Recente recensies door Cornelia Edgerton

Absolutely gorgeous, to the point that I'd say the whole experience is more of an aesthetic than a gameing one. The watercolor painting is so well done every frame could probably be a worthy artwork on its own (certainly better than most of the so called 'modern art' nowadays which are pure garbage).

The story is very abstract indeed. Its narrative reminds me of Gorogoa, in the sense that the game only manifests certain themes and ideas rather than a 'story' in the traditional sense. In this case, I can't say for sure, but something along the line of a girl struggling against a dark force (vel sim.) in her mind, all the way showing her courage and bravery, etc. Quite inspiring, especially with the very atmospheric sounds and music. That footstep sound... I could listen to that for all day.

Now, the gameplay. This is where many of these artistic/narrative 2D platformers fall short. This one is brilliant. Not in the sense that it has any incredibly original gameplay mechanics. No, you have the usual things like double jump, simple puzzle, upside-down gravity, and so on. But it is done in a way that you just feel so comfortable playing it - not so challenging (let's be honest nothing kills a narrative experience more than a non-sensical puzzle that has you stuck in it for hours), but also deep enough to get you engaged. The map design is also very well thought. It's big and not linear, and often times with multiple layers, but you never get lost in it, which is big plus for me because I hate going back and forth and up and down in a platformer not knowing what the hell you are supposed to go.

So, overall, a beautifl game that oozes with quality and love. This just reminds me that indie is still the last hope for gaming, that we still have games that are made by people who are genuinely passionate about their work. Anyway, a rare gem that one shouldn't miss.

This freaking game...

Charging people 5 dollars to play as a mantis in a 'game' which is essentially a chat box that lasts 10 minutes from beginning to the end, no gameplay no cutscene whatsoever, just you chatting with your partner mantis (by...typing) about whether to have sex or not. My goodness, 90 percent positive on Steam. 90 percent, fu.ck me. Am I insane? Am I the only one remaining in this world that refuse to praise these empty, pretentious 'interactive experience' that masquerade as 'games'?

Let's look at some top reviews/bs on Steam:

'It's a very good-looking game with such an heart-touching atmosphere and a beautiful story, it actually made me close to crying the first time I played it'

What 'heart-touching' story is there? Tell me. Is that the two mantis negotiating about sex? And that made you 'close to crying', did it? 'Good-looking game' .... Honestly, you must have just time travelled from the 90s to call this good-looking (not just technically, even the artstyle is bad and reptitive)

'This game is an original and interesting kind of niche dating sim'.

My lord, 'dating sim'. Real dating sim game developers will probably cry when they see you call this sh!te 'dating sim'

'I love the artwork. I felt emotional while playing it because the love between those two mantises are so real and they care for each other so very much'.

...If you like emotional, sentimental short story, I recommend going to a place, which is called a BOOKSTORE or AMAZON, where you will find ton of them that are of much higher quality than this 10-min garbage.

'The conversations in this game are deep and engaging, and the AI is actually fairly good at responding to you (as long as you play along with the premise)'

I will forgive this young reviewer because he is probably 8 years old, judging from the fact that he thinks the game is 'deep and engaging'. It's your typical cheesy, badly written conversation between couples that you see in these soap operas that are plaguing TV everywhere

'by far one of the best relationship/romance games I've ever played'

...
GO...
FU.CK...
YOURSELF.!!!!!!

What is WRONG with this community? 5 dollars for 10 mintues' chat as a mantis couple, making a fuss about a phanomenon that is totally normal in nature. Is this a fetish thing? Like people like to emulate couple's life as mantises? THIS IS NOT A GAME!! Go scam people with your dialogue simulator somewhere else!!!

Just beat the game in one sitting...whooh! Overall a solid work. The fun part of the game is the running and jumping with your LEAF suit in this vast, nice-looking environment. Sometimes it almost feels like a racing game. The story is ... meh. The usual cliche, nothing impressive. Gameplay is pretty minimal, but functioning. Twenty dollar is clearly stretching it in my opinion, but I heard this is constantly on sale, like 80, 90 percent off, so in that case yeah it is worth it.

