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[Darkmere]

Even better was the nuclear plant. Its pollution rating is so eX-treme! that it pollutes the entire map to a medium rating.

So basically it follows the fantasyland version of nuclear fission, where instead of being the massive energy source that confines all its bad byproducts to a storable bit of matter like in real life, works like a coal power plant (I.E. scattering its shit to the four winds) but 10x worse because it has the word "nuclear" in it

Correct! If we can't use poorly-made alpha games to teach our kids complete fabrications about nuclear power, then what's the point?

[highzealot]

EDIT2: All keys should now have been sent out! Post here if you have any issues.

I got around to trying to activate the keys today and the humblebundle link for Freedom Planet says the gift has already been redeemed.

On the up side, the mystery key was activated successfully on Steam and the mystery game itself...well I'm sure it'll make for an interesting review.

[Sappho]

EDIT2: All keys should now have been sent out! Post here if you have any issues.

I got around to trying to activate the keys today and the humblebundle link for Freedom Planet says the gift has already been redeemed.

On the up side, the mystery key was activated successfully on Steam and the mystery game itself...well I'm sure it'll make for an interesting review.

Ohnoes! Sorry about that. Must have been a clerical error at some point. My game bundle spreadsheet is truly a fearsome thing to behold... I actually had one last "mystery" key left, so I've just sent you that by PM. Hopefully it will work, so at least you'll have 2 games.

[highzealot]

Ohnoes! Sorry about that. Must have been a clerical error at some point. My game bundle spreadsheet is truly a fearsome thing to behold... I actually had one last "mystery" key left, so I've just sent you that by PM. Hopefully it will work, so at least you'll have 2 games.

The other mystery key works and the game seems interesting. There is no store page so I guess it was removed from the store but the community hub has content.

I'll probably aim to play and review by Friday.

[Tiruin]

4. You have two weeks to play the game and write your review. Failure to do so will result in public shame and humiliation, not to mention exclusion from all future Sappho giveaways! (Extenuating circumstances will be taken into consideration on a case-by-case basis.)

Verylatequery! :O
Should the review be on the game page, or can it be posted here? [First time reviewing so I'm very unsure.]

I got Boxeswithguns and The Blue Flamingo!

[RickRollYou2]

4. You have two weeks to play the game and write your review. Failure to do so will result in public shame and humiliation, not to mention exclusion from all future Sappho giveaways! (Extenuating circumstances will be taken into consideration on a case-by-case basis.)

Verylatequery! :O
Should the review be on the game page, or can it be posted here? [First time reviewing so I'm very unsure.]

I got Boxeswithguns and The Blue Flamingo!

Check the previous page of this thread

[Sappho]

4. You have two weeks to play the game and write your review. Failure to do so will result in public shame and humiliation, not to mention exclusion from all future Sappho giveaways! (Extenuating circumstances will be taken into consideration on a case-by-case basis.)

Verylatequery! :O
Should the review be on the game page, or can it be posted here? [First time reviewing so I'm very unsure.]

I got Boxeswithguns and The Blue Flamingo!

Check the previous page of this thread

No need - I know Tiruin's internet isn't great and there's no need to force her to read the whole thread. Yes, the reviews should be posted here. You're welcome to post them elsewhere if you want, but I want to read them here.

[choppy]

here is my quick little video of Gauge.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXoVsldhe20

This is not the kind of game you would play if you have epilepsy. rating wise i would say about 2 or 3 out of 10. It is a keep it in the line kind of game, and as such kind of stressful. for the price you could try it, ( it works, has no bugs that I saw, and is only 17mb) but there are better titles out there. ( heck I just did a video on a pretty good 48hour game)



Quick Edit: I will try and review/record the second game tonight.

[penguinofhonor]

Mushroom Men: Truffle Trouble: A Review

So I had high hopes for this one going in. Mushrooms, right? Mushrooms are cool. The opening menu has a pretty solid art style, giving me some Pikmin vibes as I imagine a little mushroom guy jumping around on giant sized objects. I start the tutorial level and immediately notice two things - this is an N64-style 3D platformer with comparable graphics (I had to look it up to see that it was released in March 2015, not that I'm judging it negatively for the retro look), and the level is made up almost entirely of a path of featureless blocks. The only decoration is your little mushroom dude's bed and a lamp hanging over it.

But hey, this is the tutorial. They probably saved the environments for later. The straight path away from the bed sets up the game pretty well - you move left to right along a path a few blocks wide and mostly do 2D platforming. Occasionally you'll need to deal with the third dimension, mainly for block puzzles. The gameplay didn't consist of much more beyond simple block puzzles, ground pounding enemies, and jumping over small gaps.

For relatively simple gameplay it took a while to learn - this was partly because all the in-game instructions were in Xbox controller terms and I was using a keyboard. So I had to go through some menus to find all the keyboard controls. It also took a bit because there are like fifteen different button controls for this mushroom dude. The tutorial levels do a decent job of teaching them, but at the end it still feels like a few too many buttons for what you're getting. Even when I had everything down pretty well I was mixing up the "pick up a block" and "grab onto a block" buttons (the latter is for pushing/pulling), and I'm still not really convinced they needed two buttons for those things.

