They Bleed Pixels
They Bleed Pixels - Satisfaction that comes at a price
If you check on Steam it actually comes at pretty low price. But obviously I was not talking about money. I was talking about time (which equals money) but let talk more about why I came to such a conclusion.
So if you have read my previous review you probably guessed that I like this game because it is a 2D platformer. And yes I like platformers and I was collecting them in the past when I had time to play any games. Naturally I came across this game and loved it at first sight. And why not? I watched the trailer and I saw fast paced action, lots of different moves and attacks. I loved this simplistic but beautiful art style. It also said it was inspired H.P Lovecraft which told me absolutely nothing at first but after searching online I know all I needed. Another thing that got me really excited was the number of achievements to unlock. And my friends know that I’m a achievement-junkie. But I should have read what those achievements are about. From the tags I new it wasn’t going to be easy and I was quite ready for that. So I grabbed my controller, fired up the game and focused on my TV screen…
– Real player with 43.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best Lovecraftian Platformer Games.
They Bleed Pixels is a challenging wall jump platformer, with a satisfying unique premise, quality combat and engaging mechanics.
You control a presumably troubled student at the Lafcadio Academy for troubled girls. She stumbles across a magical book that makes you have wild dreams involving a few strangely horrific creatures, several bloody spikes, and an ever present number of saws. The book also has glowing bits and pages that not only are missing, but found inside said dreams. Take heed of any such events that occur in reality, as these are not normal behaviors for books or their pages.
– Real player with 34.0 hrs in game
A Walk Along the Wall
10/10 would make again.
– Real player with 107.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best Lovecraftian Bullet Hell Games.
I really enjoyed this game. I would recommend it to anyone that likes the challenge of overcoming an obstacle… anyone that is a fan of the dark souls games would have fun with this one.
At 5 dollars it is at least worth the try for the music alone.
– Real player with 7.0 hrs in game
Darkest Dungeon®
Darkest Dungeon is a game, no an Experience that stays with those who play it.
It sucks to lose your beloved hero that you spent hours upon hours building to a occultist 0 heal bleed deathblow But yknow what, you can always make another, right?
This game draws you in with its simple yet diverse combat with every enemy bringing its own deck to the table, be it stressing out your heroes or making them close to useless in a prolonged fight, every enemy has its weakness and to see one on the field and immediately say: “Oh Shit time to employ the plan” only for it to fail spectacularly and leave you scrambling and exposed as that swine skiver crit 40s your main healer and they die of a follow up attack, only to come up at the top with 2 HP on most of your dudes or dudettes can only be described as Cathartic.
– Real player with 1042.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best Lovecraftian RPG Games.
If you’re like me (I pity you) then you’ve tried to play Darkest Dungeon several times only to be rebuffed by its repetitive nature and yet you can’t let it sit because you’ve sunk the cost and want to know what all the fuss is about. After poking around a bit I made a discovery, it’s not really the repetitive nature of the game that’s the problem. It’s the hideously slow speed at which the game plays.
Once you grasp the basics of Darkest Dungeon’s gameplay loop you don’t need —or want— to sit though every camera zoom or every slow hallway creep. And thanks to the power of modding magic you don’t have to. Walking speeds, combat, and even the tallies at the end of each dungeon can be sped up with a mod, thus making the game a far more tolerable experience. There’s also a mod to kill the camera zooms, though it does make combat look a bit silly.
– Real player with 276.8 hrs in game
Door in the Woods
Door in the Woods is actually a lot better than I was expecting it to be, and it is well worth full price.
The horror isn’t just skin-deep. Gameplay and game mechanics also adhere to the horror theme. The atmosphere is bleak and the monsters are dangerous. Mostly you will run and hide from them, but sometimes you get the weapons and equipment together to kill a few of them.
Each monster has different behaviors and abilities. Vampires won’t come into a house uninvited, and will instead lurk around outside whispering, “let me in.”. A cannibal’s house can usually be spotted by the blood soaked walls and floors, and they always carry guns.
