Seneste anmeldelser af YQMaoski

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Papetura is an abstract wordless point and click adventure told in a paper-sculpture world painstakingly made by the developer over many years. The quality of the finished game is incredible, even though it's short. I took my time with the game and spent under 2 hours finishing it, as the world is small and the puzzles fairly straight forward.

But the most impressive thing about this game is the hard work that went into creating the world. You do not have to look at it for long before you start to appreciate just now much effort was spent making the smallest of details. See this video here from the developer's YouTube channel to showcase some of the processes and care that had to go into creating the sculptures:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRQCKOwOMtQ

In classic point and click fashion, you will be guiding the main character through a series of puzzles in order to progress the story along. The puzzles found within this game are all fairly straight forward and progression is linear as well. Because of the relatively abstract nature of the characters found within and that the story is wordless, there's not a lot of plot development that tugs at the players' heartstrings, nevertheless, every moment spent while playing this game is very enjoyable, if nothing else, then just by looking at all of the fine details in the sets created for the game.

One thing to note is that there are some tedious and slow-walking sections that if you are bothered by these, you might find the sections a bit lackluster.

Another hugely important item to mention is that in the 2nd half of the game there are a couple of small timed sections. For people who have trouble clicking and maneuvering around on a timed restriction, this can be troublesome. This is just a caveat, as I have a friend who is struggling to complete the game due to this.

You play with the mouse only.

This game doesn't just have graphics, it has art, in full 3D solid form, as every aspect of the game was carefully designed and hand-built as paper sculptures to give it that very unique look and feel. The game is simply beautifully constructed, and I spent most of my time oggling at the stuff on the screen during my time spent so far.

The music and sound effects are all done rather well. There are high points, low points, and everything in between. The sounds change depending on your interactions with the environment, and you will pretty much experience all of the music and sound effects because there is nothing optional here in this game.

For people who want to ooh and aah at some really impressive artwork that took the developer years to build and for those who want to support a truly impressive feat in indie game design. The point and click game within is decent and short but is also not outstanding in anyway, with not very challenging puzzles and the timed element causing headaches to some. You will get all achievements playing the game just once, there's nothing hidden, so it's an easy 100% for those looking.

The base price is $11.99/9,99€ and so the money:time ratio doesn't necessarily meet the requirements for a lot of people, but it is totally worth it. You are taking a bit of time to wander around the virtual museum of paper sculptures that were actually pieced together bit by bit, slowly, over years, by the developer to give this unique look and feel. It's truly a remarkable undertaking and the end result is something that we have never seen in a game before and may never see again.

Papetura is dazzling in its artistic prowess, and is worthwhile to look at just for this alone. The little game that accompanies the artwork is a bonus, and serves to showcase every bit of this small paper-made museum. It is fairly easy and there are hints that you can use to give you some ideas if you feel stuck.

I would recommend that anyone who is interested to at least wishlist and follow the game. I don't know if we will see a sequel or perhaps a parallel project because I cannot fathom the number of hours it must have taken just for the level designs. So enjoy this unique game design as it is truly refreshing.

I do wish that the timed parts can be a bit more forgiving, as my friend is actually struggling to personally see to the end of this beautiful game, which is sad.

Score: 8/10

I received the product for free. I did not receive any compensation to write this review. The opinions represented here are entirely my own and were not influenced in any way.

Townscaper is the most casual and relaxing town-building game that's also fun and cheap. Choose your color and click with the mouse where you want to place the building elements and let the game take care of the rest. You can create some really funky-looking locales without needing to know anything about how buildings need to be put together structurally, the game adds all of the additional "stuff" and so you are just in it for a casual ride. There are some really creative people out there who have generated really neat-looking buildings/towns/citadels using this game that's really just a "toy" project of the developer.

There are few options in the game though, so people looking to buy should be aware of it. Plus the developer has already announced some time ago that there will be no more updates/features/etc. It would have been a really good tool if it could be more fleshed out with more options.

Nevertheless, it's worth checking out.

(If you notice this is not like my usual reviews, well, it's because I am just doing this for the Steam Awards nominations, and this game was one that I hadn't reviewed but thought should get a quick mention anyway.)

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Mon Amour is the best flappy type game out there, with fun music, bright colors, and a lot of amusing one-liners. The game is actually not as monotonous or frustrating as most flappy games.

The meat of the game is in the flappy aspect, where you move stage-to-stage, just from one end of the screen to the next, to kiss the kidnapped girls/people and at each 10th stage, to bring them home. The game is broken down into 50 stages, with the princess being the 49th, and the 50th of bringing the last set home.

