Recent reviews by txrracxtta

i played this on my school library's computer browser in 2011 with free accounts and never made it to level 20 on a character once. years later i'm still playing it and i'm able to make it to level 20 easily. if that isn't proof that this game makes you a better gamer overall over time, i don't know what is.

a lot of games market themselves as "pick up and play" if you've got a small amount of time to kill before doing something, but i find a lot of them do require some dedication of 30-45 minutes or longer, which doesn't always work out.

the hurry mode in this game (one round = 15 minutes instead of 30) makes this an excellent choice in that case.

also, it's pretty fun and has a good amount of replay value and lots of content.

Off the bat, I wanna say that I WANT to love this game. I've had it in my library for years, and over a decade back, when Infectonator: Survivors was still a webgame and I had the original on my iPad as a young boy, this game was so different, and I remember it being fun, though that may be nostalgia. That being said, this game, in two words?

Frustratingly unenjoyable.

There's a handful of standard or otherwise cool game design elements here, along with a solid pixel-art style, decent soundtrack, and seemingly some thought put into progression, that could - altogether - make up a fun and engaging zombie survival strategy game. Unfortunately, all the good things this game has to offer are sorely interspersed with and totally outbalanced by a lack of cohesion, unengaging and flimsy gameplay, and a pervasive feeling of "why am I even playing this" at every setback on any scale.

On a broad scale, this game boils down to "night begins, enter an area, slowly creep through it for about 10-15 minutes, scavenge as much as possible, leave, repeat until morning, set some task for your survivors, wait for them to finish it, nightfall and repeat." There are flashes of slightly enjoyable moments, at times when you scrape through a tough situation by the skin of your teeth, but the vast majority of the actual gameplay going on here is pointing and clicking with little engagement or fun beyond that. It's like Age of Empires 2 if it was much slower, much less exciting, and you could only do, like, four things in total, instead of carefully positioning and maneuvering your characters.

On a level of finer detail, there are a LOT of things I dislike. The biggest problem with this game is that it simply does not make it easy enough for you to even settle in to enjoying it, because your characters start off pretty bad. Like, "miss most of their shots, can't outrun the first enemy encountered, die in under 6 seconds of being near a zombie without armor" bad. I've played several runs through, and all but 1 ended in the first 2 nights because it was genuinely so frustrating, for a variety of reasons.

The biggest and absolute worst reason is MOVEMENT. Let me again use Age of Empires 2 as an example: in that game, knights are fast cavalry troops, whereas healing monks are slow ground troops. However, if you have a group of knights AND monks selected, and you tell this group to move somewhere, the knights will assume the speed of the monks, that they will not get left behind. Monk being left to lag behind, in AOE2, is nothing more than a waste of time, but in Infectonator: Survivors, your characters will NEVER adjust their movement speed, and in a fixed, tile-based strategy game, with poor aim and reloadable weapons with a fixed, lackluster range, one which takes place in many levels of tight corridors and will NOT hesitate to swarm you? Yeah, you're ♥♥♥♥♥♥. Seriously, I cannot overstate how incredibly tedious it is; in the early-game, you CANNOT have a character be on their own when more than a few zombies suddenly appear, or they are virtually guaranteed to die. Tell me, if your gameplay could be summed up as "you have to search a large map, with one character skittling ahead and the other dragging behind like concrete, requiring you to go step-by-step, and doing that for thirty minutes would be for nothing if so much as four or five shots were missed or zombies appeared and you would die," would you say you have made a good game?

I have a bunch of other things I could mention -- the daytime segments are dreary, you rely on nothing but RNG to get the supplies you need, the "quests" and "events" are as enthralling and exciting as cold, wet bread, YOU WILL DIE EARLY ON MANY TIMES if you do not manage to get any form of armor to negate damage (given that your characters have the vitality of a dried cactus spine), and so on. This game is fundamentally not fun.

Again, presentation-wise, this game is pretty good. But gameplay-wise, as someone who has played the original Infectonator multiple times over and grew up with this game in its earliest forms, I cannot find it within me to finish this game, because every time I hit a game over (no manual saving/loading and 1 save slot only btw lol), it's back to square one, and squares one through ten of this game's progression are so grating and unfulfilling I'd rather belt sand my genitals to a fine dust than bear them again.

