It really took me a while to get into this one. The concept (an upside-down idle RPG with a central mechanic not too unlike [SPOILER] Candy Box [END SPOILER]) and all the rave reviews drew me in, but it did not keep me; I did not feel the addiction factor like so many others apparently have. It took me coming back to it a few times to get a feel for things, and I think I know why now. It is a dreary game, isn't it? The screen is mostly black, and even after you fill it it's still quite dark. There's also the writing which is, while quality, bleak as all getout. I wouldn't call the game ugly like some others have, but one can see how, in these dark days, one might be initially turned off. What saves it for me is the way the game evolves as play continues and you unlock more of the camp and therefore more mechanics (again, not too unlike... you know). Once the player builds a couple of things, the game really opens up. There is that initial monotony and grind, though, so minus one star. But all in all I would recommend it to those who like idle games and just anyone looking for a neat concept to wrap one's brain around.
... my character decided not to use her homemade bugnet to get her cellphone out of the tree but instead disappeared. And when I tried again, she disappeared again. This is what is known as a "game-breaking bug" in the field. This and the moon-logic puzzles ("tape the cellphone to a cat" indeed) are what made me decide that the story really isn't all that great. There are so many other games out there. I wish I had more to say, but then I wish the game were better too.
The base game is one of the finest twinstick roguelikes I have ever played. This DLC is $4 for one more set of passive character bonuses. It's bull***t. Buy it if you wish to support the devs, but don't expect much at all.
I got this in a Humble Bundle a long time ago, but I waited until all the episodes were released before I bothered trying it. (Silly me, liking finished products 'n' all.) Having now given it a go (on Steam), I can safely say that letting a couple of months (or years) pass between each chapter is the right way to play it. I tried to do it all at once, and I was bored stiff halfway through. If you play each chapter one at a time, you'll probably have a series of lovely, surreal set pieces with a central narrative based around the theme of entropy, little boxes of pretty toys to fiddle with while waiting for the next chapter (however long that may have taken). If you try to play it all at once, you'll get a slow, meandering, *humorless* story that doesn't seem like it even *wants* to go anywhere (and, seeing as the main theme is entropy, that may be the point, but that doesn't mean everyone will enjoy it). Actual gameplay is minimal: it's a point-and-click that's very light on puzzles. The object of the narrative is to funnel you through the set pieces (which are lovely but, like everything else in this game, completely static). I feel like KRZ really would have shined if it had been in first-person, but it's in third-person and those people are very far away figuratively and literally. (The "characters" look and act like cardboard cutouts.) I hate reviews where the author's points all boil down to "this isn't a completely different game"; I believe each title should be judged on its own merits. But I can't help thinking of The Stanley Parable and how that game nailed unconventional narrative and surreality without sinking into the depths of rigidity and self-seriousness that KRZ has made a home. But, then again, maybe it's me: I tried to play it all at once, and it's clear that most of its fans had to wait. So I would say to give each chapter some breathing room; you may enjoy it more than I did. My three stars are for the superb soundtrack and art design.
I've owned this game on Steam for a while, and let tell you something confidentially: I've never made it past the fourth level. I am not bad at games (okay, I *might* be bad at games), but this one kicks my @$$ all over the place. It is brutal, unforgiving,... and a sci-fi horror masterpiece. It's been called "top-down Doom" in other reviews, but I have to disagree: Doom is a shooter; Teleglitch is a sci-fi horror masterpiece! Gameplay-wise, it's a twinstick roguelike (A real roguelike this time: you die, you lose everything. No between-run upgrades for you, my dear.) with crafting, resource management, and (the star of the game) nerve-shattering atmoshere. Everything from the sound design to the color palette is meant to eat at your soul as you play the lone survivor of a we-played-God-and-naturally-everything-went-wrong scenario, conserving ammo and medicine while trying to survive encounters with the indescribable. And do you know how fast the indescribable can move? Very fast, it turns out. Certainly faster than you. You will panic. You will make a terrible mistake. You will die. And then you will get up and try again because there really is nothing else like this game out there. Others have tried the top-down survivial horror thing (and some have succeeded; give Darkwood a shot), but there is NOTHING out there quite like this. Only this game could get away with chipping at your psyche little by little and then kicking you in the face and taking everything from you like it does because only this game is as conceptually inspired and lovingly crafted enough for you to allow it to happen again and again. I don't know if this game is even winnable, okay? I certainly understand that it's not going to be for everyone. But it *is*...how you say... A SCI-FI HORROR MASTERPIECE! Worth a look.
