nonograms are my favorite puzzle type and I don't mind if they have some narrative but this is almost exclusively a visual novel with a dash of puzzles here and there, and it sucks both as a vn, a nonogram and a game in general, and it's really overpriced. starts with a loud intro instead of a menu with volume settings. unskippable tutorial with unskippable screens of text filling slowly between them. in fact, ALL DIALOG is unskippable as a whole. no instant text option, click each sentence twice, once to make them appear instantly, then to move on. if you only want to puzzle, you're in for a very bad (and long) time. in the first hour (and I didn't even read everything) there were about 10 puzzles, 2 were the tutorial. no separate 'speech' volume to get rid of the incredibly annoying text display sounds. constant screen flashes and shakes with punching sounds for some sort of impact, probably. can't turn them off, beyond insufferable, makes getting into the story impossible. who the hell wants the book they're reading to constantly shake and flash bright lights? mid-level saving somehow made it in (surprisingly and sadly rare in nonograms) but can't replay earlier levels, only full cases. some levels are timed, the cursor doesn't stick to the current line, can accidentally mark cells in another one. the level complete screen has an unskippable score counter. took a while to figure out it's the 'x' key to close the credits. I was about to alt+f4 because there's nothing to click, esc does nothing and hotkeys aren't mentioned anywhere because there are none, can't even press space or enter to advance text. there are some excellent (and much cheaper at the same time) nonograms on pc among all the ones lacking in basic functionality, but none of them are on gog, so you'll have to look elsewhere and avoid this dumpster fire. if you're interested in the story, watch it on youtube and save on 15 million mouse clicks.
barely working basic quality of life stuck behind 'easy mode' is just bad game design. the hotspot indicator (only with space, nothing to click) is completely useless, only shows very few things, there's still plenty of dreaded pixel-hunting to do. hints, even repeated ones, are also counted, just to make sure players are properly shamed while those with no self-control can play on 'hard mode' without access to either optional function they could simply choose not to use. insufferable characters (not just the ridiculous villain) and horrible voice acting (except the little girl and the robot). constant loading screens with long loading times. the game doesn't pause when alt+tabbed. the big-ass robot is always in the way, covering important things. movement is slow unless you double-click every time. need 2 clicks to select an item from the inventory instead of lmb to pick up, rmb to inspect, and have to do it before every single attempt at combining or using something. beyond tedious, especially with all the clutter in the backpack until the next chapter. there are audio issues as well, voiceovers not playing half the time, mentioned in the manual, so they knew about them but never bothered to fix them. the only somewhat positives are manual saving anytime (but only over a measly 3 slots without an overwrite confirmation), autosaves (without any indication), fast travel, some hotkeys (non-rebindable) and settings (separate volumes, resolutions, windowed mode, languages, subtitles, v-sync, etc.), but being lazy and/or incompetent and failing at basic p&c stuff with decades of good and bad examples to learn from is not something to applaud or recommend.
no mouse support in a pc game that is also a point & click adventure. subpar save system that puts you back to the starting location every single time, plays an unskippable awaking animation, then wants you to get back to where you actually quit with really slow movement speed. also, game-breaking crash near the beginning the developers never responded to, nevermind fixing it (mentioned in my steam review). incompetent clowns that shouldn't be encouraged with money.
explore, gather, craft, manage hotels, talk to people, etc. I was vary of the hotel management aspect but it's not too bad. good graphics and music, some narrative, disappointing ending (a few extra conversations after would've helped), rebindable controls, separate volumes, autosaves, quicksave/load anytime, putting it above 95% of farming/crafting games. no hunger, thirst or stamina, can sleep anywhere to skip nights, it isn't mandatory. skipping daytime would've been necessary too, often there's nothing to do but wait for guests to come and go and some sidequests take a while, especially random ones when you're waiting for somebody with the right needs to show up (I gave up on the penultimate one, that and the last would've been tedious even with daytime skipping). and locations are way too busy, can get stuck in rocks and trees even in daytime, even with trees turning transparent when you're behind them. some quality of life unlocks with sidequests (extra inventory, faster movement, remote guest management, etc.) but limited inventory is always bad, especially with ridiculously small stack sizes. 50 rugs take up 10 spaces, cooked food caps at 10, etc. missing quality of life includes sorting, filtering and favoriting recipes, checking them outside a kitchen, sorting and filtering cosmetic items and refilling food and fuel for heating remotely. and while completed quest subgoals get crossed out, numbers stay the same, so if it says +10 guests served, it will say +10 until it's all done, really annoying. the quest log is useless, no extra info, just a way to untrack them but luckily 5 or 6 are shown, not just the one, and others take their place if available. it's also buggy. item duplication happened on multiple occasions, got me some extra rugs, and in one session I got stuttering every single second when I was near a hotel, even an empty one, making anything that needed my presence pretty much impossible. luckily, it went away next time.
