Alucinod

Alucinod

Got this heavily discounted (-75%) and I love it. Wouldn’t want to pay full price though. Very short. But I love the tone, the style, the feel of it. It’s quite sparse and has a weird sense of dread or emptiness to it, but also a great sense of mystery. It’s not particularly puzzling, and a some moving platforms can be a bit fiddly - but I just love the game world. I’ll be playing this through quite a few times I think. And hope to see more from this dev. Soundtrack is good - Eno-esque at times.

Real player with 91.6 hrs in game


Read More: Best FPS Experimental Games.


Other reviews say “short.” I don’t think it’s the duration of the game that’s the issue, but that there were genuinely not enough unique mechanics. Here’s how I see it; if there was a refined sequel to Alucinod, “Alucinod 1” would probably be skippable.

It felt more like a labyrinth with Portal style buttons and entrances. I would like to see other mechanics besides bringing boxes to floor buttons and timed switches. Although it’s understandable that creating unique puzzles with Escher style architecture will put you on the insane/genius spectrum. The only thing I’ve played where I’d say “this guy is crazy” is English Country Tune, creator of Stephen’s Sausage Roll.

Real player with 4.5 hrs in game

Alucinod on Steam

Shotgun, Dungeons, Laser Traps

Shotgun, Dungeons, Laser Traps

A terrible unpolished mess that feels more like a college project than a professional game being sold on Steam. The fact that this is being sold for $15 is laughable - it’d be a hard sell at $1.

The entire game consists of a few dozen scenarios which you can switch between freely from the main menu. Each one is less like a puzzle and more like a rectangular map that the devs haphazardly threw physics object down in. In each map, you get a shotgun which you use to, uh, shoot things. The “shotgun” shoots a single, slow-moving projectile that rotates or breaks (with no animation or sound) whatever it touches.

Real player with 0.1 hrs in game


Read More: Best FPS Physics Games.


Shotgun, Dungeons, Laser Traps on Steam

Believe

Believe

As a person of faith, I enjoyed this very short game. It is only 20-30 minutes long, so buy on sale. I took an hour because I had to play it twice as my first play through didn’t activate an ending. There are 2 endings to this game, so choose well!

You play as an archaeologist supported by an assistant back at base who can see everything you are seeing. It begins with you in a temple with side rooms representing the great religions and spiritual philosophies of the human race…..Islam, Judaism, Catholicism/Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism.

Real player with 1.1 hrs in game


Read More: Best FPS Point & Click Games.


It’s a short game mechanically revolves around solving a few puzzles. The concept is good and it’s not overbearing on it’s core message. It’s visually pleasing to say nothing of its fantastic use of it’s various great sound tracks.

Real player with 0.8 hrs in game

Believe on Steam

Otaku Club

Otaku Club

I’ve found my new niche game type. Puzzle games. This one isn’t my first. But I find this one definitely takes longer to solve. I have been playing it at EPIC difficulty. The combination of base colour Pink for background and nice artwork makes a relaxing experience.

I would recommend this if you like puzzle games. Buy it you won’t regret it.

Real player with 1.9 hrs in game

Otaku Club is a “template flip”, that is to say, it’s a “game” that has been produced by copying a game template and changing a few things. In this case it was a game construction kit/template for doing a simple jigsaw puzzle with less than a handful of low res images of Manga art girls. The “developer”, Rosa Special Studio, has done this over a dozen times now:

  • Sweet Halloween

  • My Sweet Ants

  • Mystical Lights

  • Cute Girls Love Books

  • Otaku Club

  • True Spring Love

Real player with 0.1 hrs in game

Otaku Club on Steam

Split

Split

Split is a first-person puzzle game with unique mechanics of creating copies of yourself and manipulating time. The gameplay combines many different types of puzzles from more and less famous puzzle games and takes them to a whole new perspective.

After the recent war, engineers from Epsilon Energy created the Split indestructible shield system. It was to protect individual giant cities covering almost the entire planet from armed conflicts. Different cities have different policies towards their citizens. In West Ulrage, every citizen gets a guardian robot at birth. In Hal’Tor, pairs of robots raise several children each. Whereas in Dievez, people are raised in large centers. Most jobs have been taken over by machines. People work mainly as mechanics, programmers or operators.

The Split control panel is riddled with numerous traps that will require both good reflexes and composure. You can try to destroy enemies or escape from them by using time manipulation and your own clones to distract them.

The game’s design refers to Brutalism, an architectural style popular around the 1970s. It was promoted, among others, by the game “Control”. We mixed this style with the digital environment from “Tron: Legacy”. The levels are full of nooks and crannies, which may seem empty at first glance, but lead to interesting places.

We were inspired by games such as:

Q.U.B.E.2”, “The Talos Principle”, “The Turing Test”, “Portal”, “The Witness” and “Antichamber”

Split on Steam

Underground Keeper 2

Underground Keeper 2

If you like Minesweeper, you will enjoy this.

Real player with 6.7 hrs in game

Nice relaxing first person minesweeper game.

