Gorogoa
Another unique incredible gaming experience. This is a visual puzzle game and nothing more. You must help you character collect 5 pieces of fruit. During your collage journey you will find a hidden, non-verbal storyline. I will let you reflect on it on your own rather than my telling you what I think it meant, but I really liked the backdrop of it all especially at the end.
The game has your screen split into 4 corners. Each corner can have its own images. You can zoom into things, or move the screen around to find object to click on or matching scenes to allow your character to walk from one image to the other. The way the game works is a unique gameplay gimmick and I feel that it was absolutely done the most brilliant way it can ever be done. The devs who made this are true artists in the sense that their imagination took over entirely to create a world within a world within a world where eventually you could find things that match and try to make it come together to help you move on to the next scene.
– Real player with 4.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best Hand-drawn Puzzle Games.
Gorogoa, interesting name, even more interesting game. A buddy of mine at work who is a fellow programmer came over to me and said I have to check out “Gorogoa”. At the time I had no clue what it was and didn’t even know how to spell it. We had talked extensively about Zachtronic games and games that are like programming as well as Cookie Clicker, so I was confused. Later that day I walked by and I saw him playing it.
He was moving tiles around a whiteboard and the tiles were gorgeous, but the thing that enraptured me was how the tiles were able to connect. I went back to my desk and picked up the bundle on Steam with Edith Finch as I was looking forward to playing both games. I was not disappointed in the least with either purchase.
– Real player with 4.3 hrs in game
GRIS
A great game if you like simple platformers without complicated puzzles.
A terrible game if you like good puzzles where stuff happens. The puzzles are very simple, you often have to just press a button and wait for your character to walk somewhere, and the beautiful artstyle gets really boring once you realize how often everything repeats itself.
– Real player with 25.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best Hand-drawn Atmospheric Games.
A lone female character facing off against enemies that represent mental illnesses while usually in a dim, black and white/grey, or colourless world isn’t anything new. Far from it.
There are plenty out there (Little Nightmares, Shady Part of Me, Celeste, Child of Light, Hellblade, Amnesia Rebirth, Ib, Limbo (but a boy), and more)
So with that in mind I wondered what Gris (apparently pronounced “gree”) could add to the already overcrowded, overdone trope/setting.
It was fun while it lasted. Great art and animation. Nice soundtrack. You can’t die so you go at your own pace. It was a nice day playing it (about 6 hours to 100%)
– Real player with 8.2 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
Towaga: Among Shadows
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Review by Gaming Masterpieces - The greatest games of all time on Steam.
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Is this game a masterpiece? What you get is great, but it is still a simple arcade game without too much content. Story mode, survival mode, and as a bonus a simple local multiplayer brawler.
Squeaming like pigs they rush at you from all sides, while you stand in the middle and exorcise them with your mighty ray of light. That is the core game mechanic here, and it is fun. It is basically a twin-stick shooter without movement - you just stand like a rock and kill those nasties, saving their souls. Spells help you to defeat the ever increasing numbers and types of soul beasts attacking you, including some bosses. A few levels allow you to fly and move while killing the monsters.
– Real player with 6.8 hrs in game
9/10
A beautiful game with great animations and amazing soundtrack. Fun gameplay that doesn’t get stale so many upgrades!
– Real player with 6.5 hrs in game
When The Past Was Around - Prologue
The prologue to When The Past Was Around demonstrates the premise (a point-and-click adventure journey through escape-room memories) and the distinctive art style (emotional yet precisely ruled, with a bit of a design catalog feel). The spaces are spare, the stools and characters are both spindly-legged and stylish, and the furnishings and accents are old worn woods that give everything a tone of sepia-tinged nostalgia.
When the Past Was Around seems to sit almost precisely between works like Florence, which perform memories through interaction, works like Gris, whose environments are metaphors for having big feelings, and works from the Rusty Lake series, whose similar animal-headed characters and antique-shop decor stylings present clickable escape rooms as entrees into horror, not tender nostalgia.
