Recent reviews by BinarySplit

This game would have been so incredible without the roguelike aspect. It's so luck-dependent. It's as if they've tuned the house-building / item collecting aspect to eat as much of your time as possible.

Even using Cheat Engine to remove the resource management mechanics that will otherwise kill more than half of your runs, it still takes so much time to make any progress because you have to regain all your resources at the start of every day.

EDIT: Got quite a bit further (1 blue crown, 3 chamber keys, 1 sigil entered and postcard read), with cheats though. This would take so much longer without cheats. The story and puzzles were great while they was the focus of the game, but now I'm over 25 hours in and the game should be wrapping up. Instead, my next steps would rely on spending hours at a time grinding that RNG to make a tiny bit of progress and gah. No. I have to move on with my life.

I implore the developer: Please patch in mechanics or a new mode that takes the edge off the grind: allow some inventory to be unconditionally kept between days, allow rebuilding a few rooms without discarding the house. More people would finish this incredible experience if it had less grind.

Unless you're a huge fan of the genre, I suggest wishlisting this and waiting for it to come out. At the moment it doesn't live up to its price. I'm reviewing positively because I see the vision, and they've already built enough that it feels likely they'll make it out of EA.

There are many moments of great atmosphere, level design, and gameplay. It's like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. set in the E.Y.E. universe and I love it. But, there were also MANY "is this area not developed yet, or am I stupid and just not seeing where to go?" moments. In its current state, it demands a lot of patience.

It's captivating. It has the great characters and world-building of a top-tier VN, but with a point&click gameplay loop to hold your attention. I can't describe the story. It's nothing like anything I've read before.

I haven't felt this immersively simulated since System Shock (the original). This is peak 0451. There are so many game mechanics and unexpected details to delight you, and the story isn't like any I've seen before. It's hard to believe this was made by just 1-2 devs.

It's EA and unfinished and the dev is sadly going away for a while, but what's there is worth it. Highly recommended for fans of the ImSim genre.

Great escape room game! The puzzles had a perfect mix of difficulties, the story was well written, the environmental detail was great.

I admit to using the guide a few times. IMO, all of the puzzles were fair, but 2 (piano, and the proper order of keys) really stumped me. In retrospect I could have found them if I had systematically reviewed all the available environmental clues, but I was feeling impatient today. On a better day, those could have been very satisfying to solve.

My only complaint: missable achievements in the middle of the game, with no chapter select. To get 100% achievements, I'd need to replay it from the start just to get to a couple small easter eggs. Not a fun way to spend 2+ hours.

"I want shorter games with worse graphics made by people who are paid more to work less and I'm not kidding."[x.com] - very much echoes my sentiment. I like these kinds of experimental small-scale games, as long as they respect my time (i.e. no unnecessary grind), which ASTRA certainly does.

It tells an interesting story, supported by good world-building, graphics and music. It didn't overstay its welcome, and ended on a high note.

I enjoyed it and feel it's the right price, but YSK before buying: it's only ~75 minutes including optional sidequests, and the character customization is exactly what you see in the description: 3 stats with 3 levels each, some options for appearance, and a tiny selection of items/equipment. Don't go in expecting a Morrowind or Dread Delusion level of depth.

Not for me, but a good game worthy of consideration.

I was drawn in by the story and the promise of a factory-building game that wrapped up in 20 hours and didn't try to eat my life. The exploration & factory-building was reasonably fun, and the story was intriguing, but the pacing quickly exhausted me.

The main quest feels slower and slower as the game progresses, requiring more walking, more resource gathering, etc. for less story with each objective. The most frustrating part was how the tech tree doesn't really build on itself. It never felt worthwhile investing time in making a tidy, high-production factory for one component, as many components are used for one objective and never again. Anyway, I'm a particularly impatient gamer. Other people probably won't find this as bad as I did.

If you consider yourself relatively patient, you'll probably enjoy this.

Mixed review / recommendation with warning. The first 15 hours are great - it's exactly what you'd expect from the screenshots and done well. I enjoyed meeting aliens, shooting aliens, probing planets, exploring, and building my ship. While you have a continuous stream of new things to discover, it's a lot of fun.

It just became a bit of a chore at the end: finishing up all the sidequests, grinding for resources for shipbuilding, slowly travelling between locations trying to figure out some clues from your logs... If I were a rational player, I'd have stuck to the main quest and it'd have been over in 20 hours. Unfortunately I have that completionist urge, and it wasn't until the 25 hour mark where I realized I was just doing busywork trying to clean up my quest log and there was no more fun left for me. I beelined towards the ending, and it felt both long-overdue and unclimactic.

Played this after seeing Ross's Game Dungeon. It was worth playing after watching that video. Great worldbuilding and character interactions. The kind you only get when a true author is involved in development. This vision of an alternate future is going to linger in my memories like Chronomaster and I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream.

The gameplay is a bit weird - you spend most of your time talking to people. So much talking. At first I resented it for how much time it took, but now that the game is over, I miss hearing opinions and gossip from all the characters, and exploring the world. Shame they ran out of money while making the sequel, because I want to see more of this universe.

If you play it, check PCGamingWiki for the "Culpa Innata Fix (v2)" (+dgVoodoo per the fix's instructions) and the uncut patch.

A short and sweet first person platformer, with fun movement mechanics and a spectacular art style. I found it very cathartic collecting Nature's boons so I could afford that sweet deluxe condo. I only wish it were so easy and fun in real life!