Recent reviews by BobisOnlyBob

Pleasant puzzling paradoxes, a very good sokoban for those who are bored by conventiona; box-shoving tedium and prefer small, compact, clever puzzles that fit into a paradoxically small space with a lot of potential. Definitely not the hardest out there, and completely story-free, not even a token hint of narrative, but lovely all the same.

I am extremely disappointed. This is not what I expected. I am unsatisfied with the story, and the gameplay, and even the music - which individually is fantastic, all praise to the musicians - but the way it is used is repetitive and uninspired. I cannot recommend this game in good faith to any fan of the previous title, and have no reason to recommend it to anyone else either.

A delightful shoalslike, on the shorter side compared to its contemporaries, much like its little hermit protagonist. Fish puns aplenty and a cutesy aesthetic give way to some seriously crunchy combat - despite a lack of weapon types, the various changeable shells and their abilities offer some of the combat variety that souls veterans will be looking for. The story itself is mostly an ecological parable, but it's also a genuinely satisfying tale in its own right, with a likeable cast and hateable antagonists. The bosses are excellent, both thematically and to fight. The world is on the smaller side, and bosses have convenient and optional respawn points that mitigate the need for a "runback" between attempts. Quality of life and accessibility features abound. About my only complaints are with the physics and collision occasionally being a little squirrelly, and textures stretched over large chunks of terrain with a very countable number of polygons - certainly not major issues and very much nitpicks that are to be expected from an indie game taking on such an imposing genre.

My personal build almost completely neglected two of the four stats - VIT (health) and MSG (magic) in exchange for all-out ATK and RES - which meant I hit hard and could block almost anything, but a missed block cost me dearly and I had few alternative sources of damage besides getting stuck in. This balance worked exceptionally well for me and my playstyle, and definitely suggests a reasonable range of build variety outside of my thick-headed, thick-shelled approach - I also largely overlooked the fishing/reel mechanics to draw in opponents and instead used a lot of heavy attacks and dodges to close the gap when necessary. But even then, I didn't neglect the magic-like adaptations entirely, using Eelectrocute in particular to stun and control fights, even though it didn't do much damage owing to my stats.

Overall, a wonderful time and strongly recommended if you're either a newcomer to the genre or looking for a more refreshing and light take on the formula.

Probably the best tactics game since XCOM and its sequel. Extremely akin to Into the Breach in terms of the small maps and emphasis on foresight and movement, but a number of cleverly designed and arranged rooms rather than procedurally generated squares. Thankfully, no need to concern yourself with ranges or percentage-chance-to-hit - line of sight and preparation rules everything. A strong core cast and very funny writing, and a good variety of enemies and upgrades to your abilities. A solid 20 to 30 hours of wizard, cop, cultist and spec-ops defenestrating fun. A strong, strong recommendation. This is what XCOM: Chimera Squad should have been. What a damn clever and funny game. If you've ever enjoyed any tactics game, play this.

Best movement in a third person action title, great bio-horror-scifi aesthetic, great guns, great abilities, great setting. Tricky intro, but ultimately smooths out. Overall an excellent game to invest a year of your life into, if you're looking for a lifestyle game to become immersed in.

Lovely little puzzle game. Calm and nice. It certainly fills a hole!

A cute, simple puzzle game that's not very hard unless you struggle with cubic illusions. A few puzzles have dead-end states that require restarting, but most you can scamper around until you find the right path and collect all the squares.

Relaxing, but not taxing. You'll get an hour or so out of it, more if you're not familiar with this sort of game - at this price it's worth a shot. If you do like this game, I recommend the more complex English Country Tune by Stephen Lavelle (increpare), which is about similar perspective-bending in full 3D space.

Sokoban-style box-pushing puzzles have been reinvented: they are now oblong meat products, and you are a man with a fork who must see them all cooked and consumed on a strangely beautiful island of voxel art and ambient music.

The core mechanics are unchanging from puzzle to puzzle - cook all four parts of a sausage evenly without burning it - but the shape of the sausages, the changing level geometry and your character taking up two tiles forces lateral thinking and understanding at a level that can only be called brilliant.

Each separated island introduces new puzzles and new complexities, but nothing as crass as new abilities - your simple fork-swinging suffices from beginning to end. You just don't realise until you're confronted with raised terrain and ladders, overhangs and stacked sausages what the full implications of your seemingly limited movement abilities are and how they can be used to manipulate your sausages on and off the grills.

