A Juggler's Tale

The subtitles were delivered in a stock font: Arial. They couldn’t come up with their own original font, perhaps something more fantasy-medieval looking? Not professional. It always felt like I was fighting the controls just to get them to do what I wanted them to do; they felt unresponsive and laggy, and at times, I was just a pixel/polygon off-center from trying to interact with whatever I was trying to interact with. The game was often just FINICKY. That wouldn’t be a problem, except there are several times in which timing is crucial (chase scenes, for example), but if you can’t jump, evade, or activate a trap or what-else-have-you quickly enough - because the controls just AREN’T responding - you’re just SUNK. The whole plot twist at the end of Act III, I didn’t really care for, but looking back at it, was subtly hinted at earlier in the game maybe once or twice, and honestly, I don’t really see what they could’ve done different or better, but I just didn’t really care for it. It was just a complete-and-total heel turn for the character in question, far as I'm concerned; they already HAD a villain, but they just had to toss another one in there. The game isn’t very long: Only 5 acts/chapters, and Act V was essentially the game’s (relatively short) ending, they just let you control it in-game, instead of just tossing a cutscene at you to watch. Spent about 3-5 hours to 100% it (all achievements), and that was including all subsequent retries before finally succeeding at the task at hand. I replayed levels to get the achievements in them before moving on to the next. I’m honestly just thankful it wasn’t longer. I can appreciate the visual and sound aesthetics they employed, even the cliché (and canned) theme of self-determinism, but at the end of the DAY, it just wasn’t a fun game to PLAY; glad I finally satisfied my CURIOSITY, but this one’s probably getting shelved, PERMANENTLY (I only realized those words rhymed after the fact).

Nice concept and easy-enough but fun ideas for puzzles for the most part. But the jank ends up being hard to overcome, and you spend most of the game fighting the jank and fighting the controls. One scene in the middle of the game where you fall off of a rope failed to trigger over 4 times until I turned on VSync. There were multiple times I softlocked myself after an object clipped or interacted with another in an unexpected way, stranding me and forcing a return to a previous checkpoint. Near the end of the game, there was a largely impossible running sequence, and after sitting through the unskippable cutscene that led to it and retrying it over a dozen times, I gave up and looked for answers online. People noted that if I restarted the game and make a different decision early in the game, then this sequence was much easier. Just the thought of replaying the game from the beginning filled me with dread, which was when I realized that I wasn't having a lot of fun and quit. Oh well.

A few interesting puzzles, but mostly the game focuses on interactively telling a lovely little fairy tale with some fourth-wall-breaking. I particularly enjoyed playing it in the original German ... Werner Wilkening's voice acting really brought back old "Hoerspiele" vibes

Very nice and (too ?) short puzzle platformer. I recommand !

A very cool 2.5D game akin to the game "inside" with some cool ideas of its own. The puzzles aren't very hard thou a few can be unintuitive, at lest they were to me, the game can also be a tad frustrating in some parts and I found it to very short but was fun enough for me for as long it lasted, so if you liked inside I personally recomend buying this game, thou don't expect the exact same experience from this.