Real player with 2.4 hrs in game

Underground Keeper 2 on Steam

Rewind

Rewind

This was a fun game to play, as it explored the rewind game mechanic fully, a mechanic touched on an amount in The Talos Principle. This was a nice light experience that reminded of the first person puzzle games that it was clearly inspired by. The story was a bit lacking, though, in my opinion. Perhaps, this is because I have come to expect so much from such games because of Portal and the above mentioned The Talos Principle. Still, this was pretty darn fun, and, especially at price point, I would say it’s worth it for the gameplay.

Real player with 9.5 hrs in game

It’s a fun puzzle game, although the game is a bit too short. The puzzles are easy to medium difficulty and the entire game can be finished in 4 hours or less. But they were a lot of fun. There are other puzzle games involving creating your own clone but this also involves a time travel aspect, kinda, that makes it a lot more enjoyable.

The game has a portal-ish feel to it. Just like Portal, your goal in each level is to reach the exit. You need to figure out how to reach the exit level. For that you clone yourself and use the clone to help you get there. But you can’t interact with the clone. The clone repeats exactly what you did the first time. The puzzle solving happens in 3 stages. First, you figure out what needs to be done to go through the exit. Then you need to figure out which version of you will do what. Finally, you execute your plan. I love the endorphin rush when my plan works out like it should, sometimes it might need a couple of tries to get things perfect, and I finally reach the exit.

Real player with 6.8 hrs in game

Rewind on Steam

Supraland Six Inches Under

Supraland Six Inches Under

Gameplay

In Supraland Six Inches Under is a First-Person-Metroidvania. That means, you’re in a gated world and the more abilities you gather, the more parts of the world you can access.

  • The gameplay consists of roughly 55% exploration, 35% solving puzzles and 10% combat.

  • The adventure will take between 8-20 hours.

  • Hundreds of gags

  • 2 funny gags

  • Has absolutely zero skilltrees

Compared to the first Supraland game:

  • The puzzles are simpler in the main path; hard puzzles are mostly optional

  • Exploration is the biggest part of the game

  • There is less combat

  • Much more optional content, a lot of it only accessible after the credits

The story behind the game

“Six Inches Under” was a little sideproject that was established to introduce new dev team members to our tools and workflow. Essentially it’s our preparation for the sequel to Supraland.

While David made the first game pretty much alone, he had a much smaller role in this one - mostly supervising and building two small areas.

It was supposed to be a little DLC for Supraland , but for some reason it got a bit out of hand and got more and more ambitous. Instead of 3 months it took us 2 years to make this.

It can be considered “Supraland 1.5” because there are still a lot things from the first game, but at the same time it’s an entire new world with a bunch of new mechanics.

Combat

If you’re a fan of the first Supraland you might be interested in the approach to combat in this new game. After having learned a lot of lessons the core concept was changed a lot and can still be considered experimental. The enemies are now much more separated from puzzles and won’t get in your way there. The all new enemy types behave much more different from each other and there is no more one-fits-all solution to them. Hope you like it!

Supraland Six Inches Under on Steam

The Abandoned

The Abandoned

https://youtu.be/BzeBX1enkwg

I don’t think I can recommend the game. It started out a little buggy but overall it just wasn’t very scary. It was also super dark in the hallways and no flashlight so it was difficult to see. I also couldn’t get passed the second locked door. I’m not sure if it bugged but there are pretty much no instructions on what to do so you end up just stumbling through and I ended up getting stuck. I personally just don’t think this is worth the price. If you want to see some game play you can check out my video above.

Real player with 0.6 hrs in game

I don’t necessarily know how to feel about this game just yet. There’s no direction and seemingly no plot, and it feels more like an escape game than a story-driven series. But I digress; hopefully, the developer has some cool things in store for the other chapters in this story that will be available as DLC. For now, I’ll leave you with my gameplay below. As it stands now, I can not in good faith recommend this game to other users for the price of 5$. If it were free, that would be a different story.

Real player with 0.5 hrs in game

The Abandoned on Steam

Hoop Gawds

Hoop Gawds

Welcome and Congratulations!

You have been chosen for the prestigious position of “Test Subject” for the monumental Experiment due to your undeniable ability to solve puzzles. We based this assessment on your usage of the “video games”.

You will be given a series of trials; many of which have fatal consequences. The ultimate goal will be to shoot a ball through a hoop, which opens a teleporter to the next test, although there may be other obstacles in your path as well. Don’t worry; it should be very easy for someone of your superior intellect and skill.

Campaign

You will be forced to navigate treacherous platforms, ride dangerous transporters, and utilize exciting effect hoops through 25 trials. The effect hoops include: Transporter Hoops, Respawn Hoops, Destruction Hoops, Gravity Hoops and Teleporter Hoops. You will need to use all of these elements to maneuver the map, activate the teleporter, and pass through it onto the next trial.

Sport Ball

This game features a local multiplayer mode designed to use the same controller and alternating turns for a unique gaming experience. Each player is given four sport balls, a Hoop Gawd gun, and three shots per turn. The first player to get all their sport balls through the sport goal wins! This mode is easy to learn, but difficult to master.

Trial Records

During the campaign, you have the option to show your current time and number of shots. The game also keeps track of your records for best time and lowest shot count, per trial. By default, these HUD elements are set to be off as they can add… stress to the experience. Once you’ve beaten the game though, use these to keep track of, and surpass, your current records.

Hoop Gawds on Steam