Before the Echo
Very unique spin on an otherwise commonly used rhythm game mechanic.
Anyone who has played rhythm games is all too familiar with the standard mechanic of having 4 columns of arrows falling in tune with the music. Sequence manages to make a very strong tactical/multi-tasking game out of it by having 3 seperate grids. One grid is the mana grid, which you use to get mana to cast spells - it’s very common to miss lots of beats here in preference to landing beats on the other 2 grids. This is also where the beats primarily follow the song. Another grid is the defensive grid - beats that fall here and you don’t hit will reduce your HP until you hit 0 and lose. The other grid is the spell grid. At any time you have the mana for it, you can choose to cast a spell - the effects vary from dealing damage to the enemy, healing, lifestealing, hitting the enemy with damage over time, giving yourself a mana boost, boosting the strength of the next spell you cast. Each individual spell has its own beat combination that doesn’t change with the exception of inverting a few presses, left instead of right, etc, and also significant changes between difficulties. All these different spells are balanced by difficulty of input, how much blank space is there in between beats (to allow for swapping to other grids), as well as cooldown before you can cast that same spell again. Anything less than 100% on a spell input results in it failing, going on cooldown, and using up mana.
– Real player with 21.8 hrs in game
I received this game as part of one of the Humble Bundles, and I’m glad I did! I really enjoyed this game, and I would highly recommend it. :) I also think it is worth the $5 on Steam.
To give you a general idea of this game, it is similar to Step Mania only with an actual storyline. If you don’t know what Step Mania is, it’s basically DDR (dance dance revolution) for the PC. However, Sequence is kind of refreshing because it isn’t just arrows flying up the screen to music. In this game, you have three different sets of arrows that travel down the screen, and you have to switch between the sets. One is your defense, one is your attack/magic, and the other is your mana. This keeps things interesting and sometimes challenging (depending on the difficulty). Yes, you are battling enemies instead of “dancing” to music like you would in Step Mania.
– Real player with 19.6 hrs in game
Where the Bees Make Honey
Recommend on Sale if you are looking for a short casual to entertain you for a couple hours.
If you want an in depth story or hard puzzles you should pass.
Visually Where the Bees Make Honey is beautiful to look at so I decided to take a chance on it despite the reviews. Overall I enjoyed the game., it is pretty linear you can’t really mess up the progression. The puzzles were not that challenging but still provided me with a couple hours of entertainment with much better visuals than some other indie titles of the same difficulty. Making this an easy game to complete.
– Real player with 3.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best Kickstarter Puzzle Games.
《蜜蜂何处酿蜜》，这游戏名乍一看还以为走错片场，来到了少儿科普频道。这款游戏类似于《纪念碑谷》，是一款唯美解密型游戏，玩家将会操作一只拟人化的蜜蜂通过不断改变障碍物的位置，收集几片蜂巢碎片，从而完成关卡。蜂巢碎片采用扁平化设计，与金币有些相像，并不断自传，样式如同完整的蜂巢被机器纵向切割而成，规整工艺化。
游戏不支持中文，仅支持英文，有女声英文配音和字幕。英文字幕不默认打开，需要玩家设置中勾选字幕选项。文本显示很舒适，速度不快不慢刚刚好，几乎能和配音想匹配。英文配音语气情感都很充沛，你可以当做故事广播来听，或许能够提高自己的听力水平。
如果你仅仅依靠商店视频就认为这是一款卡通风格的解密游戏，那么你就大错特错了。游戏刚开始采用模拟器类型的玩法，让玩家感受一位辛苦加班的女性白领的工作环境，使用第一人称视角进行一些寻找物品的简单任务。不过，这部分优化不是很好，部分3D眩晕玩家可能及其不适，游戏操作也不行。据笔者推测，开发者们设置此环节目的为了让故事完整度高些，自然引出因为工作压力过大，女性白领不知不觉中开始幻想童年的一些往事，从而不断地有逻辑地展开故事讲述。
游戏画风绚丽多彩，环境建模逼真，选用一些经典配音渲染环境，游戏没有过多的背景音乐。游戏关卡设计简单，稍微动下脑子就可以过关，不过唯一难点就是应付糟糕的操作方式。游戏操作键位非常简单，但是使用后的效果不如人意，有些蹩脚，障碍物忽高忽低，视角互转互停。游戏关卡环境有些粗糙，可能大部分精力花费在外部环境创建上，总体上而言，游戏性不高，游戏剧情有意思。
– Real player with 2.6 hrs in game
Elegy for a Dead World