– Real player with 1.0 hrs in game
When the Past was Around - Free Prologue
When the Past was Around claims to be about love, loss and moving on and follows 20-year-old Edda and her mysterious companion through a series of disjointed and puzzle-filled rooms seemingly made from memories.
Overall, the game was a short but charming little experience. It took a mere 15 minutes to complete but this was enough to make me curious and enthusiastic about the game’s full release and I’d definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys slightly abstract, point-and-click puzzle games.
– Real player with 0.9 hrs in game
Ghost in the pool
For a short horror VN, the game was pretty decent. I did enjoy reading the story, which was pretty straight forward and to the point for the most part. There were some bits that I was a bit confused by even though I could probably connect the dots (
! specifically talking about the cat…). There are three different endings, which I do like the variety. I also do like the route map and that different choices did slightly change a few things (though the endings themselves do not change). The graphics were great and I loved the sounds.
– Real player with 7.5 hrs in game
Curator page here-- [url] DaRevieweD #61 [/url] -- [i]New review every Sunday[/i]
CASCHA games is a solo developer from China working on two visual novels; Ghost in The Pool (GiTP) and in-development Sunset Paradise. GiTP is a joint effort with author and comic illustrator JOEY, to bring the latter’s horror works to life in a new medium. Due to a language barrier, sadly I cannot (though I’m Chinese) read nor check out the comics. However, I was hooked into this game because the title reminded me of a widely debated mystery in my hometown.
– Real player with 4.9 hrs in game
LUNA The Shadow Dust
Luna: The Shadow Dust
Superior hand drawn artwork and an award winning sound track make this game memorable. As a puzzle game it proves to be mostly a rewarding experience although the story is a little confusing.
First Impressions🙄
The first thing that strikes you is the wonderful artwork and sound. It really is something special. Throughout the game we are treated to some wonderful cut scenes and cinematics culminating in a very dramatic ending.
Luna predominantly is a puzzle game. It does have a story but it is a bit confusing and although the artwork and music was superb it is difficult to tell a story with no words. I think I would need to play this game again in one sitting to understand the story. Even with this confusion onboard, I still felt moved at the conclusion however.
– Real player with 10.6 hrs in game
Take an Amanita game, blend the artsy style of GRIS in and give it a room-escape twist: this is what playing LUNA The Shadow Dust essentially feels like. For me, this was an unforgettable experience: it’s a unique and magical game with an emotional and heartwarming story and an amazing soundtrack.
I am a big fan of Amanita games, and LUNA The Shadow Dust takes the best aspects of their specific style (the way the puzzles are built, charming characters, whimsical machinery with all sorts of cute buttons that do unexpected funny things etc.) and tops them up with with a watercolour hand-painted 2D art and a haunting soundtrack, both reminiscent of GRIS’ unique artistic design. And just like in GRIS, the enchanting story is told without words, through images and an immersive, moving soundtrack, extremely fitting for the game setting.
– Real player with 6.5 hrs in game
Shapik: The Moon Quest
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Review by Gaming Masterpieces - The greatest games of all time on Steam.
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Is this game a masterpiece? Nope, but it is still a fine point’n’click adventure in the spirit of Machinarium. Move your character from room to room, solving puzzles to open the way to the next room. No speech (ok, some gibberish), no text (unless you can read alien language), all (not too hard) puzzles have to be solved by visual clues. The story sounds grim, but despite depicting a post apocalyptic world it’s not grim, just alien. You don’t die, there are no hidden monsters, just damaged equipment you have to repair or maybe slightly unfriendly creatures. There is some pixel hunting, but no dead ends. Hidden parcels unlock design documents. The game is short, there are 22 chapters until you reach the end. No achievements, no ultrawidescreen support.
