shattered embrace, the other single player dlc, has been on steam since 2019 but it's still not available on gog 4.5 years later and counting. epic indeed.
(original review + gog team comment below) while the game is now up-to-date, it's still impossible to recommend. manual saving anytime is possible but there is absolutely no autosave, making things unnecessarily tedious. a game like this should save after every day, every item picked up, every skill or recipe unlocked, etc. it's also incredibly crash-prone, which would be bad enough on its own and unacceptable with the subpar save system. am I supposed to manually save every 5 seconds to avoid losing progress? and these are on top of terrible controls and ui and the dev's attitude mentioned below. --- This review might be outdated, as the version of the game has since changed - GOG Team. the steam version has been getting updates every now and then, the latest at the time of writing on apr 2, 2024, but the gog version is stuck on 1.1.5 from 2021. please don't give any money to this scummy developer, here or on other platforms.
hotk: the lost tales 2 is another shorter entry in the charming point & click / resource management / hidden object series, still pretty much the same as the rest (except hotk3). no respawning enemies or resources, constantly breaking items (they still break sometimes), mindless grinding or other nonsense, just the usual: exploring forests and caves, doing fetch quests, sleeping or eating to regain strength (hearts) to carry out most actions, looking for mushrooms and eggs, hunting animals, fishing and farming. merchants have an interface if they offer multiple services or have quests, but they're still not accessible from the map. sure, the world here is smaller and the whole game is shorter (another 4 hours), but still. can't camp anywhere, use firewood at certain locations to regain a measly 10 hearts (still no way to skip repetitive animations). food consumption is instantaneous and can be done any time, crafting 5 or 10 items at a time is possible too. as much as I like the series and I'm fine with more of the same, it's getting stale, especially with no quality of life improvements. move on to new and more varied environments instead of generic forests and such, add some new mechanics without turning everything upside down, etc. in the meantime, if you like the series, it's a no-brainer, more of exactly the same, no surprises. if you're a newcomer, I'd recommend starting with hotk1 or lost tales 1 (it's a prequel story-wise and only 5 eur instead of 7 for the exact same experience), even though this is a standalone story as well (with a few familiar faces). and as always, there is a demo to try and see if the general gameplay loop is something you'd like.
hotk is a series of charming point & click / resource management / hidden object games without a timer. they're pretty much identical, and since changes in hotk3 got a lot of flack, the devs went back to their roots. no more respawning enemies or resources, constantly breaking items (they still break sometimes), mindless grinding or other nonsense. it's a prequel story, brent is a kid, presented exactly like hotk1-2. not much new to say, you're still exploring forests, mountains and caves, doing fetch quests, sleeping or eating to regain strength (hearts) to carry out most actions, looking for mushrooms and eggs, hunting animals, fishing, and now farming. merchants have a new interface if they offer multiple services or have quests, but they're not accessible from the map anymore, which was one of the very few excellent improvements in hotk3. sure, the world here is smaller and it takes about 4 hours to finish, but still. camping anywhere isn't possible here either, use firewood at certain locations to regain a measly 10 hearts. still no way to skip repetitive animations, but food consumption is instantaneous, can be done any time, and crafting 5 or 10 items at a time is possible now. as much as I like the series and I'm fine with more of the same, it's getting a bit stale. move on to new and more varied environments instead of generic forests and such, add some new mechanics without turning everything upside down, etc. in the meantime, if you like the series, it's a no-brainer, more of exactly the same, no surprises. and if you're a newcomer to the series, this might work as a first game, as it's a prequel story-wise, the cheapest (and shortest) of them all, and as always, there is a demo to try and see if the general gameplay loop is something you'd like.
resource management without timer, a fantasy world to explore, stuff to gather, people to help, monsters to kil. charming presentation and a story good enough for a game like this. some hidden object elements, not much frustration. for hotk3 they decided to make everything respawn, which was a horrible idea. no way to permanently clear areas of baddies like before, constant grind for resources, unnecessary padding, you name it. enemies on the side can be mostly ignored and 'roadblock' enemies don't respawn, so unlocked paths or hotspots stay that way, but you also need to get better, so killing more stuff is necessary, I managed to get everything done and maxed by the end, weirdly, melee combat was one of the hardest to increase. it costs a lot of resources to fight a tougher enemy that may or may not give a skill increase even if they're around your level. visiting a campsite anytime to rest, cook and craft was a very good idea, as was giving access to all the discovered merchants through the map, because everything breaks all the time. just like respawns and pretty much everything in this game, it's random, but really annoying when you buy an expensive weapon and it breaks after a single fight. another thing that shouldn't happen is regular equipment breaking while using higher tier versions, and you can't use these for enemies that need lesser versions of the same weapon. new mechanics need some getting used to, but I think it's still worth playing if you enjoyed the other games in the series, and if you're not familiar with them, demos are available. oh, and make sure to hit play once you're finished, there are some post-game quests to do.