Each stage as you move forward, the obstacles get a little bit closer and closer. And you will see fruit to collect show up that will help move the obstacles out of the way for a bit longer. There is also occasionally a shiny guava/green-apple like fruit that gives you "invincibility" for the duration of approximately one stage--transferring across stages. This helps to dramatically decrease the obstacle intruding into the field.

The game is a bit lenient than some of the other flappy games, as it clearly allows you to make mistakes and still get away with it. The different characters you kiss at the end of each stage stays with you until they all go home at the 10-th home-coming stage, but only if you do not hit any obstacles. Every time you do, one of them falls off, so they effectively count as added health counters. You only lose if you run out of them and hit one more.

Even though it's annoying to hit obstacles when you are doing your best to avoid them, you are only getting penalized for your own greediness. There is a pretty dramatic risk-reward system built into the scoring system, with two different ways of achieving higher scores than most. First is that every time you reach the end of the level the character you kiss spews some small hearts that you can collect for points. But if you leave them alone then they can stack and make bigger hearts, worth a lot more. The bigger hearts also help to move obstacles out of the way. The second way of getting high scores is by staying perfect and not hitting obstacles. If you reach each "home" stage with all of the characters that you have kissed in the previous stages, you gain quite a bit of extra bonus points.

The game advertises as one that you will die a lot, and in some ways, this is true, but after you take a few short runs to get used to the game mechanics, you will be surviving into the latter parts of the game on almost every run. The instant death doesn't happy all that often because you are collecting a health bar as you run through the sets of 10-stages at a time. It's really quite forgiving.

The difficult stages show up every 9th stage, so those are 9, 19, 29, and 39, in addition to everything beyond stage 40. These are special levels with more obnoxious obstacles and they seem like they are out there just to get you and prevent you from having a perfect run. There are some randomization in the n9th stages but 41-50 are always the same, in the same order. So you can learn them and gradually get better. I have yet to complete the final set of levels unscathed, so that last achievement still eludes me!

Well, it's single-button controls, just like most flappy games. You can use your keyboard (Z/Space/Enter), your mouse (Left Click), or your gamepad (A) to do the flapping.

The pixel sprites in this game are done really well. There are a few funny wordless narrative sequences that are pretty funny also. Overall I thought the artwork was really good.

Note: The game starts windowed, you can use Alt+Enter to go into fullscreen and you can also press W in the main screen to go back to windowed.

The music is pretty fun to listen to, though after a while it does get repetitive. The music beat and style invokes a little bit of Katamari. I wish there had been more variety, especially because there is no music/sound toggle or volume adjustments. (Those would have been nice things to have included in the game, especially a few of the sound effects seem dramatically louder than the rest.)

For a somewhat wider audience than just people who get a guilty pleasure out of flappy games. Its forgiving nature is pretty awesome. It does have a global leaderboard for people who want to go score chasing.

So the game retails for $8.99, and I think the majority of people who play will either play it for a very short amount of time or try to tirelessly climb the scoring leaderboards. I think it's worth the price, but I do think that a lower entry point would yield in more potential players.

https://youtu.be/DdHBdP4R88o

Mon Amour is a pretty good score-chasing game with flappy-style gameplay. I have played it on and off for the past week and am still chasing after the final achievement. Each run takes around 15 minutes to complete from beginning to end if you make it. Overall quite fun, but it definitely has a more limited target audience.

Final score: 8/10

I received the product for free. I did not receive any compensation to write this review. The opinions represented here are entirely my own and were not influenced in any way.

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100 hidden frogs is a free Hidden-Object Game in the same line as the other 100 hidden ___ series by Anatoliy Loginovskikh. It's pretty well done and your goal is to find all of the frogs. In the process, which should take minutes, you will also obtain 100 achievements.

There are 100 frogs hidden within the artwork, they are in whichever orientation but all of them retain some of their frog-esque appearances as to make them not too difficult to find. You can scroll up and down in the artwork by mousing over to the upper and lower portions of the screen, and you will just click on each frog as you come across it.

Mouse only.

Hand-drawn black & white artwork with each frog turning green after you find it. The artwork is pretty well done, I had a good time looking for the frogs and at the other flora and fauna within the scene.

The music is a single track as you play that is a decent beat. After you find the 100th frog, it turns into a more celebratory 2nd track.

If you like HOGs and/or achievements, this is a pretty cute and quick game to play through.

It's free!

