The Place I Called Home
I’m going to give this a “thumbs up” based on the story. Often painful to hear and without a cookie cutter happy ending, it is excellent.
My reservations are with some of the game design decisions and mechanics.
–I don’t understand why the hunger meter even exists. This is a game about a melancholy walk through difficult memories, how does the threat of starvation more effectively tell that story?
–Using the left mouse for the axe and “X” for interact is as intuitive as wiping your butt with your off hand. It can be done, it just feels wrong. You only swing the axe nine times. I would much rather click the mouse repeatedly to pick things up and use a random letter key for the axe.
– Real player with 1.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best Beautiful Indie Games.
i got this game for free to do a curator review on it and im going to be truthful. i came up with more major stuff when playing then the story plays out. its your basic pretty walk sim were you learn a small history on the girl your playing as. the story’s your basic tug your heart strings story that you can put into 21 notes and 8 small talking parts. sad that this stuff happens for people but i couldn’t give any care on this girl as was more expecting “o maybe this well happen or this!?” then “o nother note… and nother…. mk… 15 found… 20… and ok meh” at most its a time killer for something you could guess well happen at worst its 5$ tossed into a bin.
– Real player with 1.0 hrs in game
Areia: Pathway to Dawn
This is a beautiful light platformer with a touch of a walking simulator. A relaxing and immersive game with a heavy spiritual overtone to it with Hinduistic and Buddhist influences. It reminded me of Ancient Knowledge and other reviewers have mentioned Journey which is on my wishlist.
This is not a walk in the park as you have to work your way through different environments and challenges on your way to enlightenment. That sounds really heavy, but the game is quite light and enjoyable.
Music is lovely with Indian overtones to it, but it did wear thin after a while. I only got half of the achievements despite going back in to hunt for them. Dunno where they were?!
– Real player with 9.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Beautiful Indie Games.
So this is a tough one, while technically I give the game a thumbs up - you might find it not worth your time.
Quick score: music 9/10, graphics 8/10, atmosphere 9/10, gameplay 5/10, story n/a
This is supposed to be a “deep” game to make you think, reflect etc. in this for me it failed - it offers a few “contemplation points” where you sit and get 2 lines of text, this text while apparently supposed to be philosophical is rather non-sensical and does not make me find any deeper meaning in it - despite me being rather open to such ideas. What make this even worse is a rather unsatisfying ending(I am not even sure what its supposed to mean if anything).. it does have a “to be continued” so maybe in an expansion or update we will get more.
– Real player with 7.0 hrs in game
Sea of Solitude
EA is usually known for two things: microtransactions and more microtransactions. As a result, many gamers overlook their EA Original lineup, which features unique indie titles. One such is Sea of Solitude.
Shallow Sea
It’s always amazing to see developers find creative and unique ways of tackling themes surrounding mental health issues. Some succeed, some fail. Sadly, Sea of Solitude falls in the latter camp.
It fails for a couple of reasons. First, the writing. Instead of providing a more in-depth commentary on a particular issue, it opts for quantity over quality. As a result, it only skims over them and does a rather shallow take that boils down to “this is good” and “this is bad”.
– Real player with 6.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Beautiful Singleplayer Games.
There are a bunch of short little 5 hour games or under now that you can play on the EA 5 bucks a month deal. This game and Unravel 1 and 2 etc. If you pick up the monthly pass to play these games you will knock them out in a single session or a week at most and will still have 3 weeks left to download and play a bunch of other neat games. Sea of Solitude is a once and done game for me so it is a perfect candidate for the monthly pass. But we are not here to talk about whether the EA pass has value or not we are here to talk about this game. So what can I tell you about it? Unfortunately not a lot. Spoilers.
– Real player with 5.1 hrs in game
Eliza
Eliza is an insightful experimental visual novel that revolves around the life of Evelyn Ishino-Aubrey and her interaction with a digital therapy service. Evelyn, returning to the world after a three-year depression fog, doesn’t feel invested in much of anything that she does. She wants to reboot herself, she tries in different ways but she fails. As part of re-entry to society, she takes a job at Skhanda as a proxy for Eliza, a therapy service that’s powered by an artificial intelligence.
