Recent reviews by ellyspacemantis

Usually I like to leave really thorough reviews about my experiences. Gonna save you that and give you the brief recommendation this time.

Lethal Company is a game that seamlessly blends janky silly co-op shenanigans with utter terror. It's basically perfect (in these avenues) and the future is immensely bright for it.

Also, it's absolutely dirt cheap for how fun it is.

Beautifully written, mechanically satisfying, and endlessly addictive, dotAGE feels like playing a game of chess against yourself while your house is on fire. But like, more fun?

Full disclosure, I was sent a key for this game- however I was already *very interested* in more "Jackbox style" games to include in the rotation prior to that, and Project Planet was on my radar beforehand.

Above and beyond anything else, this game creates conversation. You know those frantic chats you'd have over a game of Werewolf or Mafia? This game provides those in spades, with everyone trying desperately to argue that, yes, it's fine that they're at 1.4x power while everyone else is at 0.9x. In fact, it's perfectly logical that this would be happening! By the way, can everyone else put resources into the crisis right now? I'm a little occupied with, uh, other stuff...

While simple, games play drastically differently based on the personality of your players. Sometimes it feels obvious that the team of five is going to win from the get go because there's an abundance of charitable actions, (though obviously you wanna be on top if that happens) and sometimes you realize you're dealing with an incredibly selfish crowd and extinction is probably right around the corner.

I specifically wanted to leave a positive review because in my mind this game is a huge step in the right direction for what I hesitantly call "the genre." It feels pretty inclusive of the new player experience, there's not a ton of mysteries to solve in exactly how things work, and the replayability is... actually surprisingly high. I leave every round simply wanting to go again, taking another turn on another faction. Just about everything inside the game pushes you towards having those chats we described earlier, rather than bogging people down in gameplay- you can even ignore flavour text and check the basic symbols for "what does this choice do" to speed up the game if that's the kind of group you're playing with. It's also a helpful way for overwhelmed players to still be able to do what they want to do.

Full disclosure on every little negative I could find, the pandemic event hits pretty close to home. Obviously. Not necessarily in a bad way, just something to consider for the audience. Aside from that, we had some basic connectivity issues early on that appear to have been ironed out, and haven't proven to be recurring.

My biggest hint would be to play with the right people. Get roleplayers, get immersed players, get anyone you can to springboard a bit of fun out of the concept. Enjoy the ride and the ensuing arguments.

Or, you know, just blow up the planet. That's kinda the other obvious choice.

As with many other reviews, I simply want to tell the story of my first experience with Shadows of Doubt before getting into the pros and cons.

I'm an amateur detective, and I'm certainly not used to the mechanics of the game nor the motivations of the murderers. I simply know that there's a body in front of me, the victim of a brutal shooting whilst at home within her own apartment. It's a mess, the cops aren't making it easy to gather evidence, and without knowing the ins and outs of this shady world I'm not really sure where to start with the investigation... except for the size 14 boot prints at the scene of the crime.

So, like a grim Cinderella story, I'm on the hunt for big feet. I name the case "The Clownshoe Killing" in my notes board. The address book of the victim gives me the names and places for everyone close to them. Door knocking is a pain, but at least it's a pretty quick process to get the resident to the front, check their shoe size, and then run off without speaking a word to them. Even though we have some potential suspects, none of their fingerprints place them at the scene of the crime.

I'm at the end of my patience for this and start thinking about taking side-jobs to fill the time and wallet in the interim. The victim lived alone, so there's no witness testimony, but it then occurs to me; firearms. Those things are loud, right? Maybe I shouldn't be looking for friends and family but instead neighbours who would have heard the incident as it happened.

So let's start with the neighbour one door down from the victim. An old, and incredibly helpful lady, no more than a few feet tall if she was standing on a ladder answers the door and cooperates completely with my questioning. She even let's me into the house to look around, something I really only asked for because I intended to steal either beer money or food.

I'm looking for these valuable assets in her bedroom when I see them. Tucked oh so delicately in at the bedside.

