Recent reviews by Gerber Life Program

I've played a very good amount of this game, but I've gotta say that the Devs seem to miss the joy of this game, at least for players like me. in the roughly two years of it's life we've had some fun moments and a mostly good community that I have enjoyed from time to time. However, in recent months the game has come off more like the nerf spectacular we had in the first year of the game.

A lot of people play this game with the goal of feeling that starship troopers esc, feeling of mowing down dozens to hundreds of bugs in a mission and high fiving with buddies cuz it was fun to dominate. But the devs keep throwing bigger, badder enemies at us. They have more health, they remove the weaknesses of their non strain counterparts, and they hit harder than ever. Meanwhile players are bleeding to death before having a chance to heal, weapons are doing so little damage that you're better off just reading a guide on the best weapons, and are limbs break like a toothpick to the tiniest amount of damage.

I do like this game, honestly, but I can only stomach it for so long, and only when I have friends to play it with. They keep making mistakes, even thought they promised us it would never get to the way it was in 1.000.X, but here we are again. It's not what I signed up for, most my deaths feel unfair, and it's as if the devs are rigging the game against me so I loose. I'm tired of these wishey washy devs making my character feel like their made of tissue paper and cardboard.

TLDR; The vibe you might've gotten from the marketing and videos is no longer the aim of the game. It's more focused on making you feel like you're up against insurmountable odds by flooding you with enemies, making your guns worse, and making you die faster. I only play this game for my friends, I'd rather play anything else at any other time.

This game is one that shouldn't have worked on me, as I've never lost a member of my family or even a friend at an age where it's even memorable. Yet here I am to tell you that this story is an amazing one that had me balling and reflecting on the parts of my life that have given me troubles time after time. Though I know not the emotions of grief in the way the characters in the story do, their emotions are written with such clarity and love that I couldn't help but shed a few tears.

This story is one that bathes in it's dark themes but still shines a brilliant light in its final moments of story. That light showing a hope that is sorely missed by to many in our current times. I've thought about the parts of my life that have held me back and made me feel similar emotions because of this game. The fact I didn't have to pay for this is amazing, and I thank everyone of the devs for this experience. I spend a great deal of time writing in my free time, and I hope I can one days make a story/game that does what this game has done for me.

I give this game a personal 10/10. This is because of its emotional message and mature way of handling its topic. The romance was sweet, the price is a steal, and the devs clearly had a great deal of passion for what they made. I hope the rest of anyone that reads this gives it a shot and enjoys it too. Thank you. (Also happy that this made it to steam as well as itch.io, I know games there get less traction and this one deserves a large audience!)

Very fun but *very* short. The game is difficult to a point, but once you start getting a lot of loot the game can get very easy. My friend and I picked up this game and managed to become near un-killable in roughly an hour. It seems that you learn how to make a sword and Armour, then you can win the game verbatim. It will likely be more fun with bigger friend groups that slit the loot evenly with each other. Other than that a very fun nor brain game.

TLDR: The game is fairly good but after a certain point it just gets a little boring and repetitive.

KnC is a fun lil' game that is really fun in small doses. You can sit down with a friend and work together to knock out the first few hours of gameplay and have a really kick as time with the game. However, after getting your happiness to a steady point and getting taxes regularly, the game begins to just become to familiar. You never unlock any new buildings through doing trade or building bigger and better buildings. Leaving you with the same set of houses, churches, mines, etc. that all serve the same purpose. Leaving us as players only one real option, which is to expand until we literally can anymore.

When it comes to difficulty this game is a total cake walk on standard difficulty, where if you manage to get any form of high ranged defenses then you kill literally everything in your wake and never have to worry about anything ever. Dragons can do minor damage to your homes or to your crops, but those can be rebuilt in seconds if you have enough resources that are getting distributed well enough. Which makes the "difficulty" of the game rely on your ability to make your kingdom more and more efficient as you can before running out of space to do anything else.

When it comes to music I can honestly say to you, I didn't even notice this game had a soundtrack until I was closing the game. To be fair though, if your focusing more on the soundtrack than the game I can see where that may cause issues. However, This soundtrack is the total bare minimum of what a game needs to have a soundtrack. I think it has a forever repeating track and a few fighting tracks. (1-2 at most) Just a few more tracks would help to make this games have literally any memorability at all to its soundtrack and frankly, to the rest of the game as a whole.