Nah, sorry, not a fan. I like the art style and the music. I REALLY like it, possibly one of the most aestheically pleasing 2D platformers I've ever played. Bravo! Story is also fine, simple but touching, with a bittersweet ending that nicely closed the narrative. But in the end this is a GAME, and the gameplay here is just...boring. I really can't find another word. It's about shifting and bending landscapes so that the old man can move to a certain place and continue his journey. I mean... it's fun for about 10 minutes perhaps? Besides, it's one of those puzzle games in which you often find yourself painfully trying to guess what the developer had in mind, rather than solving the puzzle in a natural and intuitive way. A big no-no for the genre.

So, not really recommendable as a video game. But hear this, Mr.Developer: give it a bit more story, get rid of all the gameplay, edit it into a more compact length, and you might actually make a very nice animated short film out of it. As I said, it does look gorgeous.

Brilliant little game. Short, and to the point. A fantasy story about you fighting monsters on the surface, but beneath that the game is really about something very different, something very much related to the modern world. Sound tracks and art style are great, classy and atmospheric, and the gameplay is smooth and closely integrated with the narrative. Packed in the two hour campaign is also a branching story line where your choice will affect the outcome of the game. I chose to be the nice/sympathetic guy, but I'm really curious about how the story would end if I picked the other path. Overall, a pleasant and insipiring experience. Highly recommended.
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1586049167

Five minutes into the game:
What is this sh!te? Polygon graphics? Camels rolling like a lego with no animation whatsoever? Empty deserted map? No real gameplay? Is this a scam???!!! IS IT???!!!!

An hour into the game:
Oh I see what you are doing here... Seeing the world from the perspective of EVERYTHING, from the smallest atoms, to all sorts of fauna and flora, to cities and buildings and other man-made objects, all the way to giant astronomical bodies, while listening to a philosophical lecture by Alan Watts concerning the definition of 'things' and 'beings'. Well, it is fun, and very creative, and the sense of exploration is very satisfying. That I would admit.

Checking the price before writing the review: $14.99...


...Well, I struggled to give a positive review. I did in the end, obviously, but it's for the creativity and this very novel idea of the game, not for the pricing. This looks like and plays like a small indie project suitable for about five bucks, ten max. I got it at 75% off, so I'm ok with it.

Absolutely fantanstic experience. This, guys, is story-driven game at its best so far in my opinion. It plays like a Telltale game or other narrative RPGs like Life is Strange, etc., but this one is like an improved version of them, with deeper and more sophisticated gameplay mechanics, more intense and better organized narrative, and, as an icing on the cake, triple-A level graphics.

The story revolves around you meddling in an European high society at the time of the French Revolution, conspirating and participating in all sorts of shenanigans, all of these then deeply intertwined with your perosnal history and your family's past. It's a truly fascinating story although I can't say much without spoiling it, but if you are into early modern history, politics, alternate history, and things like that then you will definitely love it. Besides, just by playing the game you learn a great deal about European paintings, sculptures, biblical history, Graeco-roman mythology, and maybe even refresh a little bit your Latin/Italian/German/French, because the game's setting and many of its puzzles are based upon these cultural themes. And needless to say, choices matter tremendously in this game, from whether you get to spend a night with a lady to the life or death of crucial characters, or even the direction of the history.

Gameplay has been improved a lot compared with other narrative games. Your interactions with the story are not just confined to picking dialogue options, but instead we have new mechanics like a limited amount of 'effort points', which you will consume when choosing certain responses, and the 'vulnerability' and 'immunity' system which gives each character a unique personality that you have take into consideration when dealing business with them. Other innovations include potion-like items that can grant you buffs and debuffs in dialogues, and also special dialogue scenarios like the 'confrontation', and, guess what, a skill-tree which allows your more dialogue options and other perks. But don't be scared of all these new gameplay mechanics, in its core The Council still maintains the simplicity of a narrative RPG; all these things are very simple and light-weighted and in no way negatively affects the story-driven experience.

Of course there are also a few things that I would like to see implemented better. For example, the story moved a bit too slow in chapter 2 to my taste, and at some points in the game one might feel a bit lost because there are so many narrative lines and they are not really explicitly connected. Occasionally the reactions of the characters are not very natural, e.g. seeing me approaching with one of my hands cut off and full of blood Mr. George Washington doesn't seem to care or even notice that as he makes no remark of my wound , but nothing particularly game- or immersion-breaking. There are a few factual mistakes in the many books, artworks, and historical events mentioned in the game, e.g. Plutarch is not in the '10-11 century' period but rather he's a first century writer, and also some Latin inscriptions in the game use a capital 'U' distinct from 'V', which is very rare in real life.

