the usual lazy mobile/flash stuff from amanita with the usual incredibly annoying gibberish. a single music on/off toggle, NOTHING for sfx or gibberish, let alone separate volumes. an audio on/off toggle would've been more useful, this is just a bad joke. there's a windowed mode toggle and a few languages, no other settings. the fast-forward button is only available sometimes and it has to be clicked over and over, even for repeated actions and 'dialog' I already wanted to skip once, so why would I want to watch again and again but more slowly? cards have to be dragged, no click to pick up, click to place action for accessibility, because it's a lazy mobile game, as already established. no mouseover functionality either for the same reason, would make navigating the map easier, instead of clicking all over the place to see if it's a valid location or just a waste of time. the protagonist also has to be dropped onto every scene every time, followed by unskippable 'dialog' or animations every time. gonna stop here, amanita and their games, if you can call them that, are a disgrace, avoid them even for free.
follow-up and prequel to chains of satinav, should be played second, also takes about 10 hours. the story's fine, better than satinav's, the gameplay in places (mostly involving sadja) less so. the entire first chapter is about getting out of a dark tomb. really tedious, but not as much as the forest maze later. thankfully, there's a skip option that should come up much sooner. some quickish action is also required (the kettle in chapter 5), another thing that has no place in a point & click adventure. the towers in chapter 7 were also a pain and sadja herself was pretty annoying with the 'I'm only doing this so people will remember me' schtick. I liked bryda a lot more. voice acting is a mixed bag again. almost identical functionality and quality of life to satinav. autosaves (no indication), manual saving anytime over multiple slots, quicksave/load, hotspot indicator (doesn't always show everything for some reason), separate volumes (including one for cutscenes this time), windowed mode, resolutions, a few languages (subtitles and voiceovers separately), and even a combination indicator to avoid wasting time (no action indicator here). it's 100% mousable but has a few non-rebindable hotkeys. movement speed seems slower this time, still can't double-click to move faster, only to leave the area instantly and exits have names now. there are more animations too, making things look smoother but wasting more time before, after and during dialog and stuff.
pretty good fantasy point & click, best played together with memoria, this first. not the most compelling narrative but it's fine, with a likeable companion and about 10 hours of playtime. mixed bag of a voice acting, as usual. the most annoying part is definitely the orc camp, constant gibberish while you're trying to examine stuff, figure things out and talk to the others. good functionality and quality of life. autosaves (no indication), manual saving anytime over multiple slots, quicksave/load, hotspot indicator, separate volumes (not for cutscenes, making them much louder), windowed mode, resolutions, a few languages (subtitles and voiceovers separately), and even a combination and action indicator to avoid wasting time. it's 100% mousable but has a few non-rebindable hotkeys. movement speed is decent, no double-click to move faster but geron sometimes jogs on its own and double-click leaves the area instantly.
unique and mostly fun sci-fi puzzle platformer. plant seeds and create an ecosystem to go deeper and deeper and find out what lies beneath. or something, it's been a while. a few 'rooms' are on the really annoying side, so I didn't 100% them all, which I can take or leave anyway, good enough is good enough, except the real ending hides behind 100% completion here. always harsh and unnecessary, so I just youtubed it.
lazy port of a free mobile game with a fraction of the content available there, sold at a premium. even if it was free (actually, without dlc or iap), it'd just be a lesser version not worth bothering with, but for $10 you gotta be joking.
I don't usually play roguelikes but this is excellent, with a great soundtrack. their dlc policy is awful, some of it could've just been a patch, but even the base game offers a ton of content, different classes, items and recipes. now it's bundled with both expansions for 10 bucks, plus 4 more classes sold separately, except they're 2 bucks each here, while only 1 elsewhere. dev or gog oversight? not cool either way, means at least 1 star off. naturally, it saves when you quit, but you can decide to make shorter work of your ascent by only doing every 5th floor, etc. weapon degradation, ammo and food are out to get you, and with more and more ingredients and recipes added over time, you're always managing inventory, but if you're not prepared for rng to screw you over (and over and over), why are you playing roguelikes? (and that's why I normally don't.) and of course if you find all the things overwhelming, don't install the dlc and play the less intimidating vanilla(ish) experience. so I obviously played on easy, and to my surprise, managed to reach the end (floor 30 at the time, before all the dlc started flooding in), then went back a few years later to fool around with different classes a bit and check out all the new stuff, something I don't normally do either. sadly, hacked computer logs are limited to the first 50 on easy, so can't get a full collection of lore without increasing difficulty, but recipes and encyclopedia entries are retained between runs. definitely try the demo to get a taste, worked for me (also not available here, unfortunately). infinity a few years later went 1st-person shooter, no thanks, the proper(?) sequel went back to its roots but added unnecessary and damn ugly 3d and it's been in early access for years, untouched for a while, also no thanks. neither are on gog anyway.
very cool and beautiful clone-based puzzle platformer. some timing is inevitably involved, never a fan of that, nor controlling multiple characters simultaneously, but it's all doable. it's also one of the few games where the unique clay-based visuals support the game that stands on its own regardless, instead of going all-in on a gimmicky presentation and hoping people would ignore their total incompetence at designing and making games (harold halibut and truberbrook come to mind but there are many style over substance examples). not only that, but the devs go above and beyond to keep their game up-to-date from a technical standpoint, even a decade later. and when I first tried it many years ago, it wouldn't run on my obsolete gpu, so I emailed them and shortly after they patched in ancient hardware support. good stuff.
short and relatively easy platformer/shmup in a strange but beautiful alien world, accompanied by fantastic (licensed) music and a disappointing ending. not that anybody would be playing this for the story. I say relatively easy but I had to take an extended break at some point, got stuck on a level, went back later and could continue. there's some sort of rating system, I ignored that, so going for gold might require more effort. then again, if you're better-versed in the genre (I pretty much never play this sort of thing), it might be a cakewalk. too bad the dev went in a lazy roguelite direction with cryptark, then decided to waste the player's time in wytchwood (mandatory inventory drop on death is always a colossal mistake), so they're one of the many indie one-hit wonders as far as I'm concerned.
one of my favorite games. unique at the time 'reveal the world as you go along' mechanic, excellent graphics and voiceovers, including the iconic reactive narration, and a fantastic soundtrack I bought on cd (not paying for mp3, shipping cost just as much, great stuff). I don't replay games, nor do I see the appeal of new game+ (just play the game again, no need for a separate unlock, same as the iron man nonsense some people without self-control are obsessed with), but I did another playthrough years later, was just as fun.
team 17 used to make great games in the amiga days. then they discovered that people give them money even if they just re-release the same worms game every couple of years, or occasionally put out other titles with the same characters, so they've been doing that for decades now, while also venturing into other genres, as well as publishing. this one isn't entirely their work (I'm guessing it largely isn't) but not entirely alien either, as worms crazy golf is a thing. haven't played that one and I only tried single player here, not interested in multiplayer. would be okay if very basic, has a bunch of settings and game modes, but can't save mid-course progress, have to do all the holes in one sitting, absolutely unacceptable. at least the timer and shots per round limit can be turned off, but the level editor is missing from the gog version for some reason. and of course a bunch of content is sold piece by piece as dlc, for exorbitant prices. base game with 13 courses: 15 bucks. a SINGLE course as dlc: 5-9 bucks. and that's on top of all the cosmetic crap I don't care about (hats for a golf ball, gimme a break), but it's still disgusting that the whole package is now up to A HUNDRED DOLLARS, and I'm sure they're not done milking it yet, while also doing a 'sequel', presumably another dlc hell project. oh, and analytics reporting is enabled by default, even though it should be opt-in, not opt-out.
