Recent reviews by Atarun

Without a Dawn is a near-kinetic horror visual novel by Jesse Makkonen (DISTRAINT). You wake up in an isolated cabin, plagued by vivid nightmares that are leading you somewhere... somewhere dark and mysterious.

• Truly unique gorgeous ASCII-art-like visual style
  
• Stellar sound design to make you feel oppressed and anxious
  
• Engaging introspective story with Lovecraft and Junji Ito vibes

• Fairly on the short side (though it's an intense ride)
  
• Most choices are not real: you end up forced to make the "right" choice eventually

This game is akin to a roller coaster: you strap in for the ride and then alternate between calmish climbs and exhilirating drops. Come in expecting to be wowed by the art, passion, and execution of it all and you should be well satisfied.

If you appraise games based on number of hours of gameplay, replay value, or sheer amount of content, then stay away from this one. It's definitely high quality over quantity.

Be that as it may.

Buckshot Roulette is a borderline-horror experimental gambling game based on Russian Roulette. You kick the door of a hidden playroom above a seedy nightclub to face a nightmarish Dealer. Win and you get a payday, lose and you die.

What seems extremely luck-based and simple at first gets deeper with additional rules and items. My personal bit of advice is to use gaming stones to keep track of the shells. There's still some luck involved, but nowhere near as much as it initially appears.

• Unique atmosphere
  
• Surprisingly deep mechanics
  
• Tense gameplay
  
• Dirt cheap price for the amount of content, especially if multiplayer gets added later as promised

• Haunting earworm-prone music, YMMV
  
• Intentionally bad-looking graphics, check the screenshots
  
• Frustrating time-based scoring system makes the relatively slow animations more jarring, hope it gets changed
  
• Whims of the RNG may kill you, even with the best strategy
  
• Dealer acts logically most of the time but will occasionally shoot itself with a live shell for no apparent reason, leaving you dumbfounded

I stumbled upon this game on YouTube and it looked weird enough that I had to try it. Bought it on itch.io and loved it. When I saw it released on Steam, I bought it again in a heartbeat and was pleasantly surprised with the extra content.

This video game experience is nowhere near universally recommendable, however. If you can't gamble a couple of bucks on a game you might hate, I suggest you watch a gameplay video first... it will ruin part of the surprise, sure, but you should get a sense of whether you'll love or hate Buckshot Roulette.

Sign the waiver.

This game looks amazing. And it has pretty good voice acting.

Here stops the list of qualities, as far as I can tell.
The puzzles are nonsensical, the UI is sadistic... It seems the devs didn't want you to figure things out by yourself, but rather just wanted you to be frustrated and confusingly click around until you stumbled upon whatever nonsense they had in mind.
Add to that a bunch of random characters who are about as sympathetic as mosquitos on a hot summer night and about as interesting as an almost-retired university professor who forgot anyone is actually listening...

This is a not a puzzle game. This is torture.

To be fair (or try to be): I didn't go very far in the game. I couldn't stand it and frankly didn't want to run afoul of Steam's refund policy. It is possible the game gets much better later on... but I fail to see why it would have postponed any content of any redeeming value to later. So hard as hell do NOT recommend.

Assemble with care is a short point-and-click experience. You play as Maria, a renovator by trade who pays her backpacking expenses by fixing old things for people.

Each of the dozen levels will start and end with a voice-acted and illustrated bit of story, and feature something to open, fix, and re-assemble.

• Short and sweet, not overstaying its welcome
  
• Lovable characters
  
• Impeccable art style
  
• Great voice-acting
  
• Core gameplay is easy but engaging

• So short you might well wish there was more
  
• Frustrating UI at times (e.g. sometimes you'll see the outline of where you want to put a part, but instead the game will focus on it)
  
• Deep drama resolving a bit too fast (Would a busy grieving widower really realize he needs to spend more time with his daughter just because some rando fixed his statue and watch?)

Another indie game that aims to make you feel more than make you play.

If you want your games to feature a ton of gameplay bang for your buck, skip this one. If you feel like trying something new and enjoy slice-of-life drama, this should scratch the itch.

I would buy a sequel in a heartbeat.

PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo is a horror visual novel. You will play as several characters in the course of the story. A dark ritual has unleashed curses all around the Sumida ward of Tokyo, Japan. You must keep your wits about you and think outside the box if you want to prevent disaster.

While this is functionally a visual novel (you will spend most of your time here reading), it does feature somewhat original gameplay elements: you must fiddle with the options on a few occasions to solve puzzles, e.g. turning down the Voice volume to escape the Foot-Washing Mansion curse.

It's also worth noting that this is very lean as VNs go: dialogs mostly go straight to the point, there are no interminable monologues, most of the descriptions are optionally readable in Files... I don't think it would overwhelm players who aren't huge fans of reading.