Another bit of genius from increpare - at the very least, you'll feel like a bit of a genius after solving each deceptively simple bit of sausagery.

Copy Kitty is a damn good action-platformer-shooter hybrid, which gleefully shows its inspiration from Kirby, Mega Man, Gunstar Heroes and other classic titles in dazzling technicolour explosions. The simple premise - copy and combine up to three enemy attack types to produce well over 100 unique weapons on the main character alone - carries both the Story Mode's 120+ puzzle-maze levels and the Endless Mode's small but looping arena battles against unpredictable enemies, dynamic terrain and weather extremely well.

Both modes are punctuated by some brilliant bosses, each of which typically drops unique copy abilities so you can throw their own attacks right back at them. This leads to some absolutely brilliant moments - my favourite involved uppercut-jousting with a recurring miniboss inside a tornado, set to the most rocking music in the game. Some bosses fill the screen and use devastating, sweeping attacks - others are smaller, but their speed makes up for their lack of presence, forcing you to duck and dive around them and their attacks. I won't spoil the final and hidden bosses, but let's just say they're incredibly worth experiencing.

The amount of polish in the game is absurd for such a small team, with the variable-mix music and huge array of stage types working wonders. Little things like the bestiary listing off nearly every single enemy type and their weaknesses, or the fact that every single weapon and combination - for both characters! - has a unique name, that's care and attention to detail that just makes the experience that much better. There's even a full-featured level editor.

Boki, the lead character, is all about chaotic destruction - her attacks are mostly straightforward and blasting, if not entirely screen-devastating. Some of her powers - especially those incorporating the "Remote" weapon type - take a little to learn their quirks, but prove essential nonetheless. While you're sure to find a favourite weapon combination or two, variety is exceptionally high and you'll likely find yourself trying out nearly all of them one way or another - some stages require a little more thought, but never demand excessive precision. She double-jumps, rolls, kicks, and generally handles in a way that should feel innately familiar to fans of classic platformers, but her terrain-destroying and projectile-reflecting kicks and impressive dynamic arsenal set her apart as a unique hero.

The second character, Savant, provides a slower, more tactical pace and a whole different set of weapons using an entirely different approach - flying and warping around the stage with carefully-positioned weapons. The stages may be the same, but they play almost completely differently as a result. He only mixes two weapons at once, but the order you mix them in matters, so his weapon variety is still staggeringly high. He unlocks fairly shortly into the game, and I strongly recommend giving him a spin.

All in all, Copy Kitty has absolutely taken me by storm, and I reckon it'll do the same for you if you like games which can do both chaos and tactics at the same time. This game has both in spades, providing both delightful neon firework displays and fraught battles in which you'll be hanging on to that last flicking point of health as you overcome challenge after challenge. If you like relentlessly fun games that build on the classics but bring something unique to the table, Copy Kitty is a must-buy.

There's an achievement early on in Tulpa, called "Could I have skipped this?". My answer to the game is yes, I could have skipped this, and watched a movie instead - it would've been better use of my time and money.

A mediocre game in the style of Limbo and many other recent atmospheric indie platformers, it vaguely hints at a tragic story with death and suicide imagery, but never elaborates. A shapeshifting tree and colour-changing background mark the major acts. Imagery is taken from a number of real-world religions and occult practices, but is never used meaningfully. There is more story in the Steam Cards than in the game itself. The art is at best sufficient for the tone and atmosphere, and at worst reminiscent of a 15-year-old pagan art student's sketchbook. The title of the game isn't even justified within the experience. The payoff is unsatisfactory and inconclusive.

The game mechanics are near identical to another, superior game which is itself average at best - Never Alone (Kisima Inŋitchuŋa), which had the decency to include narration, a good story and relatable characters, as well as a full documentary on the history and culture of its setting. The tutorial text offers more exposition than any of the non-sequitur and esoteric actions you have to perform to progress. The platforming is poor to downright inadequate, with sloppy physics objects that you click and drag to build bridges or click on, elements to interact with, but only when directly controlling the tulpa (often leading the host to her death if you move more than a little distance away from her). The host herself has simple push/drag abilities, which are still somehow made awkward through an unusual choice of key, and a jump which is prone to not working near the very same edges it is necessary to jump from in order to not fall, shatter, and be forced to repeat the simple drag-and-drop puzzle for the eighth time.

Strongly advise against playing this unpolished and lacking experience.