Recent reviews by Muro

You walk through an island for 1-1,5h while triggering monologues from a narrator. Otherwise, you interact with nothing while encountering no one.

That alone isn't a hopeless recipe just yet. Unfortunately, you move through the island at a dreadfully slow pace, the narrator's ramblings are boring and exploration feels unrewarding (and painful, knowing any wandering off the main path means backtracking at the mentioned snail's pace).

By the time you finish, you have a partial idea of what the "story" was about, but it doesn't make you wish for more. Even when 100%ing the game, there is ultimately neither closure nor satisfaction.

For completion's sake I went through a second playthrough with developer commentary toggled on, and let's just say I was legitimately impressed how highly a bunch of people can think of themselves when there is little to back it up.

Pros:
+ pretty enough visuals
+ alright soundtrack

Cons:
- everything else, described above

Final rating:
pretentious/10

"Patches' Infurno" changes the perspective by putting us in the shoes of a very different protagonist. I was sceptical and thought that's gonna kill it for me, but making "good" choices with a "bad" character was ultimately satisfying and made me feel soft inside. Some ugly laughs were had as well. All in all, a neat way to wrap up the trilogy.

Nicely continues and builds up upon the first game, being similar but that little bit bigger/more in-depth. If you liked "Love at Furst Bite", you'll enjoy this one as well.

A love letter to sci-fi horror enthusiasts everywhere.

[✔] Being put in the role of a horror movie monster is a refreshing concept and it's executed well here. It does feel powerful - yet it's balanced enough that at the same time the player never really stops feeling vulnerable. Aspects of survival and challenge are never gone.

[✔] The way the creature looks, shifts and slithers around feels convincing within the deliberately retro graphics, while leaving some room for imagination.

[✔] Unique spacial perspective and the way the monster can quickly move in all directions is intuitive, satisfying and a pleasure to behold.

[✔] Atmosphere supported by great music and sound effects, with some neat subtle nods to / inspirations from genre classics.

[✔] / [✖] The game's fairly short, clocking at several hours (I'd say 4h for a normal playthrough, 6h when playing leisurely, and about 8h for an unhurried completionist run while keeping away from guides). Which is imo fine, however the price is a bit steep for that length and I'd personally recommend getting it on a sale.

[✖] One thing the game desperately needed was some/any kind of map, or at the very least better indication which pathway/entry leads to what section. Progressing through the areas in order is (for the most part) reasonable - however, going back to previously inaccessible sections with new powers is very confusing, easily results in getting lost, and only gets more frustrating the greater the total unlocked game area becomes.

[✖] Minor issue, but the mentioned pleasure when moving around? At the monster's biggest size, it becomes a bit confusing and counter-intuitive, as its "centre of balance" you steer with isn't exactly at the front. Leads to occasionally going down the wrong hole, or getting shot because it's hard to account for the entirety of your mass. Not a big issue, perhaps even intentional to showcase the problems with BIG, but a slight annoyance all the same.

I was torn on whether to give Abe's Oddysee a thumbs up or thumbs down because neither really feels fitting.
Ultimately decided to go with a thumbs down because I think the best part of the game is everything other than the gameplay, which in turn just isn't enjoyable.
When I'd sooner recommend a friend to watch someone else play it than to play it himself, there is a problem.

Let's get into the details though, as there is a lot to criticize.

The visual design, music, sound effects, alien atmosphere - all magnificent.
Gameplay though, as I read someone else describe it: a sloppy game that expects YOU to be perfect.
Save system is stupid, controls sometimes aren't responsive or bug out in the worst possible moment, so even if you are in fact perfect, every now and then you're forced to bite the bullet and overdo a section because game rng decided to just not cooperate and a single error usually means starting again from the last savepoint.

The modokons you save are drooling idiots. I'll forgive them not being smart enough to jump or roll, but they always require a "hello! -> follow me!", which by itself is fine, but there are sections where time (and timing) is REALLY of the essence. And in the middle of it a modokon is likely to stop following you because he had to stand still for three seconds and he'd rather literally die than wait more than that. Thanks friend.

