Em-A-Li
I hate when there is no options for key bindings. Don’t like playing with arrow keys on pc. Both Em-A-Li games can be navigated by mouse, that’s good but you have to press enter key to enter doors or use items, which ruins it.There is a non stop static noise in bg from start which is annoying for me. The story is not that good and the voice narration lags behind the words narration so I end up reading faster and skip which ruins the fun.No options for narration format so no choice. Game is small and doesn’t eat up time. If i play it continuously it will finish within 35 mins i guess. Still not worth the time for me. Ended up watching youtube while playing lol.
– Real player with 2.2 hrs in game
Another of those games where the overall rating is probably neutral, but there’s no such option on Steam, so I’ll err on the positive side because I did enjoy my short time with it (my playtime is quite a bit longer than what you need, I started in a different computer and then I tried to be very thorough).
The game is almost a visual novel/walking simulator in terms of how limited interaction is. There’s a few hotspots along the way which you can interact for more flavour text which can be mixed, but the main narrative has a grand total of one meaningful “choice” in it, which really only skips you some small amount of content if you take the more “obvious” (at least if you are generally genre savvy) option. I saved at this supposed fork in the road and when I came back to see what happened and was relatively unimpressed with what was there.
– Real player with 1.2 hrs in game
Insaniam
Story
You play as investigative journalist “Mr. Johnson” after receiving several tips of a government cover up at a recently abandoned psychiatric hospital. All reports suggest illegal experiments taking place on the patients of the facility- and supposedly a government cover up. Detective Johnson decided to go through with this one off-books and after just a few days of preparation he sets out to explore the abandoned facility in the middle of the night, to recover patient records.
2AM: You arrive at the scene, it is a gloomy and silent night. Rain is pouring, wind flows through the air as an unsetteling feeling kicks in. Something isn’t right here, but there is only one way to figure out what it is…
Gameplay
Insaniam is a first person survival horror game, your objective is to retrieve at least five patient records for the abandoned facility.
You’ll be forced to scavenge for batteries to keep your camcorder charged, utilize the night vision mode to explore the dark, use sanity pills or stay in the light to keep sane, avoid hallucinations, while something is lurking in the darkness and so much more.
Gameplay is based around a speed run mechanic where you’ll play for shortest time to escape or longest time survived. Randomized game mechanics keep this experience fresh and increases re-playablity.
The game is not story focused but there is underlying lore that is optional to explore through text, visuals or audio.
Read More: Best Artificial Intelligence Dark Games.
Interregnum Chronicles: Signal
First advice: Read the game description closely :)
This plays like a “walking” simulator inside a satellite called “Harmony” that accommodates one person, so you’re floating in microgravity with ways to grab onto things and push yourself around. The core of the game is to tweak signal processing using human interfacing terminals, and that mysterious signal of unknown origin and requires decoding to find out what it is/says/does. At first the system doesn’t have the capacity to process the entire signal so an Operator (you) needs to approve lots of AI upgrades. See where this is going?
– Real player with 26.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Artificial Intelligence 6DOF Games.
So I have played this game a fair bit and tried to “get into it” but honestly, it’s pretty awful. I’m writing this review with steam saying that I have had 11 hours playtime, but really it’s more like 5 or 6 because I would leave the game on to “idle” in order to farm the necessary resources to progress the story.
And that is pretty much the game in a nutshell. Leaving it running to obtain an ever increasing targeted number of resources that are basically just numbers on one of several terminal screen’s. There are Networking, Data Processing and Memory “resources” that you need to increase in order to upgrade the stations AI and each resource is tied to the others with glass ceilings that you need to break by obtaining more of one of the other resources. There are ways to expedite the process such as using up to 4 batteries on a terminal but honestly, that just gets annoying. The batteries will explode if you overcharge them (or at least damage the stations electrics) and when you do use them they don’t last long at all. I haven’t timed them but I would be shocked if they actually last more than a minute or two at most. When you do have to recharge them as well, you can only carry one at a time and so you have to take each one from where you need it back to the garden where the charging ports are. Obviously you can’t plug one in and leave it charging whilst you fetch another as it will likely overcharge and short out the electrics so you end up floating along carrying one for a 2nd, dropping it to pick up another, dropping it to pick up a 3rd and so on until you get them where you need to go. Obviously you are in space with no gravity and so they drift…. a lot. Yeah, lets just say that gets old. Fast.
– Real player with 11.6 hrs in game
Robot Daycare
A charming little visual novel about friends, philosophy, memes…oh yeah, and there’s also a robot!
Personally, I enjoyed the game, as well as both endings (for different reasons; something something spoilers). It’s a fairly quick playthrough (maybe 1~2 hours), so it doesn’t require a lot of your time.