I had some good fun playing 100 hidden frogs, and you probably will too, if you anticipate a casual 10-15 minutes looking at some black & white hand-drawn artwork while clicking to find the frogs. It took me about 5 minutes to find the first 98 frogs and the last 2 took another 10 minutes.

I received the product for free, I hope you did too! I did not receive any compensation to write this review. The opinions represented here are entirely my own and were not influenced in any way.

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Hidden Office is a hidden-object game within 12 different scenes/environments, with most of them depicting an office setting. It's not the best HOG but it's also not terrible, somewhere between "playable and fun" and "I wish I had more QoL features." The game is played entirely with a mouse and took me about 2.5 hours to complete, so buy at your own discretion, know that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcYGGBSYc2A

Each scene is a 3D rotatable set, and you are playing to gradually unlock all of the different styles of effects that are applied to each scene. Some of these drove me nuts, while others were pretty cool to play around. I cannot say I enjoyed all of them, but I endured them without too much headache.

The way that the different levels unlock is also a bit funny, as they do not obey any kind of numerical sense, but instead is just how the levels are linked up on the level-selection screen. Unfortunately because of this, you cannot move onto the next level after completing a previous one. You have to go back to the selection screen to pick and choose. I felt this was a really odd decision by the developer.

Breaking down all of the different effects/styles of play within the game. Each scene has the following features (I have taken the liberty of giving them some names, there are no words in the game at all):

1. Normal: Given a list of items to find and you rotate and zoom around to find them.

2. Silhouetted Items List: So you have find the items based on the general shape of what you are seeking.

3. Andy Warhol/3D Without Goggles: Everything on the scene is casting various colorful shades adjacent to the item, making everything look a bit blurry.

4. Duplicate Objects: Where you have to find out what on screen are in duplicates and point them out.

5. Rain on Glass: Your view is blurred as if you are looking through a glass panel that's constantly being battered by the rain and running water.

6. Find the Difference: You are given the scene in regular color and one in grayscale, and you have to find the difference between the two in what items are missing.

7. Contrasting Shadows: Your item list is in color, and you know what you are looking for, but everything in the scene is only in a shaded gray color, with contrast change based on your zoom.

8. Kaleidoscope: The screen shows the scene in the top right but the rest of the screen is in an kaleidoscopic effect mirroring that part of the scene you are looking at in a total of 4 panels.

9. Dark/Malfunctioning Flashlight: The scene is in a darkened state, and you have only the light/flashlight that's centered on your mouse to use to explore the scene. However, the flashlight mostly malfunctions (you are not lighting up what you want to, despite mousing over) and you just have to make do with whatever headaches this incurs.

Given the above different styles, I liked some, and disliked others. If you saw the video above, you will know which ones gave me the most headaches and I decided that I could live without. But if not, and you decide to play for yourself, you can figure out which ones work well for you and which do not.

In a number of levels, there are also some cats/dogs to find. You also need to find them in order to complete the level. They are extremely obvious and each animal find is tied to an achievement.

Fortunately, there's a hint button that you can click on any time you are completely stuck. The game tells you where you need to go to find the items. I used this feature 3 times during the entirety of the game.

Speaking of achievements, there is a completionist achievement that unlocks upon completing every level in the game. For me, this took about 2.5 hours. So it's not a difficult to achieve 100%.

Mouse only, to rotate the scenes around, to zoom in and out, and to click on stuff within the scenes.

Low-poly, which for the most part was not a problem. The animal models were where I felt I wanted a bit more realistic details but were missing.

I got sick of the music before too long. There are no sound effects at all. There are no volume adjustments, only a master toggle for the music.

Not a bad game for people who enjoy HOGs, but also nothing to write home about.

Base price of $6.99 is a big high, in my opinion. I completed it in 2.5 hours. You can decide how much that's worth to you.

1. I have come across several similar finding objects/differences games that allow you to zoom but does not offer any panning controls after zoomed in. This drives me absolutely bonkers. I just want to see, is that really that much to ask?

2. In the Andy Warhol, Kaleidoscope, and Find the Difference levels, you have to click on the correct designated parts of the items. Such as clicking on a different colorful shadow right next to the item doesn't register in the former, and the latter two, you have to only click on the right upper quadrant of the screen or just the right side.

3. In the Duplicate Objects levels or some other random levels, there are duplicated items that do not register. Everything is in low poly and the same items get reused. There are times when I thought I clearly found the items in question but the game only registered another copy of the same thing as the answer elsewhere on the level.