Anyway, the tutorial ended and I had a workable knowledge of the controls. Time for level 1, the first level in the Garage. First I watched the opening cutscene, where the Truffle Princess (the antagonist, which the tutorial had warned me about) professes her love for your little mushroom dude and somehow teleports him to her from his little shack. You see her at the very end of the cutscene, a hulking monster with a really annoying voice who chases after your mushroom guy.

Then you get thrown into the first level, where I once again had two realizations. First, the Truffle Princess was to my left now, chasing me and slowly destroying the level - I really dislike timer mechanics like this, and it was clear from the tutorial quips that she was going to be present in every level, so this was a bad sign for me. Second, the level is made up of generic cinderblock cubes over a 2D garage backdrop, which is not exactly what I envisioned running around as a mushroom in a garage would be like. Still, I ran away from the Truffle Princess and was pleased to find she moves very slowly and isn't that punishing. I was then annoyed as she taunted me the entire level. She is an annoying character, maybe tolerable for the duration of a boss fight, but it seems like you might hear her voice throughout the entire game.

So... I exited the game after the first level. The audio was getting annoying, and I could have played with that off, but none of the gameplay I had seen so far was really compelling or interesting. I know I didn't play much (28 minutes according to Steam, probably about 5 minutes of that is menu navigation), but I expect a little taste of something cool by the end of the tutorial and first level. The graphics, plot, and characters all support the gameplay as much as necessary but add nothing beyond that to the game. Mainly it felt like someone was trying to revive the N64 puzzle platformer days but really didn't put enough effort or polish in.

Rating: Meh, not bad enough to be entertaining

I have two games, so I will be back with the second review soon.

[RedKing]

I tried to do a video review, but cannot into video.


So, have a short text review:

Uncrowded -- It's like if Minecraft and Cataclysm had a baby. A horribly deformed, retarded baby that was mostly made of other baby parts stolen by a Russian mobster, stuck together, and then handed to the mom with a sign saying "IS BABY, YOU ARE TO BEING HAPPIES NOW".

From what I understand, the "developers" basically grabbed a freeware Unity asset pack, did a build with that asset pack, and called it a game. They've claimed that the models are just placeholders and that more detailed models and features will be added, but I'm calling bullshit on that. One video review (which was hysterical) pointed out that it's been called a "poor man's Unturned". Unturned is free. So....I'm not sure how you get more poor than free, but they've managed to do it.

The English is laughably bad (FARMER: STARTS WITH AWESOM AXE AND PIECE OF WOODS) and gives you items like "french fires" and "water botton".

The enemies spawn at random and often right next to you and are utterly silent until they nom your face off. Guns are pretty much useless. You can occasionally hit something at about 20 feet, though headshots seem to be more or less harmless, and shooting is utterly futile at close range. The farmer's "awesom" axe seems to be a decent zed-slayer, however it is incapable of chopping down trees. Trees are made of moar awesom than puny awesom axe.

You will occasionally come across a little pile of brown bricks (3xWood), and when you pick it up, often another pile will randomly spawn into being a few feet away. The magical wood piles would be nice, if I had any idea what you can do with them.

Zombies appear to spawn in at random near buildings, but also seem to have a cap of 3 zombies per building lot. Which leads to the odd sight of zombies suddenly keeling over in a splash of blood because another zombie spawned and the oldest zombie in the lot therefore had to die. Likewise, it appears to be impossible to "clear" a building, because more zombies will just keep spawning in regularly.

So basically, it's a walking-around-carrying-a-gun-and-then-dying simulator.

The one upside is that for a while, it was selling for $0.02 on the Steam store (98% discount). They actually went to the trouble of creating Steam cards for the game. So, you could buy the game for two cents, then turn around and sell the Steam cards for 4-5 cents and wind up profiting. I honestly can't decide if that's immoral or not.

1/10: This is the sort of game that makes me want to ban Russia from the Internet. And now it's in my library forever.

[Sappho]

  Wonderful reviews so far guys. Redking, you owe me a keyboard!

I am keeping track of who has done their reviews, by the way, so keep 'em coming!

[Persus13]

Commando Jack is a tower defense game that clearly started as a mobile game, and was then ported to PC. It actually seems like a really good mobile game, but on PC it is merely average. Large buttons, somewhat low graphics, and the coins system are holdovers from the mobile game, and they drag the game down a bit. The gimmick of the game is that you have a gun that you can shoot enemies if your turrets fail to do so, but you have to use the WASD keys to aim the turret and the spacebar to fire, making that a little clunky. I liked that the game launched me straight into the tutorial, which was quick and simple.

Overall, Commando Jack was a fun little game, but one I probably won't play again simply because I'd rather play the good or great games I own instead.

[Bouchart]

I tried to do a video review, but cannot into video.


So, have a short text review:

Uncrowded -- It's like if Minecraft and Cataclysm had a baby. A horribly deformed, retarded baby that was mostly made of other baby parts stolen by a Russian mobster, stuck together, and then handed to the mom with a sign saying "IS BABY, YOU ARE TO BEING HAPPIES NOW".

