Of Bird and Cage
After waiting patiently for this game to release, I can firmly say the end product being so much more than I expected. The game plays on some very intense situations as you join Gitta on her downward spiral into addiction. You’re placed in scenarios where bad decisions can cost you your sanity and really throws out the question of how far are you willing to go for your next fix. One thing I absolutely loved about this game is that you can choose to not partake in Gitta’s vices, but will equally struggle with getting by. Indulging in her addiction will lead you down a broken path, but choosing to stay sober will give you a chance to experience the mind-numbing struggle of needing to take one more hit, but refusing to do so. That is really well done in this game.
– Real player with 10.5 hrs in game
Of Bird and Cage doesn’t really start until you approach the sound guy and ask to have your demo CD played. It is this very CD that provides the non-stop musical engine that drives the rest of this two-hour experience divided across three multi-part Acts and a summary credit sequence and epilogue. Once the music starts to play each and every scene in the game will unfold at the pace and length of each song, as displayed by the track progression meter at the bottom. When the music stops, the level ends regardless of what you have or haven’t done. You could simply stand there and do nothing for the duration of the song and the story will continue, albeit taking the failure path vs. a potentially different path if you were to accomplish the listed objectives. A list of tasks and sometimes collectibles will tell you what needs done before the music stops.
– Real player with 4.0 hrs in game
Once Upon a Jester
Once Upon a Jester is a story-driven, musical adventure about two best friends who decide to start their own theater show: Jester and Sok. When a visiting princess tells them about the Royal Theatrical Spectacle — a theater festival reserved for only the best shows in the realm — Jester knows he must do whatever it takes to qualify.
Will a lonely jester and an anthropomorphic sock puppet take their hometown show from rags to riches?
IMPROVISE YOUR OWN THEATER SHOW
With branching choices and improvisational moments, no two performances will ever be the same! Whether you decide to draw your sword, talk about your feelings or just randomly play the flute — the choice is yours.
DECIDE YOUR GENRE
Should you tell a joke, turn on the waterworks or introduce a little love? Choose between Comedy, Drama, Romance, and more!
IMPRESS A DYNAMIC, RESPONSIVE AUDIENCE
Every audience has its preference. Feel the rush of a crowd that loves your every action and the deepest sorrow of one that ignores you completely.
EXPLORE A VIBRANT FANTASY WORLD
Travel to memorable, hand-crafted locations like the cozy Dorp Town, the dark mysterious Woudwoods, and the radio-obsessed Stad City.
MAKE FRIENDS ALONG THE WAY
Running a theater show is tough work, but what would life be without friends? Meet a cast of characters including an endearing sock puppet, a Wendigo who dreams of becoming a dancer and a rebel princess with a passion for theater art.
A LOFI, INDIE-INFUSED SOUNDTRACK
Catchy songs, emotional music numbers and improvised tunes are all standard fare for a game with the Bonte Avond name.
Can’t wait to start your very own theatre adventure? Wishlist here and we’ll let you know when you can!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1668190/Once_Upon_a_Jester/
Read More: Best Choices Matter Indie Games.
Embracelet
Embrace the friendship
Embracelet is very chill game. It’s a story driven game about a boy who’s given a magical bracelet and it give the boy some supernatural powers. He travels to the small fictional island in Norway to find what happened to his grandad and his adventure begins.
On the way he finds friends and spends some time with them. There are some humorous scenes, sad moments and even some thrilling action. Nevertheless the game is very relaxing. All the main characters are really lovable but maybe there’s not enough time to fully connect with them. I wish I could’ve spent more time with those two friends to know them better.
– Real player with 7.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Choices Matter Indie Games.
Embracelet is a narrative and expressive 3D adventure in third person view with low poly graphic style. It was developed by Mattis Folkestad, founder of the one man studio Machineboy in Norway; he composed even the soundtrack. It is commendable that an indie author has ventured into the difficult task of developing a narrative and expressive game with few financial and human resources; that’s the reason why the game is worth of our attention. Let me say that the experiment is totally successful. I’m very happy that Mattis submitted a copy of the game to my curator page on Steam; it’s very rare to receive games as good as this one. You can play it also on Nintendo Switch.
– Real player with 7.8 hrs in game
ODDADA
ODDADA is currently in developement. We are still adding and changing lots of stuff!