– Real player with 10.4 hrs in game
For the first two hours this game had me thinking it’d be one of the all-time greats. By the time the credits rolled, it ended up still being great but not without flaws. It’s absolutely worth playing, and I’d recommend it to pretty much everyone as an almost must-play, but the story and its lack of interest in adequately exploring the many big ideas that were presented early on left me just a little bit disappointed.
Those first few hours saw the game flirting with issues such as the gig-economy and the McDonaldization of formerly professional jobs as a means of generating cheaper labour. These topics were cleverly commented upon through the interface and theme of the mental health app - “Eliza”. These game-play sections see the player occupy the role of an unqualified therapist instructed what to say and do by a smartphone application named “Eliza” that’s hailed to be the the latest and greatest form of psychological care. This painted a pretty grim and all too plausible picture of mental health-care as imagined by tech companies and technocrats of today. The problems of crunch and abusive work practices within contemporary corporate culture were also interesting topics to see explored. I especially liked the blatant hypocrisy of these supposed corporate pioneers advocating for these new mental health treatment practices (and a freer market for them to operate under) while treating their staff like crap and (spoilers) literally working them to death under the guise of this martyrdom being for the greater good.
– Real player with 9.7 hrs in game
Maquette
A good game, but not worth $20.
I haven’t kept up with this game much after the initial announcement but after seeing how cool it looked I decided to blind buy it.
What I didn’t realize is that this isn’t really a puzzle game so much as the game is a medium to tell a love story.
That’s fine because other games like Edith Finch/Story About My Uncle have done this great, but my god I have not felt this disappointed in a long time.
I expected some loose story to go with this game about wacky mindbending puzzles and I got the complete opposite.
– Real player with 15.8 hrs in game
I was super excited for this game, and immediately purchased and downloaded it as soon as it was possible on Steam. I grew up with games that used to be called “adventure games” but today are generally labelled “walking simulators”. ‘Myst’ was the first computer game I played and ended up being hugely influential on my gaming tastes along with its sequel ‘Riven’ and then the forgotten classic ‘Obsidian’.
So obviously a game like ‘Maquette’ immediately piqued my interest and I waited and watched for any updates on it that I could find, especially after finishing ‘The Witness’, I needed something to fill that adventure/walking/puzzle game void that was left.
– Real player with 14.7 hrs in game
Before I Forget
Goddamn. It’s been a while since a game made me cry. Before I Forget managed to pull that off. I guess it’s personal on some level. I have lost a dear family member to Alzheimers and I work security in a hospital, so I encounter many patients with dementia.
As a game, it’s not all that much. It’s barely even a walking simulator. As an hour long experience, I totally recommend it for the price point! It carries it self very gracefully and portrays the subject matter in a painfully beautiful way. If you have any interest in the subject matter, there are basically no better ways to spend an hour and five euros than playing this game.
– Real player with 5.1 hrs in game
Short, but worthwhile experience.
Sad with moments of joy.
A very deeply touching game for me, having watched several family members over the decades affected by Alzheimers or Dementia, wondering what they were seeing, feeling, remembering, forgetting.
The voice acting was so good.
The narrative was so good.
The way the game threw you from one location and memory to another was a bit jarring and confusing, but that was the point.
The way the rooms became colorized and revealed details was clever and stylish.
– Real player with 2.3 hrs in game
Nino Maze LOFI
Frustrating.
This game started out promising.
Relaxing music, not too difficult maze, nice animation of a running cat, …
I liked the game instantly and felt like it would be a nice way to relax.
But the further I got in the game, the more I felt like the goal of the creators was to irritate us.
The “difficulty” of the mazes was the increasing length and the smaller size. Everything became smaller so it’s not a game for people with bad eyesight! And the mazes were super easy but just really long. The music also became more irritating. Sounds that don’t fit together and “singing”?
– Real player with 1.5 hrs in game
Overall exactly what I expected, with a few issues -
The fact that it gets smaller with each stage wouldn’t bother me had they kept to a light colored background and tiles - a black cat would show up fine in contrast. I was able to see fine in all the stages, it just was more annoying on those.