– Real player with 4.7 hrs in game
Nice little adventure game, hand drawn art
The hand drawn scenes were the showstoppers., very pretty. Slightly surreal planet, point and click as you go, puzzles so simple I’m not sure you’d call them puzzles, relaxing soundtrack that matched the scenes. The story made sense, and it was nice that there was no dialogue and instead amusing little grunts and pictograms. It’s a cozy feel-good that’s about 3.5 hours, with easter eggs you can go back for in chapter mode if you didn’t find them all on the first run-through. Also played just fine on 1.6 GHz Mac, lower than the 2 GHz requirement.
– Real player with 4.7 hrs in game
She and the Light Bearer
I absolutely love the art in this game and the story was cute. If you enjoy casual point and click games this will make you smile.
The game was pretty easy to get through without much challenge as the points of interest light up on screen. Making it pretty hard to miss things. There is at least one missable achievements due to needing to click on something before reaching a specific point in Chapter 2. But if you want a quick 100% Hanni has written a guide to zip you through.
The toughest achievement for me turned out to be during the credits to collect the orbs since one section requires timing correctly and if you failed you need to restart and re-watch the end of the last chapter just to try again. It was pretty annoying to me after a handful of tries from either missing the timing, or my mouse click not actually clicking. Just for info, Left mouse click to jump at the orbs and holding left mouse increases height.
– Real player with 9.2 hrs in game
[Review : She and the Light Bearer]
** SPOILER ALERT, kinda **
A heartwarming fairytale
8.5/10
Finally.
It’s been 3 years since my first encounter with She project and i always wait for this miracle to happen. And god do i love this game.
This might be the longest review i’ve ever written
Thanks to Mojiken Studio and Miss Brigitta Rena for creating such amazing fairytale
And thanks to Toge Productions for the publishing this awesome project.
A bit of a history.
So about 3 years ago in mid 2016 is when i first acknowledge about Itch.io. In one of recommendation section i saw one of Mojiken Studio’s game, A Space for The Unbound (if i recall yes, that’s the game i saw) and played it. I start browsing their library and one of their project caught my eyes, She Who Once Was Lost.
– Real player with 3.8 hrs in game
Dordogne
Dordogne is a narrative adventure game in which you play as Mimi, a 32-year-old woman visiting the house of her recently deceased grandmother. As a souvenir of the childhood summers Mimi spent with her in Dordogne, her grandmother left her letters and puzzles to solve, to remind her to make the most out of life.
In this colourful region, full of wonderful scents and feelings, Mimi will immerse herself back into her childhood memories, and see once again through the eyes of the little girl who marveled at everything.
Dordogne is set both in the present and the past. In the present timeline, Mimi explores the rooms in her grandmother’s home. In the past timeline, you’ll help a 10-year-old Mimi explore Dordogne and complete her quests, affecting the present.
Along with the puzzles that both versions of Mimi will solve, you’ll collect photos, sounds, objects and words to create Mimi’s journal – keeping young Mimi’s memories of summers spent with her grandmother in Dordogne.
Add Dordogne to your wishlist to get notified of its release!
A wholesome family story
Discover the close relationship between Mimi and her grandmother through touching and fun gameplay moments. We hope that these slices of life, from the most trivial to the most symbolic, can make you remember your own positive childhood memories.
Explore the beautiful Dordogne region
Through the quests of young Mimi, discover the beautiful environments of Dordogne. Faithfully adapted into watercolour, they’ll immerse you in this charming French region, so dear to Mimi. Forest walks, climbing, kayaking, cave explorations… Discover these typical activities of the region.
Puzzles and mysteries to progress in the story
While playing as Mimi in the present (as an adult) and in the past (as a child), you’ll need to be resourceful and patient to solve puzzles and mysteries left by her grandmother.
Craft Mimi’s journal
With pictures, sounds, objects and words that Mimi collects, let your creativity flow and create Mimi’s journal, unique to each playthrough. A truly symbolic object of a high sentimental value, it reflects Mimi’s adventures and memories of Dordogne, and the connection she shares with her grandmother