Preface: This is a very SHORT “game”. It honestly feels like a preview rather than the whole product. It’s also certainly not for everyone. It’s geared more towards the type of person who writes long headcanons for their villagers in Banished or create elaborate backstories for their Bioware characters. For people who have used programs like Zen Writer, this gets you into the same kind of simplified mindset– there’s nothing but you, the art, the sound, and the words. You won’t get the editing and organizational capabilities of programs like Scrivener, but it’s extremely useful for allowing you to write without the distraction of fiddly program features. That said, there’s a lot to recommend it to gamers and writers alike.
– Real player with 3.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Kickstarter Sci-fi Games.
I sat down and played through Byron’s World once last night. I ended up writing a pretty neat story that I was happy with, but I felt pretty worn out afterwards and wasn’t sure if I would come back. However I got home today and felt like pulling it up again… and I played through Byron’s World again with different writing prompts, and wrote something just utterly different and also awesome. I feel like this game is something I’m going to keep coming back to over time… I haven’t even started on the other two worlds yet, and I could definitely spend more time on the first.
– Real player with 2.6 hrs in game
Lucah: Born of a Dream
So. Lucah: Born of a Dream is hands-down the best character action title I’ve ever played, and a game I will easily place near the top of my GotY list for 2018. Here’s why.
Gameplay
Lucah’s gameplay is absurdly polished, not much by indie standards, but for character action/action adventure standards period. The systems in place all feel incredible to use, and feel very meticulously crafted and refined to cater to a variety of different playstyles. Not only does it pay (incredibly good) homage to games like Bayonetta, Dark Souls and Hyper Light Drifter by means of it’s combat and general gameplay, I would happily say it gives them a run for their money.
– Real player with 68.2 hrs in game
This is the only game I’ve ever backed on kickstarter using my own money so far. I told myself I’d wait until the game released to actually play it but when the developer sent me my beta key I immediately launched into playing it and kept going until I finished it. What you need to understand about this game going in is that it’s not the game you’re probably expecting from its packaging. You see a stamina bar, experience that doubles as currency, checkpoints that heal and allow levelling up, and you probably go to “oh this is a soulslike” but the reality here is that it’s more in line with a character action game. The soulslike mechanics are more like a flavoring to the bayonetta/DMC/metal gear rising sort of feeling you’re going to get from this game’s combat. The control scheme is even nearly identical to that of Bayonetta’s.
– Real player with 40.7 hrs in game
The Unbreakable Chain
could have more content, I enjoyed the music
save yourself some trouble and keep left to avoid saturn and jupiter
– Real player with 5.7 hrs in game
Game Of The Year
LSG and Wainstop have done it yet again. To say the unbreakable chain is a masterpiece, would be an understatement.
I argue there is a second meaning to this game that takes a bold take on the human psyche, showing what it means to be human. It does all of this with a beautiful medley of music by Yasushi Kaminishi, ghxyk2, and Bankbank, and animation produced by LSG.
SPOILERS!!!
In the first level, you are a worm. Aimlessly worming around with no direction, much like humans do. You wander until you find a whole, a gateway. This represents childbirth, The worm immediately killed, just like how a child is ejected into a cruel world in which he can die at any moment.