– Real player with 31.1 hrs in game
A traditional rougelike with an interesting twist on the ASCII art. If I had to compare the game to others in the same genre it would be Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead, Infra Arcana, and The Slimy Lichmummy. Outside of the direct genre Darkwood, Teleglitch, and Noct.
I’d played a previous version of this back in March of this year so it was already on my radar, but the full release just kind of came out of nowhere which was a pleasant surprise and instant purchase for me.
Pros:
- Captures the whole cosmic horror and sanity mechanic from Lovecraft and pen and paper Call of Cthulhu nicely
– Real player with 25.1 hrs in game
Gloom
TL:DR I’d give it a 5 out of 10. Didn’t enjoy didn’t particularly dislike enough to go out of my way to sing from the rooftops how terrible it is.. Try it if it looks fine to you but if you don’t like the genre go for Enter the Gungeon, if I remember correctly it’s roughly the same price.
I tried it out due to other positive reviews. And I regret it.
My points will be condensed.
The story is obvious after you get like 10 items.
The combat is poorly telegraphed and the bosses rely on doing ridiculous amounts of damage. The renegade in particular, while I’m fairly sure this is just a bug, shoot a fireball without any telegraph. I know he HAS a telegraph, as 8 times out of 10 it happens, but that 2 out of 10 chance that he won’t can be the difference between a good run and dying early.
– Real player with 23.3 hrs in game
Gloom is a 2D, Side-scrolling, Action Roguelike with a heavy emphasis on combat and learning enemy attack patterns. Where most roguelikes would randomize a room’s layout or set different traps to look out for, Gloom only changes up the enemy lineups that youll encounter, plus the items & weapons that you can pick up. Otherwise, its the exact same run from left to right through the same 10 or so rooms per floor (4 floors in total), with enemy encounters being the main thing you need to worry about per run.
– Real player with 21.0 hrs in game
Paradox Vector
The most exciting and admirable aspect of Paradox Vector is unquestionably the art design, which is not only unique, but a true joy to look at. All the colors and shapes build up a very stylized, but beautiful environment which is exciting to explore to the last detail.
Apart from that, many other aspects of the game may or may not cause… 𝘮𝘪𝘹𝘦𝘥 feelings in certain players - depending on their gaming taste or temperament - like the enemy AI, the layout of the levels, the sometimes unbalanced difficulty, the sharp contrast between the first and second half of the game, etc. But even with the hit and miss parts, I think Paradox Vector is still worth to play. Recalls many great and interesting aspects of old (FPS) games combining with a truly unique aesthetic.
– Real player with 11.6 hrs in game
I’m not too far into Paradox Vector but I’m very much enjoying the old school vibe of the game. Think 80s Tron combined with a prison-labyrinth setting. The game has proved quite challenging due to HP restores being limited, however the dev has noted this and adding some extra nodes to make the game a bit less daunting at the start. (Even though I died a lot, I actually enjoyed how punishing it felt, reminded me of the good old days)
There’s no real soundtrack to the game from what I’ve encountered, but the creepy ambience adds to the atmosphere. It actually surprised me with how many jump scares it’s given me. Prepare for plenty of brain-bending areas that will play tricks on your mind as you try to navigate your surroundings.
– Real player with 7.0 hrs in game
Skautfold: Shrouded in Sanity
This game is an oddball. It has basic soulslike combat in 2.5 convention, one giant mansion level, deep lore and Lovecraftian overdrive. The whole game can be finished in less than two hours, but there are 4 endings and a lot of cryptic information for people that love put pieces of information together. It’s not exactly a masterpiece though. Before you decide to buy it or not, you should probably know there’s already a free version of this game called Shrouded in Sanity: Freebirth and it’s basically the same game but without New Game+ and some additional challenges.
– Real player with 22.6 hrs in game
Shrouded in Sanity is the relatively recent one-man project that claims to be inspired by Dark Souls, Resident Evil, Eternal Darkness, Bloodborne, probably Hellboy and Prey at this rate. Throw in Pride and Prejudice while we’re at it, why not.