Also, the couple of easter eggs I stumbled upon when naming the robot were amusing. :D
– Real player with 2.8 hrs in game
I truly cannot reconmend this game, and here’s why.
I appreciate a game that tries to deal with mental illness and depression. I believe that these are important issues to bring to light, and to have a conversation about. However, there are 2 things about this game that made it really hard for me to swallow:
1. The way that all of the characters related to one another and to each others' personalities and challenges felt very contrived, inauthentic, and ultimately without empathy. You have a charcter that in the beginning literally tries to program a robot to kill his friends laughing with them by the end, a character who fakes his own death, causes everyone massive trauma,. and is ultimately like “lol whoops guys should I not have done that?”, and folks modeling behavior that is absolutely not the right way to deal with or help someone dealing with mental health issues. Yes. The game makes it clear that there are no easy answers and that dealing with those issues is difficult. But I legitimately felt bad playing the game at some points because I had no way to choose better actions for the characters because you literally get to make like 4 choices in the entire game.
– Real player with 2.3 hrs in game
Drawn Down
Surprisingly good game, really enjoyed it! Would’ve liked it to be a bit longer, but given the low price it’s hard to complain. Recommended!
– Real player with 6.7 hrs in game
I didn’t quite know what to expect when I started the game. I am a sucker for pixel art point and click adventure games. This one is a nice gem of a find. There’s some interesting plot threads, and a good level of interactivity with the various mechanics that do make it feel like there’s more to puzzle solving than just dragging items over others to progress.
The voice acting is also a nice touch but it can be a bit spotty in places.
Overall, I’d highly recommend this game, especially at the price. I’m looking forward to more from the creator.
– Real player with 2.8 hrs in game
Mori’s Nightmare : Hide and seek
not so good
– Real player with 1.8 hrs in game
Rumu
(click ↑ to open if you don’t see a bullet list)
Basic things you should know:
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Despite appearances, Rumu is “not a branching narrative ” – none of the dozens of dialogue options you’ll be asked to click through influences the story.
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The game proceeds through “days,” and you can’t save anywhere mid-day. If you quit out and continue, you go back to the start of the day.
– Real player with 16.0 hrs in game
Spoilers ahead. In summary, the game is tedious, too short, (only around 2-5 hours of gameplay) and too predictable.
I’ll give props where props are do. The game did its job in surprising you, in some cases. It was also pretty interesting the first time playing. The graphics aren’t godawful, and the vacuuming parts were pretty satisfying. Now for my complaints.
The storyline was too predictable. There was so much foreshadowing in parts like how Sabrina stuttered a ton when mentioned David and Cecily’s absense. There was obviously something shady Sabrina did.
– Real player with 5.6 hrs in game
First Floor
I LIKE THIS GAME
– Real player with 0.7 hrs in game
fucking blew out my ears
– Real player with 0.4 hrs in game
Suicide For Him
It is a dream come true to see this game take shape like this, and I am very excited to see it grow!
Although it is an indie game with a small team, it has so much to offer such as:
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A beautiful and original soundtrack
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Brilliant voice acting that brings the characters to life
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Entertaining extras that add more variety to gameplay
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An anime/manga, stylish art-style that is appealing to look at, especially for fans of the genre
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Customisation of the main character which will expand further
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An engaging story with the first act being a great introduction to the game’s character and universe
– Real player with 43.7 hrs in game
I want to know what the connection between this game and the simulator is? Because the style is kind of similar.
– Real player with 1.4 hrs in game
![Event[0]](https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/470260/header.jpg)
Event[0]
I’ll admit it: I fully bought the hype for Event[0]. It ticked off so many boxes for me: a (potentially) malevolent AI, a derelict spacecraft, beautiful graphics and design, a well written, alternate-history plot, and the ship AI responds coherently to things that you ask of it? By typing things to it? Does this game really have a semi-unscripted dialogue tree? I was sold.
In the end I did get all of these things with my purchase, but each to a lesser degree than I was hoping for. Things started off really well: the opening sequence of the game sets the stage, hinting at the world you’re about to enter and infusing your character with a bit of backstory. I was excited to start, and my first interaction with the AI was amazing: I typed something out into a terminal, and the world responded accordingly! Wonderful.
– Real player with 7.7 hrs in game
I have won a giveaway contest with US$ 20 in steam credits, so I chose this game which was on my wishlist. Original idea with an AI interface, gorgeous graphics, and it had a Linux version! Bottom line though, it disappointed me on all these points.
Before I explain it, the summary:
PROS:
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Gorgeous graphics
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Good soundtrack
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Original idea
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Spacewalking is quite good
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Comfortable typing interface
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Moderately interesting puzzles
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Good time-saving feature where the game writes down the passwords and important strings for you.
– Real player with 5.0 hrs in game