as I really would have liked to visit a few more locations, and had more interaction with other characters.

The game looks really pretty - lots of dappled sunshine, pink blossoms, a big daylight moon; it's all a really nice, rich environment to be in. It ran flawlessly for me at the highest res (medium-power PC.) The music is lovely, never intrusive, and the rest of the sound is high quality. The walking speed is decent - there is no sprint/crouch/jump, but they're not necessary anyway. The game auto-saves at each location but you can also choose to save whenever. The seven achievements are easy to get, although as I mentioned two of them are only for interacting or idling with the same thing for 5 minutes each. For some reason the farm area is devoid of an achievement, despite there being a mini game to play.

If you're a fan of a more authentically emotive entry in this genre of game, and don't mind needing less than an hour to play, I definitely recommend it.

Caligo isn't an outstanding game in the walking sim/exploration genre, but it's a good one. Though sadly not very long, it's atmospheric, creative, and lovely to look at. Most of the voice acting is pretty good, and the few characters you encounter are varied and intriguing. The premise is that your character has suddenly found himself in a strange room, and from there they must progress through several different 'worlds' (chapters) to discover why they have come to be where they are, with the help of a mostly unseen guide.

The walking speed in the game is a bit slow; it's not the worst speed I've encountered by far, but a few times I did find myself wishing for a sprint option. For an exploration game, there is unfortunately little point in trying to explore, as there's nothing in the environment to interact with save for collectible notes, and there are invisible barriers to prevent you from straying too far anyway. This makes the game feel even smaller than it is, and although I have no problem with linear storytelling, part of the appeal for me (and many) of games such as this is to do a little wandering in the beautiful locales. The collectible notes are of no real interest themselves either, but at least once completed, you are able to play any chapter from the start and your note count is saved, which is great for the completionists who want to go back and find any they missed.

There is a lot of beauty and design creativity to be seen along your linear path, and I greatly enjoyed the narrative. I wouldn't say that it's a game which will make you think deeply about life, death, and your place in the world, but it's themes are presented interestingly enough to ponder while you play. It did take me several minutes of tweaking with the settings to optimize play (oddly, there is an option to allow vsync on every other frame instead of every frame; I had to choose every other frame. I also had to lower the quality, despite having a decent PC.) I would recommend the game in spite of this though, as ultimately it was worth it.

I found Buried to be a brief but enjoyable experience. The story reads from the perspective of a timber logger who has come to after an unexplained accident, then attempts to discover what happened and subsequently get to safety. The writing is very good and flows well; I was concerned for the characters and found them fairly fleshed-out despite the shortness of the game. The story has a strong supernatural element to it which allowed for an anything-could-happen feeling that kept it from being too predicatable, and it features realistic dialogue/action choices as well (hence the 'interactive' title.) I played without sound, so I can't comment on the quality of that.

The pros: The well-written narrative and story arc kept me interested to the end, plus the text appears at a quicker speed than in many novel-type games which appeals to me as a fast reader. The background images are nothing special, but perfectly adequate, and always fit the current situation. The price is fair for the quality of the experience and the playtime.

The cons: While the game does feature ending variants dependant on your choices, they aren't different enough in my opinion to offer replay value. Because of how much I enjoyed the story, I would've liked to have needed more than two hours to complete, and while it all falls together well, I did wish there was more.

Overall, I'd recommend the game to those who already enjoy an interactive visual novel experience, and to others who appreciate an intriguing supernatural tale. I would happily blind-purchase another story from this developer.

As a fan of visual novels, I really enjoyed The 39 Steps, as that's basically what this game is. There's not much to do but read along, occasionally clicking a few things for some extra information, and as such the game may not appeal to traditional adventure-game lovers. However, the casual interactivity is more than made up for with the excellent story; I wasn't aware of John Buchan's novel previously, as I'm normally not one for espionage tales, but I was thoroughly engaged by this on-the-run spy thriller. The game follows the story of restless gentleman Richard Hannay, who forges a new friendship which rapidly plunges him into a world of deception, cover-ups and murder. The artwork throughout the game is attractive, with decent music and ambience, and great voice acting. While the theme of the story is dark in nature, there are some amusingly light-hearted quips well-delivered by the cast, and in the form of a few shadow-puppet style scenes.

Pros:
- Consistently good art style and sound
- Excellent pacing, it neither drags nor feels rushed at any point
- Has the old-timey feel of a classic book, without feeling dated
- Decent playtime (over 5 hours for me)

Cons:
- It's a few pounds more expensive than I would expect for this sort of game and play time

Overall:
The achievements are almost entirely unmissable, presenting a lack of challenge in that department, but it does make for a relaxed, enjoyable experience where you can really focus on the story-telling. I found no faults with the gameplay, and highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys a strong story-driven experience.