I have played almost all their games, and each of them is a source of pure joy every time you complete it. Some people say this isn't a "true Amanita Design" game and that the studio has lost ther vision or something.. ignore them. No studio has ever made success by making the same game over and over (Pirahna Bytes games fans are probably going to disagree). The story unfolds slowly as you descend deeper and deeper into the underground world, and I love the fact that Amanita Design were able to tell it purely by worldbuilding and without a single word, whether written or uttered. I loved how each new puzzle element is first introduced to you in a simple single-step puzzle, and I didn't feel like any of the puzzles was too obtuse. Some of the mini-games may feel like that, but, like in any puzzle game, a bit of experimentation will always help you figure everything out. The visuals? This in an Amanita Design game, they are always great :D Everything is hand-drawn, and the detail level is astounding, especially the moving bits in every scene. The game is truly an eye candy if you love art. Sound design is also great -- every time you move closer to solving the scene, you will hear a chime, and music will start playing more lively. The music is top notch, by the way, I really liked some of the tracks, and they would probably be great to listen to on their own. Overall, this is very chill game that doesn't take much time to complete. I mostly play such games to "clear the palate" after completing a big game before starting another one, but I'd happily play Creaks once again. Well done!
One of the main gripes I have with this game is the same I have about most 'open-world' games: traversing the terrain that looks traversable but in fact is not, and the game does a very poor job of telling you that, instead resorting to janky physics to force you to take another route. The number of times I had to reload a quicksave because the game just wouldn't let me climb over a hill or a ridge by following a smooth slope and forced me to slide back (taking damage, obviously) was so high that eventually I just stopped looking around. It's not like there is much to see anyway -- most of the game world is rendered as a mostly empty sandy/snowy/lava wasteland with very few distinctive features like ruined settlements and occasional metallic contraptions to help you navigate it (there is no map, you see). Which is sad, because this game pretends to be telling a story of a dead world, but does a poor job of doing that as your only source of game lore aside from very few wall scribblings and occasional signs that you find in ruined settlements is this EXTREMELY ANNOYING sidekick you have to carry around. Taking care of ANI isn't just a chore, this very job actively nudges you towards ignoring its musings, because most of the time it is just being annoying for no apparent reason. I get that authors wanted the game to have a 'touchy-feely' character to counterbalance the rational-to-a-fault protagonist. Sorry game, but no, you won't make me feel like ANI is my girlfriend. Overall, there is probably a game behind all the janky physics, wonky terrain that you often get stuck in, empty world and poorly told story, but I'm just not seeing it. As a side note, compare this to a very minimalistic "In Other Waters" that not only does a great job of telling its story, but also makes you actually care about the alien world you are exploring.
I own this on Steam and purchased it along with the small DLC. The game is quite beautiful and tells a great story with some really unexpected plot twists. The puzzles are not very hard, some require a bit of dexterity, but there's nothing overly complex or looking for a solution. What I loved the most is the music. It's very traditional and strictly instrumental, which definitely helps with immersion. Also there's a really nice song in the end of WIllow's chapter. The only downside is that it may feel a bit short, but the story ends on a cliffhanger, so hopefully there will be additional episodes.
This game reminds me of Zombie Night Terror, although it is quite a lot shorter than the former. Still, the feeling of satisfaction you get as you carve through waves of hapless victims is quite good. I don't know why it makes me feel that way, maybe I just don't like humans that much :D The levels are quite mazy and you can easily get lost in them, but thankfully some people made maps which you can easily find online, and these maps are spoiler-free, so if you want to finish the game on your own, you can definitely do so. It would be nice if the game had some sort of a map that you could look at when you're lost, but I don't think it is a big enough issue to make a fuss about. The sound design is absolutely gorgeous. The screams, the sounds you make, the music -- all that adds up to a very immersive experience and lets you truly "live" the game. And I know it's a pixelated graphics game, but it is very well drawn. Not only the movement of the Blob is very well animated and looks extremely smooth and fluid, but if you look closely, you can see that level design and bits of background were also well thought-through. Everything looks very believable and authentic. Overall, a very nice reverse horror puzzle platformer for people that maaybe have a bit of a grudge against humanity :)
As many others have already written, the focus in this game is mostly on the story. Every level can be solved in a more or less the same fashion -- visit every location you can, experience a flashback, talk to everybody and exhaust all the dialog options, gain every bit of information you can, then try applying it everywhere. If you cannot progress, you probably haven't tried applying every bit of new knowledge you gained in the level. Puzzles aren't very complex -- there is no moon logic or annoying "try every object in your inventory on everything until it works" problem that older point-and-click games are known for. It is almost impossible (if not completely impossible) to screw up -- if you make a mistake, the game simply resets to give you another go at the task you failed. Sometimes you need to be in a specific place to use some object in your inventory, but that is mostly very logical. I think I struggled only once in the game, and that was very somewhere in the last third of the Chinatown level. To be fair, however, the game did try to point me in the direction of what I needed to do next -- I simply wasn't looking in the right place. The story was really intriguing in the beginning, then I somewhat lost focus of it. But then you are met with quite an interesting plot twist and some interesting moral dilemmas. I won't spoil anything, but the main idea of the story is that almost nothing in this game is as it seems :) The only thing I didn't like is probably the amount of false choices in the game. I understand that devs were trying to make it replayable, but I doubt I will want to repeat the game with a different origin story and/or different pair of henchmen. You kinda experience their personalities during the interludes, so I don't see the point in rushing through the game again just to get a bunch of achievements. Overall, it is a really nice game with quite a few easter eggs and references to Wadjet Eye's other titles. Definitely worth playing
