I was listening to a Siivagunner rip of the game because I saw a cute blonde anime girl with something that look like either a facemask or glasses (turns out it was makeup, wtv it's cute) and then I saw it was free on steam and decided to try it.

My fondness for quirky blonde anime girls with facemask aside, the game was actually a surprisingly fun and charming game with a lot of really neat ideas, I mean I never coded in JavaScript and this bitch taught me how to code in JavaScript to play a little puzzle game how neat is that ?

You can feel this is a small project made by a relatively small team on their free time and it's most likely you would've found this on Newgrounds in the late 2000's and in fact that's how the weirdoe forced 2D platforming segments of the game felt like, they're weird, floaty, janky and smells of amateurism, if you can't accept a videogame to not be 200% playable or haven't grow up on the golden age of Flash Games with fucked up physics, these segments will probably make you strike a few nerves.

It doesn't help the fact the game's humour falls into the "quirky for the sake of quirk" category, some jokes landed due to how random they were and some were "hey did you get that reference ?" (often time to other game with a meta element to it, mostly the popular ones like Undertale or DDLC if you ain't tired of them yet) level of low-bro internet humour and sadly this is a significant part of the game since these platforming segment far overstay they're welcome in my opinion.

I kinda wish they pushed the "desktop adventure" aspect further and didn't feel the need to add "an actual videogame" in the middle for all that was worth honestly.

The final boss segment is really creative ! I'm not going to spoil anything but be sure to have a few icons on your desktop for some fun surprises, I dunno how much app the game can detects for that segment but my mind was blown that it was part of the final boss.

And again, Lumi (the main character) is cute enough and the game is dank. It's free anyway so give it a shot and maybe support the devs via donation if you end up enjoying it !

A short, but incredibly endearing game. A fun concept done particularly well. Writing is incredibly fun, and the ending feels concrete. Incredibly well-done, especially for a game that's entirely free-to-play. With clear inspiration from Paper Mario, Celeste, Sonic the Hedgehog, and more, it's a fun game that knows how to balance itself out; even if it takes some getting used to. Lots of depth to be found, regardless of how short it is. I do recommend using a single 16:9 display, though - some parts of the game don't like 32:9 displays or display scaling above 100%.

Cool to see a game that feels inspired by Danganronpa 2! Exciting! Derivative of quite a lot of games (I guess most obviously Celeste) in the gameplay outside of the desktop and I occasionally found those sections slightly frustrating due to the controls (you obviously want a controller for that sort of platforming, but then that would take away from the direct interaction with the desktop interface, so... double-edged sword that unfortunately stabbed me on a few occasions; horrendous bleeding.) The writing keeps those sections alive, though; initially, I found it pretty grating, but I got pretty invested in the silliness of it by the end. Generally, a few complaints but this is a free game, so... no reason not to play it, really!

Outcore is just a masterpiece on game design from my point of view, this is a game that you won't ever have clue about what is going to happen next, nor in terms of gameplay or story. When I thought that it couldn't surprise me more, it dropped a big unexpected event, and then it did it again, and again, and again. This is one of the funniest games I've ever played, and it's just crazy to think that this came from a team of only one person.

If you haven't played the game, get it now and play it, it's around 3 hours to beat and it's free, so it's available for everyone. This game is truly an unique experience that must be played as blind as possible.

Before you read on, Outcore is FREE. It is on steam and it is free, and I really recommend it.

Ultimately I think it's a bit more fun going into it blind, but here are my thoughts after finishing it in one sitting (Steam says it took me about two and a half hours)

Outcore feels like something that was made in the heyday of Newgrounds, with it's weird and kinda-bad platforming, to it's referential humour, all the way to its made-by-one-person charm. I'm a fan of games fucking with your desktop, it's a fantastic mechanic that fully uses the PC you are playing on as a whole.

It is hard not to talk about the game without making reference to...well, it's references. It's Undertale adjacent, both directly and generally. It is happy to pastiche all sorts of Visual Novel tropes. Its jokes and writing range from "Ah come on lads" to being genuinely laugh out loud funny.

I think it's fantastic, I think everyone with a PC and a few hours should take a look at it. It's surprisingly heartwarming, it's clearly been a labour of love, and it askedmeifIwasaBetaCuck