Sandbox
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Put together your own musical construction kit from modules, little houses and unique sound colors
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Create your own musical landscape while building up the village
Story Mode
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Get to know the odd and magical world of ODDADA
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Solve puzzles and experiment in little musical mini games
Evergreen Blues
Found this while looking for free horror games. I don’t play games like these but this…this does put a smile on my face.
I want more.
– Real player with 1.3 hrs in game
This game is so beautiful and relaxing! It’s simple to play and doesnt take long to complete but is a game I’ve found soothing and 100% replayable
– Real player with 0.6 hrs in game
The Lion’s Song: Episode 1 - Silence
Listen.
I played through this game twice.
I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I believe you should play it…
But I don’t think it’s good at what it tries to do. In fact, I think it’s disastrously bad.
Mechanics-wise, The Lion’s Song is simple: it’s Telltale-style stuff. Many choices, some consequences. A few simple but situation-appropriate puzzles. That’s all.
Setting-wise, it tries to depict the Belle Époque that was cut short by WWI. And that’s where in my opinion it fails spectacularly. Why though? All the attributes of the period are in place. No anachronisms. Historical figures show up on-screen. It tries to explore the directions art, music and math took at the time. It explores social tendencies. So what’s the big deal?
– Real player with 13.3 hrs in game
There are many reasons why “The Lion’s Song” is one of the best games I have played in 2017. From music to characters and design: The game did many things right.
| Story | In each of the four episodes you’ll experience the story of different characters that are slowly discovering themselves in the setting of Austria in the beginning of the 20th century, not long before WW1. Even if the episodes themselves don’t build upon one another, they’re informally interwoven. |
– Real player with 13.2 hrs in game
The Ballad Singer
As much as I would like to recommend this game, I just can’t. I could say that it has beautiful graphics, is fully voiced, has an intricate story with 4 characters, who sometimes cross with each other, has nice soundtrack and several QoL features, like ability to double the speed of narrator’s voice to speed up the game.
But all of this gets completely ruined by absolutely unfair death mechanic and BS choices. At the beginning of the game you’re warned that you will die here, a lot, that’s why developers created fate system. You have limited amount of fate points, every time your character dies you can either continue the game as other character or restart your last choice. Both of these options consume 1 fate point. Ok, so you decided to create a game that revolves around constant danger and death traps, fine. Surely, you will spend extra time making these deaths logical, so only if player actually made a mistake they would die, right? No. Most of choices in the game that lead to your death are absolutely random and, unless you already know which one is the right one, you will die not because you’ve made a mistake, but because you drew a short stick. Here are few examples, technically spoilers:
! I am an “elf” in the middle of the forest who needs to get to the cabin in the distance and sees two roads: a big, stone one or small, trodden one. She has to pick one. I chose small, trodden one. Game then tells me that I spend some time walking on that road and noticed that it leads in completely other direction from the cabin and that day is closing to the night. Now I’m faced with another choice - continue on this road, or go back and choose other road. I, thinking that this new piece of information is game hinting me that I chose wrong, choose to go back and pick the big road. And I died. Because apparently there’s some shitty death trap on the big road. How was I supposed to know that? There were no hints, there was actually a fake hint that made me choose the wrong road.. Another example -
! I am a mage and am currently fighting a giant water elemental. She (yes, she has gender) creates a water wave and I need to defend myself. There are three options: make a tornado, create stone wall or create a flame shield around me. Now, the last one is obviously a bad desision as I’m fighting a water elemental who, surely, can easily fight fire (also, earlier in the game, we already used another water elemental to fight fire elemental, so it’s logical even in game). This would be a logical death choice. Developers could choose other two choices as “right” ones - they will allow you to continue the fight, but give different texts or future options, because the fight would progress differently. That would be cool. But no. Only one of these choices is correct - tornado. Why? Why the fuck should I pick tornado, except by random? I picked the stone wall, because surely, the stone wall can stop water wave. No, you died, fool. And, despite me playing only for two hours, the game gave me tons of such choices already. They, aside from making the player angry, completely ruin the immersion. No, you’re not a mage trying master the elements, you’re an idiot, sitting before your PC and who was unlucky to pick the wrong choice, so now you have to reload and make the “correct” one and it’s correct because developer said so. A death should be a result of either one very dumb and obviously wrong decision, or a series of bad decisions with hints that you’re doing everything wrong. Not what we have here.
– Real player with 15.9 hrs in game
If you came here with one thumb on your lighter, ready to lose yourself in some heart-wrenching ballads, I’m afraid I’ve got bad news for you. I didn’t encounter my first ballad until at least 3 or 4 hours in, and it was pretty underwhelming when it finally arrived.