Size 14 work boots. They're sitting there, right next to a box of low calibre pistol ammunition.

In as few words as I can muster, Shadows of Doubt is a game where you get out what you put in. As it stands, content might be a tad thin, and NPCs can certainly seem like cardboard cutouts with little depth, but the immersive quality of the game rewards you for "playing the role," leading to thousands of individual, unique, and exciting stories from invested players that may well have all spawned from pretty much the exact same case and murder, all which might have very similar solutions.

At the end of the day, this game is unique, and so is the way you play it. I'd struggle to muster the title of an even remotely similar game, and I can't help but think only good things are in its future if a few kinks can be ironed out - super obvious early access stuff like falling through the world, items despawning, or "pop in" scenery - and more ideas can be added to the pool for us to all tell stories about.

If you're prone to frustration, or unwilling to feed into the fiction with your own ideas, this game will likely seem quaint and repetitive. I don't fault anyone for that interpretation, but if you're scrolling reviews and you've enjoyed reading even one silly little story where the core concept is the exact same "someone was murdered so I found the killer"... you are probably going to love this one.

You know, I'm struggling to figure out exactly how to start this review. I can give you the plain overview of the gameplay - it's a crisp little royale/extraction game where the "completely isolated looting phase" has been replaced by an interesting game of deduction, where every passing NPC could be another player watching you slip up.

Maybe I can talk about how refreshing this game is in a genre that, at least in my opinion, is one of the most stale and uninteresting areas in gaming.

Maybe I should be blunt and simply say; you should play this game. It's a unique experience that I found and tried without expectation or hype, and it's proven so unbelievably rewarding that I think I'm gonna stick with it for a long while. Even if you're one of those pessimistic people who believes every indie multiplayer game with a price-tag these days is DOA, consider that further urging to "get it while it's hot" if you're interested. You don't wanna miss the experience it can provide.

The biggest positive Deceive Inc has to offer over competitors is pacing. The disguise mechanics and the nature of hiding in plain sight have completely transformed the dull moments between engagements into tense, paranoia-inducing standoffs. The extraction phase blows the whistle to force everyone into action, making sure there's always a "finale" to any round you're enjoying. Frankly, this feels like a game designed to knit and stitch the weakest parts of its loop into its strengths.

The gadget variety is also good enough to have me conjuring up ideas for gameplay whilst not even logged in, a surefire sign that there's something deep to be dug outta it. Hopefully there's only more and more of these ridiculous toys to be added.

And, at a base level, the gunplay feels pretty tight. It's not really a highlight in comparison to everything else, but it's worth noting.

When streaming this game on launch I was constantly asked "but is it gonna have tons of players / is my region gonna have enough players / etc etc" and I made sure to mention hey, no promises, but if you're interested in what the devs are trying to do here... this is your opportunity to get on board.

If we have similar tastes, you won't regret it.

There's a very specific needle to thread when it comes to games like this for me. To be honest, Animal Crossing has my heart, and if it wasn't for the absolutely absurd load times and restrictions regarding multiplayer connectivity, I'd still be playing it daily. What pushed me away from Animal Crossing is the fact that despite being one of the most enjoyable games I've ever played, so many incredibly archaic decisions and design choices lead to me not being able to have fun with it anymore.

This is important, because Dinkum feels like the exact opposite. I cannot believe this is a solo developer.

I didn't want to review off the cuff with only a few minutes in the game, but that really is all the time it took for me to realise that the creator behind Dinkum cared about making smart, informed decision in departments that other games of this genre simply accepted grandfathered logic. Everything from the day/night cycle, to the progression system, to even just the simple fact that yes, when you catch a bug or fish, you can IMMEDIATELY skip through all related dialog and get back to farming.

And all this is important because Dinkum isn't just fun. It feels great to play, with no major bottle-necking frustration to stop you from enjoying yourself. Want to play with a friend? Well you just connect straight to them. Going through a door into a building? Bro, there's no loading screen, it's seamless! Did you put something down in the wrong place? Just pick it up and go again, mate, there's no lock-in!