Funny tidbit: the game starts with the usual disclaimer about it being a work of fiction and having no relation to real events, characters, or locations... but the credits mention the cooperation of the Sumida tourist office XD

• Engaging plot chock-full of twists and turns
  
• Impeccable 80s style
  
• Colorful characters that mostly break with typical anime tropes
  
• Great balance between comedy and drama
  
• Many interesting endings which aren't simple dead-ends (though there are quite a few dead ends as well)
  
• Story Chart which functions both as a vital gameplay mechanic and as an invaluable tool to save time when hunting endings and/or collectibles

• Fast Forward never worked for me... but thankfully wasn't as needed as it is in most VNs
  
• Part of the soundtrack is a bit repetitive and sometimes jarring
  
• Small number of puzzles (would have loved solving more)
  
• Somewhat unbalanced storytelling, with some past events described in greatly detailed flashbacks, while others are very briefly described
  
• Some of the most interesting characters die before the story begins
  
• Beginning of the story is full of mayhem, rest of the story is pretty tame in comparison... YMMV

I had a great time unraveling the many mysteries of Honjo. I recommend this game to any fan of Japanese horror stories. Even if you aren't normally into VNs, this one might not overstay its welcome.

I suggest avoiding spoilers as much as possible, as figuring the plot out is the most satisfying part of the game, in my opinion.

At Eve's Wake is a horror visual novel where knowledge is accrued over multiple playthroughs and unlocks new options.

You have amnesia and are attending the funeral of your grandmother. Things devolve quite quickly and you must soon pick sides. Lots of sides.

• Interesting premise
  
• Beautiful visuals
  
• Serviceable music

• No "skip read" feature, making later playthroughs a painfully slow click-fest... especially egregious in a game that fully expects you to play it many times
  
• Clicking on options sometimes stops working for no apparent reason
  
• Inconsistencies galore (the game may or may not remember your actions in any given playthrough)
  
• Some events in the game do not have any impact on the later proceedings for unclear reasons (example: if you agree to marry Woden to break the ritual... the ritual will proceed anyway)
  
• One special object (the Black Heart) can be lost forever, forcing you to reset the game to access some endings

I really wanted to like this game... and I suppose I did during my first couple of playthroughs.

But trying to unlock more endings, secrets, and achievements is way too frustrating. A pity.

The Mortuary Assistant is a first-person puzzle horror game. You play as Rebecca Owens, a quite unlucky mortuary assistant who just finished her training and must now take on a night shift... but, among the bodies to embalm, one is possessed by an entity very intent on switching from that corpse to Rebecca's body.

You cannot hide, run, or fight back. There is but one way to survive:

• Perform occult rituals to reveal the entity's name
  
• Identify which corpse is possessed
  
• Banish the demon

There are many randomly activated events, plenty of information to uncover, items that move around to keep you on your toes, and 7 (6 unlockable + game over) different endings depending on how you perform and what you find and/or unlock during a shift.

The game saves automatically. You can restart the current shift from the main menu. To witness the introduction cinematics again, however, you must erase all your data.

Warning: Embalming bodies is a somewhat gruesome activity. Even outside horror events, just performing your ascribed tasks as a mortician, there'll be enough gore and graphic images to make a weak stomach churn. Buyers beware.

• Extremely creepy atmosphere
  
• Tension that keeps building through each shift
  
• Diverse bone-chilling encounters
  
• Encounter placement adapts to your camera angles and movements for maximum effect
  
• Haunting music
  
• AAA voice acting
  
• Immersive approach to exorcism
  
• Embalming gameplay that stays fresh for a good while (mainly because items keep moving between shifts)

• Unwieldy controls, especially when moving the gurney
  
• Annoying inventory management system (though it does up the tension at times)
  
• Somewhat confusing save system (and without save slots)
  
• Lackluster graphics and animations

It had been a while since a horror game surprised and haunted me this much. It is tough to believe that this game has been made by a solo developer (excluding voice actors and asset providers)...

The experience feels really fresh and unique. If you like horror games and the idea of embalming bodies does not make you squeamish, I heartily recommend this gem to you.

EDIT: later updates have brought considerably more variety in bodies so I removed the associated negative point.

This game is buggy as hell.
As a MtG fan and deckbuilding game afficionado, I was primed to LOVE this game to pieces. I had no qualms about its potential P2W aspects (had so much fun with Gems of War after all)...
But I can't count how many times I've lost because the game servers are a joke and the code has more holes than Swiss cheese. It was getting so ludicrous. About two third of my games I would lose right before I was about to win. Why? Who knows. Seems the game got bored of me trying to win... Or maybe it's just because the servers were made for privileged users with high speed internet and nobody ever thought to try playing with broadband? Either way. This game doesn't want me. It sure as hell won't get my money or my time. Huge disappointment.

And for good measure: the voice-over irritated me beyond belief. The deckbuilding interface is in my bottom 10 such. And the tutorial falls right into the category most (justifiably) loathed: extremely long, tedious, and commanding, yet ultimately devoid of useful information.

I honestly hoped for better from Wizards of the Coast. There was potential. It was squandered. RIP.

