Ignatius
Very good game, love the ambience and the great art.
Recommended.
The installed .exe has been renamed and Steam didn’t find it in my drive D :
Just copied and renamed the folder “Ignatius - Reunited_Data” to “Ignatius_Data”, and the exe “Ignatius - Reunited.exe” to “Ignatius.exe”, and Steam worked ok (otherwise no played time is registered).
– Real player with 4.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Emotional Stylized Games.
This game is an adorable noir style game with great coloured highlights. The music is creepy, there are puns that are amazing, and the story is sweet.. The game is generally quite easy, BUT, if you move incorrectly can be very unforgiving - but it was worth it and I had a lot of laughs with it.. The design is just beautiful - there are a few spelling errors and jittery bits but in my opinion I put it down to it feeling like an old school movie that used to flicker and for all I know, that’s how its meant to be portrayed.. The enemies aren’t overly hard, it would be easily playable by a younger audience.. It reminds me of other games that I have played such as Machinarium and looks similar to what Limbo looks like - but it was still beautiful regardless..
– Real player with 2.6 hrs in game
Deep Abyss
Deep Abyss is composed of independent chapters, connected as one structure.
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It has a unique Control that seems unfamiliar yet simple to get used to.
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Explore the deep sea and space yourself as a diver. Swim through strange yet beautiful backgrounds and music. It will give you a new gaming experience that you have not felt in other games.
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The story progresses in the form of poetry rather than a linear composition. It is a game resembling a small painting where you can achieve poetic and artistic sensibility.
Read More: Best Emotional Underwater Games.
Raven’s Point
Raven’s Point is a town. Raven’s Point is also a game. Solve puzzles and explore a seemingly never-ending maze of unnerving hallways and rooms inside a terrifying house of secrets. You’re not only trapped within the town of Raven’s Point, you’re also trapped within the game.
DEEP EXPLORATION
Dive down into the rabbit hole of Sara’s mind-bending, ever-changing home. Rooms will appear and disappear and new paths will unearth themselves as you explore deeper and deeper into the darkest recesses of the house. With dozens of alternate paths to take and hundreds of secrets waiting to be found, the world of Raven’s Point is shrouded in both mystery and intrigue.
ABSTRACT PUZZLE-SOLVING
In Sara’s attempt to escape her home, the house itself is a puzzle waiting to be solved. New branches can be unlocked and discovered, hidden areas can be unearthed, and secrets can be found through unconventional puzzle mechanics that test both your creativity and abstract puzzle solving skills.
CONFRONT YOUR INNER DEMONS
During her journey, Sara must learn to confront and overcome the demons hunting after her. Taking the form of her own personal traumas, her own mind is often the greatest enemy. Unsure who to trust, she must find a way to avoid different terrifying threats whilst piecing together the fragments of her mind to feel whole again. She must decide whether the greatest enemy is herself, or the person controlling her.
LEARN NEW LOGIC
Raven’s Point is a game that constantly changes around you. Each room is unique and offers multiple secrets and methods of exploration. Objects that weren’t there before may suddenly appear, rooms that were there before are suddenly different, things that wouldn’t normally be possible are suddenly viable. Raven’s Point is a game meant to be played like it’s a game. It aims to create a whole new world of logic that leaves you questioning what is real and which secrets were meant to be discovered. A feeling of accomplishment yet emptiness. A feeling you didn’t want to experience. Become immersed in the town of Raven’s Point but don’t forget everything is trapped within the window. Don’t be afraid to break the rules.
FEATURES
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A house with a seemingly impossible layout that changes around each move you make.
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Unique puzzles with surreal solutions.
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A variety of twisted bosses, each with their own new gameplay elements.
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Numerous characters to encounter with their own tragic tales and questionable motives.
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Lots and lots of secrets.
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Places you aren’t meant to find.
Disclaimer:
This game contains themes of depression and anxiety which may make it unsuitable for some audiences.
Read More: Best Emotional Survival Horror Games.
The Gardens Between
Imagine playing with a very beautifully illustrated and intricate pop-up book. That is about as good a description I can give you for what The Gardens Between is. You can close and open the page to make things move backwards and forwards. But seeing as this is a digital pop-up book we can add some other mechanics too such as using lanterns to clear fog which would have otherwise been blocking your way. We can spin a dial to mess with the chronological order of other things independent of us….and just in general we can manipulate time to solve puzzles and uncover a fully relaxing and heartwarming story of two friends who love each other.
– Real player with 7.8 hrs in game
The first time I loaded The Gardens Between and saw the title screen, I knew I was in for something special. I was reminded immediately of the initial screen for “Braid” a game that I constantly referred back to for The Gardens Between. And like “Braid”, The Gardens Between is a beautiful puzzle game that often uses time as a mechanic and rewards patience, interest and pondering of the tales we tell ourselves of our rose-tinted youth.