No spoilers, no BS: simply the best puzzle-oriented platformer I've ever played. Not that I've played many, but I'm comfortable saying it might even be one of the best ever.

From a game design point of view, this game is pretty appreciable in a lot of ways. You can play it straight and quick, gathering the 32 cubes needed to reach the neutral ending within a matter of hours, and that experience in itself is great: the artstyle is simultaneously cutesy and endearingly simple, but also detailed and engaging. The level design is pretty brilliant, with various puzzles for hidden loot you can go on sprinkled in-between the various puzzles and puzzle-ish mechanics for level completion and progression. The controls are pretty solid, though I'll admit to some annoyance in that protagonist Gomez can feel a *little* slidy, as if on ice, at times, and the key mechanic at the center of this game -- rotation -- is done superbly well. It's not perfect, and can be a little buggy or irritating at times, but it's mostly not a problem and is utilized to awesome effect in level designs and puzzles.

Two of my favorite things about this game would be the soundtrack and the intricate world-building. Disasterpeace's soundtrack for this game is fantastic, with truly gorgeous, truly eerie, and truly BANGING chiptune songs serving as a perfectly fitting backdrop for this game. This game, too, has so much world-building and lore that never once gets addressed or explained to you in the (relatively minimal) dialogues throughout, instead appearing on chalkboards, obelisks, signs, posters, and what have you: it's there either as eye candy for the passive player, or, for the more dedicated puzzle enjoyers, the key to solving the more thought-provoking, complicated puzzles that are hidden, scattered, throughout this game's world, as well as understanding the story of this world and its peoples.

My least favorite things are the backtracking and black holes. Backtracking becomes only truly necessary in two situations: first, if you don't play the game correctly and just skip over some cube bits or cubes, thinking "It'll be fineee" (it won't), and that's on you; second, if you want to do all the secrets and hidden puzzles. Some puzzles just cannot be done in the same moment you find them, and might require to go all over the world to read an alphabet explanation on some classroom in case you forgot it, or to go talk to some owls who are STUPIDLY far apart in terms of location, or you just have to travel a really long way from a warp gate to a puzzle room you missed earlier and it becomes tedious when you have to do that about ten times.

However, it would be less tedious if it weren't for the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ black holes which become more frequent as you progress through the game -- I get that they have purposes, to hinder the player and have them find creative workarounds, but they completely forgot that second purpose in execution, because most of them will just show up and stay there until you exit and re-enter the level. These being the closest things to "antagonists" in this game makes me feel pretty comfortable in saying that they are some of the absolute worst antagonists of the most irritating nature in any game I've ever played; the last thing a puzzle-oriented game, which requires much patience, needs, is something to directly flip you off and tell you to come back later, because it makes that crucial patience wear thin FAST.

And, yeah, as for the puzzles? I first played through completed this game on Xbox almost a decade ago, after me and my oldest brother spent two years, on-and-off after schooldays, playing and decoding it together. Some things required a guide, but we got most of it -- make no mistake, this is a game that, if you want it to enjoy to the fullest, including the blissful satisfaction of solving some of its most mind-boggling puzzles, you're gonna need a notepad and pen and a fair bit of patience, as me and my brother did. But man oh man, solving those puzzles and coming to the point where, even at a young-ish age, I could read them like a second language felt awesome.

This game strikes a fine, fine balance between being a memorable treat of a playthrough for a casual gamer and a gourmet meal for a ̶t̶o̶t̶a̶l̶ ̶n̶e̶r̶d̶ truly dedicated gamer. But, seriously, screw those black holes.

I give Fez a score of 8 "WHAT'S THE ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ SOLUTION ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥"s out of 10 and my own personal "♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ I HAVE TO GO ALL THE WAY BACK THERE AGAIN???" badge of approval.

isaac we love you

in many ways, Feel The Snow is not that original of an experience - it follows a gathering-crafting-building-general survival formula that games like Terraria, Minecraft, Starbound, Stardew Valley, and dozens of others have popularized and refined in their own ways, and doesn't do much to subvert this formula or stand out, outside of having new recipes drop randomly from enemies and a "maintenance system," e.g. fires can burn out and you need to harvest mucus from slimes to refuel them. though it sounds frustrating, i actually like this - being forced to keep on top of resources does add to the gameplay to prevent it from feeling too linear or straightforward.