The Medium is a fixed-camera third-person adventure game putting you in the shoes of a woman who can simultaneously exist in and interact with the world of the living and the afterworld. Using her medium powers, she goes on a dark and dangerous quest to answer the questions haunting her.

The game will frequently require you (or outright force you) to either switch from one world to the other or to move and act in both at the same time, splitting the screen between the two realities the protagonist experiences.

Warning: Traumatic events are mostly inferred rather than shown, but they are legion and run the gamut of what could possibly warrant trigger warnings. Tread carefully.

• Stunning visuals on the other side
  
• Engaging story, steeped in historical references, though they might be too subtle for people who know nothing about post-WWII Poland's history
  
• Straightforward puzzles (maybe a tad on the easy side)
  
• Music and sound effects serve the dark atmosphere very well
  
• Some gripping stealth sequences that do not overstay their welcome

• Camera angles and abundant darkness sometimes make it hard to see where to go or where the relevant objects are
  
• Drab setting on the side of the living
  
• Slightly frustrating ending
  
• Will no doubt seem short to many players (about 10 hours should be enough for a first playthrough)

Many video games hand supernatural powers to their protagonist and make the players wish they also had those powers... not so with The Medium. There is no real upside to Marianne's uncontrollable interactions with the afterworld. Her story is bleak from start to finish and her powers definitely feel more like a curse than a gift.

The sequences where the game forces you to act in both worlds at the same time (or to switch back and forth) are a bit disorienting at first, but remain fresh and interesting throughout.

Take a look at the screenshots and if spending a few hours in that kind of scenery to accompany a medium on a hellish trip down memory lane sounds good to you, go for it.

Just don't expect to feel terrified or vindicated.

It all ends in her.

Realm Grinder is an idle clicker fantasy kingdom management game. You pick a typical fantasy faction (e.g. the Elves, the Undead), get some coins by clicking, use those coins to build buildings that will get you more coins so you can build even more buildings, throw some spells, rinse and repeat... except that only barely scratches the surface of the tip of the iceberg.

There are multiple levels of resets (abdications vs reincarnations), secret factions, artifacts, challenges, trophies, events... There is so much stuff to unlock, it makes every idle game I have ever played look incredibly shallow in comparison.

And the game becomes a different kind of beast once you unlock researches. After that point, you spend so much time making builds, trying to combine the various effects of researches with faction-specific advantages, spells and buildings (or trying out some builds you found online)... it starts to feel much less like an idle game and much more like a soft rogue-like RPG. Soft since you never lose progress, rogue-like because you keep retrying different combinations all the time.

• Probably the deepest idle game ever made
  
• Scratches the "just one more turn" itch masterfully
  
• Great community
  
• Devs keep adding content five full years after release
  
• Free-to-play in a good way (you can give the devs money to support them, but whaling won't get you anywhere)

• Missed opportunity for more achievements beyond unlocking the secret faction of Dragons
  
• Some hints/tooltips are unnecessarily obscure
  
• No BUY ALL button for buildings (even though there's a BUY ALL button for pretty much everything else)
  
• Some info is missing from the Info screen (e.g. the unlocked spell tiers)
  
• What on Earth went wrong with the faction abbreviations?? Who in their right mind would abbreviate Dwarf as DN???

You might have noticed that I mentioned neither the graphics, nor the sound. For the former, it's serviceable pixel art, not ugly, not cute... neither a pro nor a con, imo. For the latter, I can't tell you anything because I multitask idle games, so I always mute them not to detract from whatever else I'm doing.

The first time I tried playing Realm Grinder, it seemed to me to be Cookie Clicker with elves and goblins and I stopped before even my first reincarnation...

Months later, I noticed that one of my Steam friends kept playing Realm Grinder day after day. I thought to myself "There's no way anybody would play the game I remember for hundreds of hours... I must have missed something." So I gave the game another chance and just a look at my playing time should tell you how that went.

If you hate idle games, generic fantasy settings, games that never end or games with a gameplay/story ratio very close to infinity... I don't think that game will make you change your mind about any of it.

If you like making, testing and refining RPG builds, you really should give this game a proper chance (at least play until you unlock Research, that's when the game becomes a min/max heaven).

Given it's free-to-play, I'd recommend trying it regardless. You might discover the inner min/max RPG player hiding deep inside. Or get your dopamine from all those numbers creeping up. Or feel the urge to unlock everything (good luck with that, there's SO MUCH stuff). Maybe even all of the above.

Your Realm awaits your leadership, Your Majesty!


If you do decide to try out Realm Grinder (or get back into it), here are some resources I've found invaluable myself:

• The Realm Grinder Wiki[realm-grinder.fandom.com] features a ton of (mostly) up-to-date info and tips. Special mention for the Research Upgrades[realm-grinder.fandom.com] page
  
• G00F's Not a Wiki[musicfamily.org] is a treasure trove of info that complements the aforementioned wiki
  
• The Tier Viewer[dox4242.github.io] will analyze your exported save and give you all the info you need about your spell tiers