Hidden Office is a mediocre HOG that's reasonable and decently fun, but also does not stand out for any kind of a strong recommendation. It also happens to be overpriced for content and so if you were to buy it, I would say wait for a reasonable sale. The game took me 2.5 hours to complete for 100%, so it's a good title for people wanting to add to their completionist libraries.

Score: 5.5. (would be a neutral if options were present, but a thumbs up here because it was still a decent time spent.)

I received the product for free. I did not receive any compensation to write this review. The opinions represented here are entirely my own and were not influenced in any way.

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UNDYING is a survival adventure (currently in Early Access) where a mother Anling teaches her son Cody everything he needs to survive, simply because she knows that she will not be there for him for too much longer. She is infected in the story's intro by a zombie bite and after that, she piles on odd symptoms of disease but also gain special zombie powers. In the day by day survival sequences involving looting, crafting, making use of the tools, and also fending off zombies, Anling also needs to remember that Cody is just a young child who is not mentally, physically, or emotionally ready for survival on his own. Everything Anling does, Cody can learn and extract some experience, and in turn, eventually do it by himself as well.

The game allows you to play about halfway through the timeline right now, because it is still early access. The game just ends where it's cut off at the moment. The biggest issue I have had so far are finding out how to work around the balance problems and work on efficient uses of resources while also allowing Cody to gain experience and learn new skills so that he can be more of a help. Aside from that, the gameplay does feel like it gets a bit tedious and repetitive. Even though you are trying to do something new most of the time, inevitably you are back to the most basic tasks and filling up your bag with the essential resources day in and day out. The freshness of the game wears thin after a few initial hours. In its current state, the game needs some fixing up before it is ready for public use.

There are a few major resources that you need to gather to keep yourselves alive, and these are wood, scrap metal, cloth, food, water, medicines, and gasoline. There are a few areas where you can get some items in higher yields, and the relative safety of each location differs; and most of your time spent playing this game will involve getting the resources necessary.

There is no clear tutorial, but after starting a new game, you will have a few places around the house to walk to and to perform a few simple tasks that serves as the most basic starter. The rest is up to you to find out.

Looting is best done with the bare hands and also with a crowbar, the latter you can construct fairly early on. Each time Anling does something, you can choose to allow Cody to watch and learn. Eventually, he will be able to do them on his own.

The most important thing to do is to make some of the necessary repairs and upgrades to the various work stations at your disposal. They all have their uses and they can be upgraded to give you more survival functions. But you do the upgrades at the risk of not having enough resources for other things. Everything has durability considerations, it's also important to make sure that your tools are in good enough condition to do what you want to with them before setting out.

The clock counter seemingly moves forward at a pace of 60 times faster than reality, so each second of you playing counts as a minute. Traveling around the map from place to place also takes up time, and so it's very important to always pay attention to the time in this game. This becomes rather stressful, especially if you are running low on time. Key task is to save the game periodically, as there are manual and auto-save mechanisms in place.

There are 3 difficult settings available to choose whenever you start a new game.

It certainly is an interesting focus on the zombie survival story as the one of the main characters is infected from the very beginning. Anling's body starts to not respond properly and become slowed and inching towards madness every day between the hours of midnight and 2 AM, where it's the deadline for her to make it to her bed and to sleep. I like the idea that Anling is forced to take on a symptom from a choice of three options every several days, and you have to try to make the most of it.

The interactions between Anling and Cody are supposed to make the players bond a bit more with the characters. Sometimes you may get this feeling, but a lot of times, it feels rather empty. I think the story will take on more of a presence once the game develops further, but for now, it is pretty difficult to bond with the characters, instead just making sure to do what you need to do before making sure that rest is in timely order on a day by day basis.

The game looks like it may be a sandbox survival, with plenty of locations to travel to, etc. There are only set objects that you can interact with in the different locations and they progressively unlock with the plot development. Trash heaps, zombies, and some items will respawn spontaneously after a few days. Some resources are always in high demand and are used up much faster than one would expect, while others are less useful, and collecting them means inventory management problems.

The balance in this game still needs a lot of work, as there are some things that do not make a whole lot of sense, but you still do it anyway due to improper balance of tasks and experience gains.

The game works fine with Mouse + Keyboard or with a controller. I was playing mostly with the controller.

The artwork uses a low-poly aesthetic and the sets are pretty well put together. The storytelling animation scenes still need a lot of work.

The music and sound effects are not all there.