Finally, on the technical sides, the graphics is beautiful and in some scenes you would think you are playing a triple-A title. It runs well, and I experienced no glitches whatsoever. The only complaint I have would be the lack of a FOV slider, but this is not too big a problem.

So, overall this is definitely one of the best, if not the best narrative game out there, and I highly recommend it, while waiting for the release of the final episode in the next few days, hyped and stoked :)

[UPDATE] Episode 5 is great.

Let me try to maintain my composure in the following 'review' of this game. I know there are many inexperienced developers out there, and we, as gamers, should be encouraging to their creativity and give positive and constructive feedback even when their work is sometimes less than satisfactory. But before that, might I just say a few words....





...............................................................................................................WHAT A LOAD OF SH!TE THIS IS!!!! MOST BORING AND REPETITIVE GAMEPLAY EVER! I know it's a maze game, but let's have some innovations, shall we? What about a timer so you can track your performance? It literally takes five minutes to programme!!! What about some adornment to the maze, eh? A bit of artwork won't take much of your time. What about some diversity in the music department instead of ONE ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ TRACK THROUGHOUT THE GAME??? Why aren't any of these in your game??? Oh, perhaps because you are just a lazy fu.cking ars.e trying to grab some quick cash and just can't be asked to do any of the work???!!!! And another thing, this game, guys, DOES NOT USE YOUR GRAPHICS CARD, or even more than one thread of your CPU!!!!!!! Yes!!! No matter how many RTX 2080TIs you have in SLI or 9900K overclocked to 10GHz, the game will not give a sh!t about it, and will run on one cpu thread!!! I was like shocked when I see the gaming running 10 fps on my rig!!!! ARE YOU FU.CKING KIDDING ME??? ABSOLUTELY SHAME to you developer for releasing this unfinished, unoptimized piece of utter trash!!! A first-year CS major can make a better version than yours in an hour or so. And shame on you steam too for allowing garbage like this on your platform!!! Where's the quality control, eh??? Greedy, cash-minded indie developers like you are doing as much damage to the gaming industry as those fu.cked up big publishers. You are dissolving and disgracing the creative power of the community with sh!tty game like this.

Buy and beware: It's one of those games that you will definitely have a good laugh with in the first hour or two but then gets boring extremely quickly.

I won't, however, trash this title even though it didn't meet my expectation, because my standards are rather high, sometimes unfairly so. I actually do applaud the developer for the quality and the polishedness reflected in their work, especially the amazing art style and the highly creative map designs. I'm sure some would even find it worth the price just to watch all these absolutely hilarious cutscenes, which are essentially short animated paradies of (in)famous historical figures. Anyone with his right mind will see that the game is crafted with great care and pride, so that would put it ahead of most AAA titles nowadays already, given the current devolving state of the gaming industry, with what seems to be an endless series of corporate fiascos involving outrageous business practices and ever worsening quality of their games.

So, where does this game come short of? Simply put, the core gameplay just won't and couldn't keep you (or me at any rate) interested after a few hours. It's all great fun rolling your giant boulders across various landscapes (and sometimes inside oil paintings and all sorts of other objects) and demolishing anything that stands in your way, but it quickly gets to a point where you just start asking yourself 'is that the whole game?'. Some of the boss fights do offer a bit more challenge, but they are too few and far between. Otherwise, after about five scenarios I found myself more excited about the next cutscene and map than the actual game itself. The gameplay mechanic is also somewhat flawed, as you can't focus on both defense and rolling the boulder at the same time, so I'm often torn between these two, either rolling my boulder while worried about my defense structure, or building up defense while losing time not launching my boulder. I know you have to do time management and use different boulders with different load times et cetera, but it's just not working that well.

I hate to give it a negative review as it's clearly not a bad game in any sense, but despite being impressed by its overall quality and creativeness I'm simply not having that much fun as to recommend this game with full confidence that you will enjoy it more than I do.

'Thief Simulator'... simulator my eye. Totally unrealistic experience. Tell me this, developer, why on earth would you give us quests like 'go to that household and break their TOILET' ? What sort of 'thief' makes a living by breaking other people's toilets, eh? Thieves steal stuff, they don't go to random house to break the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ toilet!!! And the AI in this game is what Asians would call 人工智障 (artificial retar.ds). I litterally just stole a printer from a house and walked right past the tenant's fu.cking eyes with the stolen printer held in my arms. The only thing that you need to look out for when you play this game is your play time, because you will soon find yourself requesting for a refund.