flip blocks to create matches of at least 3 of the same color. goals can be score, surviving for 40 seconds, beating your opponent, etc. has tutorial, rebindable controls, separate volumes, instant text display, resolution options, windowed mode, toggles for v-sync, screenshake and vibration, languages, colorblind options. supports keyboard, mouse and gamepad. 115 campaign levels, various game modes (some untimed, some have leaderboards), a few power-ups. level skip after 3 fails was added upon request a while ago. the board constantly moves upwards, new lines appear on the bottom, if the blocks reach the top, game over. there's a button to speed things up. since there's a timer on most levels, I found the mouse a much better control method, a lot quicker to move stuff around but easier to make a mistake if you're going for precision. local multiplayer is also available for up to 4 players. pick avatar and power-up, set speed and cpu difficulty (if applicable), the amount of garbage, whether chains are allowed, and play either as a duel or with objectives. there's even an external level editor (gotta copy files to the install folder to play custom ones). the lack of vertical matching and remembering that gaps aren't your enemy, nor is gravity, needed some time to sink in, but it's a lot of fun, done well, sold at a reasonable price, so if you don't mind the childish presentation and timed and stressful gameplay, pick it up sometime.
awful voice acting to match the awful writing. really slow movement and there's a lot of walking around mostly empty areas. annoying typewriter effect for text. unskippable cutscenes, songs and some dialog. tons of qte (the only thing besides walking and talking), including timed choices. only checkpoints, no manual saving.
looks and sounds great, has demo, instant and silent text display, manual text advance toggle and manual saving anytime over multiple slots (though only 9 for some unacceptable reason), on top of an autosave, and the map can be used for fast travel between main locations. they even patched in a 'story mode' to reduce puzzle ridiculousness and inventory clutter for fans of 'modern adventures' (their words, as if there weren't any done properly in olden times). however, even this supposedly more modern experience isn't 100% mouseable. there's only an inventory icon to click, the journal and map are hotkey-only, though you can go back and forth, as it's the same gadget. would've been trivial to add the inventory to the mix, plus a mouse action to bring it up without clicking the top left corner, especially in a game boasting about 'thousands of combinations' (again, as if it adds anything but tedium). another big mistake is the missing hotspot indicator. gotta move the mouse all over the screens like a masochistic idiot to find out (and potentially miss) what's what. can't double-click to move faster or leave the screen instantly and all the text is white, making it hard to tell who's talking. bland story and characters, including an unlikeable protagonist, make it impossible to recommend, or in my case even finish.
pretty good overall if you like 'kid ends up in a world inhabitated by animals' kinda stuff, though it's not all fun and games. great presentation, ~12 hours, has all necessary functionality except double-click to move faster (traditional controls, mouse wheel for inventory, hotspot indicator, hotkeys, double-click to exit screen, fast travel, manual saving anytime over multiple slots, separate volumes, etc.). the leprechaun's super mario joke was genius, the endgame dragged on too long. could use faster/fewer animations (fast travel is pretty useless, might as well double-click around),less repeating dialog and no 'well...', 'yeah...' and other fillers as full sentences to skip, often accidentally with the next one. they went crazy with optional collectibles as well but most don't do anything anyway (e.g. you can play cards without a full deck). nor does the hint system/spell, no idea why it's even in the game in this form.
all style, no substance and very little functionality. boring story and characters, horrible and inconsistent controls where you need hotkeys, can't rely solely on the mouse. whatever basic features there are, they don't work half the time (double-click to move faster or leave the scene, skip dialog, etc.). no manual saving, only checkpoints, doesn't save constantly, not even when you quit. the price is ridiculous too for something this lazy.
played it as a kid, found it an absolute slog now. looks great, nice animations, ok audio, but zero quality of life or settings. can't change controls, no volume sliders or animation speed/skip (though that's probably doable in dosbox), can't make scenery transparent, etc. good old archon on the c64 (and elsewhere) is more basic but also more enjoyable without wasting a lot of time watching unnecessary fluff to play out after every. single. move.
