Recent reviews by apocalyptech

Not that this game needs Yet Another Positive Review, but it really is fantastic. My advice is that if you like Metroidvania games and enjoy exploring eerie environments positively dripping with atmosphere, pick it up without hesitation, and try not to spoil yourself too much on other reviews or even the official trailer videos. There's a ton to discover, and you'll have the best time in the game if you discover 'em yourself!

One thing I really enjoyed was the twist of having a lack of combat. You are sometimes directly imperiled by hostile creatures, but in general your tactics boil down to avoidance. There's a million Metroidvanias out there with combat if that's more what you're after, but the lack of direct combat plus the ambiance/vibes gives this one a really unique feel. There's a few places in the game where you've got to do platforming under pressure, and one in particular which represents a pretty hefty (and unexpected) difficulty spike, though the game's respawn mechanics mean that you can generally retry those segments easily.

It's not a perfect game -- there's a few very-endgame puzzles which I'd personally consider unfair (as in: requiring outside-game input to complete, or just clues which are nearly impossible to catch on your own). The few sections of platforming-under-pressure kind of dissipates the vibes in the game a bit, too -- after you've died a few times trying to complete a difficult section, a lot of the atmosphere-derived tension kind of evaporates a bit and it starts to feel like just Yet Another Metroidvania.

Still, my nitpicks with the game are quite minor compared to the absolutely delightful bulk of the game. I'd highly recommend!

This might actually be my new favorite of the Trine series -- mechanically, at least, I feel like everything fits together here beautifully. It's nice and long (19 levels plus one "final boss" level), its story is (IMO) more engaging than the usual Trine storylines, and the puzzles feel nice and complex. The levels, as usual, are absolutely gorgeous to look at, and the game is a treat on the eyes.

Even though I quite liked the story in this one, I *do* feel like it was wrapped up very unsatisfactorily (spoilers follow): the kingdom remains in a ruined state, which isn't particularly satisfying for a player, and the Trine Heroes' public-image problems seem to just evaporate offscreen. With the kingdom still in ruins, partially due to the direct action of the heroes, and without any villians to actually bring back to answer to justice, why are they apparently heralded as heroes again at the end? There's also one boss battle and one in-level scenario which I personally found a little over-challenging on "normal" mode (I know, I know, git gud), but that's easily addressed by in-game difficulty settings which can both ease combat and the resurrection restrictions, so that hardly counts against the game.

Overall I was quite pleased with the game, and I think it's spurred me to go play through the other installments again. If you're a fan of the series, IMO you won't be at all disappointed with this one!

This is a pretty enjoyable -- if light -- entry into the SteamWorld series of games. As has been mentioned frequently elsewhere, it's a mix of some city-building on the surface (modelled a bit on the Anno series), and some underground mining sections (modelled a bit on Dungeon Keeper). Neither activity is especially complex. Veterans of more complex city-building (and/or factory automation) games might find they miss some QOL features to keep closer tabs on various aspects of resource production and consumption, before eventually realizing that the "simulation" is light enough that you don't really need those to keep on top of everything. The game's got a story attached which is quite barebones (and ends a little nonsensically), but it's nice to have an actual goal to work towards in a game like this, and I always enjoy catching up with the SteamWorld bots.

IMO, the game's biggest letdown is the "combat" features which happen underground, particularly with the periodic hive attacks. They're fine once you realize that the "Guard" unit is practically useless for those (at least until unlocking a later-game buildable to vastly enhance their mobility), and that the real solution is just to aggressively over-build on the "turret" defenses instead. In the end it's basic and straightforward enough that checking in on hive attacks felt more like a bother than a chance for excitement.

The game could really use some extra complexity. Once a player's gotten to grips with how resources are handled, and done one of the early production lines, there's not really much variance left to the game. The four levels of citizenry you unlock through the game aren't really any different in terms of mechanics; each one's just got a separate set of buildings and production facilities needed to support them, but they may as well all use the same ones. You're not doing anything different to support Scientists than you were to support Engineers -- it's just that the buildings have different names and they're using different raw resources. Likewise, the underground sections don't really offer anything new in terms of mechanics once the hive attacks are encountered. Level 3 is really just Level 2 with a separate coat of paint.

Anyway, all that probably sounds like I'm being harder on the game than I intend to. It's a breezy little game which hits some Pavlovian reward centers when unlocking the various components, and it runs beautifully. I was playing on Linux via Proton and had zero issues at any stage. In the end, I'd give it a recommendation despite my various nitpicks.

