Recent reviews by The Nyctophile

The Last Door Review

Update: I'm giving this a positive review right now encase I never play the game again, which would doom it to be forever a negative review. The experience has been improving and I'm up to the 3rd chapter.

---

I rant about movement speed

---

I enjoy some point and click games - not this one. The scenes from the trailer and screenshots I've seen look great, but I shouldn't have to suffer before getting to decent parts.

The movement is torturously slow and it is just boring. People with cystic fibrosis can move faster than you do in this game. "I'll take my damned time, thank you very much" the game. And yeah, it might not be much slower than other point and click games but 0.4x slower speed is very noticeable and painful. Reminds me of some people IRL (not a good thing). Move faster and stop standing on the escalator. You can walk on the escalators instead of freezing, you insufferable eejits! If anyone wants a lesson on walking, I'm more than happy to oblige.

After slowly walking through the house multiple times like I have anterograde amnesia and not finding what I'm supposed to use the hammer on, I have given up.

Anyway, for buddhists and any master of patience, this game might be okay. What I have played so far has no atmosphere besides a room suddenly having birds in it. I was kind of excited when I saw that. I thought maybe the game would get exciting, but then it took 10 seconds to leave the room and I realised I would have to do another 20 minutes of walking before something interesting happens. I want to make the most of my life. I don't have time for this.

For people who do enjoy this game, I recommend The Longing. It's probably inspired by this game.

Anyway, I don't really hold back with my reviews but I like to be positive at the end.

It may be a bit crap, it may take longer to cross a room in this game than reading Google's terms and conditions, but it's got a nice thumbnail and trailer - and that... well that's just great, isn't it?

Okay, okay fine.

Ahem. I appreciate the work that goes into making games and I can see that effort was put into this one. I do not recommend it but many people do recommend it, and they have a reason. I will try to play more, so I can find something positive to say. Nothing will make this review positive, unless I find caffeine and that makes me move faster - but maybe I can at least find something good to mention.

---

I find nice things to say

---

Edit: Chapter 2 is much better so far. The text box background pattern is nice, it reminds me of Damask wallpaper. This chapter actually has atmosphere unlike the first one. I like the cutting back and forth between the guy doing... catholic stuff and the text. The pixel art is also nice, a lot more detailed than in the first chapter. Also the player character moves like a normal person now, so that feels great. If the game continues being decent from now on, I will change this to a positive review.

I freed some slaves and then got ridiculed for having slaves.

Common sense 101.

Basically I bought a slave place and then freed the slaves. The game decided that the slaves decided to join me. I try to form an alliance with someone but they complain that I have slaves. You're not a slave if you're willingly working for someone. Slaves don't go around begging people to end their freedom, hoping that some slaver will be kind enough to let them plough fields or exsanguinate their flesh with a cat of nine tails. Please sir, may I have some more manual labor?


I accidentally made an absurdly powerful race of giants - Savage Juggernaut Giants. My bad. I guess that should have been common sense. Good thing they aren't hostile to me. I'm just hoping everyone else attacks them. My race is just some chill druids.

I like the humour and the game is generally fun. I don't know why I am playing this since I have ADHD but oddly enough I think I can almost understand how to play.

Don't care, more soldiers and knights please. Shut up, don't care. Give me the money. Yeah yeah yeah, that was really cool what you said, but I'm here for your soldiers. Yeah no, that's a great song, now get the ♥♥♥♥ out of here. Want a coin? And I want a girlfriend, but here we are. Go away. Questing? Oh boy! I hope it's somewhere far away! Have fun and take your time. Someone was banging your daughter? Oh, I see... was it you? Coin flip? Oh you like gambling? This trapdoor only works half the time. Called you an Orc-Lover? You're offended? So you're a racist?

We're under atta-

Cool. Skip, skip, skip
Oh great, we didn't die. That's nice. I love when that happens.

Ahh, I'd be a great king.

UPDATE:
I completed a Normal difficultly run. I found it very easy to the point that I passed a bunch of years without doing anything for the last few years. I died after the last year in my sleep with a popularity of 100 and no enemies.

It's not really my kind of game (I have a weird habit of buying games that don't suit me) but I see the good in it so I recommend it. And uhh yeah, if you make custom races... be careful. If I ever play again to try harder difficulties, I will make sure I don't create an overly powerful race. I played this despite having extreme ADHD, so I reckon anyone can. It's in my honest opinion, not very hard and I'm unbelievably bad at video games. I mostly liked the humour but there's also meta humour and I never like meta humour. But that's just me. I like the 4th wall remaining intact. I never hired mercenaries despite the tutorial recommending it. Apparently that's a good strategy, but I'm not a strategist I just do whatever the ♥♥♥♥ seems right. If you hate talking to the horde of locals begging for coins, showing off severed heads or playing really bad music, get an advisor or whatever they are called do it for you. It took a long time to figure out that you do that by simply proceeding to the next year.

