Recent reviews by Struan

There is plenty to like in Cloudpunk, but in the end it fell short of my expectations. Essentially, the game plays like a linear, fully-voiced adventure/visual novel (all the action involves just walking and driving your hovercar) narrated through a series of fetch quests across a futuristic city. This is not a complex game; instead if feels like a casual hovercar-flying game set in a Blade Runner-esque world in which you can complete simple missions and engage in (lots of ) dialogue with mostly uninteresting characters along the way. If that sounds attractive, then you might get your money's worth.

The adventure part is fleshed out a bit by the inclusion of an inventory (only a few items have actual use, the others can be sold for cash) and the availability of optional side quests and collectibles. The blocky 3D graphics are not really my cup of tea, but they do their job. Characters look pretty bad IMO but they're not really the main focus as you're expected to spend most of the time driving through buildings.

IMO, the weakest point of the game is the story, that fails to live up to its great premise. Anyone expecting a gritty, dark romp through a Cyberpunk world that does justice to its obvious inspiration will probably feel disappointed. The main character (a migrant from the "Eastern Peninsula") is a clear modern insert, and her holier-than-thou attitude becomes increasingly grating as she preaches her way through interactions with a cast of characters riddled with good/evil caricatures. Similarly, many of the actual choices presented to the player involve moral dilemmas that feel positively juvenile, e.g. "Should I rescue the oppressed android that just wants to help other people, or the smug rich CEO that despises minorities"? Yes, there is a plot with more sinister and intriguing undertones going on, but eventually I learned to dread new interactions - after a while I simply tuned out and skipped through the dialogue as fast as possible to get to the driving bits.

And those driving bits work quite well, as uncomplicated as they are, enough to make the game interesting. I also thought the voice acting ranged from OK to very good, and the writing does feature some clever parts. In the end, it is a shame the premise and the setting (extra points for the inclusion of some great, vangelis-esque tracks) didn't get a fully realized world built around them.

Assets, music and puzzles seem to have been "borrowed" from The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour.

The main part of the game (shooting down enemy planes from a cockpit view) is simplistic but provides a reasonable amount of fun. The secondary minigames, however, are quite repetitive, and the strafing sequence is flawed in that the plane is not allowed to pull back far enough to catch up on missed targets (after looking at a few videos, this was not the case in the Amiga original).

The main offender however is a misleading "Continue from save?" message when you happen to fail a mission. I selected "No" thinking it would allow me to end my playing session for the day and resume it later. Instead, the game deleted my pilot (why?) and all my progress was lost with it. I uninstalled the game without much regret.

No save/checkpoint system within a level. If being forced to repeat the same series of boring jumping/dodge puzzles time and time again only to reach a battle and get endlessly stunlocked by two vampires while Frankenstein pummels on your helpless puppet is your thing, then by all means give this a go. I didn't care for it.

The game was made for mobile devices and stays true to its roots.

I don't mind the simplicity of the model if it weren't for the fact that it also seems to be broken - with "combat analysis" turned ON one can see shooting modifiers are all over the place.

Effectiveness reductions and penalties do not match the barebones reference found in the "help" section and vary from one unit to the other for unknown or undocumented reasons: one piece of artillery will show a -5 penalty for "indirect fire" while shooting at an enemy unit in plain view and clear LOS, while retaining its full firepower if the target is behind a treeline. One tank will be penalized with -3 for moving one hex, another tank will move and suffer no penalty whatsoever. Thus tactical considerations are thrown off the window.

A shame as this could be a simple AND meaningful pastime. As it is, it's mostly good for mindlessly moving units around, shooting stuff and hope for the best.

The Battlecruiser 3000AD of hunting games.

If you enjoy walking simulators and just want to chill for a while, I'd say go for it - it can be weirdly addictive. The environments are beautifully realized and the vistas are stunning.

As for the hunting game, it's serviceable, but pretty barebones even where it works. Sadly, the game seems to have entered the milking phase years ago and it's now basically stuck in a perpetual beta, even as new DLCs keep getting released. Fixes are few and far between, and each new patch breaks new mechanics, sometimes to a comical extent.

