Exploration is not something I'd recommend. You just lose out on a lot of stuff and sometimes go places you're not supposed to, wasting your time. I went to some far off area thinking i was going to find something. Achievement unlocked: "You're not supposed to be here". Great. Another time I found a seemlingly secret passage and tried to go through it. Very difficult and no checkpoints. Finally succeeded and reached the checkpoint on the other side. It turns out it's a secret passage from the beginning of the stage to the end of it. Now I had to pass through it again in order to come back to the end... Very poor level design to let players be able to enter from the wrong direction, when the passage is so frustratingly difficult. Lost about 30 min there, thinking I'd find some secret stuff. Of course I didn't! The only thing I managed to do when trying to explore has been to miss out on the first boss and that power up. Overall the level design is super confusing. At times I have no clue where I am. Not like where I am as in which room in the level, but where I am at all. Places just change and it feels like you're randomly appearing in different places with no connection to the previous gameplay or plot. Everything just feels out of place and like the progression has been thrown into a scrambler. Level design is very poor as well. Most of the ddifficult places have been difficult because it's pitch black except for a small circle around the character and insta death lava lurks everywhere. It's not a challenge that makes you feel good about overcoming it. It's just frustrating. I wanted to try it out now during the 80% discount as I thought there was a 1/5 chance I'd like the game. I didn't like it at all but it has some nice ideas and good art. Would really recommend to level designers for them to experience what not to do.
It's at the same time a puzzle game and some kind of "just run around and look at the crazy stuff happening everywhere"-game. I think it would have been better if it had focused entirely on the latter. It does it great. Really good design. Lots of different and very varied (and rarely appearing more than once) animals. Very imaginative. The problem is that most of the things you can click on or interact with does nothing and that it's sometimes impossible to tell a puzzle from some interactive crazy stuff that's added just for the atmosphere. One puzzle for example is to interact with a frog in a very precise 1/5-1/3 or so time frame, after having interacted with some insect nests five or ten seconds earlier. If it's not within that exact time frame the frog will just do some weird thing and you won't be able to get the key to reach the next area. The thing is there's no way for you to know that the frog has the key or has to be interacted with. Every screen is filled with things to interact with and it's perhaps only one in seven or so that actually has something to offer. There are several "puzzles" like this that you will struggle with simply because it's difficult to tell if it's a puzzle or not. In another game - OK. But in this one, filled to the brim with random stuff happening everywhere, it's very easy to miss. It makes it frustrating to progress and often annoying to play. The game would have been if had been a pure chilling out game just focusing on running around and encountering weird life forms, enjoying the design and the music. As for now most of it's not very enjoyable.
Maybe the best Wadjet Eye game i've played so far! Some annoying little things and some poor gameplay mechanics. I got stuck a bit since i couldn't open the menu. It's not possible to open the menu unless you are interacting with something. As long as you're aware of that you'll be fine and won't get stuck in the way i did, unable to read a note, not sure if you are even supposed to read it. With the exception of a few small annoying things like that, the game is really good and progresses smoothly. It looks a lot blander on the screen shots than it does while playing. Graphics are actually kind of good. Great story and atmosphere. 4/5 but do yourself a favor and just check a guide for which dialogue options to choose while phoning the pilot. It will save you going through the same dialogue tree for - worst case scenario - up to fifteen times or so.
A bad game with ridiculous characters and massive technical issues. I'm glad it crashed before i wasted more time on it. Would have asked for a refund if it weren't for it being too late. Not because I want to money back but because I wan't the developer not to have them. Awful game. If you like games and environmentalism then get yourself a book by E. O. Wilson and a game and enjoy them separately.
I've never played games like this before. I'm not a programmer or anything. I thought perhaps the puzzles would be overly complicated as I'm not use to these kinds of problems. Actually, it turns out that most of them are kind of easy and that the difficult part is in optimizing. A lot of people seem to compete and try to come up with the optimal solution. The puzzles has little to do with chemistry. You don't need to know anything about chemistry beforehand, even though being accustomed to bonding rules would be useful. The puzzles are entirely logical but with a few small small pinches of chemistry (simplified bonding rules) added. Really fun and enjoyable with plenty of possible approaches to any problem. Only thing I would comment on is that sometimes the interface is not really clear. I mix up some of the input symbols, depicting movement of modules in various directions (left or right). Depending on on which part of the screen the modules are they can move either left or right with any of those input buttons. A few small details like that.