I have thalassophobia, which is a large amount of the difficulty for me. I don't think the game is hard mechanically, but when you're trying not to cover your eyes or look away, it is. I have to force myself to look at the screen. As a self dare, I travelled outwards as far as I could, but I couldn't make it far before going back. I looked up what happens when you go too far outwards because I couldn't handle finding out myself. I have the 4th hull level and most technologies researched after buying it two days ago.

Why? Why is the dredge location there? I don't give a ♥♥♥♥ about a stupid ring. Go fetch it yourself if it's important enough to you. Stop sending me on suicide missions.

Anyway, I like the game but WHEW! this is quite the experience for thalassophobes. I'm not a masochist but... It's addictive in a weird masochistic way. I feel like the developers made this just to torture people with that phobia.

*Internal screaming*

My one possible criticism is that it is repetitive but pretty much all games are in some way, so I don't know.


IMPORTANT NOTES

- Timed quests: There are a few, look them up before exploring
- Madness: It doesn't just make things harder. It can kill you. It doesn't matter if you are good at traversing without ever resting and can escape threats easily - because if you accidentally let your madness get too high you will get an automatic death if you aren't fast enough to escape. I play a lot of the game without resting but it just makes things harder for no benefit.
- Passengers: They can be knocked overboard if your boat is damaged and you will permanently lose them. If this happens, exit the game immediately before it saves and continue. This worked for me.

The most annoying fish in the game is the unseeing mother and the serpent. If I had to pick one, I'd say the serpent. It looks a lot more dangerous than it is - it's more off an annoyance if you're faster than it. Not the scariest but they like to follow you constantly so you can't get much done nearby them.

I played several years ago in high school instead of doing my work

Very strange but cool

This is a game.

I suppose I kind of like it, but nothing stands out to me. I'm not a racing game expert and connoisseur, so I don't know what to say. You can buy car and go VROOOOOOOMMMM SCREEEECH PUT-PUT-PUT-PUT BROOM BROOM SSSSKRRRRRRTT, etcetera.

Personally my favourite parts of the game are

- customising the appearance of my car and person
- Smashing Flamingos
- Finding uncanny Teddy Bears just existing menacingly
- Collecting and breaking stuff
- Ramming into the side of police cars at over 300kmph

Racing is okay I guess, but not really what attracts me to these games. Racing is like the job you get paid for and when you're done you have to spend most of it on whatever upgrades make the numbers next to the stats increase. Big number good. I'm guessing these games are called Need For Speed to remind intellectually impaired people that speed is one of the fundamental aspects of racing.

I play on easy mode but still manage to lose half the races I participate in. Some call me a bad driver, but I am just efficient. I find the fastest route to the finish line. I get there so fast, the game doesn't register that I won and keeps telling me I missed a checkpoint. I'm always being ridiculed for simplifying things. I'm the one in the wrong, not the people wasting petrol by driving on every bit of road within a 10 mile radius of the destination.

Edit: To clarify, the flamingos are just neon lights shaped like flamingos and by smashing I mean pounding them against the front of my car.

Very atmospheric.

I wouldn't say it's one of my favourite games, but I think it's generally good. The game has a lot of praise from most people. There were scenes I loved but there were also scenes I found annoying or even slightly cringey. I don't think it's the creme de la creme of 'Choices Matter' games.

What I loved most was the developing relationship between Connor and Hank (I really like Hank despite his alcoholism). I also liked Kara. I appreciated her kindness and bond with Alice but I wasn't interested in Alice beyond her being cute like the game intends. I like Luther, the big, friendly giant, but his model looks a bit weird - uncanny. I much preferred playing Connor or Kara over Markus. My favourite horror scenes were the Markus scene - if you know, you know - and the chapter with Zlatko, which reminded me of a scene from the first Toy Story movie.

I found Markus buying paint extremely boring. I understand that it was probably supposed to ease you into the game and bee the calm before the storm but I still didn't enjoy it. I thought Kara getting refuge at Rose's home annoying because I found Rose's dialogue unnecessary. Then there's the weird parkour and QR code scanning spree Markus goes on in one chapter with an action planning mechanic I don't remember happening any other time in the game besides Connor doing it maybe once.

