Recent reviews by Syntax Error

Feel-good social anxiety PSA with light platforming elements. You're a moth worried about being out and about and dealing with people but circumstances have you spending a day talkin' to bug folk. Simplistic conversation trees where you're presented with (usually) four reply options and picking self-affirming ones will decrease your nerves and self-depreciating ones will increase it. Should your anxiety reach the cap, you are literally pursued by the physical manifestation of your neurosis.

The artwork is nice, the voiced dialogue is well done and it's a pleasant enough story. As a "game", it's lacking -- the platforming is simplistic and the good/bad dialogue options are obvious and there's stress-reducing flowers liberally spread throughout the map. But I'll give it a thumbs up since I assume the developers were trying harder to make an inspirational message for people suffering from social anxiety than trying to create an entertaining arcade experience.

Careen, arcade-style, down the wet streets of Scotland showcasing the best this land has to offer: housing rows, industrial parks, seawalls and airports. Choose between the light and zippy hatchback, the street-gripping sedan or a transit van that handles pretty much like racing a transit van. Let your ears be caressed by the sounds of driving rain, humming motors and the occasional opinion on your driving by some guy. Conclude each race with a cinematic replay of your performance and possibly the approving smile of a very Scottish looking young lady.

Was entertaining even if I'm not especially good at it. Sole complaint is that custom keybinds don't seem to save between plays. I mean, there's only two keys I changed so it's a couple seconds each time I launch but still worth mentioning.

To start: Devs, if you are reading this, please put underwear on your nightgown zombies. Please. Pretty please.

But anyway, decent enough basic zombie shooter for the 49¢ I paid for it. Some janky behavior such as zombies clipping or teleporting up a hole to get at me. Lighting and atmosphere were generally pretty good (a good part lifted directly from L4D No Mercy). Only one type of zombie in a handful of designs but no spittin', jumpin' or fartin' zombies. Just dead dudes running at you. Weapons felt overall decent though once I had the Desert Eagle I almost never used anything else. Pistol sniping with the crosshairs was basically all you need for most of the game. Ending drags a bit since it's so wide open that you just go through, headshotting zombies with the pistol from far away then clear the small resulting rush mobs.

It's not great. It's a cheap Unity zombie shooter. But I fired it up and had enough fun to play to the end so got my half-buck's worth.

Visit Lollygag Studios to see the amazing new immersion game they're working on. But the studio is seemingly abandoned. Gasp! Go between the offices and 80's inspired cyberworld to shoot dudes and solve the mystery. Was "ok" but I got stuck in a spot on what to do next and likely won't return. Physics are super jank where items would stick to me regardless of if I tried to lift them and controller sensitivity was awful, even at 10%

Taking significant liberties with the word "riot", this game puts you in the role of a rabbit trying to escape a creepy estate where you were being experimented on. This means dodging dogs and avoiding traps from a rabbit's eye view which is novel though you can't do anything like go under a truck. Which would be super helpful when a dog is chasing you. There are, at least, some hedge tunnels you can use and also numerous carrots and lettuce heads that don't do anything obvious when you pass over them except disappear. Escaping means you get to go back and do it again as your rabbit wife then as your rabbit child but, each time, gates close behind you so you have to find new paths for the exit. Then you get a cut scene trying to pretend there's a bigger story but it's enough to just say you're three rabbits trying to get home. No replay value but, hey, it was 49¢ on sale and made me feel moderately rabbity for a little while.

Spend 3-4 hours as a black-furred monster girl, learning Very Important Lessons about mental health issues as you explore a dreamy sunken city and interact with various manifestations of depression, self doubt, family strife and other fun stuff. Given the short length of the game, the lessons are a bit heavy-handed and forced but it does do a decent job of expressing that there's no single solution to these things. The graphics and design are well done, the Depression Kaiju are impressive, it all fit together nicely and there's enough game play to keep you moving but it's definitely in service to the story. I thought it was a fine enough way to spend four hours but I'd have a hard time telling someone else to spend that time on some dark stuff versus "Shooting alien zombies for four hours is good fun". If you're willing to play for the experience, you'll likely find it worth the time.

Enter the world of Sal, a teenage kid with a prosthetic face. Why does he have a prosthetic face? I dunno, they didn't tell me. Episode 1 is a fairly short story about moving into a new apartment after your mother's death and solving a mystery. Game play was very basic, essentially just walking each floor and clicking on any interaction pop-ups and running through the dialogue options. I only saw one thing that might charitably be called a puzzle. But the world itself was interesting and the animation has a slightly unsettling vibe and it gels pretty well. The story ends on a twist-cliffhanger so this is just a taste of it all. I'll probably pick up the remaining four chapter pack on a seasonal sale but there isn't much reason to play Ep 1 if you're not going to follow it up with the rest.

Simply terrible Unity asset flip that is surprisingly incompetent even among the realm of 49¢ weak Unity asset flips. Bad graphics, bad controls, bad sounds... I thought the point of Unity asset flips was that a half decent set of mechanics and graphics/sounds were baked in? I mean, how do you screw THAT part of it up? Anyway, you're a guy in a flying lawnmower and you shoot stuff. Stuff shoots back, sometimes. Despite the awful controls, I kept gaining extra lives thus ensuring that my torment wouldn't end. Finally I had to pause to put a pizza in the oven and then just quit when I returned. Yay pizza.

Artsy walking simulator. Really. You walk along and the landscape shifts around you. Increasing amounts of alien fauna appear around you from place to place, sometimes timid and sometimes inquisitive but never hostile. The most game play there is consists of clicking pillars and boulders to create undulating bridges to new locations or tossing seeds to create trees. Aside from that, it's just walking through pastel landscapes to the next landscape until you run out of landscapes. I received it from a GMG booster pack so it was "free" but not a gift or review copy. This means I thought it was fine for the time spent on it but I do think the Steam MSRP is quite high for what you actually get in play/experience.

Cheap but relatively entertaining Unity-based arcade racer. Well, more street driving than racing since you're the only one attempting to blaze your way through traffic. 80's-future aesthetic applied with a trowel and it handles like a $2 racing game but I had fun with it for a while, ran through most of the settings and bought/upgraded a few cars. The UI/Menus are terrible but the actual street driving is okay for what it is. A couple different modes including two-way traffic, time trial and a "Speed" mode where you have to keep going fast and avoid collisions due to the bomb in your truck. All that said, you certainly have access to better arcade racers in your library but I'll give it a thumbs up versus its price.