A perfect demo in how depressingly overblown RTX is. A decade and a half later and horribly awfully optimized, it can barely be played on the lowest-end RTX card, with sluggish response times frequently dipping below 25 FPS, and godawful disgusting bloom smearing the lens constantly. It is honestly depressing how much of a waste of time, money, and resources are spent on basically nothing, to recreate the astounding carefully made static lightmaps in barely-functional mediocre realtime lighting.

F. See me after class.

This is probably my favorite recent imperfect game.

I think it's really cool that there's like, a very granular infrastructure focused game like this. It does a lot of good adventure gamey stuff while also avoiding doing weird inventory puzzles. It's also definitely a eurojank game, full of eastern europe cultural artifacts and odd design decisions which might seem weird and counterintuitive. It's like the machine fixing puzzles of Myst mixed with the "carry this object" puzzles of Amnesia and the environmental design of a walking sim. There's no enemies, this is an adventure game through and through!

The only thing weird about it is how it gets better designed as it goes. There's this awful horrible raft ride in act one which is the WORST part of the game, it's so awful i couldn't blame anybody for dropping the game there. I had to noclip to get myself out of some spots in act 2. But then in the last act of the game there's a REALLY good boat scene, and the contrast is kinda jarring! But also, kind of inspiring! You get to see developers hone their craft while you're playing the same game!

It's honestly really cool that a game can be this big and epic and expansive and never really veer into science fiction or fantasy too hard. The most unreal aspect of the game setting is these radioactive mushrooms growing in places, but beyond that everything is very real and grounded. And i think that's pretty impressive to me since video games are usually a medium so based in fantasy!

This game is as big as Half-Life 2, and in the same engine and has:
- No combat
- No enemies
- No scince fiction
- No aliens

And still works really well! And that's really impressive.

The only recommendation I would make is going into the settings and modifying the flashlight and camera batteries to just make them never run out. That mechanic feels wholly unnecessary to the flavour of the game, often more frustrating than interesting, and removing the tension of trying to find batteries really lets the walking sim parts shine. The developers seem to have realized this over its long development history, as in the final act you're given an upgraded flashlight which doesn't have the same battery drain issues.

If it weren't for the weird quirks, the awful Act 1 design problems, and the battery mechanics, this would easily be five stars. But it's already basically an instant recommend. Mark Infra goes down in my brain as one of my favorite scrimblos. Good job folks, this game is a winner.

The best folk outsider art fps ever made. No game LOOKS like this, plays like this, or feels like this. It's wonderful

I recommend watching this video about his dev process because it's honestly very inspiring: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIjt1mKWn4o

This dude put all his hobbies into a game and it whips. It feels so personal and intimate with both its interests and the folklore it is inspired by, whisking you away on a fantasy journey unlike any other. We need more folk games, games steeped in history and personhood and the stories your grandmother told you about as a child.

You know, I think the Forgotten Realms might be a bad setting. One of the most uncomfortable aspects of this game, for me, is how one of the early heroes is a bird dude who takes an affinity for one of three racial selections. Such as "human", which immediately makes "a party entirely of humans and one bird dude" a very optimal build, and reminds how, yeah, Forgotten Realms is kind of racist isn't it.

It's also just not a very satisfying idle game. You have to spam acceleration potions to make it feel as fun as incremental games like Orb of Creation. And the writing is just... so boring. It's just generic fantasy stuff. Imagine if the fetch quests from opening Runescape took four times as long. I just keep wishing I felt invested like I did with YourChronicle.

It's also got some gacha mechanics. So that's a thing. Buh. I don't know, I'm just tired of D&D's cultural dominance and especially the dominance of its settings, when it's really just a haphazard grab-bag of stuff that is often more interesting elsewhere.

In summary it's weird that this boring idle game reminded me so strongly that D&D is Bad about the races thing.

Maybe I'll return to this one if somebody gives me a compelling argument, but it's very plodding and I have run out of patience with it.

I'm at the point where i could get the bad end, and I know how to get the true end, and doing so is going to probably take another twenty hours to do so.

My feelings on the game at this point basically are "the witness is less coy about being masturbatory, and portal didn't overstay its welcome." It feels like it probably isn't going to stick the landing and the puzzles are very samey once you unlock all the tech.

Yuppie Psycho is exactly what i want every time i think of “indie horror game”. It’s like Link’s Awakening smashed into Silent Hill 4 at top speed while Persona was stuck on the tracks. It feels like watching a killer anime thriller miniseries. The art rules. The soundtrack goes hard when it should. The characters are immensely lovable.

It has multiple endings and you WILL want to check ‘em all out because that fits all the pieces together. The story does that Lynchian thing of telling a lot through feelings and vibes so try to leave your literalism at the door!

Played through it over two days basically nonstop because it was so enthralling. If i could go back in time this would be on my GOTY list of 2020.