replayed this year and bumping it up a half star.

lobcorp takes a collection of simple rules and continually iterates until you can feel information falling out of your ears. there genuinely is nothing else like it, and that's probably why most people bounce off of it. but that willingness to drop the player into nearly impossible situations so they can only just barely scratch out a win creates these huge payoffs that i haven't really found anywhere else other than the sequel lol.

this game is mean, janky, kinda ugly sometimes, and fucking beautiful when it needs to be. it uses the feelings derived from gameplay to reinforce its themes and its story. it's a shining example of what i love about indie games and has probably changed the way i think about them twice now