Base price of $19.99 with various regional pricing would be fine for the finished game, if most of its main issues are fixed by then.

https://youtu.be/n_1935zgNKc

UNDYING is interesting and involves a not very complex looting/gathering/crafting system that are in place to keep a mother and son pair alive for as long as possible. The concept is neat with its involvement of the two family members to allow closer bonding with the player, but the game's execution still needs some additional work. The fact that Anling is already infected by a zombie bite before the game even starts changes the perspective overall and the different symptoms/zombie powers are interesting as you play through the game. The timing factor at times play a rather critical role in reducing enjoyment of the game due to a feeling of unnecessary rushing, however it's a major part of the game mechanic.

In its current Early Access build (written October 25, 2021) there is more tedium than enjoyment after a few short initial hours, souring the experience a bit. I am unsure whether this is from the ever continuous need to gather resources and to do more tasks or because the overall mechanics feel rather shallow, or perhaps I had a difficulty bonding with the characters. The game mechanics didn't lure me in to keep replaying unfortunately at this time.

For now, I would tell anyone looking in to wait until the game is in a better-developed state.

I received the product for free. I did not receive any compensation to write this review. The opinions represented here are entirely my own and were not influenced in any way.

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Source of Madness features a 2D action platformer with some roguelite features; however, the content available so far likely is not enough to drive enough variability so run to run actually feels very similar in level design. The enemies are multi-tentacled eldritch masses of flesh and there is some randomization of what spawns as well. Of course there are differences run to run in terms of character traits and also abilities from the equipment, so there is decent replay value. But the price seems a bit much for what is available as the game only has a couple of bosses among the somewhat random large and small seething piles of monster flesh while running through several different biomes (currently in sequential order). Artistically this game is quite nice and is what drew me in at first.

Of serious consideration though, the controls feel rather janky at times, and I have on more than one occasion been stuck in the environment and not been able to get out due to moving floor/environments. The game itself feels slow in all aspects of movement, combat, and it's just difficult to see a lot of times when the enemies will lash out at you, especially when you are being swarmed. Thus to counter balance this, I do find it necessary to hit and run but that makes the slow-appearing game move along even slower. Finding cheese going from run to run while maximizing damage output while also keeping yourself safe seems to be the biggest priority, and as such, runs tend to get bogged down with unnecessary movements.

The game for me at first was a rather artistic and visually pleasing adventure with notable slowness in gameplay. Later on I was ignoring what I didn't have to pay attention to and blasting through enemies a lot faster, after getting accustomed to the game itself. Still, with runs of an hour or so for the currently available content, I cannot imagine the length of a run should the full game be completed with all of the sections that seem to be planned. I am estimating by what I see wandering around the "hub" area before the run starts.

I am having fun with this game and I will look forward to seeing it in its completed form, though it would not be unrealistic to wait and see how it turns out before you decide to dive in yourself.

1. The maps are sizeable but as far as I know, there's nothing in terms of a mini-map overlay that you can toggle. Maybe it's there and I just didn't know how to get to it, but when I was doing my due diligence and exploring some areas that had a lot of vertical layers and not just horizontal left-right orientation, I would often wish to be able to see some kind of a map to give me some reference points about where I was or where was the shop I had come across, etc.

2. The lengths of the runs seem a bit long, and almost burdensome at times. The game just has a slowness factor that is difficult to ignore. I cannot exactly see myself having the time to sit through whole runs without being able to save when the game is complete. They would be too long and I am sure other things would get in the way and I would need to quit and lose a bunch of progress.

3. I can see from the game updates that there are plenty attempts to fix the monster attacking patterns and making them not so deadly. I think some of these changes were probably necessary. Nevertheless, it is still at times difficult to visualize their attacks especially within those challenge rooms where several monsters are around you simultaneously. It is difficult to get away and also difficult to see how they are dropping their attack cues.

4. There are only two merchants that I have run across and they always show up together. It would be nice to have some more merchants with more varied items available down the line. I suppose this actually goes for all of the items/drops. More variety would be great.

5. There was an auto-attack with aiming the right stick that was removed from a previous update. While most might prefer to not have this, I think I would find it a better experience. Perhaps turning this into a toggle option and allowing the players to decide would be great.

6. The different spells/magic attacks are pretty fun in their differences, but there are really not very many weapons, tools, or modifiers available. More visual designs and more types of items available would be nice.

7. Definitely need to fix some of the areas where it is easy to actually get stuck in the environment, making it difficult for the player to move. This adds nothing to the gameplay other than frustration at the most inopportune moments. (Specifically I got stuck in Forest of Lies, where there are mobile/wavy floors that could create just the right pocket to fit me and for the floor to engulf me, with the floors unresponsive to attacking and jumping just bonking my head instead.)