The Gardens Between is a universal story then, all told without a script, dialogue or any written words whatsoever. As you journey with our young friends, Arina and Frendt, you get a sense of their personality and their enduring friendship and moments together, through objects that make up the levels and the snippets of moments they share when each is completed.
– Real player with 6.5 hrs in game
Summer in Mara
Being up front the game has a lot of issues. It won’t teach you basic mechanics and it is very easy to get frustrated with quests due to a lack of information. There are some side quests that you are given that you cannot complete because you don’t have access to certain items yet. However the game never mentions that you will later get access to those certain things if you progress the main quest which has led to me looking everywhere for certain things only to learn that I have to progress the main story to gain access to them. While this isn’t outright a bad thing, I personally think it is poor game design to tell your players to get a certain item, while they don’t have access to that item yet.
– Real player with 52.9 hrs in game
Little Koa is growing up on a small island in the middle of Mara. She is alone now, tending to her island but dreaming about exploring the whole world and becoming a pirate one day! When she finds a strange little creature on the beach her days of loneliness are over. With her new friend, Napopo, she set sails to the vast Mara seas. Koa will then meet different kinds of people with their own dreams, problems or old pains and although she is only a kid, she will do everything in her power to help them.
– Real player with 46.8 hrs in game
The Window Box
Beautiful and wonderfully written. If you enjoy visual novels this is definitely for you.
Visually alone, this game is incredibly stunning and unique. For me personally I find most visual novels fall flat in this category so it’s refreshing to see a new take on it.
Storywise, I was never bored or felt like “yeah okay whatever” so I feel like I got my moneys worth alone for this.
It’s definitely much different than any other visual novel I’ve played, various themes and concepts are discussed in an interesting way. Some things I felt personally connected to and that’s not something I’ve experienced much in a video game at all, let alone a visual novel.
– Real player with 249.7 hrs in game
The Window Box by Sundew Studios is a dark comedic visual novel about five college friends catching up. This point-and-click game allows you to find out more about the girls’ back story while solving puzzles and discovering the dark truth about Elsa’s new life. Is any of these strange twists real or is the stress of relationships, work, and the prospects of having a baby driving these women insane?
Being a visual novel, the first thing I usually notice is the art style and music. Since games like this have very limited gameplay, those two things are very important. With that being said, I really enjoyed the music in The Window Box. I felt that it fit the tone of the game very well but wasn’t too distracting. I did also enjoy the art style. The characters reminded me of fashion designs and sketches. They were all unique and had their own personality, just based on their designs alone. The backgrounds and objects in the game were really pretty as well. The tone of the whole art style really fit the dark whimsy aesthetic they were going for.
– Real player with 4.5 hrs in game
All That Remains: A story about a child’s future
The good: The island looks really good, and the controls handle smoothly.
The bad: The notes that you have to find are waaaaaay, way, way too long and uninteresting. I generally love exploring games and piecing together stories through notes, but this game just falls completely flat. It’s not fun or interesting at all.
Also, I’m not sure what audience they’re wanting to appeal to, but it feels like this game was made for 6-10 year olds. The themes and style of writing seem like they’re aimed at children. Since you play as a ten year old, perhaps this really is meant to be a children’s game.
– Real player with 2.1 hrs in game
Here is the first in-depth review of the game:
Game Revision I Played: 3.1
Game play:
The description of this game on its store page says it all. It is essentially a walking simulator. You walk around, find one of several panels, click on said panel, and the text that pops up is read to you. That text goes through different aspects of a girls life starting from 10 years old to about right before the start of college. That’s the whole game. Very basic in design, no mechanics in any way. It is ONLY story driven by the voice narrator.
– Real player with 1.4 hrs in game
Life Tastes Like Cardboard
TLDR
+++++sound design
++++storytelling
+++art
–-some unclear puzzles/ fuzzy sense of progression
-lots of reading if you hate reading
What I played: Life Tastes Like Cardboard
What I expected: sad man talks to a raccoon
What I got: depression
Long Version
I really wanted to do just a joke review, but it would not do this game justice.
I did not expect this game to have so much content. I found this game like everyone else, browsing games on Steam out of boredom. Especially a free game bold enough to have MS paint scrawled on its forefront, this is an unforgettable experience. I didn’t realize it was a so-called “walking simulator,” but I now realize it after finishing it. I still recommend it with complete sincerity. This game is all about putting you into moods and atmospheres. As clichés go, it really is surreal. I don’t regret the hours I’ve lost to this game.