Meanwhile, the huge "known issues" list posted on the devs' support site keeps growing in size and variety, but paying customers who suddenly find they can't hunt a certain animal or use blinds or fast travel anymore get to enjoy some levity for free with descriptions like "Animals sometimes channel their inner FUNK to slide around instead of walking", or "It is possible to load any ammo or scope into any weapon. Seriously, how do you guys find these things?". Har har. Don't you guys have phones?

If undecided, I recommend getting the base game on sale and resist the urge of buying any DLC. The included reserves are admittedly huge (animal variety is still limited) and more than enough to get a good feel of the game and its state.

Nice little game in the vein of (but nowhere near the same heights as) the Penumbra / Amnesia titles. Eleusis feels at times janky and a bit disjointed, but provides reasonable entertainment for those looking for creepy atmospheres and lots of walking through dark and foreboding country landscapes while indulging in light puzzle-solving.

The game is divided in three chapters, with one and three being little more than bookends to the meatier second act. Chapter 2 is where most of the adventuring happens. There's pretty little in the way of scares and quite a bit of backtracking, which may prove frustrating for some players as the game forces them to keep a mental map of their surroundings for most of the playing time. The story is as slim as it is filled with familiar tropes, while the mostly fair and straightforward puzzles will likely pose little challenge to a seasoned adventurer-- the difficulty is roughly at the level of your typical Hidden Object Game (HOG).

Clearly made on a shoestring budget, Eleusis is nonetheless a reasonably polished experience and may make for a pleasant distraction on a rainy afternoon. Recommended for fans of the genre, especially when on sale.

In a nutshell: a delightful short adventure game, with lovely visuals and clever puzzles.

The last time I remember having so much fun with a game about a roach was back in the day with the awesome Bad Mojo. That was a dark, oppressive, even disturbing experience. Journey of a Roach is the opposite-- light, funny and filled with bright colors, with just a hint of mischief. Truly a game for all ages.

The story is so thin that it basically amounts to a premise. You're a roach in a post-apocalyptic world. One day, your pal falls through a hole in the ground and you must go rescue him. As you go deeper into the earth you'll face a slew of other underground creatures, and eventually uncover a plan concocted by a colony of militarized ants. This is all presented in a silly, humorous fashion, with light references to works like Wall-E or Planet of the Apes (it also reminded me a lot of an old Sierra game, Battle Bugs, but that's probably not intentional).

One of the perks of being a roach (besides the ability to survive a nuclear holocaust) is that you can basically go anywhere in the world. In game terms, this means your roach can climb walls and all kind of objects. The camera is locked on the horizontal plane, but the world moves around you as your character changes direction, so that you always see it upright even when traversing the ceiling. This is not a gimmick but an essential mechanic of the game, as new passages and previously inaccessible items are revealed with every twist of your surroundings, thus greatly favoring exploration.

The flip side is that getting your bearings can be difficult. I'm guessing Rubik fans will have an easier time adjusting their minds to the changing environments. Another related problem is that navigation can get tricky, especially in corners. While most of the challenges are cerebral in nature, there is one unfortunate puzzle that relies too heavily on navigation and which eventually forced me to look for a walkthrough just to see what I was doing wrong (thankfully, that was the only one).

IMO, the difficulty of the puzzles is almost perfectly balanced. There are no dialogues or text descriptions; all information is visual, with characters speaking, thinking and conveying needs and moods via bubbles. This actually adds a bit to the general difficulty, but I never hit a dead end or found myself stuck and having no clue of what to do for a long time.

As I mentioned, the game is quite short. Much of my playing time was spent trying to crack that one environmental puzzle and looking around for all the grubs (there are several fun achievements to get besides the linear, story-based ones. I wish more adventure games did this). But at least it's sweet. It should satisfy adventure game veterans looking for a lighter challenge and a relaxed, pleasant experience. Another hit from Daedalic.

Horror that doesn't rely on cheap jumpscares is probably one of the hardest things to pull off in gaming outside of comedy, especially for indie developers. With this in mind I kind pains me to give a thumbs-down to a game like Octave, but the truth is that despite the amount of effort and artistry that went into its creation, I feel the game's flaws end up outweighing its many virtues.