There are definitely areas that the controls could be improved. Smoothness of actions would be priority for me. I suppose part of it is the limitations of the engine physics, but there are so many times when the jump/double jump feels like it should get you where you want to go, but you end up just short, etc. I only moved around and tried out the controls on KB+M, and that felt fine. I played primarily using a controller, which worked well. However, working well does not yield the same satisfying feeling that I usually look for when playing a 2D platforming style game using the controller.

The artwork is rather visually appealing, with a consistent dark and eerie mood/background while the monsters are pretty interesting to look at. The different spells have varying appearances and look pretty cool as well. So many times the artwork in this game made me think "creepy" and I think that's the intended effect.

The music sets the mood reasonably well, though it isn't too exciting. Some of the sound effects are a bit overused and can get jarring on the ears after a while.

If you are looking for eldritch style horror in a highly artistic 2D platformer, you have found a really nice game choice here. Just keep in mind, that death and repeat cycle keeps happening and this game is rather slow-paced. As for people looking to play a 2D action platformer with significant roguelite elements and only wanting buttery-smooth gameplay, this is not it. All of the janky movements and physics make for some additional frustrations at times.

I do think the game is priced a bit high for its current version of Early Access. Not to mention it has the same number in baseline pricing in both USD and Euro. When I am thinking $17 is high for the content right now, and seeing that it's that many Euro, I would not be surprised if most people wait for a heavy sale before even diving in. It's unclear how much the price will go up by in the finished product either.

Source of Madness is pretty fun but could also use some additional work. It's completely reasonable to wait before heading into this game, though doing so now could mean that you help to shape the final version the game in some manner.

Recommended with caution for current version of Early Access.

Thank you for reading.

Review written October 17, 2021.

I received the product for free. I did not receive any compensation to write this review. The opinions represented here are entirely my own and were not influenced in any way.

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Simple Sky is top-down twin-stick space-shooter/score-chaser with some unique ideas. The simple and bright artwork gives the game a friendly appearance, but after I headed into the main game, I quickly realized that it gives the player no quarter. There are 10 difficulty settings, and only two are unlocked in the very beginning. Well, so far, I have yet to unlock another. Please keep in mind that this game is in Early Access currently, and some of my discussion may be outdated by the time you are looking at the game.

The idea is simple, you start off as a ship with a main and secondary weapon, all of your movements use your energy reserves that spontaneously regenerate, and every action has a cooldown. Enemies start coming after you in what almost seems like a survival arena and you need to fend them off until the boss encounter for that particular stage, after which you can complete the stage and move on or stay behind to gather some more resources, though with a finite absolute time limit. There's a visual countdown to when things start going haywire if you stay too long, so it's not difficult to gauge this.

During your time spent on any level, finding local planets of various sizes and mining their resources will be very important. These resources are currency that you also get by killing enemies and you can upgrade your ship every time you reach a preset "value." You need to be docked on a planet while you upgrade, and this isn't difficult, you can run headfirst into a planet and that counts as docking.

When you make an upgrade, you are given a choice from 3 random selections. You can gradually maximize your firepower, your abilities, your cooldowns, HP, etc. through your various upgrades. You can even increase how many selections you get when you upgrade. If you get lucky early on, you can take an upgrade to make it possible to upgrade mid-flight, which doesn't seem like much, but is actually a huge boon. Or at least I think so.

In each level, you are constantly being hunted by the boss, which slowly approaches you from afar. You can see where it is and where you are, along with locations of the different planets on the minimap. It would seem that either avoiding the boss in the beginning or heading right in may each have its own benefits, I have yet to figure out the perfect strategy.

The individual runs in this game are usually pretty short. If I don't have a good combination going for me from the first few upgrades, I find that I can rarely make it to or past the 2nd boss. With some nice upgrades working in nice synergy, I was able to get to what I thought to be the final boss on the easiest difficulty, though I still struggled to live to the end. I would say average runs for me when things are going well are around 15 minutes or so.

There is a lot of movement based on your momentum, and because you are a ship moving around in space, you can expect to have some arcing movements and annoying "sliding-on-ice" feel as you try to maneuver around. This is just something to get used to, it's a game decision that will make a lot of people throw their hands in frustration but it's a decision specifically for this game. Once you get used to it, it won't feel so bad.

Keyboard and Mouse required, and for some reason I had to launch this on my laptop, since on my main PC, the keyboard was being recognized in the menu, but once the run started, it wouldn't respond. I do hope that this gets hashed out and not too many people buy and need to refund due to unrecognized keyboard controls.