From what I understand, the "developers" basically grabbed a freeware Unity asset pack, did a build with that asset pack, and called it a game. They've claimed that the models are just placeholders and that more detailed models and features will be added, but I'm calling bullshit on that. One video review (which was hysterical) pointed out that it's been called a "poor man's Unturned". Unturned is free. So....I'm not sure how you get more poor than free, but they've managed to do it.

The English is laughably bad (FARMER: STARTS WITH AWESOM AXE AND PIECE OF WOODS) and gives you items like "french fires" and "water botton".

The enemies spawn at random and often right next to you and are utterly silent until they nom your face off. Guns are pretty much useless. You can occasionally hit something at about 20 feet, though headshots seem to be more or less harmless, and shooting is utterly futile at close range. The farmer's "awesom" axe seems to be a decent zed-slayer, however it is incapable of chopping down trees. Trees are made of moar awesom than puny awesom axe.

You will occasionally come across a little pile of brown bricks (3xWood), and when you pick it up, often another pile will randomly spawn into being a few feet away. The magical wood piles would be nice, if I had any idea what you can do with them.

Zombies appear to spawn in at random near buildings, but also seem to have a cap of 3 zombies per building lot. Which leads to the odd sight of zombies suddenly keeling over in a splash of blood because another zombie spawned and the oldest zombie in the lot therefore had to die. Likewise, it appears to be impossible to "clear" a building, because more zombies will just keep spawning in regularly.

So basically, it's a walking-around-carrying-a-gun-and-then-dying simulator.

The one upside is that for a while, it was selling for $0.02 on the Steam store (98% discount). They actually went to the trouble of creating Steam cards for the game. So, you could buy the game for two cents, then turn around and sell the Steam cards for 4-5 cents and wind up profiting. I honestly can't decide if that's immoral or not.

1/10: This is the sort of game that makes me want to ban Russia from the Internet. And now it's in my library forever.

Sounds like it's slightly better than Zombie Zoeds.

[RedKing]

Mystery Key #1: Level 22, Gary's Misadventures

Seems to be a fairly retro isometric stealth game, where you play Gary, a hapless office drone trying to sneak into the office late after getting tremendously smashed the night before at his birthday party. His slacker buddy and former co-worker Marty serves as the in-game helper, giving him hints and missions through his cell phone.

The graphics are nice, reminiscent of the Amiga golden age. Control scheme is simple and effective (WASD to move camera, left-click to move, right-click to stop). Inventory items can be clicked or hotkeyed (for example, a newspaper to hide behind).

Spoiler: Don't mind me, just catching up on the sports page... (click to show/hide)

Only real problem is that I'm terrible at stealth games, so I never got past level 3. Looks like it was originally an Android/iOS game that was ported. It's also no longer available on the Steam store, and no one's quite sure why.

Rating: 6/10. Not really my cup of tea, but it definitely reminds me of all the games I used to get on floppies from friends back in the late 80's. Good production values.

[Darkmere]

(Insert insensitive Japanese stereotype here!)

Sengoku

Honorable Sengoku is one of the best animated encyclopedia reference I have ever *cough* nah, it's a video game. Let's try again.

Sengoku is a grand strategy game from Paradox. Chances are you're already familiar with them, but in case you aren't, this review is done blind. I've never played a Paradox game before, or watched a let's play, or anything like that.

The game's set in feudal Japan, where you play a dynasty of lords trying to take over half the country. There's nothing fancy about the presentation, no intro cutscenes or whatever. A new game presents you with a map of the major islands and a chance to select your character.

And then the flood of text begins. Choose your cabinet, build an army, spend honor, improve provinces, make sure people like you, get ninjas, kill people who don't like you. Each one of those actions is 2 to 3 screens of text... for ANTS! After about 45 minutes digging through screen after screen after screen of information I had yet to really formulate much of a plan or get an idea of what I was doing.

At this point I was feeling eyestrain and more like I was working on a project than playing a game. Also I had failed to accomplish a single thing and hadn't spent a month in game yet. Out of all the information presented to me, the one tidbit of wisdom that stands out is that apparently I may want to commit seppuku early before I spend all my honor, so I don't disgrace my children.

So that's some solid advice I guess. When the going gets tough, kill yourself.

The Pros:
The presentation is clean and there was never a time when I was actually lacking for an explanation of what a particular game menu does. If all of the options actually do something meaningful, there's probably a great deal of depth here. If you like this kind of thing, Sengoku could be very engaging, but...

The Cons:
The barrier to entry is really, really high. I feel like I would need 20+ hours into it before I even got a basic grasp of what's going on here, and I don't have that kind of energy to invest at the moment. I would consider playing the game "for serious" in the future, though. Maybe.

The Verdict:
If you like Paradox grand strategy games, there may be something here for you. Otherwise, I'm not even qualified enough to give it a score. This isn't my preferred genre at all, and any number I assigned to it would be completely random and meaningless.