I’m spoiled by innovative puzzle games. I used to avoid this genre, but when cool ideas are put into practice, it makes the whole idea of sitting around thinking about why you can’t move forward a lot more appealing. Is This Game Trying to Kill Me has tons of those cool ideas, and they’re implemented in a way that stationary contemplation seems like it’s not the worst thing you could be doing with your life.

Abbreviated Review: https://youtu.be/1V0f_x0WH3U

This game poses a question with its very existence, and it doesn’t take too long before you experience the answer. Not only from the initial presentation of an evil wizard that says he’s going to kill you (eventually) but actively shows you how it will do that not long into the playthrough. The premise is straightforward, you wake up in a cabin and your singular task is to play this game (within your game) on a PC sitting in the middle of the room. As you start doing this and come across some of their very first inhibitors in your efforts to exit the dungeon, you’ll encounter the game’s twist: actions in the game can affect the cabin you’re currently trapped within.

This exciting revelation ultimately works both ways – where the cabin and the game you play are entwined in a wide variety of mysterious ways. Opening a chest in the game will unlock a chest in your room, while in another area, adding light bulbs to a grid will manipulate the lighted path for you to take inside the game. You’re required to jump back and forth between this 2D dungeon crawl and the 3D “real” world to make your way forward through each. And as you forge new paths within the game, you’ll also unlock new rooms within the small cabin – each filled with new bits and pieces you’ll use in later puzzles.

This connection between the game and the “reality” also extends to the title's premise: dying in the game will kill you in the cabin. There are a surprising number of ways this occurs and even moments where triggering an action on the PC will force you to race around the cabin finding the solution with your life on the line and a timer ticking down. Not every failed solution to a puzzle is instant death, and those deaths are rarely much of a setback considering that returning puts you just before the fateful decision, but it can be pretty interesting to see the ways you’re taken out… at least when it’s not frustrating.

Unique design can only take a puzzle game so far. At the end of the day, it’s all about how engaging, challenging, and enjoyable the puzzle experience really is. Is This Game Trying to Kill Me is certainly delivering here, for the most part. The majority of the puzzles are intuitive without being too easy and some of them are downright gems in their design. There are some, especially early on, that are pretty obvious, but eventually, every room will offer a new set of challenges that will have you swapping back and forth between the game and the room trying to discern and ultimately execute that solution. Sometimes it requires moving pieces or finding hidden codes, other times it’s a more active situation of timing and precision. Yet, the most important aspect is that it’s never boring. This relatively short game gives very little downtime, and it makes every puzzle feel like an important part.

There were a handful of puzzles that did seem somewhat unintuitive to me though. However, in these instances (and on all puzzles) there’s a fairly gentle hint system that will provide several images that you can unlock one at a time to give you an idea of what you need to do – with each being a little more revealing of the final answer. So, if you feel you need help, you might only display one of the three images to get you on the right track and keep at least some of that feeling of accomplishment.

Yet, there were at least one or two scenarios where color played an important part in determining the solution to a puzzle, and being colorblind, I had an extremely tough time figuring out the solution. At this point, color deficiency should be an easy disability to surmount for developers. After numerous deaths, I was able to figure these out, and of course, there were no detrimental aspects in retrying it. Yet, it’s something that should be addressed by the developer either by adding different symbols rather than colors or adding a colorblind mode so that the colors can be changed to something more visually distinct.

Is This Game Trying To Kill Me is a fairly short game, only clocking in at a few hours at most, but since no part of that time is disappointing, it’s still well worth the price. Outside of being a bit longer, there were a few places where the game could have benefitted from some extra attention. For instance, some of the puzzles, especially a bit later on, kind of neglected the benefit of backtracking and using multiple features from several rooms in the cabin. Some did this, and those were especially entertaining, but most of the time you’d enter a new room and everything you needed would be in there for the next portion of the game. It also felt like the various boss fights you have in the game were out of place and mostly involved doing the same minimally puzzling tasks for each one, at least until the final boss fight.

However, my feelings about the game's length and desire for more from the boss fights extend to the ending itself. There are some really cool aspects to the way the game ends and I thoroughly enjoyed exploring it, but just when it seemed like I was about to get into some expansive Inscryption-like new world, it shuts down with little fanfare. It just felt like there was a ton of potential there for something mind-blowing and instead, it was more like “Well that was fun.” It was not a bad experience, though, and didn’t take anything away from a great game. One that is easy to recommend even for exceptionally mediocre puzzle solvers like me.