Let's get this out of the way: Octave is short. Very short. Enough to be considered a demo, or a prologue for a more fleshed-out product. And it certainly looks like it: the game features above average production values, especially considering there is just one man behind the name Anate Studio. This is a really impressive outing in the graphics and sound department. The atmosphere drips with menace, punctuated by intriguing music and sharp, creepy visuals. In the media department, the game could definitely be a contender for the next indie horror hit. The general feel reminded me of a cross between Amanita and the old Dark Seed games, sans Giger, of course.

Alas, the gameplay is where the game tumbles and falls on its face. Octave is billed as an adventure. There isn't much in terms of story, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I can live with no handholding at all, even with an open resolution that doesn't offer much in the way of explanation. My limit, however, is being forced into clumsy timing puzzles that can only be solved by using a poorly implemented and unreliable "running" mechanic. And there's a lot of that, unfortunately.

The inclusion of these action puzzles completely kills the mood and unnecessarily heighten the frustration factor for me (they also serve to pad the total time). Double clicks are not always registered correctly, and the camera often lags behind the character when changing facing. This creates problems at the beginning, where the character has to dodge barely visible hands coming out of the ground, but especially in the last level of the game, where you're asked to outrun a particular monster. Can't help to think this is the wrong engine for this kind of gameplay.

Consider, instead, the chapter with the house, where actual point 'n click mechanics come out and shine. This chapter is a winner: scary and logical, with rewarding puzzles, if a bit on the easy side (there's also a hint button that highlights all interactable objects in a scene). Were the entire game like this, I would recommend it without reservations. As it stands, however, Octave is too short, frustrating and gameplay-wise all over the place to truly enjoy. It feels not so much a fully formed game as a showcase for the dev's talent and potential. Here's hoping for better, bigger things from them.

Motte Island is a game I wish I could recommend without reservations, but unfortunately there are many aspects that end up bringing down what could have been a much more enjoyable experience. Hence this review should be understood as a very guarded recommendation (and yet another borderline case that highlights the need for a "neutral" button for these reviews).

An indie game through and through, the light shining through the cracks in Motte Island's surface reveals a bigger ambition that felt short of realization. The gameplay could be described as a crossbreed of Resident Evil with the top-down perspective and the combat sytem of a simplified Hotline Miami, while the familiar plot rehashes basically every Lovecraftian-esque horror adventure ever made. The story is paper-thin and predictable, stretching itself to allow for a number of fetch quests typical of the genre. Apart from some nice lighting effects, the graphics and animation are crude, and the sight of the main character just sliding through the screen makes for a jarring initial impression.

So far it all sounds pretty dire. Why the positive rating then? What did I find enjoyable about the game? Well, quite a few things, actually. With the right state of mind and expectations in check (and let me stress how important this is when approaching any indie game in general) there's fun to be had here. There is a simple purity to this game that feels refreshing. Yes, the graphics are primitive, but the developer added some neat effects that really add to the horror experience. Watch those creepy corrupted flies invade your screen, or jump at the shadows darting in the corner. The plot may be overly familiar, but the setting is not: instead of the overused Cthulhu stuff we face a strange breed of moth-like demons. Meanwhile, the challenge is set at a very forgivable level and thankfully the bosses are not impossible, so the story can be experienced at a rather leisurely pace. There are also some static first-person sequences that break up the monotony of the top-down perspective (the lockpicking micro-game, however, felt unnecessary).

Charm aside, the game does feel rough around the edges. The poor writing can be excused, but the typos and the bad grammar are unacceptable in this day and age, especially when you're creating a game that conveys its backstory mainly through books and documents. I encountered a couple of bugs that were thankfully solvable by quitting and restarting the game. The combat is barebones and unsatisfying. Disconcertingly, in my playthrough I wasn't able to find a gun (except for the mandatory one) despite bumping into ammunition at every corner, and while there are a variety of melee weapons available, they all felt pretty similar in terms of damage output.

All things considered, my final verdict tilts slightly towards the positive, therefore this review. What we have here is a classic, short horror story which may have little in the way of surprises but that provides a modicum of entertainment. Approach the game with a casual mindset and you might find yourself enjoying it more than you probably should. I did.