Yeah, their choice of titles doesn’t make a lot of sense, and neither do most of the other choices in this game.
Well, I can’t say I wasn’t warned. They always told me not to judge a book by its cover, and that’s exactly what I did. Can you blame me, though? On the surface it looks great. It’s got that Extremely Fantasy, D&D manual sort of vibe. Everywhere you look you find fierce monsters and sharpened blades, towering dragons, fireball-hurling wizards and pots of stew consumed in shady inns full of adventures just waiting to happen.
– Real player with 7.8 hrs in game
Elisa: the Innkeeper
This has been a bag of mixed feelings. I appreciate the art and music. CGs are plentiful enough & no critical moment looks ignored. But the characters, the effing characters man, nearly everyone is a stiff stereotype too absorbed in their own way to ever break out of their molds. Moreover, the ‘good endings’ aren’t satisfying at all. Just one last decision at the end completely flips these characters who rigth up until then will have been acting like their way is unconditionally the right way, just to bring about that ‘good’ conclusion. I don’t know, maybe this is how the devs intended the plot and characters to be, but it soured my overalll experience somewhat :(
– Real player with 6.9 hrs in game
As far as Visual Novels go, this one has to be the most feature packed. The replayability is boosted by the ability to control the behaviors of not just the “main character” but all the supporting characters as well. Making one character a pervert, and making that same character smart and good natured in another playthrough.
There is one thing that bothers me though, and that is the Knight.
Possible Spoiler Warning
! The Prince is short tempered and stubborn, and the Merchant is level-headed but flaunts his wealth. Supposedly, the Knight was meant to be something in between these two extremes. Elisa even comments that the fact that he refuses to flirt with her makes her wants to try even harder… then within the next 10 minutes of game, he is already falling over himself to keep her around. He knows nothing about her, and she knows nothing about him. There was no character development, and yet he has become a totally different person just in the time it took her to change his bed sheets.
– Real player with 6.6 hrs in game
Rising Star 2
Overview
Let it be known that the developer specifically sought an opinion for Rising Star 2 from someone who enjoys simulation games and is a fan of Rock and/or Heavy Metal. Thankfully ReviewExperts has such an admin in ol' Il Pallino! There hasn’t been many games involving band management in the history of video games, but Rising Star 2 has something imperceptible that many great management sims lack. As expected, the player leads a band by designing the face and body of a musician, and once in game, recruits other band members, buys musical equipment, writes songs, and when enough material is had, the player goes about entering their band in “battle of the bands” competitions and finding gigs in dive bars as a supporting act. With enough popularity, the band can retain a manager who can perform a number of tasks, but the most important in the short term being to find gigs at larger venues, which increases band exposure, leading to more fans and more opportunities to sell merchandise. (Only managers can book shows at theaters and stadiums.) With enough grinding and traveling from city to city starting at the bottom, the player’s band can one day become mega-stars headlining in sold out stadiums.
– Real player with 324.8 hrs in game
EDIT on 7/8/2021 after 2 likes
Originally, I wrote a review after about 50 hours. In a nutshell, I wrote that it would be a good manager if not for two major mistakes and a gameplay, that unnecessarily makes it too much of a timesink. Since I was ready to give up, I gave it a thumbs down.
Well, I didn’t give up and here we are, 60 hours or so later. I still think, that a single manual save spot in a game like this is unacceptable. I still think, that it is a cardinal design flaw, that the player cannot choose, which effects equipment is used. And I still think that the (in-game) daily routine could be handled better. However, what I came to realize is that the progression of one’s band gets faster, once one hits the mid-game. In fact, I very much appreciate it that there is a noticeable step in between game phases. One has to re-think and re-design strategies. This came as unexpectedly as the original realization that the game has a strong strategic element to begin with.
– Real player with 192.0 hrs in game
Trivia Vault: Classic Rock Trivia 2
You get what you paid for, 5K achievements at minimum price. If you’re an achievement hunter looking to increase the number of achievements on your profile showcase, then I highly recommend buying this. Else don’t waste your money. This is not a game, it’s just a way of distributing achievements.
– Real player with 6.2 hrs in game
Fun questions but it is not good that they changed it so there is 5000 achievements. That removes all the seriousness in the game and that is just sad to see.
– Real player with 4.8 hrs in game