Recent reviews by coolz

It's rapid fire minigames with pachinko breaks and grindy unlockables. Somehow mixes elements gamers love and hate into an addicting package: mindless marble throwing, intentionally wonky controls, rage minigames, rage RNG, award chimes, and the fresh pop of unboxing a new skin.

The grind for 100% completion is excruciating, needing to perfect some minigames that require much more accuracy (and maybe luck) than others. There's an itch somewhere to grind it all out, but it's time to move on.

Progression feels great - I love the sector & stage ramp deeper into broken bullet hell. The 2nd sector seemed to stall a bit, but it might just be part of the design to go back and grind a few levels. It may also be skill (or luck, probably) that pushed me too far too early. Fun theme. Jammin' music (although I set 0% to focus). Upgrades keep it fresh.

I'd like to see an optional "friendly item" (bean, bomb, ring) opacity setting. Purists may disagree, but it would remove some frustration around stacked assets with similar coloring, which is not very fun to me.

Incremental bullet-hell of this type is a new genre to me and Incrementalist has done it good here. Strong recommend.

Rightfully among the best co-op shooter experiences. While ideally suited for 4 player parties, the game is fun with any number and mods are available to serve larger groups (up to 24 with More Players Balanced) and customizations.

Rock and stone, miners!

Solid short incremental game. Minimal in the clicker and idler categories, which is a plus. A number of different paths to go about, requiring some focused building (and at least 1 replay) to chase down achievements. There is no off-the-rails exponential growth to attain and not everything synergizes and that is OK. Dealing with durability is a neat feature.

I had much frustration navigating the skill tree. It is difficult to follow, even with the icons and color coding. Some additional features would be nice here: pin/favorite a skill, improve shard conversion, differentiate 1/5 vs 5/5. Even in extended mode, many skills were left empty or came about too late. I never bothered to farm books to figure out any of the automation options.

Great fun for what the game offers, doesn't overstay it's welcome, and leaves us incremental fiends wanting more.

Solid mine + upgrade + defend loop. I found myself switching between controller and mouse (for precision) during my first 8h. I believe swapping controls was the cause for my only gameplay crash. Upgrades feel nice and a there's a few different equipment options to explore.

My only real negative is the lack of a "save & quit". Progression results in better survival and longer runs, which can easily exceed an hour. The mid-game start can be a drag.

Base game achievements required 3 post-boss runs to finalize all blueprints/upgrades and all weapons.

The mechanics, difficulty progression, and world are well done. Music, voices, humor are all plusses. Solid entry into the first-person puzzler genre with a clever mechanic. There is no avoiding the problems that are universal to the genre: collision & platforming mistakes (by the player or the engine) are painful, players can out-maneuver some level design, and unfair comparisons to Portal.

The rest of the review is a rant.

"Message hunting" is one of the worst GAMEPLAY elements. Excellent if used to enhance the story, but compelling players to comb through EVERY bland environmental nook is awful. It is ANTI-PLAYER (!) to popup a "total terminals found" on center screen so frequently, baiting all players to seek them all. It's likely this was just tacked on as an achievement since it's a "collectable", but I hate the decision. These messages are clearly optional to the puzzles and bring nothing to the actual gameplay.

If hidden objects are intended as a gameplay element, improve how they are tracked. Bake it into the vanilla progression. Want to encourage players to revisit levels? Expand the "Act Select" into a proper level selection. Don't keep the option locked behind end-game completion. One of the worst feelings a developer can give a player? Lock a gate behind them frequently AND have them worry they missed something they cannot backtrack to. Then drop a popup they found "X of Y" of these elements in the entire game.

Short, sweet, incremental goodness.

Brilliant puzzles focused on nesting inside brilliant puzzles.

It's a light RPG full of fruit and a blend of elements done well: material grinds, day/night system, quest dailies, simple bosses, sokoban, perks, a dash & roll. Was able to 100% with a little bit of extra effort. Doesn't overstay its welcome. BIomes, story, characters are all interesting. Gameplay is fun and progression felt steady.

My few complaints:
I could do without backpack progression. Loss of materials is no fun and bank running is a necessary chore.
I was frustrated at the library collection of wood/stone materials, which cannot be put in storage.
There is no "save & quit" option. The game only saves on sleep and you cannot sleep during the day.

More Frog Detective! Recommended if you enjoyed the first two entries. Completed in about 2 hours. Thanks, Grace & Thomas!

There are 3 achievements that can be missed, but they were simple to chase down with Scene Select after completion.