Talos Principle 2 is a triumph for the reasons already well-outlined by countless other reviews on here. One thing I will say, though, is that if you're someone who's already depressed and/or feeling hopeless about our own ongoing climate crisis, this game might not be the best for your mental health. Sort of a strange, oblique content warning, I guess. The game doesn't even really focus too much on its backstory of biological-human-eradication-via-climate-change-adjacent-disasters, but there's enough talk throughout the game, via engaging and well-written characters you want to interact with, that it ended up being a bit much for me. Some express the optimism and hope that I wish I still felt, others express the kind of hopelessness and resignation that I wish I didn't feel... Some are just angry at how the game's history ended up unfolding, which is a familiar echo of many of my own thoughts. In the end, it was just too close to the constant background malaise that's been following me around for years. I got just over halfway through (finishing all the puzzles, lost labs, stars, etc) but decided I should probably hang it up for the time being.

It's presented wonderfully, of course. The environments are in turns beautiful and terrifying, the characters feel real and personable, and the puzzles scratch just the right itch. You can also skip basically any dialog you want, which should theoretically be a saving grace for me in this case, but I don't really feel like missing out on the philosophical side of the game, which is one way it distinguishes itself from many other titles.

So anyway, a definite recommendation, regardless! Just consider that content warning if you're in a particular kind of funk like I've got going on.

Another great typing game from Fishing Cactus! This one's a straight-up arcade game, as opposed to its contemplative story-based predecessors, Epistory and Nanotale. It definitely hits its mark for fast-paced typing action!

As with Epistory and Nanotale, it pays to get used to the various enemies' attack types and what kinds of threats they pose, so you know which ones to prioritize. Especially in the later levels, you'll want to choose your immediate targets carefully to make sure you don't get overwhelmed! You've got a couple of limited-use abilities available to help you out of jams, as well (a shield to just tank some hits, and a "kill all" barrage). One of my favorite flourishes is that there's a bit of a story framework around the levels, which are presented to you at checkpoints in each level, where you type out the narration (against a timer) to continue the level -- a fun detail which makes the (intentionally) threadbare story feel a little more personal. We're not just being told the story, we're writing it in ourselves. I quite liked that touch!

On top of the "main" difficulty slider you'd expect, there's also a host of other game options you can toggle on/off to customize your game experience however you like: some make the game harder (which will increase your score multiplier), and some make the game easier (which will decrease your score multiplier). There's built-in leaderboards, if you care about that sort of thing, so you can pitch yourself against other internet randos as well as just trying to beat your own high scores.

All in all, this is a very tightly-put-together game which hits its marks perfectly. A single full runthrough won't last too long (I finished mine in a little under 4 hours) but fans of typing games will find plenty of replayability in this one. Personally, I'd highly recommend it!

(As a brief aside for Linux players: this worked perfectly for me with a GE Proton 7.x)

Very satisfying puzzle game! It keeps throwing new wrinkles at you as you progress, which is a nce touch. The background art is gorgeous, and the soundtrack is quite good. Linux version runs perfectly, to boot!

Pixross is a well-crafted and cheerful-looking nonogram/picross puzzle game. It's got a wide array of customization options you unlock by completing puzzles (and then redeeming star points in the "Styles" menu), and it's quite pleasing to flip back and forth between them inbetween sections. The puzzles tend towards the easier, overall -- unless I'm misremembering, there's only one puzzle in the game with a dimension >15, and the puzzles are very often symmetrical (or at least nearly symmetrical). There's also rarely a puzzle that doesn't provide you with a number of "giveaway" rows/cols right off the bat. The puzzles here won't give nonogram veterans any trouble at all, but it's breezy and enjoyable regardless.

My main complaint is that the game "leaks" information if you have auto-dim-clues turned on -- if you've got a row with a bunch of 1s, and you've got one filled in, the dimming tells you exactly which one it is, even if you shouldn't actually know that information. It's easy enough to ignore, but it'd be nice to have an option to turn that off (without having to disable auto-dim entirely). Earlier versions of the game had some bugs in some of the puzzles which led to ambiguous puzzle states (where you'd have to guess to figure out the correct answer), but the v1.4 update fixed that up, so that's no longer a concern.

The game also has an optional penalty system -- on by default -- which will reveal the correct marking for a square if you've misclicked (or mis-reasoned). That's easily turned off, though. There's also a clock for the levels which I believe can be toggled off, but that's easy to ignore as well.

Anyway, it's a nice package and definitely worth the price! The developer's been very responsive to community feedback and suggestions, and I'd definitely give it my recommendation.