fixfox is a great adventure game with a much better and longer story than I expected, touching on various themes and subjects, like gene splicing to adapt humans to climate change, robots, and of course food, all presented with great pixel art, varied music and amusing writing. gameplay is fun for the most part, as you explore and fix stuff for robot residents of the planets you crashlanded on, using whatever items available to reach your main goal of getting off the planet (coins work as screwdrivers, toothbrush as a brush, vinegar as acid, etc.). all the robots are available for a chat and to ask for directions and more info on certain things. the day-night cycle is purely cosmetic, save for a handful of quests. having to do everything 4 times during the main story gets tedious after a while (build a thing that consists of 4 parts, they have to be retrieved from 4 places each, then there's another 4-part thing, etc.), but if you mix it up with side-activities (or just take a break sometimes) it won't be an issue. it's very hand-holdy for the most part, but if you don't pay attention, you might get stuck for a bit. the world is mostly open and there's a lot of quality of life and attention to detail. there's a map, various ways to fast travel, certain mechanics to reduce tedium during repetitive enough puzzles, etc. it's retro done right, without sacrificing functionality because 'you didn't have x or y in the 90s either'. manual saving anytime over multiple slots, regular autosaves, rebindable controls (defaults work just fine), text display options, volume settings, resolution options, windowed mode. despite some annoyances (the map randomizing every now and then, only leaving discovered main locations, the annoying sidekick's monster warnings about non-existant monsters), it's a really fun 12-hour adventure that just keeps on going and going every time you think it's gonna be over.
your average road-building jigsaw-like puzzler with above-average presentation. create paths for cars (or whatever else) to reach their destination. the fast-forwardable level transitions are weird and wonderful, but they get old eventually and make level reset take a while, so a toggle would be appreciated. 150 levels provide a certain number of puzzle pieces that have to be used in that order and without rotation. so instead of finding the next piece or step to continue the road, you have to figure out what to do with the current one. there are bombs and a hand to get rid of stuff in the way, copy-paste, rotate, swap, slide and elevation modifiers. the clutter on some levels hinders puzzling a bit and I found elevation differences surprisingly hard to notice sometimes. the game can be controlled completely with the mouse, but non-rebindable hotkeys are also available for almost everything and controller is also supported. there's undo/redo, camera pan (no rotation), zoom and hints (a few per level, they reset the whole thing and go from the first step). excellent and varied presentation, you won't play 30 levels with the same tileset here, not in a row anyway. pretty good and similarly diverse soundtrack, though a skip track button would be nice. settings cover the basics and are available while playing: separate volume sliders, windowed mode with a resizable window, low/medium/high graphics detail that also reduces clutter on the levels. no on-screen level numbers yet, but the level select icon brings up a list that shows where you are, good enough. the list should be more condensed though, to 5 pages instead of 15. a well-known and oft-seen concept executed competently, providing a generous amount of content, functionality and quality of life. absolutely recommended, the price is reasonable as well.
I've never heard of this game until recently, but I think it's a lot of fun. kinda like a roguelike with dinos and cheesy fmv, major plus in my book (the roguelike aspect not so much). gotta learn about the dinos from the encyclopedia (voiced but no subtitles or any written info in the entire game), then travel to one of 3 periods, gather clues, find the dino in danger and save them. do it 3 times for a win, 3 failures lead to a game over. short runs with a timer based on actions, not actual time (24 hours, moving a cell on the map is half an hour, running into quicksand takes away more, etc.). not sure if maps/dinos/clues are randomized or not, the overworld map is the same in all 3 time periods, but you can only find certain dinos in certain periods. the theme song is awesome, exactly what you'd expect from a game like this. the quickstart pdf provided by the current publisher is fairly useful (except for the part where it says the game doesn't use the mouse, as it's completely mouse-driven), but do yourself a favor and mount the .iso (cd image) in the install folder and find the actual 16-page manual with all the dino infos, etc. much more convenient than learning all of it from the game. definitely recommended for dino/cheese lovers, it's a hidden gem, if not entirely polished. (the mouse cursor is a bit off, needs some getting used to until you can avoid misclicks, might be because of windowed dosbox or something on my end.)