At the end of the day, even if Dinkum wasn't great (and it is, it so is, I haven't even covered things it does that are unique and interesting), the design has demonstrated that it really cares about your time, energy, and general satisfaction in a way you really don't see in these types of games.

I wanted to make sure I'm not just infatuated with "PC Animal Crossing," and it turns out I'm not. This game is an absolute 10/10 and I can't recommend it highly enough.

I would consider this review more of a "recommended (under certain circumstances)", but unfortunately "not recommended" is more fitting than the alternative. Namely - and I hate harping on this but it's true - the price needs to drop for a game that's so incredibly technically flawed. Huge de-syncing issues, crashes, freezes, animation issues, and a third party launcher that I personally needed to disable to even run the game in the first place. There are a lucky few who are not effected by these things, and perhaps fixes will be patched, but having to lock a modern game to 30 FPS on a decent rig whilst disabling exterior programs and praying the audio doesn't de-sync during a crucial moment is, if nothing else, a huge impediment to actually enjoying the game.

If none of those things listed above effect you, it goes on sale, you have no intent to play this game with other people online (aside from perhaps streaming it), and you really are just here to enjoy a pulpy slasher in the vague shape of a videogame, then The Quarry is actually a pretty good romp. And it's a damn shame that I wouldn't broaden the margins of this lukewarm recommendation, because the story is interesting, the characters are decent, and - I hope as was the intent - I actually laughed out loud at several points during this game. Hat's off there.

To me, it's a case of a pretty enjoyable game being reduced far below its deserved praise due to very sloppy execution and some serious drawbacks that could have been very easily fixed. For example, keeping certain characters alive past opportunities for them to die really does not change the game much, as it sort of tends to put the characters in a kind of "quantum state" where, though alive, they contribute extremely little to the plot and are barely seen after the fact, other than lightly quipping in what is obviously slight edits of the scene with the "Is X alive? Then; play goofy comment" box ticked. A good way to fix this would have been to offer more segments and discussions that grow the characters in ways that aren't simply "is playable" or "can die" based on how deep into the game they're kept alive, but for some reason this is an evolution that really only Dylan is offered. (We love you, Science Dylan.)

The game is especially wooden in the character drama area, which, aside from a surprisingly interesting segment told through flashback, you really don't get much conversation or interaction with any weight or feeling to it. On an evening where any one of them could live or die, the characters almost universally accept the reality of their situation and become videogame cutouts undeterred by any degree of damage, shock, disgust, etc. At one point a character steps into a metal bear trap that rips his leg open and potentially breaks the bone, and though this is an utterly unavoidable event and not an optional choice, the game never mentions it again. Events like this are really common place in the game. Because of this stoic behaviour from pretty much everyone, they're not really compelling characters to see in distress; part of what makes horror such a fun genre is seeing what it can do to the human condition, and in The Quarry that condition seems to be "robotic." I really do not think a single one of those "X doesn't trust you," "Y disliked that," etc pop ups actually amounted to anything - I think they were simply added to make filler conversations seem more meaningful.

Another major issue is that the ending just sort of... happens. (Meta spoilers for how the game handles this) I get that there's variance within your choices and exactly how you end the game is up to you, but if you're excited to see the repercussions of your actions, or the jubilation of your surviving councillors, curb those expectations right now. The wrap up for the entire game is a lore dump delivered by characters who weren't present for the events of the story, and who don't seem to actually understand what they're talking about. No matter who lives or dies, you will not see any character ever again outside of the playable portion of the game. No, I'm not kidding.

I do like The Quarry, and I don't want this review to seem like I'm implying it's unenjoyable. Quite the opposite really; it is a fun game and story bogged down by several troubling directions and a really flimsy technical side. Unfortunately, only one of those things can really be fixed post-release, and even then I'm not so sure it will. If you're willing to accept these issues in order to play something that "feels a lot like Until Dawn," then go for it... but maybe wait for that price drop.