Patterna
An enjoyable puzzle game, Patterna kept my attention for dozens and dozens of hours. You need to determine which cells are or are not marked as part of ‘the pattern’ based on given distribution/adjacency information, somewhat akin to Minesweeper or Hexcells. Like the latter of those, all puzzles are set up in a way that you never strictly need to make a random guess.
The thing that’s really singular about Patterna in my view is the robustness of the random level generator. I was able to find settings that generated interesting random puzzles more often than not. The only issue is that sometimes the chain of reasoning was difficult enough that I needed to break out pen and paper and brute force the next move, which generally felt more like bookkeeping than entertainment. On the whole, though, the game did a good job of hitting a reasonable middle ground of difficulty.
– Real player with 97.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best Ambient Relaxing Games.
In short: Patterna is a challenging hard-logic puzzle game with a steep learning curve. The mechanics are varied and the replayability infinite, but it is very rough around the edges with poor and sometimes frustrating implementation. If you have a low tolerance for bad UI, stay away. If you can stomach that and are a seasoned veteran of logic games, Patterna is well worth buying at full price.
In long: The developer himself compares Patterna’s mechanics to Hexcells, and one can immediately see the inspiration. But Patterna is far from a knock-off, does its own thing and expands gameplay well beyond the scope of Hexcells. Nodes may be revealed or not, may be part of a pattern or not, may carry information about nodes around them up to a distance of 3, may describe the length of the chain they are part of, may have up to 4 colors, may be unlinked, linked or directionally linked, etc. The complexity is smart and truly awe-inspiring, but comes at a cost:
– Real player with 74.7 hrs in game
Neverlooted Dungeon : Almost Epic Adventures™
Venture deep into the Neverlooted Dungeon and face its treacherous, deadly traps. Armed with your creativity, trusty weapon and magical items, find your own ways to outsmart the dangers in a highly immersive world. Be careful, become paranoid, be the first to loot!
“Have you ever heard of the Neverlooted Dungeon and its Legendary Treasure? It’s a perilous place filled with deadly traps that no one has ever returned from alive, but I’m sure someone as smart and skillful as you could easily succeed. Try your luck now, loot and glory await you!”
As you enter, you feel like something isn’t quite right, and there may be a good reason why no one has ever returned. Will you be the first to loot the Neverlooted Dungeon?
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Defeat Hidden Treacherous Traps
Live out an intense adventure with a unique focus on defeating treacherous, deadly traps. Be careful, pay attention to the details, sharpen your senses, watch your steps, don’t touch anything, become paranoid.
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Find Your Own Ways Through an Immersive World
Find your own ways to overcome the dangers and challenges in a deeply immersive and interactive world where your creativity is rewarded. Pile crates on stakes, block saws with chairs, throw buckets at levers - it’s up to you.
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Careful Nonlinear Exploration
Explore a great variety of non-linear levels overflowing with forgotten secrets, hidden relics, piles of treasure, countless traps, and lurking monsters.
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A Dungeon Unlike Any Other
Discover a dungeon full of flashing arrows and vending machines, in a unique satirical dark fantasy world where something really wrong is going on.
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Customize Your Abilities
Acquire powerful magical items to customize your abilities, whether you’re a careful explorer, an outstanding acrobat, or a reckless fighter.
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Survive Lurking Monsters
Avoid monsters, fight them, lure them into traps, kick them into pits, or serve them as food.
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Dying is a New Beginning
If you die, try your luck again. Loot your previous corpse and use it to your advantage to progress even further.
Read More: Best Ambient Immersive Sim Games.
Fractal Space
What are you really trying to escape?
PRE-ALPHA AVAILABLE
Enjoyed our free Demo of the first Chapter? Play the Pre-Alpha now up to Chapter 4!
KEY FEATURES
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Control your Jetpack to fly freely around space!
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Shoot your Taser-Gun to power-up devices remotely
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Solve amazing puzzles involving Zero-Gravity rooms
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Use Hyper-Speed to bend time around you and survive impossible traps
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Find Upgrade Terminals to acquire new Abilities
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Find lost Recordings to understand what lead you here and learn about yourself
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New Game+ to keep Upgrades, access secret rooms and passages!
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Enable Speedrun Mode to skip cutscenes and accelerate parts of gameplay
TASER-GUN | Your Best Friend
Shoot your Taser-Gun to power-up electric devices remotely. When you’re alone in the universe, this weapon is your best friend. Keep an eye out for Taser Batteries to make sure you don’t run out!
JETPACK | Enjoy Flying
Defy laws of physics by firing up your Jetpack to fly freely through space and avoid deadly traps. You cannot risk falling into the void; use it wisely and make sure you have enough fuel to make your jump!
CONTROL TIME | Hyper-Speed
Use your Hyper-Speed ability to slow down time around you, allowing you to focus and survive traps that would be deadly at regular speed! Beware - Hyper-Speed consumes health, so don’t overdo it!
ZERO-GRAVITY | Sensational
Discover a new way of thinking first-person puzzles and survive rooms in Zero-Gravity! Stay sharp and aware of your surroundings - it’s easy to get lost when you’re floating in space.
UPGRADES | Evolve
Explore the station to find Upgrade Terminals and acquire new Abilities! Upgrades are persistent for a New Game+ when the game is completed. You’ll enjoy a faster second run!
PUZZLES | Think
During your journey in this dangerous space station, dexterity is not your only challenge: activate switches, complete mini-games, use cubes to reach higher grounds, go through teleporters, orient light mirrors, search for clues and much more!
EXPLORE | Space
Explore and pick up hidden recordings throughout the station - they will help you solve puzzles, recall what happened to you and find answers about your past, present and future. Remember to acquire Health Packs and Taser Batteries to help you get through this adventure.
REPLAY VALUE | Find Secrets
Many rooms can be completed in multiple ways. Others can be skipped using secret passageways. Once you have completed the main story-line, continue your adventure in New Game+ to discover previously inaccessible Bonus Rooms, secret passages and obtain all bonus Upgrades and Recordings!
OPTIMIZED | Potato-Friendly
The game features high-end graphics with realistic dynamic lighting and shadows, Ambient Occlusion, Tonemapping, HDR Support, Screen-Space Reflections, Motion Blur, Bloom and Anti-Aliasing.
However, if you are playing with a laptop or an old Potato PC, you are welcome too! By disabling most of these resource-intensive effects, you’ll be able to enjoy playable framerates, even on Integrated Graphics Cards!
COMPETE | Achievements & Leaderboards
Show everyone what a puzzle mastermind you are by unlocking more than 70 Achievements, sharing your speedrun scores with your friends and the entire world!
SPEEDRUN | Optimize Gameplay
Enjoy a speedrunner-friendly experience by enabling Speedrun Mode, allowing you to optimize your timings and compete with your friends via Leaderboards! Speedrun Mode shows you additional timers, speeds-up elevators and allows you to completely disable all cut-scenes of the game.
Read More: Best Ambient 3D Platformer Games.