The artwork in this game is nothing to write home about, everything is pretty simplistic in design. It has bright colors and simple designs that give it a bit more friendly appearance, but the game mechanics beg to differ.

The music gets super repetitive, to the point that I had to turn it off

This is where I struggle a bit. I would say more for people who don't mind repetitive deaths and are okay with working through the initial slow bits in an arena-survival/shooter game. The run becomes more enjoyable when you can survive the initial start-up phase, which can be over quickly if things fall in nicely, but can also draw on for a while.

Early Access base price is $9.99 with regional pricing. It does have some replay value in that you are trying to chase the high-scores in kills during your runs while also trying to beat the game as fast as you can--the two leaderboards on Steam. I think the price is fair as far as people who enjoy the game are concerned. Those who cannot stand it have plenty of time to experience it prior to making a decision to refund, if truly they determine it's not worthwhile.

1. Have the issue fixed so I can play on my main computer, but the problem is that I have no idea what the issue is.
2. Having a bit simpler initial stages of each run when it comes to upgrades. I find that it's the part I enjoy the least and it tends to drag on for a while, and for me that's the do-or-die part of the run. If I make it, the rest of the run is enjoyable, if I die, then I have to start over from scratch and keep my fingers crossed.
3. More clear-cut synergy effects when upgrading, maybe showing some numbers/stats or highlighting which other prior upgrades will benefit, etc. It would be nice to know whether I am making a good decision or not when upgrading.
4. The mid-flight upgrade option comes up infrequently and I personally dislike the fact that I have to dock to upgrade prior to getting this. I almost wish the requirement to dock to upgrade would be removed completely.
5. More weapons/upgrade options, etc.

Bottom line in regards to this section is me saying that for these kinds of games to keep me interested, I need to see faster earlier progress to get to the fun parts, to keep me coming back and playing another run. It's not difficult to start another run after the previous, but the desire to immediately start is definitely hindered by the knowledge of the beginning grind. It may be only a few minutes, but it's enough to make me hesitate. With that and some additional QoL changes to facilitate smoother and more streamlined gameplay, I would enjoy it a lot more.

Simple Sky is overall pretty fun, and so far I am enjoying myself. I realize that this game is in Early Access and so I hope to see some improvements in the aspects that I have requested, just to make it even more fun. I have confidence in that this developer will make the game better from its current build as there seems to be an update every time I look at it, especially with the latest one around a request that I had made.

Current score 7/10 (written Oct. 9, 2021).

Thank you for reading.

I received the product for free. I did not receive any compensation to write this review. The opinions represented here are entirely my own and were not influenced in any way.

Follow our curator page: IndieGems if you like and want to see more reviews like this one.

A Juggler's Tale tells the story of Abby, a circus performer kept in captivity who wishes to see the world outside of just the circus. The story is beautiful, the artwork is creative, and the writing is in verse, with a bemused and still soothing narrative voice, all within this short puppet story.

The game is set in the form of a 2D puzzle platformer to help tell the story, which is broken up into 5 acts, each with its individual small checkpoints that you can revisit at any time. The game uses autosaving but you can always go back to the main menu to go to an earlier checkpoint. No manual saving is needed.

The individual puzzles are all well contained on-screen. You don't need to carry tools or clues from one part of the game to the next and so it's just a matter of figuring out the mechanics of the puzzle and the available pieces before figuring it out. Because Abby is a puppet and is on strings, well, those strings play a critical role when it comes to the puzzles at times.

There are not many games that are written in rhythmic verses and so this game really stands out. The other one that comes to mind immediately is a straight up platformer called Songs for a Hero. But back to this game, putting the artwork and the verses onto flowing pages and you would find a very appealing children's story, filled with hope, wonder, bewilderment, and conflict. There is time to bond with Abby and to face her fears together as you solve your way through the game.

There are some puzzles and platforming that are somewhat time-dependent, so you do need to act with a certain degree of precision, but nothing is super difficult. If you fail, you just reload right at the last checkpoint and the game is filled with plenty of those that you never lose any progress. The only thing you might have to endure is some repeated animations/narrations that repeat at those checkpoints as well.

The controls are easy to get used to, you can use either a controller or mouse + keyboard. There's no complexity in the controls.

The artwork is beautiful in this game, every scene and every set has some neat things to look at, in the foreground and the background. You can feel the love poured into creating this game in the artwork alone.

