Reviews from

in the past


It's alright. I don't want to be too harsh, cause this is clearly a passion project by one guy. The aesthetic and controls are all on point, I just feel like I wanted a little more meat. Again, not bad by any means. The dev put out another game, so I'm eager to see where he's going

Um bom jogo, que sabe aproveitar bem as mecânicas provenientes de suas inspirações, entregando o suficiente para divertir quem gosta de jogos stealth!

Mas se for jogar, tenha em mente que é um jogo indie bem curto, e pode ter alguma "fricção", especialmente se você quiser executar o máximo possível na maneira furtiva, sem apelar para a utilização de sua munição limitada.

strictly worse splinter cell: chaos theory, but what it does it does perfectly, and is exactly what i wanted from a game. excellent execution on a small scale

Neat in concept but just does not feel fleshed out enough to really hold me personally. Also felt like several of the mechanics were kinda out of place to me. Like full sneaking taking your health. Not to mention the AI being able to see through corners and stuff helped to make the experience a bit less fun for me. I did really like the level design and atmosphere of the game though. Hopefully the dev takes another crack at this style of gameplay in the future. This unfortunately just wasn't a right fit for me though.

4.5/10

You wish this ladder had a song. But who is left to write it?

A Ground Zeroes flick acting in reverse; punishment instead of extraction. Delicious cruelty. The prisoners hide in their nowhere bunkers with guards patrolling their cramped steel corridors like the automatons that they are whilst you stalk each one relentlessly in order to absorb their essence - behind this metal mask, the byproduct of industrial gears and dead stars, a computer left to run alone in a dark room.

In the end nobody will be left to watch the execution.


A perfectly fine indie stealth game. Not much to say, except that I enjoyed it.

i dont get it, its aping(positive) various aspects of chaos theory but then going out of its way to make them not interact with each other, why wouldnd the tag system be usable inside vents? it looks great, plays fine but its insistence on being only one thing at a time is very silly

Very focused small stealth game with an awesome style and some cool implicit exposition.

Jogo muito bom, ambientação dele consegue te passar a tensão de estar ali, preciso entender melhor oq o jogo queria passar. E é curtinho

now this was a one man project, so theirs alot i will forgive, but to put it simply, if your a fan of the splinter cell games, you might enjoy this, just know this game is really short, but a unique experience.

Contender for greatest name in all of video games to be honest. The dev is really friendly and I had a good chat with him on Twitter about his inspirations. He seems to really understand just what makes stealth games engaging. You'll feel the MGS1 and Splinter Cell influence here, really fun.

First indie game I've ever seen try to be Splinter Cell. Does a pretty decent job, but it's a bit too minimal for its own good I think. Really easy to just shoot every guard you see and hide all of the bodies effortlessly. Levels were fun to navigate and it had great atmosphere but I desperately wanted some gadgets to use on the enemies.

NSTW is a mix of Metal Gear Solid and Splinter Cell, only the scope is smaller in every way. What we have is very enjoyable and fun to play in small sessions. The controls are perfect with mouse and keyboard and perhaps it works so well becomes the moves, weapons and gadgets are limited. To be specific, the game has only 2 guns and there are no gadgets. You have 6 areas/missions and there are 2 guard types. I’ve completed normal mode in 2.6 hours and it becomes 8.3 hours if you include hard mode. Hard mode is a bit more substantial as you’re not shown where your targets are and all the enemies have become the more difficult versions of the 2 types. It was worth doing hard mode despite getting frustrated with all the deaths and the lack of checkpoints within missions/areas.

I’m putting all the numbers here not because I’m complaining. It’s to give an idea for the scope you should expect. I loved the fact the game is kept pure and that there wasn’t really much of a story either. The graphics are a mix of ps1 style but very sharp and with modern technology. It’s very appealing. The levels are well designed despite the simplicity. I’m also impressed by most of the animations such as killing guards when sneaking behind them. The sound effects are also good but there is no music aside from the main menu and level selection screen. The 6 areas have more ambiance sounds and quiet moments.

Out of all Merlino Games, this is my favourite. It’s the most polished one and its scope is enough to leave me satisfied. It makes me miss the popular stealth games I mentioned and I also hope that we will get NSTW2. I don’t mind if the scope is kept the same or slightly bigger. The normal price is less than €8 and it can be had for less than €6 often. It’s worth it for fans of the genre when expectations are kept in check. The developer is also worth supporting as he tries different things often, is focused and keeps getting better. Apparently he wants the next game to be bigger with the help of a team instead of a solo project. And I’m not talking about ‘Under a Star Long Cold’ which is coming in February. we know the unknown game is also going to be a stealth game. It’s very exciting following whatever this developer is up to.

Great stealth game with alot of promise! I'm hoping that this is a concept for future games from the developer. Will be keeping an eye out for their next projects~

Super fun, short game. Took me just over an hour. I wish there was more of it! Just like a bigger and better game because this is really fun and looks super cool too.

Why did we, as a society, ever stop making these games? Stealth action a la Metal Gear and Splinter Cell. No Sun To Worship is pretty short, and the cracks start showing towards the end (enemy AI is very abusable), but I still loved every minute of it, because I long to crawl through air vents, to hold up guards, to be the ghost haunting a dense, dark maze full of bad guys and worse guys.
We need to bring these games back

Funny how little amount of stealth games I play, because it's one of my favorite types of games alongside survival horror. Don't worry about that tho because in a few weeks I'll be playing the shit out of Metal Gear Solid, but I digress.

While the greater issue with most of the games in the genre is that they give too many gameplay features, this one has the exact opposite problem. I know that it's an amateur project with an uneven price on Steam, and it does have a pretty fun art style for something of that pedestal, but it straight-up lacks some of the most fundamental aspects of what makes a stealth game good. For one, ammo is shockingly scarce. The classic trick of shooting light sources to hide in the shadows is very much present and NPCs are killed instantly with headshots, but you're generally given just 10 bullets from the beginning, and ammo boxes are almost nowhere to be found. In fact, there's just nothing to explore besides the main objective. Searching behind every nook and cranny doesn't offer any results besides finding your target, and all you have to do at that point is just killing them while they're already down. Guards can still be taken down by holding them hostage and then choking them, but for one, doing so doesn't grant you anything so you're better off sneaking further unless they get in the way, and two, this gets repetitive real quickly since the enemy AI seems to hardly spot you so it's not like getting to that point is all that difficult. When you do get spotted, it's pretty much game over from there on out because the guards have this weird sixth sense by which they always seem to know where you are hiding, I even had two of them stand still at a corner right next to me and start firing at the wall because they just hadn't reached the angle to hit me. Once you die, there is no save system to back you up so you have to do the whole mission all over again. It's not as infuriating as it sounds because each mission is relatively short, but doing the process all the way from scratch each time gets boring after the third attempt because the only major difference is the route you're taking. The gameplay just kinda boils down to the bare minimum of how these games work, and additional features to immerse yourself further into the stealth are severely lacking.

While I refunded this game within just 45 minutes, I learned a lot from its subpar design. I wouldn't be complaining if niche games like this dominated the home store page.

very aesthetically pleasing:) all in all tho, stealth games aren't rlly my thing:/ still rlly fun:D

It's what it strives to be: a nice homage to the splinter cell series. I have several gripes with it, like it being WAY too easy until enemies can see you through walls, and it was straight up easier to gun everyone down which should not be encouraged in a stealth game. I'm not gonna harp on it too much, because its a short, sweet experiance and is just a nice little homage.