Recent reviews by BlaXpirit

A unique puzzle experience. Tons of discoveries to be made in the tiny game world. Zero filler content here.

Hooly smokes this is so uninspired. Rectangular room after rectangular room where a bunch of enemies keep spawning and you shoot them with a very limited supply of ammo for weapons that all do about the same thing. "Randomly generated" means "the rectangles get shuffled around" and "no level design to be seen".
Maybe the bosses become a bit more fun, I'm not sure, but at the end of the day they're just bullet sponges.
Just play Quake instead.

The update from Dec 22, 2023 turned this into a different game. So just a heads up, reviews before then should be disregarded. I'm really sorry to be writing this, but felt it should be noted.

Whether the game is now "good" or "bad" is not for me to judge, but I just can't play complicated games, especially when I'm in the mindset of coming back to a simple game that I used to play.

This review resonated with me: https://steamcommunity.com/id/wutchu_lookin_at_stalker/recommended/2088570/

Hоly ♥♥♥♥ dude,
for people who "never really got the point of shooter games",
sincerely,
prepare to get your perspective changed.
Just as long as you're willing to put some sweat into your skills.

You play the same game over and over,
and 10 hours in you still keep finding better approaches.
The breakthroughs really just keep coming.
Even after it seemed like you've been stuck with no progress for hours.

And I really feel privileged now that I can rediscover my findings after taking a ~3 year break from this.

★★★★★★★★★★

Years later, it's still one of the most vivid memories for me in gaming and gave me chills even upon coming back.

The design is truly a work of art. It has more rights to that word than most modern art. And all parts of the experience are integral. This would mean nothing if it was just a video and it would also mean nothing without the sounds.

Gameplay... sure, it's too simplistic, but it's not bad by any means. It's addictive.

Don't judge this game before passing level 3. The soundtrack is a total banger.

★★★★★★★★☆☆

The story doesn't take itself so seriously (oh my, those puns). The character design and physics don't feel so tight. The environments won't blow you away. But it's still a great story-based puzzle platformer!

Actually the characters' abilities only seem arbitrary at the start, where there's obviously the "strong" character and the weak ones. But the set of abilities develops throughout and you will see that the particular combination of characters is actually thoroughly explored in the platforming puzzles. Surprising level of ingenuity in the puzzle design.

The story also unfolds quite richly, even if at the start it seems totally predictable. It doesn't have unnecessarily crazy plot twists, which is a good thing in my book. Good to see that the story is tied to the game world quite organically.

I should add about what people might call "bad controls": it is true that movement of characters and objects is "floaty", i.e. you can't change your direction in midair, but this is for the most part an intentional design choice (e.g. wall jumping doesn't let you just climb a wall).

So yeah, it can be seen that this game is a labor of love, and I'm glad that I experienced it.

★★★★★★★☆☆☆

I honestly have no idea why I bought this. The gameplay is not fun in any way. Rather than using reasoning, there's a focus just on the end state and enumerating the possible permutations to get there.

It's a 2D grid of rectangles and clicking on one affects the neighbors. Big whoop.

The visuals are just a gimmick that gets old in 1 minute, then just makes everything hard to see. UI has artificial slowness. Music is pretty bad.

★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

I'll take this as living proof that not having an artist in your team is not an excuse.
The game uses very simple graphics -- and just sprites, no backgrounds. Also royalty-free music, though a good selection of it.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2022023030
This also made me think "oh man, I could make a game like this!"
But could I really? I probably would've dismissed the premise as too simple.
But this game actually pulls it off, with the variety of enemy design.

Review brought to you by... a subliminal message..? https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2021988725

★★★★★★★★☆☆

No, this actually feels like work. There's nothing difficult about passing the levels, just a chore.

★★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆

Honestly a great puzzler. Seems that the level design likes to punish "going with the flow" blindly, so you need to always stay on your toes. Seems difficult enough that it's actually not suitable for small children.

The biggest detriment and unfortunately the biggest component of its difficulty is the "floaty" physics: the character's acceleration from pressing arrow keys is linear; there's no initial rapid acceleration from stand-still that almost all good games have.

★★★★★★★☆☆☆