I really, really wish the LoFi didn’t have any speaking to them. It made me jump multiple times, and just pulled me out of the relaxing mood. It’s only in a few of them, but I personally didn’t enjoy it.
– Real player with 1.3 hrs in game
Ori and the Will of the Wisps
If you enjoyed Ori 1, do not think further, buy Ori 2, it is the same but better. A tribute to traditional Metroidvania games but also Rayman 1, Hollow Knight, Guacamelee, all of these - Ori is simple (a bit too easy), smooth, efficient, BEAUTIFUL, very pleasant in terms of gameplay, with pretty but shallow music, BEAUTIFUL, lots of collectibles, BEAUTIFUL, also BEAUTIFUL… So yeah, that game is beautiful, Imagine Everdell the board game but animated in 2.5D. Simply magnificent drawings. It is much more narrated/story (action-story) driven than the 1 - a colorful, yet very sad story (my son cried). A village like in Hollow Knight to upgrade, some hard bosses and final levels reminiscent of Celeste, and sometimes vibrant visuals a bit like Yoku’s Island. In any case, if you enjoy well made Metroidvania action platformer, this game is a must buy, period.
– Real player with 31.1 hrs in game
Perfect sequel to already an amazing game. Every flaw present in Blind Forest has been either changed or repaired in Will of the Wisps. But let’s start from the beginning.
Ori is of course a metroidvania, and it perfectly represents the genre. All upgrades are nicely introduced and movement with them is very smooth. Combat has been greatly improved comparing to first game. Instead of running and spamming attack button, here you can actually choose different abilities, making fights much more dynamic and interesting. Music, graphic design and lore, just like in Blind Forest, are incredible.
– Real player with 25.5 hrs in game
Shelter 3
Shelter 3 disappointed my beginning expectations at first, but it’s growing on me.
Let me start out by saying I am a major Might and Delight fan, but more specifically their Shelter series. Although I have mixed opinions with Shelter 1 as it’s a linear and less of an exploration game, the connection between all of the badger offspring and the mother I was playing as was beautifully done. That same aspect goes to Shelter 2, which is significantly better than it’s original, Shelter 1. It allowed a more open and free world than it’s previous game, and the connection between the children as they grew up was more emotional, especially when they leave. I also enjoyed how they allowed various skin patterns and the ability to play as a surviving offspring to continue the legacy of the family.
– Real player with 8.3 hrs in game
Update 1: So I’ve played this game for another hour, and the experience is still painful. Glitches continue to be rampant and punishing: at one point, I was unable to nurse my starving calf and restarted the game; somehow this made it so that my herd was starving and I had to go out of my way to find trees; thus taking much more time that could have been spent moving forward. I just stopped playing now because I thought I was going the right way (again), but now I’m lost and the idea of walking around in circles pointlessly is absolutely crushing. In a game where your modus operandi is to move from one place to another, the movement should be fun. It’s not fun. That’s… pretty pathetic.
– Real player with 6.8 hrs in game
Detroit: Become Human
Have you ever watched a TV series and thought to yourself, man, this character is dumb. Why would they go in there? Why would they do that? It is so stupid. For me, it happens more often than I would care to experience. But now, YOU can be in charge of your own TV series. That’s right, you can make the characters do dumb things and then know that you made them do it. Much more satisfying lol. So much power.
That is only half a joke, because that is what this game is. It is essentially a high budget TV production where you have some sprinkled ‘game-play’. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, I quite enjoyed the ride and if you don’t want to read past this point, just know that if you want to experience a fascinating setting with a compelling narrative then this game is for you.
– Real player with 40.8 hrs in game
So, most of the reviews I see are pretty positive or negative, but not super descriptive? And it really doesn’t do it justice, because this game… Well, it has a lot to say but also nothing at all. I want to preface with that I actually really enjoyed the game. I liked most of the characters, I like that there are so many branching paths in every scene, I LOVED the graphics, and I did actually like the gameplay. Overall, I don’t think you’ll be wasting money if you decide to purchase. It has a high replayability as well, which is just a lot of value.
– Real player with 40.0 hrs in game