The game reminded me of Heavy Rain in multiple ways (obviously not the plot). I felt the game seems to really wants you to make some choices and the game was pushing for certain perspectives.



Things you can do in this game

- Scan QR codes
- Steal from a minimum wage worker
- Dye your hair
- Become an illegal immigrant
- Taste an android prostitute's blood

The voice acting is a lil bit off but I like the effort and I prefer listening to narrations over reading. I got questions wrong on purpose a lot but unfortunately nothing interesting happened, forcing me to actually take part in a quiz. Boo! I hate doing the one thing a game's title refers to. Fine. I'll answer your questions. I'm sure I'll find none of them offens-


Wait a minute...
WTF DO YOU MEAN NYCTOPHOBIA ISN'T FEAR OF THE NIGHT?!
WHAT DOST THOU MEANEST!

*Boss music starts, specifically 1 minute and 46 seconds into Vordt of The Boreal Valley*

Do you know who the ♥♥♥♥ I am?

I am The Nyctophile. I am not afraid of the night.
I am the one who... uhh... engages in nocturnal behaviour.

Objection!

While a person suffering from nyctophobia is probably afraid of darkness they most likely experienced trauma associated with the time of day, making them afraid when the time comes. It's all fine and dandy till the moon rises.

Now, picture this. You're browsing the interwebs on your phone, listening to music and rapidly consuming El Fuego flavoured Takis while walking - being the epic multitasker that you are - when the lighting in your periphery starts to dim. A quick glance at the time on your phone confirms it's roughly about the time dusk probably starts. The feeling starts in your feet, your legs, your ass. You're anxiety is kicking in!

Actually, that's just discomfort from walking since you rarely exercise or go outside. But - you ARE anxious. Will you make it back in time to watch the Twitch streamer you have a parasocial one sided relationship with? You can't afford another girlfriend. You curse the government for not paying you more for the good work you do every day. Being a Reddit administrator is hard work and without you, people would have to scroll through countless subpar feet pics before getting to the good stuff. Without looking away from your phone, you continue your epic journey back from your mail box. Never again, you tell yourself. It's mostly junk mail anyway.

A nyctophobe would be afraid of bad things happening during the night, while a scotophobe would be afraid of bad things happening in the dark. One is about the setting sun reminding you of the time and a potential bad event happening, the other is about how darkness obscures potential danger.

I was first-degree unalived by a hat.

This game is very cool. It reminds me of Fear and Hunger and all the characters enemies or otherwise look great. The game also makes you feel guilty when you kill or steel unnecessarily.

I killed a hell car, walked into an apartment and killed an entire family, talked to a voice in the pipes, wore clothes made out of skin accidentally killed people instead of saving them - among many other great things. Good times.

I would like a full screen option. The game is windowed when maximised. I hate seeing the tool/title bar of game applications because it lessens immersion.

I love this game! Very immersive and great music. There are a lot of random events and hitch hikers. It reminds me of the movie, Into The Wild.

I did find the game ending itself when I was not done with what I wanted to do very annoying though. I went to the festival, not realising it would end the game.

So I recommend not doing too much in a single playthrough because you'll end up having upgrades and things you will never use. So you can explore and have fun, but you have to make sure you're only planning to do one major objective.

There should be a way of continuing to the point before you achieved an ending so you can get others without restarting. EDIT: YOUR VEHICLE STAYS AT IT WAS IN THE PREVIOUS RUN IN THE NEXT RUN.

I found out about the game after watching Call Me Kevin play it. He made it look a lot harder than I think it is. Sure, he was intentionally making bad decisions, but it still looked like it would be too hard for me. Luckily I can do it. I'm not good at strategy. On my first attempt I achieved the festival ending and only came close to my run ending once.

Spoilers: I had all the parts needed for two race events, I inherited the property and I had 4 passengers in my sedan in one playthrough but I unintentionally achieved an ending by going to the festival.

One last topic

Some people criticise it for being very repetitive. Yes, they are right about it being repetitive, however I along with a lot of people enjoy the combat and still find it overall relaxing. No, I didn't give this a positive review solely for looking and sounding good, I still found it relaxing overall and thought the combat was cool. If you don't, that's what we call an opinion. Opinions are important to have but don't confuse opinions with facts and dictate how other people should think. I actually find the game relaxing. Leave a negative review if you want to and provide constructive feedback, but don't tell people what to think.

More could be added to the game to make it even better like more vehicles and more positive encounters.