Bought it last night and played the entire campaign today. Got completely absorbed. The game has a lot of flaws but I don't think the difficulty was one of them. I mention this as a lot of people here in the comments complain about the difficult. I managed to complete the campaign on the default difficulty setting (normal i guess, i didn't check), without reading or knowing anything about this game beforehand. Sometimes I was very close to dying. But I guess that is the point. It's no supposed to feel like Sim City Santa's Winterland Edition. A lot of people will die, a lot of bad things will happen. Surviving against the odds makes the game that much more enjoyable. I've never felt like I've been close to or slowly getting closer to dying for like 50% of a playthrough. My only complaint is some of the mechanics broke the immersion and that sometimes it was annoying to micromanage everything. Never played anything like it. Parts of it are completely amazing. I'm glad I didn't read anything about it.
Overall a fun and interesting game. I had not played any point and click games before this one except for a few by Wadjeteye so I'm very new to the genre. The game has a few problems. A lot of the puzzles make absolute zero sense. Sometimes you just have to try to give random items to random characters and hope to find the right combination of character and item. Often, it makes no sense at all but has to be guessed. I wouldn't even count it as real puzzles, just as obstacles to progress. A lot of the gameplay feels dated. The game has a nice vibe, good design, nice dialogues and a good story. Puzzles and actual gameplay can be frustrating. It's really old too. Somehow it makes it a bit more interesting. If it was a 2019 title I'd probably give it a 2. Same goes for if i hadn't had a walkthrough. I'd recommend it to anyone curious about the genre. I'll continue with some newer one's though.
It looks extremely similar to Every Day the Same Dream from 2009. It's almost like a 3D remake of it. If you haven't heard about it, it was quite an early indie hit. One of the first I remember hearing about. I think it won some competitions and it was mentioned on lots of various gaming websites, magazines etc. Maybe it wasn't the earliest days of indie gaming but it was still early enough for a thing like that to draw a lot of attention. It seems a bit dishonest to me that they don't even mention or give credits to the 2009 game, even though they seem to base their entire title on it. Not "basing" like other platformers have been influenced by Super Mario, but "basing" as in using the exact same story, same main character, same art style and same philosophy. It's too specific to just be a coincidence. To describe how this game would look like if the 2009 title instead was a super mario game. "This game is about a french plumber jumping on mushroom shaped Loombas to gather coins. If you eat a red mushroom you grow in size. Your fiance, the queen (not princess), of the mushrooms has been abducted by a crocodile with a spiky shell. Your tall but clumsy brother in blue clothes sometimes gives you a helping hand." If they had at least had an OK from and gave some credit to the 2009 classic it would be OK I guess but as for now it looks like theft. I really recommend Every Day the Same Dream though. It's free of charge and you can find it on websites all over the place.
Strong 4, very close to a 5. I bought Layers of Fear: Inheritance straight after playing this. Really impressed with this game. It wasn't that scary either. It's very different from any other game I have played. I believe that it could be considered boring by a lot of people, since you as a player more or less just get in for the ride to see where the game takes you. There is not much to talk about gameplay wise. You walk here and there, solve a few puzzles, read a few notes. I was amazed by the level design. Amazing stuff. Just play it slowly and don't be in a rush. I took about four hours and twenty minutes. Slower than most I guess. There were a few small problems. I didn't like how you would have to open drawers etc in order to find notes. It just messes with the atmosphere a bit. "OK the room just inverted itself and that painting melted, I'll look through that drawer to see if I can find any notes". But at the same time I didn't want to lose out on the plot. I'd prefer for most of the notes to lay in plain sight.
I never played Justine or any of the custom stories back in the day. Felt like a good idea to get it now that it was greatly discounted. Also, I never knew that some short stories had been written about the amnesia universe. I guess I'll give them a read. As for Amnesia the dark descent I think the studio has done better. Soma, Rebirth and Penumbra. I'm here, i guess, mostly to try a few custom stories out. Seems like some of them are better than the original game.