One can tell this is an early game from promising developers, and for what it's worth, it isn't the worst thing in the world. The characters and art design make the whole thing very compelling, and that's good because the story is shallow, the UI is garbage, and the puzzles are unintuitive and frustrating. This game is about an hour long; guess how many times I had to consult a walkthrough. FIVE times! I am not a dumb person; this game makes me *feel* dumb. Too much pixel-hunting. Too many timing-based puzzles. No freedom of movement. Too much having to guess what the developers were thinking. AND a contantly barking dog! Yaaaaaaaaaaaay! (Seriously, I will take Baby Mario over that dog anyday.) I will fully admit I didn't even finish this game because I will be d****d if I do that awful, awful, AWFUL balloon puzzle again. Amanita Design has made better games since. Go find one.
Content-wise, this game is superb. It's a sci-fi real-time 4X of the easy-to-learn-hard-to-master ilk rightly praised for its depth, complexity, and emergent story-telling (and that's just the vanilla version). Much has been made of Paradox's seemingly-parasitic DLC policy, but while it can get pricey to be a completionist, I don't see it as any different than a board game manufacturer selling expansions for a popular product: you don't have to buy them all to enjoy the game. Heck, you don't have to buy ANY to get something out of this game (IMHO). I know that sometimes gamemakers sell shells to add onto later (Paradox has been guilty of this even just recently), but this is not one of those times. This is not exploitation; if you want to see outrageous DLC, try Dovetail's Train Simulator. Or heck, take a look at almost any "live service" model if customer exploitation is your bane. "So then why give two stars to a game that's not exploitation and that you've put hundreds of hours into here and on Steam?" Have you ever been really into your empire? Like, to the point where you've sat for 14 hours in a zone like no other just really enjoying yourself? And then you finally tear yourself away and go to bed, vowing to return? And then when you do it turns out that, because you weren't logged into a Paradox account, your game wasn't saved at all? AT ALL?! Yeah, moan all you want about the DLC; it's the DRM that's the real enemy here. Being treated like a thief after owning the game for three years and buying lots of DLC is the real enemy here. Not being able to play in Ironman mode offline at all (even single-player) because of paranoia about piracy is the real enemy here. But hey, ya know what? It's a real easy fix, Paradox. Return my empire, and I will return your three stars. It's just that simple. Does this mean I'm never gonna play again? No. But Paradox deserves its bad reviews, and GOOD LORD do I understand the point about DRM now. It sucks. Get rid of it.
This is a stunningly beautiful, meditative, subtly addictive dream; it's also the best game yet from Thunder Lotus, they of Jotun (pretty-but-clunky top-down action) and Sundered (decent roguelite metroidvania marred by randomly encountered hordes). You play as the newly-chosen ferryperson to the dead, making new friends, tending to their needs, feeding, fishing, farming, crafting, etc., all while sailing on the most magnificent open sea since Wind Waker. The main loop reminds me of the game Don't Sink, a stripped-down Sid Meier's Pirates with base-building and missions. You don't directly control the boat but instead choose locations on the map as you travel from island to island meeting spirits, fulfilling requests, and gathering ingredients (all without pirate encounters this time). Crafting is done via soft minigames, the platforming challenges are minimal, and the sea is so large you'll have plenty of time to sit back and take in Thunder Lotus's best art design and most fluid animations to date. Is it perfect? No, but what is? Of course it has its niggles: it seems like the crops ALWAYS need watering, for one. I also wish I could see everyone's mood without having to talk to each of them in turn. And some of the animations can be a little self-indulgent: I sometimes wish it didn't take almost 30 seconds to saw down a tree. None of these are deal-breakers though; I still come back to this game again and again for its soothing atmosphere, stress-free open gameplay, poignant storytelling, and goshdarn shear friggin' BEAUTY. This isn't a game that will challenge you; in fact it openly refuses to do so (except maybe emotionally). This is "comfort gaming" at its finest, and many gamers will be turned off by its lack of combat and only mild puzzling. That's fine; we have our fixes for *that*, don't we? Here, though, we will lay back, relax, and enjoy a truly great thing, and like all great things, it's not for all the people; it's for the right people.