(Long review incoming -- apologies! tl;dr: I like Epistory more, but this is well worth checking out regardless. Note that my playtime here is quite artificially inflated. I'd accidentally left the game running more than once, so this is not the time required to finish the game.)

It would have been easy for Fishing Cactus to rest on their laurels and put out a game that was effectively Epistory 2, but instead they took a gamble and struck off in some new directions for Nanotale. It's a bold move, especially in a market where typing games are infrequent at best. The result is a game which, despite sharing a lot of DNA with Epistory, ends up feeling quite a bit different. For me, the changes are a mixed bag (and I have to admit I prefer Epistory), but I'd definitely recommend the game regardless.

One of the major changes in Nanotale is the spellcasting system. Just typing a target name will always do a "basic" attack, but you can prefix it with "FIRE" or "ICE" (or a variety of other spell types) to cast special attacks. Also, instead of just typing "FIRE" to set up a fire spell, you can add modifiers, such as "FIRE RAY LONG," which will send a long beam of fire towards your target (potentially hitting other targets on the way), which burns for a longer than usual time. It adds for a lot of flexibility in combat, and is also integral to the sometimes-tricky puzzles in the game.

Complicating the spellcasting is the addition of a mana bar, which will get used up as you cast your spells in combat. When the mana bar dips below a certain point, all you have available is your "basic" attack, meaning you don't have access to fire/ice/etc. Unlike in Epistory, where you'd "lock" in your attack type, every attack has to be prefixed with your spell type, if you want more than the basic attack, so you'll find yourself using just the basic attack pretty often.

As a result, Nanotale places a much higher emphasis on movement during combat. In Epistory's wave-based arenas, your character's position would be fixed and it was a matter of raw typing speed combined with strategic use of your elemental type locks. In Nanotale, you're free to move around, and you'll find yourself lining up "RAY" shots, zipping around between teleporters, and making use of environmental cover while your mana bar recharges, so that you can unleash some more elemental AOE attacks on groups of enemies. It's got the curious effect where often Nanotale doesn't even feel like a typing game, really -- it's more akin to some kind of mage-based "action-adventure" RPG, where instead of mouse clicks or hotkeys, you're using the keyboard to manage your attacks.

I do miss Epistory's tighter characterization of words to use when attacking enemies. Nanotale's creatures do each have their own unique set of dictionary words which characterize them pretty well, but I miss having the variety of little fast-flying single-letter enemies, slower-moving slugs which required long strings of three-letter words, hidden safes which required numerical combinations, etc. The enemies in Nanotale end up feeling a bit "samey," even though they have different attack patterns and behaviors, because there's little typographical difference between them.

In regards to the spellcasting system once more, Nanotale does let you do your own exploration and discovery with the various spell combinations, and very rarely holds your hand through any of that. I appreciate when a game does this, though it does mean that you're prone to sometimes missing very obvious things. I went through basically the entire game without realizing that you can dispel fog using your PUSH/PULL spells, for instance, and got stuck at the end for quite some time because I didn't realize something was possible. I was embarrassingly far into the game before I realized that I could be using "ICE" on enemies, just because having to prefix every spell with that modifier made me never even think to change up my "FIRE" muscle memory. Still, that dedication to letting the player figure out the mechanics themselves feels like an intentional choice and it's difficult to fault them for sticking to their guns.

In the end, though, my primary complaint really is just that it didn't feel like a typing game, on account of the more complicated spellcasting system and emphasis on movement (I realize that's a weird complaint to levy at a typing game). There were only a couple of arena-like fights (such as the end battle) which really felt like an exercise in raw typing ability. I think the new spellcasting system was an admirable attempt at doing something new, but I don't think it entirely paid off in the end. Still, fans of Epistory should find much to enjoy in here regardless, and fans of typing games in general aren't especially spoiled for choice, so do check it out anyway. :)

I do feel I need to mention that as of just a few days after 1.0 release, the game is still a bit janky, having just come out of Early Access. There's a number of fiddly little bugs and annoyances still in there, but I'm confident that Fishing Cactus will get them sorted soon. There's already been two bugfix releases in the few days since release, and the devs have been extremely responsive on the bugreport forums on here.

Okay, sheesh, this is by far the longest review I've ever put up on Steam. I can't imagine anyone's still reading by this point. If anyone is: hi.

Fire: Ungh's Quest is a delightful little puzzle game that I'd wholeheartedly recommend. It's worth noting (as many other reviewers have) that this is *not* an adventure game in any commonly-accepted use of the word, except in extraordinarily broad strokes. The trailers and marketing statement about the game don't really convey it accurately, which is a shame, as someone might go into this hoping for a more "traditional" adventure game and be quite disappointed.

