Recent reviews by Professor Q

A great time waster for people that enjoy the Loop that Final Fantasy 1 introduced.

These days Scarmonde has to compete with a few other games that offer similar experiences. It's definitely not as good as Artifact Adventure for a balance between depth and time commitment, but it is stronger for giving a more distilled offering, especially comparing it to the ludicrous scope of the Last Dream games.

The narrative is interesting if not a little wordy and impersonal at times. As the tin says though you're mostly here for the gameplay, which is trying different builds in it's various challenges.

My biggest complaint has to do with the magic orb system, which imposes scarcity onto your build options. It makes specialization superior to versatility, moreso than it usually is in games like this. Unless you're cool with slow grinding, of course.

Some reviews have compared this to Crystal Project, and I'd say the customization philosophy here is almost the opposite. This is for people that like committing to an idea and running with it, not for people that like to experiment along the way.

Cozy and nostalgic.

There are a lot of games that mimic the look of the 90s, but Manafinder is one of the rare games that actually feels like something from that era. What I mean is that the simplicity of its battle system, the length of the game, and the complexity of its dialogue provides the experience beyond just the graphical fidelity.

Besides just the nostalgia factor, Manafinder has excellent world building and a fairly engaging plot with some actual nuance to character motivations. There's just enough choice too to allow for player expression, and this is solidified with the 5th chapter representing a lasting consequence of your choices.

Manafinder also uses bright colors and pleasant pixel effects to reward the player for exploring and progressing.

I could argue that there isn't as much depth here as something like Chained Echoes, but if it had more depth it would lose its nostalgic identity.

Maybe the audience that appreciates that feeling is aging out, but it's an audience I'm certainly a part of.

Perfectly executed, both narratively and as a more casual shmup.

There are some weapon combos that make it a lot easier - almost to the point of dominant strategy - but it is nevertheless fun to power up and get stronger.

While I love the Metroidvania Team Ladybug games, in many ways this is their masterpiece.

Since Voidspire I have been pining for another Rad Codex game that combines the fun tactical combat and smaller scale exploration.

Kingsvein delivers. I only wish there was more of it, but this game has Steam Workshop support too, so my wish will come true in time.

If you haven't played a Rad Codex game yet, I'd still probably recommend starting with Voidspire Tactics since this game is MUCH harder, but this game is a lot more fun to break down the combat and come up with winning strategies since the rules have gotten a lot tighter.

Thumbs up to a community that managed to stand up against a Publisher.


Also the game is a good buddy shooter. That was a double entendre.

It's quite good. Lots of technical problems but overall a great amateur attempt with above average writing.

(still has a few annoying indie tropes like random references to other games, but it's rare)

Like most of these idle games, at a certain point the game just gives up on any semblance of strategy or balance and the only solution is to pump hours into your idle playtime to win.

This approach has some merit to a degree (I mean that's basically the point of the genre), but Dragon Cliff adds RNG to the process. When you hit the inevitable wall in this game, the best way forward is playing the game's slot machine with hero potential. Ancient Legendary Heroes with Stars next to their names are so incredibly overpowered compared to anything else that there basically is no other strategy besides running processes on your computer until you're lucky enough to get one. I mean, this beats other Gacha-style slot machines in the sense that I don't actually have to put any effort into obtaining these heroes besides running the game in the background, but it's such a painfully arbitrary extension of "playtime". It's way more interesting to watch your candy number go up and make fun decisions when you come back to play, than it is to come back and discover that - yet again - the last three hours of waiting around was completely fruitless.

To top it off the game doesn't really even have an ending. It just kind of goes "Congrats you played the last event we bothered to do. Want to do it on NG+ now?" Not that the story is all that interesting in the first place (Kind of has a "are we the baddies?" vibe to it.)

Anyway, I got it for $2.50 on the Steam Sale and I don't think I'd recommend it even at that price. There are better browser-based idle games that are free.

I wrote a long, unedited, spoiler-filled rant to a friend of mine and copy posted it on the forum. If you've already played the game and want to know the gritty details of why I'm giving this a thumbs down, then check it out here:
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/app/1244090/discussions/0/3877093932373922940/


The spoiler free version of my rant is that I went into Sea of Stars coming from The Messenger, and my high expectations were disappointed.

The production values, especially the music, are great.

The combat, while really tightly designed, lacks variety. This starts to hurt as you approach the mid point of the game.

Most disappointing though is that the story is trite and full of narrative shortcuts. The potential seeps from the wound this creates like pus, and it's unceremoniously wiped away and discarded.

It's an entertaining game, and usually I would give a thumbs up for that, but it fails the standard that Sabotage set up for themselves with their previous game. With a bit more planning, this could have stood tall with the classics that it clearly draws inspiration from. Sadly it ended up being yet another derivative indie game, and as a result no amount of production value is going to prevent it from fading into the void of the forgotten.

20 Minutes Till Dawn has a fantastic framework with terrible progression.

The game's main problem is making everything available from the start for a purchase price. On paper it seems like this is a good thing for letting the player unlock what looks good to them by their choice, but in practice it just feels like you quickly run out of things to do before you're just grinding to get more things that didn't appeal to you as much.

The achievement system for unlocks that Vampire Slayers and other similar games use works because it feels like a specific goal to work towards, and the unlock represents a new play variation that is exciting to try out.

In 20 Minutes Until Dawn you're basically stuck doing nothing in particular until you've grinded your way to Darkness 15 and can finally start working on achievements at that point.

Besides that the game is good and the build variety is interesting, albeit with a lot less content than its similarly priced competitors (even competitors included in the bundles on this store page.)

This game is a very interesting case study in how incremental rewards vs player freedom can completely change how compelling a game is.

https://youtu.be/OjoHrY_vkOE