sometimes the pacing can be a little sluggish and running around, farming enemies in the hopes that they will drop actually useful recipes, like those for stronger armor or weapons, or holding down E as you break trees upon trees or rocks upon rocks for resources, becomes tiresome. this game's resource gathering in general, though not unbearably slow, is nothing to write home about, though i suppose it isn't in most sandbox games either.

mechanics such as farming or fishing offer little incentive or reward beyond the basic "plant a seed, harvest some food, repeat" or "wait until you can catch a fish" premises without anything interesting to offer.

combat is very basic, though the magic & mana systems are decent, and you will likely spend a lot of time getting hits in, running away when an enemy attacks, and repeating until you die or the enemy dies. a shield helps, but it only lasts so long, and losing your shield in the middle of a crowd of enemies is an instant death sentence.

that being said: the soundtrack is cutesy, great, and doesn't really wear out its welcome, even over long play sessions. the visual style is a little more detailed for a pixelated style than some other games and is pretty charming, and building is actually quite enjoyable, owing again to some great design for furniture and structures -- it's nicer than being stuck with, say, the blocky, clunky nature of lots of minecraft's blocks and furniture. the storyline is not that engaging, and running around the map does lose its luster fairly quickly, but it's made up for with decent pacing and progression, well-written and funny dialogue from NPCs, and some challenging and surprising tasks or fights.

this game will not provide you with a redefining experience of survival sandbox games. but it makes for a pleasant, enjoyable one with some satisfying progression, a game that you can open up, sit and enjoy playing for a while, and come back to later or finish in a couple of longer sittings. it's not offensively hard or pathetically easy, striking a nice balance to keep gameplay feel like it's worth continuing, and it's nice that dying does not really negatively impact you in any way except having to respawn somewhere else with low health -- the game doesn't indulge in trying to frustrate the player, e.g. by having them drop items on death, as a measure of "difficulty," instead teaching the player that keeping food and backup weapons on hand, and investing in the right skills to effectively deal with enemies, is the way to go.

in all, it's a solid game. it's not super special gameplay-wise, but it feels balanced enough to be worth playing through at least once, and the visual and musical presentation elements, as well as the aforementioned well-written dialogue from pretty entertaining characters, are standout enough to give this game its own identity and style.

worth playing, though not much replay value, 6.5/10

SUMMARY? recommended for those who can stomach a learning curve and toxic people (sadly).

great game, been playing over a decade in total, lots of replay value. easy to pick up and play for a short game if you have time or for longer games with lots of exciting moments. small but dedicated tight-knit and skilled community, you end up recognizing and bumping into the same people very often.

as far as downsides, the community being relatively small means that usually players are concentrated in one or two servers at any time, and if you don't want to play the gamemodes on those servers, you'll have to join something else and wait alone for some others to do the same.

also, if you want to learn this game, be warned that the community can be very, very, very toxic sometimes. not always, but the morals and kindness of this community wavers heavily, and a lot of people brush off responsibility or the urge to do the right thing in a lot of cases in favor of doing whatever they want, because "hey, it's a small community, we know each other, who cares?", even if sometimes that just means not dealing with racism, sexism, etc. i can be toxic myself sometimes when things don't go my way, that's kinda universal, but the way some people stretch it or go too far is ridiculous here. it's an echo chamber of toxicity, often.

it can be very fun and addictive, without any costing caveats or real risks outside of dealing with some toxic people sometimes, BUT there *is* a learning curve because so many players are long-time devotees, so if you need help, don't be afraid to ask.

no

Hit the ball into the wall a couple times. Hit it into the goal. Feel good. Lose the game. Feel bad. Play another game.
Hit the ball into the goal again. And again. And again. Win. Feel great. Play another game.
They score 5 times within the first two minutes. Feel bad. Quit.

10/10 Great replayability, highly recommend for anybody who enjoys simple, competitive games.

Like any small-time game, this one has its fair share of bugs. Sometimes people crash when people disconnect, sometimes the levels go ballistic and disintegrate themselves causing chaos for a few rounds, sometimes the pumpkin makes two people bosses who have to fight to the death.

But ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, this is a fun game. It's fast-paced, action-PACKED and absolutely chaotic. Definitely not for the fan of the average FPS as much as it is for the fan of button mashers and chaos causing.