Recent reviews by Jasper

Looking forward to the full release!

Very rough around the edges, especially the 3d parts, but I love that you can be a real swindler if you want to!

Cool stuff going on here! Even relatively simple scenarios become interesting when you're depending on your future-past-present self to do things in the right order in the right places so that your future-present self can have cover and enough resources to do her thing.

Fortunately, it's all handled in a very straightforward way that even this version's accelerated tutorial let me understand fairly well.

Looking forward to more of the campaign in the full release!

A clever little game! A satisfying combination of individual elements that would be too simple on their own, and a surprisingly tough iteration on vertical shooter mechanics.

Lots of cute touches, definitely made with love. Despite the simplicity, the game has managed to introduce something new in the large majority of quests. There's some new enemy, or trap, or goal, or rescue-able ally.

Character portrait art is what it is - not my favorite, but the game doesn't lean into it. There's a surprising amount of surprisingly-good voice acting, and the story they're telling (thus far) is well-written and seems intent on doing some real analysis of the "medieval fantasy" setting as we know it.

Cons: At present, the UI is a mix of too busy and too small, and controller support is jank. Sound effects can overwhelm the audio system and get very crunchy.

Nothing complex here, but if you want a simple game with some nice framing, TLotP is worth a shot. Check out the Demo!

Played it through in a single sitting. Very relaxing and contemplative, some solid puzzles.

If you like the vibe of the trailer or demo, then the rest will leave you satisfied :)

A very successful proof-of concept! There's not a lot of content, but it's worth playing what's there.

The mechanics are interesting, the "upgrade any number" gimmick is sexy, and I really enjoy the (relatively) subtle dark theming.

Worth checking out!

An endearing game with some fantastic voice direction. All 9 suspects have unique voice-acted responses to each other as well as 40ish clue items. I'm someone who skips story in games the moment I'm bored by it, and I enjoyed listening to the whole cast the entire time. Laugh-out-loud funny at times.

The game replaces the usual adventure game "Combine every inventory item with every other item / everything in every room" with talking to each of the characters about each clue. Since the voice work is so good, I was eager to!

The puzzles were unique and challenging, as well, and most of them are solvable the moment you find them without any outside info. The ones that aren't, the cast lets you know.

Just about the only criticism I can bring is that the game's story arc comes to a rather sudden conclusion. It felt like the first half of an incredible game, where as-is it's just a very good one.

I'm 100% in for a sequel, though!

A fantastic distillation of the citybuilder genre into 7MB of satisfaction.

The variety of shapes ensures that every game looks drastically different!

Oh - and open the menu and read "Help" when you launch the first time, there's no tutorial at all, and a little explanation goes a long way.

Orb of Creation is an innovative little incremental game, complex and intricate in how its parts interact, but definitely built with intention. It ends up feeling like you're actually practicing the arcane arts with how wildly interconnected everything is.

The way the game plays, and how it reveals its details, are unique to any other game I've seen. If you like interesting little incremental games, definitely give this a look! I'm still finding new mechanics and resource types, even this far in.

Nice tunes, too!

BTW: "Incremental game", "clicker", and "idle" are sometimes used interchangeably, but Orb of Creation is *specifically* an incremental game, and *not* the other two.

Clicking fast won't get you anything, and you have to play fairly actively in order to really progress.

The "incremental" part is, you're never losing progress, you're always getting a little stronger or a little farther along. You're building engines to progress efficiently, not fighting with a timer or a threat that will make you lose your investments.

Eyeball Master is an odd game.

The UI is garish, and our hero is... weird, but the visual effects in combat are incredible, and the gameplay is fast and fluid.

For $2? It's a lot of fun!

It captures the feeling of playing an endgame JRPG character from the very start. Every spell has a unique, over-the-top visual effect. Each new weapon you craft replaces your Basic Attack with its own powered-up version, each suited for a different "build" and all looking just about as cool as possible.

The enemy visual design is great, and the paper-doll animation works really well with the high-res artwork. The music is also jammin' - they've chosen some good 16-bit style tracks that fit the vibe well.

On the "map", you move from battle to battle so fast that you don't even have to wait for the screen to fade back in if you don't want to. It's less strategic than e.g. Slay the Spire, but its pacing keeps it fun, and there's still lots of choices to be made once your HP starts to dwindle.

The less-good / what to go in expecting:

-The English translation is poor, but it was understandable the whole way through. Dandan ;_;

-No non-battle content. Lots of skills, weapons, and enemies - but locations are few, story is sparse, and there's not much to the at-home sections.

-It's too easy. Once you find a strong build, you can often kill enemies first round, every round. There are debuffs that can ruin your day, but it's rare to get one on an enemy you can't deal with some other way.

-Very rough UI, feels like debug text in parts. Generally unpolished outside of battle. Janky (but endearing) way to equip skills. Battle menu works fine, other menus are very clunky.


Given how much fun I've had, and how cheap it is, I'd say Eyeball Master is an easy recommendation, despite the flaws.

I'll probably fire it up again at some point to get the last few weapons, just to see what they look like!

An engaging game with well-layered mechanics, and a very different feel from most TD games. For under five dollars, easily worth it!

When building, you choose 1 of 3 random towers, each attached to 3 track segments in familiar "tetris" shapes. The random pool can be improved by investing, and you have recipes to "refactor" 3 towers together into a stronger one.

This means each build, you're picking based on tower type, tower level, the track shape, what tower fusions are available right now, among other things. Plus the expected TD gameplay of looking at the upcoming wave and considering if your defense can hold it, or whether you can afford to save instead.

This is all introduced to you piece-by-piece through the difficulty levels, giving a very effective tutorial where you're always playing around with something new.

"Refactored" turrets have a passive based on which three tower types were used. You can stack up to 3 (*or 4) of these passives on a single tower, if you like, allowing for miniature roguelite "builds" across your defense. This adds even further to the strategic decision-making.

None of this is overwhelming, however. Placing towers is simple, since the only restriction is one tower per square. While you have to have a valid path at all times, you can buy individual path squares whenever you like, to bridge little gaps.

As for criticism:

The game feels a little bit early, and even the developer considers it "~v0.5" right now - in particular, the English translation is a bit spotty. Everything that *is* there seems solid, though, and I have faith that the developer will resolve these sorts of things.

Overall: Falls into the "cool little game" category - worth the price for the fun, and worth checking out even for tower defense veterans.