The difficulty is all over the place, too. Halfway point felt like a tempting moment to drop the game. I figured that if it's been this rage-inducing up to this point, I can only imagine what awaits onwards.
But as it turned out, the second half of the game was overall easier, less rich in artificial difficulty, felt more consistent, gave more feedback on your progress, and was oddly swimming in grenades which often could provide alternative solutions to problems. It also had no secret areas, which are generally the hardest part of the game, because 1) you have to find them in the first place, 2) they tend to be the most unfair sections and 3) there often isn't a savepoint after them, so even on success you end up replaying them a lot.
And for some reason, all of them were shoved into the first half of the game? Bizarre.

Hardest section of the game is arguably the second quarter, after you escape Rupture Farms and before you return to it. Particularly the wildlife trials you're being put through by your tribe to prepare for rescuing modokans from the evil meat plant. Makes me think that you know guys, this could have been much easier and less prone to failure if instead of putting me trough the tests you'd just let me handle the rescuing uninterrupted.

TL;DR:
+ good and unique visuals
+ quality music and sound effects
+ atmospheric
- jank savepoint system from hell
- questionable responsiveness of controls and movement
- difficulty that more often than not feels artificial and not "fair"

EDIT:
To elaborate on my gripe with the save system, and what makes me call it jank,

when you get past a savepoint, there's a visual indication that it was in fact savepoint, and you usually notice it, but it's subtle enough that sometimes in the heat of things you might miss it and be unsure if the last save was a moment ago, or a long time ago. There is manual saving, but the way it works it reloads you to the last successful savepoint.

The best way to describe how it's jank is to imagine savepoints are one-time use. After that, a savepoint spot is inactive, and only becomes active again if you traverse to a later/earlier savepoint - then that previously inactive savepoint spot becomes active again if you go back to it. Consequentially, it causes a lot of annoying backtracking back-and-forth between savepoints just to be sure progress is saved.
It didn't work like that 100% of the time for whatever reason, but the best way to make it work consistently for you is to assume that's the case.

Problem is, some sections do not have more than 1 savepoint, so it basically forces you to complete a few sequences perfectly with no way to save progress in between because if you die, you have to redo the whole series of sequences again. Some of the hardest hidden areas liked to be placed in the middle of those.

It wasn't consistent though, in the sense that those multiple-sequences-per-savepoint weren't reserved for the later areas, and if anything most (if not all) of them were present in the first half of the game. Feels like the savepoint system and savepoint placement was designed by two different people, and they never talked to each other.

My reaction after playing through it the first time was a resounding ???, and while after exhausting all endings and achievements that is mostly still true, I'd say it's overall neat. Liked it more than the "Lighthouse" (2019) movie.

I do ultimately recommend it, even if I indeed don't quite get how it all connects together. I suggest not watching the steam trailer tho, imo shows too much and I'm glad I didn't see it before I played. Personally I went into it basically blind (got it at some point since "man maintaining a lighthouse on a small isolated island; horror" sounded fun), which is how I'd recommend it if the premise sounds appealing.

Breakdown:
+ immersive atmosphere, helped by ominous ambient music/sounds
+ stylized graphics work in the game's favour
+ cheap at base price already, and can often be caught on a sale
+/- slow burn with a bunch of mundane tasks (subjective whether that's a good, bad or neutral thing)
+/- confusing convoluted story (ditto)
+/- short (imo not a con + given the price, the dollar per hour of gameplay ratio is acceptable)

A video game based on a 1967 novel by Harlan Ellison by the same title. In it, an artificial intelligence known as AM gained sentience and all but swept humanity away. Fuelled by nothing but loathing for its creators, it keeps the last five living people basically immortal and endlessly tortures them for 100+ years.

In the game, AM puts each of them through their own scenario built around their personal flaws and emotional baggage, and after all five are successfully completed, they all connect into the final sixth scenario.
The game itself - it's odd.

I like to think of it as non-canon/semi-canon "DLC" to the original novel. A bit alternative universe perhaps, because while in most aspects it plays/expands upon ideas from the novel more directly, in a few it seems to take some liberties with changing things a bit here and there. Since Harlan Ellison was directly involved in the project though, I can only imagine it's with his blessing. Maybe he changed his mind about some details, or wanted to explore some what-if alternatives.

Gameplay is, hmm. It's a point-and-click adventure, with all of the good and bad that entails. For the most part it wasn't super frustrating, but there were a couple moments where man had to resort to using everything on everything, or pixel hunt with the cursor until a small clump of pixels turned out to be interactable. Not a lot of that thankfully, but some for sure.