Some games age well: Sid Meier's Pirates is still great, Quake is truly a classic, and Cannon Fodder is a friggin' blast. Some games absolutely do not age well: Super Mario 64's camera is the devil, Final Fantasy VII's gameplay is plug-boring,... and Alien Breed's crap hitboxes and frustrating design choices can eat me. This is me during my time with Alien Breed: "How did I not hit it? It's right in front of me, and this is an arcade shooter. Alright, keys, keys, keys, where are the all-important-so-of-course-there-aren't-enough-of-them keys? Ugh, the aliens respawn as soon as you walk away, so there isn't even the satisfaction of clearing a room. Gauntlet got that right, game; why didn't *you* 6 years later? How did I not hit it?! It's right in front of me, and this is an arcade shooter! Say, where's that terminal that this game insists is the godsend? It's got a map, and you can buy weapons and ammo and hopefully KEYS. I wish I knew what it looked like. I wish it stood out from all the gray. There isn't even a picture in the manual, and it's all-important! These levels are all just gray-walled mazes, aren't they? Gray-walled mazes with infinitely spawning bullet-sponges. Awesome. Okay, this is my last key, so I should be careful going down this narrow corridor not to open that door WHY DID THE DOOR OPEN ANYWAY AND WASTE MY LAST KEY, GAME?! WHY?! I DID NOT PRESS THE DOWN KEY; YOU'RE FULL OF S**T!! HOW DID I NOT HIT IT??!! IT'S RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME, AND THIS IS AN ARCADE SHOOTER!!" I hate this game. I don't often say that about games, but I'm saying it about this one. Good for older PC gamers who are used to frustration; modern PC gamers and those who grew up on consoles should avoid it like the plague. Seriously. It's not even fun in a clunky way.
(Note: I do not hate RNGs; I am not that guy.) Love-hate relationships are the devil. Luring me with a charming aesthetic and the promise of dungeon-crawling card-based roguelite goodness and then presenting me with a solo digital board game where YOU CAN'T DIRECTLY CONTROL YOUR AVATAR was bad enough. But then for me to get into it anyway (cuz I'll give anything a chance) and find a poorly-balanced nightmare of monstrous RNG and samey gameplay that is still tragically addictive (if only for a while)... This game is like bad drugs: it might take you out of yourself for a time, but it will ultimately ruin you. This game knows how to frustrate, how to torture, how to lull the player into a false sense of success and then destroy them utterly. There's a level, for example, in the Pirate's Cove DLC where you have 10 turns to reach a boss that's 8 or 9 spaces away; doesn't seem too hard, right? Well, the balancing is so f****d that getting the cards to move your avatar in the right direction is extremely unlikely: the deck is stacked with dead ends! DEAD ENDS! And throwing myself at this brick wall would be okay if this level didn't play just like all the others So I'm stuck at this point not too far from the end, and that's bad because, as frustrating as the game is, it's also very easy! All the levels are pretty much the same, and hey, remember that balancing problem I mentioned? Well, allow me to break the game for you: *SPOILER* ...once you get the Shapeshifter it's all over; you will FLY through the game. You will never want to play as anyone else simply because its deck is the most balanced of all. Maybe the Ranger too. Maybe. *END SPOILER* So I'm putting this game away. It's not a good one. Good ideas and cute characters are no match for undercooking: the woeful lack of polish indicated by poor balancing and monotonous design. This one needed more time in the oven; shame it didn't get it before two DLCs were released.