Instead, the game's a sequence of ten separate puzzle areas, generally with about three rooms each. The areas tend to be highly surreal, and it's quite enjoyable to try and discern the "rules" of the area, and which bits affect what other bits. In some sense it's rather abstract and arbitrary, but the game's characterization of Ungh makes it clear that he's just as bewildered by the proceedings as you are, and it never feels like a chore. The art design is superb, the music and sound are top-notch, and the animations are lively. The game's quite humorous as well, often in some amusingly crude ways which work well given the setting of the game.

I do feel compelled to mention that someone who's deaf will have to use a walkthrough for one particular puzzle in the game, where you're tasked with reconstructing bits of music using four variable audio tracks with three choices each. You could alternatively just bruteforce the solution, but there's 81 total combinations, and you'd have to do it three times.

As others have noted, the game *is* rather short -- my 3.7 hours here includes some time where I'd accidentally left the thing running in the background. There are optional hidden coins you can attempt to collect in each level, some of which are merely hidden around in plain sight, and others of which require doing specific actions in the level. Without the use of a walkthrough or something, collecting 100% of those would likely take awhile, as some of the actions aren't obvious. Regardless, once again, I'd highly recommend the game, even at its full price. I admit that I got this at a pretty steep discount, after having had it in my wishlist for ages, but IMO it's well worth the current $10 asking price, even given its length. (Oh, and the Linux port works great, btw!)

I've got some mixed feelings about VirtuaVerse, but in the end I'd come down on the "recommend" side of the house. It's a competently put-together point-and-click adventure game which takes the LucasArts path of having no failure states, which is always nice for an adventure game. The UI is sometimes a bit clunky. Dialog can sometimes get a bit "lost" in the visuals, and it'd be nice to have a way to cancel out of dialogs entirely, without having to choose the conversation-ender. A mouse hotkey to open inventory (like the middle button perhaps) would've been a nice QOL improvement, but those are minor concerns.

The visual presentation is excellent overall, and the sound is quite good as well (though I found some of the backing tracks overly repetetive after awhile). Unlike some other reveiwers on here, I feel like the puzzles in VirtuaVerse are by and large quite good, and sensical. I did use some hints a few times throughout the game, but in nearly every case the solution elicited an "of course!" reaction, rather than bogglement. Even the more obscure puzzles have clues scattered around. I did have a couple cases where I'd simply not found a very-small area of the screen to click on, and one instance of the ol' "I didn't realize there was another room off the side of this area," but those kinds of problems are hardly unique to VirtuaVerse, so I don't take points off for that. There's a few times during the game where you might know exactly what you need to do, but your progress is gated by events that shouldn't be, like when you need to upgrade a racing drone but literally won't get the necessary dialog options until you go ahead and lose a race. In general I think the puzzle design in here is quite good, though, especially compared to the absurd logic you'll find in many early adventure games this draws inspiration from.

The main issue for me is one of tone, and characterization. The game's not funny enough to be satisfying in that regard, nor is it serious enough to swing the other way. The result is something that often feels very dour and tepid. Adventure game protagonists are often quite misanthropic but can get away from it with sufficient overall game levity, but the first half of the game especially just throws it into sharp (and uncomfortable) relief. In one memorable segment, our protagonist (Nathan) purposefully sends a gang member to meet with his companions wearing the identification of their rivals, resulting in that character's death. It could've been a darkly humorous bit in a game that takes itself less seriously, but it feels pretty ugly in this one. Fortunately for the game, it does lighten up considerably about halfway through, when the plot takes a completely batsh*** turn into the absurd, and you move beyond the confines of the Cyberpunk city. The environs become much more varied visually and thematically, and the inherent silliness of the plot provides a nice contrast to Nathan's insistent seriousness.

Nathan himself is nearly devoid of characterization (to the point of spending the entire game with his face not visible, underneath a "hey look how cool this looks" hoodie). When characterization *does* come through, it's to berate concertgoers for not being "real" fans of the band onstage, mock people who don't share his views on technology, or generally spout off diatribes which sound more like angry forum posts than dialog. One brief segment towards the end has us controlling a different (far more interesting) protagonist for a bit, and I was disappointed to have to go back to this glum, prickly jerk instead.

Still, all that said, it's a well put-together game, and the visuals especially lift it into a recommendation from me. It's bolstered considerably by the much more colorful and silly second half, has some pretty solid puzzles, and uses some augmented-reality mechanics to great effect.