Music and sound effects were alright, especially for its time (1995). Set up the vibe nicely. I liked how each character had their unique theme and sound effects for success/failure, and when you played as them again in the final chapter, it automatically gave a feeling of familiarity and finality. It's not a new trick, but again, I think using music to the atmosphere's advantage wasn't commonly as figured out in vidya when the game initially released.

The writing is a bit all over the place. At some points it's decent, while at some others I'm taken aback at "how someone who's been tortured for over a century can be this nonchalant and flippant about [thing]". Particularly Ellen is guilty of this. Made all the worse by her annoying voice actress, welp.

Out of the five scenarios the survivors are put through, Ted's especially stands out as cheesy and video-gamey. And goes imo a bit too much into fantasy over than science-fiction, even if it's ultimately all AM's doing. Not bad in a point-n-click adventure, but really made me wonder what's it doing in this game in particular.

The final chapter was an interesting way to wrap things up. Different than I expected, but an ok breakdown of AM's inner workings with some sense of closure. The fact that a good-ish ending is possible at all kinda clashes with the novel, but I guess they figured there must be some form of hope to drive the player into doing anything and feeling it had any purpose. Bad endings are a more direct nod to the novel, and admittedly I'd say those feel a lot more "true".

Voice acting, also all over the place. Every character is voiced whether main or random NPC, so that's cool. Quality of it - kinda mid and forgettable for most of the time. Gorrister's gruff depresso voice feels the most fitting given the circumstances. Nimdok's heavy German accent is comically overdone, but eh ok it works. Ellen, as I mentioned, I wish to stab. AM himself tho, omg, <chef's kiss>. He's voiced by the novel's original writer himself, and dude really puts all his soul into it. Hands down the selling point of the game. Sadistic, mocking, hateful, full of personality. He's much more human in that aspect than I'd expect, but quickly figured I call roll with it so sure. AM did gain sentience after all, so why not have it expressed in voice to the fullest.

Best seen in the game's intro linked below. It takes its time, but it's hard to not appreciate how Ellison is going overboard on the microphone. The player can really feel the passionate hatred in each word uttered by AM. I especially can't get over how aggressively he calls out each of the humans, with my personal favourite being the "TEEEEEEEED".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iw-88h-LcTk

I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream remains one of my fav depressing sci-fi settings to think about out there, and I often mentally compare and refer to it when seeing other works. Ultimately though I'll stick to thinking of the novel as "canon" and consider the game a fanfic and love letter to it, even if it's Ellison-approved. Still, neat that it's been made. Doubt it will ever be adapted to a movie, and if it will, I wouldn't expect it to be good. But as a game, it did alright.

Short visual novel hitting a sweet spot between cute and wholesome VS gruesome in a cartoony way. Nicely scratches both of those itches, with a simply but pleasant soundtrack to boot.

Not a bad time killer for half an hour for an agreeable price of $0.

I keep a positive approach to indie developers, especially if they already created something I enjoyed. My attitude here was "World of Goo was great. A second game from the same dev? A must have!". And perhaps because of expecting a similar quality of gameplay, I was ultimately underwhelmed.

The mentioned gameplay is as simple as it gets. Buy things -> burn them -> receive slightly more money than you spent on it -> buy more things -> repeat ad infinitum. Some items here and there react a bit more interestingly then others when burned, but in the case of most of them it's about what you'd expect - they catch fire, turn to ash, end.

There's no challenge, no timer, no optional objectives a la WoG's OCDs, nothing that really requires you to pay attention. It is definitely much more casual than WoG, though not necessarily more family friendly - some toys screaming (even if cartoonishly) when burned "alive" can be quite creepy. Which is good, as it helps stay awake during the game.

The game is short - which wouldn't be bad by itself, but it's short despite being already artificially dragged out by time delays between buying items and receiving them (from several second at first to up to about 4,5 minutes for more expensive items). Game takes about 3h to finish, whereas it would take perhaps 30 minutes without the waiting times - and it would be a considerably more enjoyable experience in that case. Between a 30 minutes of well-paced engaging fun and a 3h game in which I regularly alt-tab to keep myself busy while waiting for cooldowns to end, I'd take the former any day.

To give credit where credit is due, the game is visually pleasing + has a theme song I occasionally catch myself humming. There is definitely a good dose of creativity put into the aesthetics of Little Inferno. But though I don't regret playing it, I find it hard to recommend to anyone due to the ultimately dull and unrewarding gameplay.