The next thing I have to talk about is that this game stutters like a mothertrucker! My PC can play a lot of high graphics games and not stutter despite me modding them to china and back. Yet this game stutters every time I try to make a major move of the camera. It can also happen randomly just to happen, and when it does you better hope to god you weren't holding the delete tool. (I lost half my kingdom while trying to move a well because of one of these stutters.) These happen very frequently despite attempts to soothe the issues. Not to mention, while I like the simple design of the game and its graphics. (The little people are very cut to just watch.) I do have to complain about 2 more things that really get under my skin with these graphics. I HATE when it comes to the winter time of the game. It turns every tile in the game to the same white color making it impossible to set up farms and later on aqueducts. just making it so the quality of grass was a different shade of white would make it so much easier. Then there is the most annoying part of the game, the CLOUDS! I know they can be turned off in the options and that even helps a little with the stutter of the game, but they should by no means even exist! I shouldn't have to go into my options menu to make it so the game I bought in visible to me.

All and all I know that I've been hatting on this game non stop this entire review but I do really like it. I just think that it's very forgettable in the state it's in right now. The first 2-3 hours of this game are down right amazing to play, with perfect pacing and challenge. Then after that time it gets boring. I think that if the team were to make it into a more Civilization type game where you can manage foreign affairs then I think it would be several times better. I think adding a system that allows you to make "mega cities" in the very late game would also be amazing. (Possibly requiring the great library to unlock the studying for the buildings?) I basically just want to see more of this game and I'm waiting to see what the team does next.

This game gets a Red Delicious apple out of ten. On its own it feels weird when you get to a point, but from the outside and even into the very beginning of the experience, it seems perfect. Then you get deeper into the thing and it starts to not have the same level of care and the first few moments had. However, just like a Red Delicious, if it were to be given time and care it can be made into something truly amazing. (Applesauce) 6.8/10

TLDR: Highway Blossoms is a amazing experience and you should play it if your into reading a good story.

Highway Blossoms is a rather long game to sit through boasting a roughly 10 hour story with auto text at 40 characters a min.
The story follows the story of how a girl name Amber picks up a girl named Marina and they start an adventure to get some good as treasure. Along the way they have several side adventures and begin to grow feelings to each other.

All in all the writing in this game never drops below what I would consider the good mark. It's very competently made with little to no bugs and a story that screams it's made with heart. Every character has their own personalities and doesn't just fit into a archetype of a standard VN. The team really spent a lot of time trying to make the world feel realistic and that shows through a lot. With every amazingly drawn CG picture doing an amazing job of capturing the beauty of being in those scenes in real life. You do feel like your on this journey with the girls across the west in the search for treasure, future, and for closure.

In the terms of UI, everything is pretty much in the hands of the player. This game lets you change just about every single piece of how it works so you can have a better experience. From separate character volumes and controllable text speed and much more that I never even bothered to try and mess with. for the type of game that this is the UI is perfect and to the point so the player can enjoy themselves just the way they want to.

The music in this game is very very good. Every track stands out when listened to in the game and out of it too. In the game they all work to make the scenes more immersive and breathtaking, with some stand outs being Eleven, Back Roads, Holding On, and Equinox. The music selection while not in the hundreds or even in the low tens, it doesn't get boring throughout the story and never over stays its welcome. (Though i didn't want it to leave.) In short the music is really something in this game and perfectly punctuates every scene that it's woven into.

While I've done nothing but sing the games praises thus far I do have a few minor problems with the game. For instance, around the time they characters start to search for the second piece of the treasure are main character Amber starts to talk as if they've had a crush on Marina since the beginning despite that she may have only called her cute a few times up to that point. Another problem that I had was that near the end of the game there is a 18+ scene after a major plot point that seems rather out of the blue and goes right into the very end of the game itself. This left an odd taste in my mouth seeing as how they had a 18+ scene earlier in the game that was written very well in the sense it came back into the story and gave a reason for itself being there. Meanwhile this one seems to exist to have another 18+ scene. All in all these issues are fairly minor in the grand scheme of things and didn't hinder my enjoyment of the game almost at all, as a matter of fact both these issues were almost forgotten until I sat to write this because the writing would always pick up to "save the day."

All in all I really loved Highway Blossoms and put it up there as one of my more like VN's I've played. It had heart and heart break, and was driven by an amazing cast of realistic characters and touching moments. This game gets a Porcupine in a pickle out of ten from me. It was far more amusing then I thought it would be from the start and I ended up watching it for way longer than I'd initially intended to. In the end I loved how cute and ridiculous it was the whole time and can't wait to see it happen again. 9.4/10

hats