Like most indie games, Shrouded in Sanity isn’t so much inspired as it is brewed in a beaker Powerpuff Girls style with its roots wholesale vomited into the concotion. Chemical X in this case being “lack of money” resulting in lowest resolution for pixel art since the original Wolfenstein.
– Real player with 14.1 hrs in game
The Narrator Is a DICK
Because I voiced the narrator in this game, I am going to attempt to stay as unbiased as possible. Again, ATTEMPT!
The Narrator is a ♥♥♥♥ is your standard difficult platformer that, as quite a few have mentioned, is very similar to games like Kaizo Mario and I Wanna Be The Guy. Right from the very start, I rips a page right out of the I Wanna Be The Guy playbook. With a set of spikes on one side, and a apple that comes down on you like a great god above and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ destroys you, and every fibre of your being. And in the title, it already tells you what the game is about, and what it has; an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ narrator.
– Real player with 588.3 hrs in game
The Narrator is a DICK
From a single playthrough perspective I think most people who have viewed the trailer and perhaps read reviews of “The Narrator is a DICK” before purchasing it will be left satisfied with the game. The game is exactly as the trailer portrays. A challenging unfair platformer with an often lude and sadistic narrator who accompanies your player from start to finish. The comedy and gameplay catered to me perfectly.
Now, I enjoyed my first playthrough enough to play it again.. and again and again until I finally earned all achievements for the game. Having played this game a lot (probably more than I should have) I did notice that this game is not very friendly to the other masochists out there that are willing to torture themselves until they too earn the “HOW?!?” achievement (for those who do not already know, this achievement is unlocked after completing the entire game without dying).
– Real player with 27.3 hrs in game
Doorways: Holy Mountains of Flesh
I rather enjoyed this horror/puzzle game.
When I started playing, only the first third of the game had been released. I made it a point to play both Doorways: Prelude and Underworld prior to starting Holy Mountains of Flesh. I enjoyed those as well, but Holy Mountains of Flesh is by far superior to the first two titles. I was also happy to find the developers were friendly and responsive, unlike so many other Early Access titles.
First, I’d like to get a couple of problems out of the way. The game does have it’s quirks, though none of its issues are enough to discredit the game as a whole.
– Real player with 11.4 hrs in game
Doorways Prelude was absolutely wondeful back in 2013 - it was very much the pace setter for a great number of indie horror titles which followed, and was steeped in originality and genuinely chilling content. For a low-budget horror game, it was basically flawless.
Its sequel, Underworld, threw away every ounce of ingenuity and decided to copy all the other horror games - we had a bunch of Slenderman-esque chaser sequences and that nightmare ‘maze’ which might go down as some of the worst game design I’ve ever suffered.
– Real player with 10.2 hrs in game
Nightmare on Azathoth
I’m really enjoying this game. Haven’t escaped yet, but enjoying trying/failing/re-trying.
Pros
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Atmosphere: very dark, dark, and twilight – love the combination of Cthulhu and Plato (made me actually go read up a bit on some of Plato’s works)
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Monster design and avoidance/teleport mechanic
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Sound effects: creepy, appropriate for the Lovecraft/Cthulhu mythos that it’s partly based on
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Cool graphics, not for being high end but for being appropriate to the story and creepy. Reminiscent of some of the original black and white Twilight Zone episodes (the ones on alien planets or in space)
– Real player with 14.3 hrs in game
Cool Sci-Fi/Horror Indie Project
An interesting and intriguing concept. It definitely has potential as full Horror/Survival game with more content and polish if the publisher and devs ever wanted to expand this project. (This is a kind of short, bitesized alpha-ish game)
I haven’t completed this game yet but got to the very end and then died what seemed to be a random physics glitch or invisible insta-death area in my base before I could escape!
I died when walking next the maintenance robot that moves back and forth between the volatile, burning dark fuel (that will kill you if you move into it) and the maintenace-pad-type-thingy that is normally safe to traverse.
– Real player with 7.7 hrs in game