– Real player with 1.5 hrs in game
Spinnortality | cyberpunk management sim
This game oozes potential. From its premise to its simplistic, yet surprisingly deep gameplay, Spinnortality is great. However, just like its name, there is something off about it the deeper you get, until you realize this game is nigh unbeatable…and not in that good, strategy game way; but instead, due to frustrating bugs, poorly thought out mechanics, and unbalanced agenda trees that make 2 out of the 4 victory possibilities impossible beyond easy mode (even then it’s a pain).
RNG is terrible and you WILL fail with anything in the game under a 90% success chance. You will regularly fail anyway. I’ve played 2 separate games where a shuttle launch to the moon with a 99% success chance failed.
– Real player with 48.4 hrs in game
I have to say, those first few playthroughs are pretty great.
This is an enjoyable cyberpunk management game that I think hits just the right level of difficulty. I bought this game at launch, and since then there have been a few updates which have fixed a handful of bugs and have added some new mechanics which balance the game a little better.
In Spinnortality, you are the CEO of a friendly social media company which rapidly becomes not so friendly. In the game, you have two major goals. The first goal is to achieve global domination, which is done by completing tasks set before you by your board of directors to earn points which can be spent in several policy tracks; you win by maxing out one type of policy track and meeting some global conditions along with it. The second goal is to remain alive and employed long enough to do this.
– Real player with 42.2 hrs in game
apartment: a separated place
There are a lot of ‘break up’ games and this is by far one of the best I’ve ever played. There’s a sophistication and maturity to the storytelling that’s hard to find. Relationships are never simple and each of the vignettes explore the complexities of relationships that fall apart, never come together, or eventually find a way to work. The design of each vignette combined with the story it’s telling is one of the best aspects of this game.
There’s a meditative quality when playing–where I found myself reflecting on my own relationships as I played. May and Rose’s stories were probably the most moving and interesting–with truly unique interactions exploring losing or finding the person for you.
– Real player with 4.2 hrs in game
While not perfect, this game still has a story to tell. I found the progression within the main story satisfying, with little touches which enhance the world around you. For me, some of the vignettes are stronger than others but overall they were a pleasing break from the main arc while remaining familiar enough.
Having waited some years for this game I do feel like I wanted more “meat on the bones” with Nick and Madison’s story. The ending did feel a bit sudden and I was left wanting more. For some people this will be perfect and they’ll appreciate the short, sad and sweet nature.
– Real player with 3.1 hrs in game
Sentris
Sentris is definitely worth looking into if you have any interest in creating music. It reminds me of my days playing with software such as FruityLoops, but puts its own unique spin on things. I’ve enjoyed playing through the provided songs and am starting to create my own unique setups (as well as attempting to emulate some more widely-known music too).
“What is Sentris in 2 Minutes?” Video:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=502221656
Overall the game is a lot of fun, and quite a versatile tool once you get to grips with it. That said, there are a few features I would love to see implemented going forward. Primarily these are just additional expansions for added versatility when creating songs. It would be great to be able to select notes outside the standard scale that I choose, and to apply effects (such as reverb or echo) to specific instruments during remix.
– Real player with 7.6 hrs in game
I played an early version of this game at PAX last year and could not get my head around it. I dropped blocks haphazardly in to a wheel, not understanding what I was supposed to be doing and not enjoying the sounds I was creating. I walked away feeling embarrassed that I had failed to ‘get’ Sentris.
The tutorial in the release version immediately got me on the right track and removed my doubts about this game. Within five minutes I was creating funky loops that went beyond the tunes the game was feeding me and I felt the thrill of composition that I know the designer was aiming to inspire. There is a real satisfaction in building loops layer by layer and it is especially cool to see how the sound evolves as later layers start to push earlier ones out of the loop. The way the progression of songs helps you learn what the game has to offer in terms of depth is almost perfectly executed, the only thing that I struggled a little to figure out was how to change octaves in freestyle mode (you have to climb or descend the scale to reach the octave you want to play in).
– Real player with 5.0 hrs in game