I like how the developers of the Steamworld games continue to try out new genres while still taking place in the same universe. This time it's a deckbuilder, and it manage to have quite a lot of depth without drowning the players in different cards and options. Every hero have their own set of cards. There are cards that get stronger if you play them together with another characters cards, and if you play three cars from the same hero you will get a bonus attack, that sort of thing. You can also upgrade cards and buy new, and unless you grind a lot you will never get enough resources to upgrade everything, so you will have to make some choices. You also need to have 8 and only 8 cards of each hero in the deck, and you need both basic attacks and special cards so you can't just go with the most powerful attacks. You can't make drasticly different builds for each hero, one of them are definitly the support class with boosts and heals, one is the main meele, one is the wizard, you have some choices (do you want your wizard to focus on 1, 2 or 3 different elemental damages for example) but the core role will not change. The game have the same charm and silly humor from the previous entries and it will be worth your time if you like deckbuilders or the series in general.
Production values are top notch, beutifull graphics and scenery, a great score, well written and acted and the story is overall well done (even if a little predictable). Overall well worth playing even if it's quite short (took me just under 3 hours) One thing you should know before going in however, is that if you read up on the game when it was annouced it has changed significantly. This is a walking simulator (i.e. an adventure game with focus on exploration and story and with practically no convensional gameplay), it's a very good example, just shy of what i concider the top games in the genre (Firewatch, Gone Home and What Remains of Edith Finch). You are an american who together with your ward, explore a remote norwegian village in search for your missing sister. But when you arrive the entire town seams deserted and you try to figure out what happend to the villagers all while searching for your sister. The name draugen might give you some ideas if you know your folklore trivia, but here comes the thing I mentioned earlier about the game changing. It was first announced as a survival horror game, and while there are still some horror elements pressent, it's nothing close to a survival horror. The name is not exactly missleading, but you might get disapointed if you expect something that's not there. If you go in expecting a narrative driven adventure, not something similar to Alien Isolation where you are hunted by a Draug, you will probably like this one.
While it's made by the same people who made Fran Bow it's not really a point and click adventure, it's basically a interactive story with little convensional gameplay. There are some choices that lead to some different outcomes and a bunch of hidden secrets, (that you should seek out to get the good ending). It's funny, cute, sad, creepy and weird, and at first the wildly different tones clash and are all over the place, but it works for the most part. You will probably finish it in 3-4 hours so it's not terribly long but well worth a playthrough.
Trine 3 was in my mind quite terrible, the 3D didn't work at all so it's good that Frozenbyte returned to the 2.5D from the first 2 games. It does however little to improve the first two games and in some cases it's a lot more limiting in puzzle design and how you solve your puzzles. Some might say it's more streamlined but the puzzles are fairly easy and you have less options than in the previous games and the combat outside of bosses are also pretty pointless and add very little since it lack all challenge. The bosses where quite neat even if the final boss was a letdown. That said, if you liked the first 2 games then it's more of that. The art style is a still beautifull, the music still great and overall it's more of the same. If you played the first 2 and want more of that pick this up, at least at a discount, if you havn't played the first two, start with them (especially the second one). If you played them and dind't like them why are you still reading this, it's obviously the series are not for you :) One final really anoying thing, that's not a major issue but still frustrating is that the experience chart for each checkpoint doesnt really work all the time, so it might look like you have collected all but 5 experience points in a level and in the level selection screen it say that the missing experience are in checkpoint 5, but they are in fact in checkpoint 4. Makes sweaping up the final missed experience points a chore since it makes them harder to find for the entirely wrong reason.
Darq was a nice little surprise, it builds the atmosphere very well with the sound design and art and there where a few really effective scares. The puzzles while not especially hard, where varied enough and every chapter had it's own unique themes and mechanics. Some migth say it's too short, but i would rather have a game be short and good rather than overstay it's wellcome. So many games
