ScrutinousOwl
2014
Great sound design and atmosphere. The colonial-era guns add tension by taking ages to reload. Most of the combat and stealth isn't that deep, but some of the encounters against waves of enemies can be tough challenges.
The survival elements are somewhat limited. Aside from early on, I rarely found myself running low on ammo. A full heal and ammo restock are usually just a fast travel away, and the only thing limiting this is not being able to fast travel when enemies are nearby. Fast travel does cut down on a lot of walking, especially later on, so maybe this is an okay compromise.
The game is unfortunately prone to crashes. They tended to happen to me when loading into a different area (especially when backtracking), so I recommend saving before and after changing zones so you don't lose anything. There's also only one save file, so you can't really make backup saves.
It's closer to something like Far Cry than a survival horror game, but the atmosphere and story are pretty solid. It's free on GOG for what seems like the foreseeable future, so check it out if you're interested.
(I beat the game on the "Deadly Enemies" difficulty, with the "drop your loot on death" setting turned off. I also turned off enemy health bars since most of them die in one or two shots anyway.)
The survival elements are somewhat limited. Aside from early on, I rarely found myself running low on ammo. A full heal and ammo restock are usually just a fast travel away, and the only thing limiting this is not being able to fast travel when enemies are nearby. Fast travel does cut down on a lot of walking, especially later on, so maybe this is an okay compromise.
The game is unfortunately prone to crashes. They tended to happen to me when loading into a different area (especially when backtracking), so I recommend saving before and after changing zones so you don't lose anything. There's also only one save file, so you can't really make backup saves.
It's closer to something like Far Cry than a survival horror game, but the atmosphere and story are pretty solid. It's free on GOG for what seems like the foreseeable future, so check it out if you're interested.
(I beat the game on the "Deadly Enemies" difficulty, with the "drop your loot on death" setting turned off. I also turned off enemy health bars since most of them die in one or two shots anyway.)
2013
A short, surreal, sad, and sometimes funny adventure game. Features one of the most unique interactions I've ever had with a video game, one that also adds some extra "replay value," in a way. Play it alone in a quiet room.
2020
"Is it good?" Yeah, it's Good. Great UI and (optional) assist features, with a ton of puzzles to solve.
The techniques that the game tries to teach you are very helpful, but it may take some trial and error to fully grasp some of them. The game's hint system will always show you a technique that can be applied to the puzzle's current state (assuming it's still a valid board), along with an annotated description, but this same system is also used for the game's tutorials. As the techniques become more difficult, you may need to go through a decent amount of examples until you can recognize whatever pattern they're trying to show you in a real puzzle. Some of the hardest techniques feel so esoteric that even just solving their tutorial puzzles can be a challenge, let alone making use of them in an actual puzzle.
Also, as of writing this, it seems like some of the achievements might be bugged. I'll just say, if you're a completionist, don't stress too much about doing the 365-day daily puzzle streaks. I finally got them done after several broken streaks, only for the achievements to fail to pop. That said, if the game wasn't this Good, I probably wouldn't have kept at it for so long.
The techniques that the game tries to teach you are very helpful, but it may take some trial and error to fully grasp some of them. The game's hint system will always show you a technique that can be applied to the puzzle's current state (assuming it's still a valid board), along with an annotated description, but this same system is also used for the game's tutorials. As the techniques become more difficult, you may need to go through a decent amount of examples until you can recognize whatever pattern they're trying to show you in a real puzzle. Some of the hardest techniques feel so esoteric that even just solving their tutorial puzzles can be a challenge, let alone making use of them in an actual puzzle.
Also, as of writing this, it seems like some of the achievements might be bugged. I'll just say, if you're a completionist, don't stress too much about doing the 365-day daily puzzle streaks. I finally got them done after several broken streaks, only for the achievements to fail to pop. That said, if the game wasn't this Good, I probably wouldn't have kept at it for so long.