In Other Waters is very minimal on the UI -- after all, you represent an AI that operates a sophisticated diving suit, and the fun bit about that is that the story protagonist is trying to understand what is happening in the world just as much as you are. The game really shines in that aspect and makes a very good impression of you actually communicating to someone, which makes you forget about the minimalistic UI, the weird icons you see on the main screen and let yourself simply immerse yourself to a beautiful alien world. The story is not really anything new -- humans, true to their favourite combinaton of arrogance and stupidity, tapped into something they didn't fully understand and it backfired. The world you see is the result of that, but as you progress through the game, as you enjoy its beautiful soundtrack, as you learn the sad story of an unlucky alien world which our species stumbled upon and found something that could be turned into profit, and as you reach the story finale where you learn not only who you are, but also how lonely you are.. suddenly you see a ray of hope. I literally cried at that moment. I experienced emotions towards a bloody triangle and collection of dots! This was probably the most cathartic moment in a video game I've experienced for a long time. Honestly, this felt like reading a really good sci-fi novel. It is idealistic and some can say even cliché, but I haven't seen such a good game in quite a while. Do play it
First of all, full disclosure -- I do not own the game or this particular DLC, but this is getting ridiculous. How hard can it be to search the game title with "kickstarter" or "crowdfunding" added to the search query? It's 21st century, most indie titles are crowdfunded, so stop crying wolf the moment you see a DLC added to an early access title and do a little research first. 9 times out of 10 the DLC just a KS exclusive. TL;DR: THIS IS A DIGITAL EXCLUSIVE FOR CROWDFUNDING CAMPAIGN SUPPORTERS. Kindly chill the fuck out already.
As developers state themselves in the video, aside from points you get for placing the tiles (which you can just ignore altogether) there is no combat, trade or any competitive element in Dorfromantik. This is an extremely peaceful game full of cute little details that fit really well together. Despite the fact that it looks like a board game, everything on the board feels alive: here's a tiny grass decal swishing in the river, there's a tiny puff of smoke raising from the rooftop, trees are swaying to the wind and deers are grazing the grass near the forest tiles. It feels very relaxing and is fully worth its really low price. The only thing I can complain about is that the gameplay looks nothing like the video. Forget about seeing long, meandering rivers and railways that actually look nice. Maybe this is just my RNG, but roughly half of the time I get those stupid X, Y and K pieces that just make a lattice-like mess on my board.
I know a good story when I see one, and this game doesn't look like one. The intro sequence looks like it was made in the late 90s when facial animation was just being figured out. I generally don't care about graphics, but those look VERY dated for 2013. 30 minutes into the game, I couldn't find any story that I'd cared about. Or any magnificently written characters. Or adequate voice acting. Or anything at all, to be fair, apart from zombies, samey locations filled with generators and fences and annoying remarks the PC makes all the time to someone named Zach. And as a cherry on the top you get the most clunky and unintuitive controls ever (which you cannot even remap in-game). I understand that this was supposed to be a PS2 release, but 1) even in 2006 there were much better games available on both PC and PS2; 2) if you try to use a controller, good luck having fun with X/Y axes swapped together; 3) there is an abysmal amount of pauses and cutscenes: whenever you pick up an item, open a door, activate something etc.; 4) I am used to old games that are released in the 90s to not have an in-game tutorial, but this is released in 2013.. 5) you need to pixel-hunt for a good 10 seconds in order to try to interact with just about anything; 6) aiming is godawful and always autosnaps to your current target's centre, yet you can occasionally land a headshot. The exact technique escapes me, however; .. N) the developers had 7 years to make the game better, and THIS is the result? Maybe this game does have a cult following, and maybe it's a masterpiece for some, but for someone who played a lot of oldschool point'n'click adventures and detective stories, this is an awful excuse of a game.
The game's concept is quite original for the time -- you control a team of four genetically altered soldiers. By fighting alien creatures (both hostile and not so much) and killing them, your troops can replenish their health and get some new DNA samples to expand your genetic arsenal -- different weapons, better speed, higher jumps etc. This sounds quite cool, and I was quite mesmerised by the concept.. at first. There is very little story, however I wouldn't expect one in a shooter. All we know is that there is some Big Bad Parasite creature hiding somewhere on the planet we are, and we are to defeat that. Level design is questionable. Textures look too samey and it is quite easy to get lost and a disoriented. Eventually you also get bored out by all that 'alienness' of the world you are trying to save. After you beat 3 levels, the next one contains a boss -- big bulky damage sponge with multiple different attack abilities similar to yours. Defeat it, move to the next 'continent' and do the same again. And then again, for total of 12 levels and three bosses. By the time I got to the 2nd boss, I barely had the will to complete the game, so I abandoned it after a couple tries to beat the boss creature. After getting through all these endless catacombs and twisted narrow tentacle-like catwalks and fighting the annoying mouse look that auto-snap to angles around -45, 0 and 45 degrees, I just didn't have any will left to fight another damage sponge, knowing that I would have to endure through another 4 levels like that. In 2000, this would have been an interesting alternative to Quake 2, but in 2020 I'd choose Quake 2 over Evovla any time.