I took a screenshot to share here to give you an idea of what you could expect:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2617207146

The sound effects are pretty well put together, and the music is very fitting for the intended atmosphere.

For people who want a good short story, with excellent writing and narration, but especially for those who enjoy puzzle platformers as well. As I mentioned above, there are some time-dependent elements but are not difficult, so most people should be able to play this game with ease.

This game is short, my first go around took around 2.5 hours, and I was taking it easy fiddling with the game's mechanics. Another run through probably would take about an hour. There is a little bit of replay value for there are a few achievements that I missed, but they shouldn't be hard to get. I see that there are 100% guides out there already, so there.

That length in mind, a base price of $17.99 USD is a bit heavy for such a short game. I definitely think the game is worthwhile, but perhaps on a reasonable sale due to its very short length.

My very first half hour with this game can be found here, with some small spoilers, of course, and so watch only if you don't mind that:
https://youtu.be/frvl7jRNhFU

A Juggler's Tale is a family friendly puppet-based puzzle-platformer where the idea of puppetry is not a simple artistic decision but factors into your puzzle-solving with clever use of the strings at times. It contains a heartwarming tale and fun gameplay, but is just a bit too short for the price.

Definitely play this when you get a chance, but definitely get it on a reasonable sale.

I received the product for free. I did not receive any compensation to write this review. The opinions represented here are entirely my own and were not influenced in any way.

Follow our curator page: IndieGems if you like and want to see more reviews like this one.

Dagon: by H. P. Lovecraft is a 1917 short story by a common name in strange fiction and the gaming community. Now a century later, we get this narrative experience with imaginative visuals, effective sounds, and excellent vocalization of the story. Best part is, you get to experience it for free. The VR version of this is still in the works and will be coming in October 2021.

There's not much in the way of gameplay. You listen to the narration of the short story, look and see the developer's personal interpretation of the descriptions found within, and move from scene to scene in linear fashion by clicking on whatever triggers the scene to move forward.

There is neither diverting plot, nor any high-stress action, but the progression of the story and the tone set by the scenes, the somber narration, and the music will give the imaginative audience exactly what you came here for--a scintillating experience that may prey on dreams.

Aside from the story, there are also trivia tidbits to be found throughout the game, but finding these and reading them do cause unnecessary interruptions in the main story, so I recommend that anyone going through to just run through the story and then go back later to find the trivia. A once-through experience and not worrying about the trivia should take about 30 minutes.

For people who want a one-and-done experience while getting all of the achievements, I suppose you just need to pay close attention and find all of the trivia first time around. The trivia that you find is found in a separately accessible section from the main menu, so it's not difficult to find out where you may have missed some and run through a second time to quickly get them. You can cut the narrative short if you really don't want to listen a second time and just get to the pages to look for what you need.

Works with Mouse and Keyboard as well as Controller. I have a PS4 controller connected, and had no issues with using it for its intended purpose. Some people seem to be having some controller issues, but I did not.

Surreal yet realistic visuals interpreted by the developer based on the many iterations Lovecraft described his own visions/horrors and of course the many recurring references in movies, games, magazines, etc. The 3D models are created rather well, very visually vivid, with some nice attention to details.

I think the sound effects are done well. There's not a lot of them, but enough to matter where they show up. The music is good at creating the necessary atmosphere.

The short story has been around for a long time, you can easily find it online just to read. If you enjoy Lovecraftian stories, there's no reason to not take a quick journey through this game, especially because it's free. You can also read the short story first on your own, and then compare the experience you got from the reading versus the interpretation presented here by the developer.

It's free, which is awesome. There is also a paid DLC for some extra goodies if you want to support the developer.

Dagon: by H. P. Lovecraft is a wonderful interpretation of the short story that is put together very well by the developer Bit Golem. I certainly enjoyed myself walking through the story and experiencing it as intended. The trivia tidbits do cause a bit of unnecessary interruptions to the storytelling and the experience, so that's the real only downside. When you find and click on any of the trivia, it automatically pops up and I felt compelled to read it even though I know I could access it later from the main menu. I would like an option to turn off the trivia from popping up as to not cause these interruptions. The tidbits, though interesting, do not necessarily contribute to the story as it flows forward.

Nevertheless, it is an experience that is proffered gratis and we should be appreciate of that.

Definitely try it out, if you have read this far; and for that, I thank you for reading.

I received the product for free, just like almost everyone else who came across this game on Steam, unless you paid for the DLC to support the developer. I did not receive any compensation to write this review. The opinions represented here are entirely my own and were not influenced in any way.