– Real player with 12.4 hrs in game
The only way to describe this game is “human”.
Probably the only game I’ve ever played where I wanted to meet it’s maker, to talk to him and make sure everything’s alright. This game will hit everyone differently, as it should. Some people will be completely in sync with it, others will have vague memories to when their life was like this, and to other this will be a completely foreign experience. I’ve never felt so attached to a character that is practically a piece of crudely drawn printer paper. It’s a game that I wish as many people can play. But at the same time, its small audience makes it something truly special, like a small band of moths that found a lost flame that it cannot escape.It’s so weird how such a niche piece of media has made me more emotional than entire corporate AAA titles can ever achieve.
– Real player with 11.5 hrs in game
Skaramazuzu
Somewhere between life and death, there is a world made up of hopeful dreams and broken shadows. Souls may sometimes find themselves lured into this strange world to be tested. Examined to find out where they are worthy of moving on to.
Zuzu - A lost Soul
Skaramazuzu is an atmospheric 2D slow-paced, story-driven adventure, taking place in a moody, solemn and mysterious landscape. The protagonist Zuzu, a joyful and innocent soul without any memory, has been summoned by a mysterious entity called Master to discover the meaning of its existence. Through this bizarre journey, Zuzu will meet some strange and capricious personalities who offer to help.
Game Features
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A classic story-driven 2D Adventure, crafted with the appropriate modern and fresh approach.
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Explore over 20 distinct interconnected locations of a strange and dark world.
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Highly-tuned casual 2D controls. Control Skaramazuzu and interact with the characters and the world with minimal effort.
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Full support for keyboards and controllers! Play and enjoy the game with your favorite configuration.
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Discover the story of Skaramazuzu and Master, a unique duo of a lost soul and a mysterious entity.
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Collect and give items with an easy-to-use inventory system.
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A vast collection of creepy and cute characters, all brought to life with traditional 2D frame-by-frame animation.
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Meet and interact with over 20 unique surreal characters and unlock their individual stories.
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Graphic Assets and animation frames with resolution up to 2,5K
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Unique sound effects for every interactive element.
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A peculiar sound system of voice emotes and expressions for every character.
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A dark, atmospheric original score accompanies the players on their journey.
The void
The world of Skaramazuzu, has a unique aesthetic of a black and white shadow puppet world, set among the ruins of ancient gothic-like structures, while all the while engulfed in a moody and subdued pale ghost light. Every part of this strange landscape offers something new for you to discover. You will encounter almost every location to the unique backgrounds and soundscapes that will enchant you with their sombre and dreamlike aesthetic from the interesting yet mysterious characters. Skaramazuzu is a slow-paced, story-driven adventure game with a cute, creepy, moody and strange feeling.
A collection of surreal and strange personalities
Many strange and whimsical characters are waiting to be discovered by Zuzu on this adventure. Every character will be willing to listen and help Zuzu and ask for something in return. Some of these strange personalities might turn out to be key figures in Zuzu’s little peculiar adventure. By accepting to help these newfound friends, Zuzu will not only learn a little about each one of them but will eventually learn the truth about this strange world.
The Bridge
The Bridge is a 2D puzzle game with beautiful Escher-like architecture and level design, hand-drawn black-and-white art and its own laws of physics. It is divided into 48 levels with the first half requiring minimal use of logic and feeling like somewhat of a pushover; fortunately, this is mostly remedied in the second half—a mirrored version of the first with additional obstacles thrown in and where a greater number of puzzles actually make you think.
The puzzles start off easily enough, with simple gravity manipulation and key collection, then introduce additional elements consistently: deadly balls which roll as you rotate the environment and can adhere to their own laws of gravity; points which invert gravity and shift you between black and white dimensions where you may only interact with objects matching your current color; vortexes which suck anything near them into place and hold them there until deactivated; mirror images of yourself which require entering multiple doors or picking up multiple keys simultaneously to progress; and gravity curtains, where you may remain stationary while rotating the world to work objects into their desired positions relative to your own.
– Real player with 10.7 hrs in game
Let me start by saying that The Bridge is not a bad game. For an indie game the developers should be proud of what they’ve accomplished. If there were a somewhere-between-thumbs-up-and-thumbs-down button this is the game I would most want to use it for.
I leaned on the side of not recommending it though, for several reasons. This game is inevitably compared to Braid because it has an artsy style, time manipulation, and puzzles. But it’s nowhere near the level of those other puzzle games I love, including Braid or Limbo or even Master Reboot. The reason is mostly depth and story. There simply isn’t that much here. And what does exist is far too obscure and limited to be moving.
– Real player with 10.6 hrs in game