If you'd like to see more of my reviews, check out my curator page here: Endyo's Indies, Abbreviated Reviews

I’m spoiled by innovative puzzle games. I used to avoid this genre, but when cool ideas are put into practice, it makes the whole idea of sitting around thinking about why you can’t move forward a lot more appealing. Is This Game Trying to Kill Me has tons of those cool ideas, and they’re implemented in a way that stationary contemplation seems like it’s not the worst thing you could be doing with your life. Abbreviated Review: https://youtu.be/1V0f_x0WH3U [h1]This Game is Trying To Kill You[/h1] This game poses a question with its very existence, and it doesn’t take too long before you experience the answer. Not only from the initial presentation of an evil wizard that says he’s going to kill you (eventually) but actively shows you how it will do that not long into the playthrough. The premise is straightforward, you wake up in a cabin and your singular task is to play this game (within your game) on a PC sitting in the middle of the room. As you start doing this and come across some of their very first inhibitors in your efforts to exit the dungeon, you’ll encounter the game’s twist: actions in the game can affect the cabin you’re currently trapped within. This exciting revelation ultimately works both ways – where the cabin and the game you play are entwined in a wide variety of mysterious ways. Opening a chest in the game will unlock a chest in your room, while in another area, adding light bulbs to a grid will manipulate the lighted path for you to take inside the game. You’re required to jump back and forth between this 2D dungeon crawl and the 3D “real” world to make your way forward through each. And as you forge new paths within the game, you’ll also unlock new rooms within the small cabin – each filled with new bits and pieces you’ll use in later puzzles. This connection between the game and the “reality” also extends to the title's premise: dying in the game will kill you in the cabin. There are a surprising number of ways this occurs and even moments where triggering an action on the PC will force you to race around the cabin finding the solution with your life on the line and a timer ticking down. Not every failed solution to a puzzle is instant death, and those deaths are rarely much of a setback considering that returning puts you just before the fateful decision, but it can be pretty interesting to see the ways you’re taken out… at least when it’s not frustrating. [h1]Surviving Puzzles[/h1] Unique design can only take a puzzle game so far. At the end of the day, it’s all about how engaging, challenging, and enjoyable the puzzle experience really is. Is This Game Trying to Kill Me is certainly delivering here, for the most part. The majority of the puzzles are intuitive without being too easy and some of them are downright gems in their design. There are some, especially early on, that are pretty obvious, but eventually, every room will offer a new set of challenges that will have you swapping back and forth between the game and the room trying to discern and ultimately execute that solution. Sometimes it requires moving pieces or finding hidden codes, other times it’s a more active situation of timing and precision. Yet, the most important aspect is that it’s never boring. This relatively short game gives very little downtime, and it makes every puzzle feel like an important part. There were a handful of puzzles that did seem somewhat unintuitive to me though. However, in these instances (and on all puzzles) there’s a fairly gentle hint system that will provide several images that you can unlock one at a time to give you an idea of what you need to do – with each being a little more revealing of the final answer. So, if you feel you need help, you might only display one of the three images to get you on the right track and keep at least some of that feeling of accomplishment. Yet, there were at least one or two scenarios where color played an important part in determining the solution to a puzzle, and being colorblind, I had an extremely tough time figuring out the solution. At this point, color deficiency should be an easy disability to surmount for developers. After numerous deaths, I was able to figure these out, and of course, there were no detrimental aspects in retrying it. Yet, it’s something that should be addressed by the developer either by adding different symbols rather than colors or adding a colorblind mode so that the colors can be changed to something more visually distinct. [h1]The End from the Beginning[/h1] Is This Game Trying To Kill Me is a fairly short game, only clocking in at a few hours at most, but since no part of that time is disappointing, it’s still well worth the price. Outside of being a bit longer, there were a few places where the game could have benefitted from some extra attention. For instance, some of the puzzles, especially a bit later on, kind of neglected the benefit of backtracking and using multiple features from several rooms in the cabin. Some did this, and those were especially entertaining, but most of the time you’d enter a new room and everything you needed would be in there for the next portion of the game. It also felt like the various boss fights you have in the game were out of place and mostly involved doing the same minimally puzzling tasks for each one, at least until the final boss fight. However, my feelings about the game's length and desire for more from the boss fights extend to the ending itself. There are some really cool aspects to the way the game ends and I thoroughly enjoyed exploring it, but just when it seemed like I was about to get into some expansive Inscryption-like new world, it shuts down with little fanfare. It just felt like there was a ton of potential there for something mind-blowing and instead, it was more like “Well that was fun.” It was not a bad experience, though, and didn’t take anything away from a great game. One that is easy to recommend even for exceptionally mediocre puzzle solvers like me. [quote] If you'd like to see more of my reviews, check out my curator page here:[url=http://store.steampowered.com/curator/28346672/] Endyo's Indies[/url],[url=http://store.steampowered.com/curator/38271367/] Abbreviated Reviews[/url][/quote]