NeutronRock
2019
The minimalist visuals are really neat, and I do like the style - but the puzzles are a little simplistic and not the most entertaining to solve.
2020
A deterministic puzzle/tactics roguelike about planning unit moves and placements against the deterministic actions of the enemy AI. Has some clever ideas, followed by a lot of quite poor ones - with enemy designs that allow next to no tactical planning that force generic "cheese" tactics.
I maybe haven't played enough of Raji for this to be truly fair - but it's a pretty smooth 3D action-platformer with excellent visual design and strong storytelling. Unfortunately it falls down somewhat in its action elements, especially the combat which has impressive athletic abilities - but lacks any sort of real bite. The platforming is similarly fine, but unspectacular. Raji is certainly a polished game, but doesn't excel enough in important areas to be truly great.
2021
Lucid Cycle is a weird game. It's largely about moving forward through strange and surreal high definition graphics - but doesn't quite have enough else about it to make doing that feel worthwhile. It's also massive and has an install size of about 20GB.
2018
I was curious as to why this type of near-incremental, near-idle game was so popular - and I can sort of see it. Simple tasks (e.g cleaning and building) with strong visual feedback as each house progresses, and gameplay incentives in money and new items. I can understand why people enjoy this, but it isn't for me. I built up a few houses, but won't sink 10s of hours in like some may.
2016
A solid sports management game with a wacky storyline. The fighting strategy and resource-management aspects are pretty decent, the overall concept is sound, but it didn't fully grip me like other lite-management sims have.
2018
A little bit janky and unpolished, and the visual style is a bit generic - but it wasn't not fun to play. There are definitely solid design ideas in here, and honestly I think slightly improved execution of them would have made a significantly better title. The platforming was a little too stilted and the "combat" was pretty rough - but the ~1/3 of it that I played did have some charm.
2019
A fairly neat puzzle/strategy game about constructing a liveable island building by building, and trying to place everything sensibly to make a "functioning" miniature civilisation. It's very simple to play and a decent time killer, but it's not a game I'd sink a lot of time into.
If I wanted a chill "city building" puzzle game, I would play Dorfromantik instead!
If I wanted a chill "city building" puzzle game, I would play Dorfromantik instead!
2021
I had imagined that Webbed would be a cute, interesting, and silly physics-based platformer - and, to be fair, it was. But it was also significantly more.
The scale of Webbed was far greater than I imagined, instead of simple A-B levels the game is full of interconnected puzzle hubs. Rather than swinging on a single strand of web, you can fire as many webs as you like - giving you a huge amount of freedom to come up with clever solutions to the challenges you face. Sometimes a single strand will do, but other times you'll almost create a machine of webs to lift or move the objects that you want.
The chaotic, physics-based nature of the design makes every successful plan incredibly satisfying to pull off, and I found Webbed a very enjoyable game to play.
The scale of Webbed was far greater than I imagined, instead of simple A-B levels the game is full of interconnected puzzle hubs. Rather than swinging on a single strand of web, you can fire as many webs as you like - giving you a huge amount of freedom to come up with clever solutions to the challenges you face. Sometimes a single strand will do, but other times you'll almost create a machine of webs to lift or move the objects that you want.
The chaotic, physics-based nature of the design makes every successful plan incredibly satisfying to pull off, and I found Webbed a very enjoyable game to play.
It's pretty, well meaning, and has a smooth flow of gameplay - but it's mechanical simplicity makes it hard for Gibbon: Beyond the Trees to keep your attention.
Good game, looks beautiful, but I no longer think the relentless "die and retry" gameplay is for me. I'd love to experience this world while sitting back and relaxing, rather than having to commit 100% concentration to every cowardly dodge.
2016
Inside is a dark, 2D puzzle platformer set in a mysterious, dark, and dystopian setting. It is aesthetically superb, immaculately polished and overflowing with clever puzzles, nail-biting stealth sections, and exhilarating chases.
Inside packs a huge range of gameplay and absurdly gripping world design into a tight 4 hour experience. This really should be played.
Inside packs a huge range of gameplay and absurdly gripping world design into a tight 4 hour experience. This really should be played.
2013
A simple, rhythmic arcade game with strong visual and sound design.
2011
A racing-mamagement game with just enough depth to be interesting, but just simple enough to be managed comfortably on the touchscreen of a phone.
2022
A clever mix of crossword, sudoku and more abstract word game. Knotwords challenges your understanding of general English word structure rather than your knowledge of specific terms and definitions.