Umurangi Generation

Umurangi Generation

Either a fresh, laidback, visual experience or an engaging, arcadey, bumpin game; Umurangi Generation is one of those games where the pleasure is found with your view on gaming in general.

To a common player, it may just look like a straightforward “Find objective, complete objective” game. Of which, let’s not lie to ourselves, it is and that can be pretty dull for some people. But, I found myself playing each level twice: Once to intake my surroundings, keeping mental notes, understanding the worldbuilding and crackin' lil gags with the NPCs around the stage because I enjoyed putting myself in the character’s (invisible) shoes. The second time, with the information I had gathered, to go with a more arcade “speed clear” approach since trying to map out an effective path to knock out every objective in under 10 minutes was a fun little challenge. Now, I didn’t go HAM on it to try and get the best darn time there is but more like a little trial of “Okay let’s see what I can do…”

Real player with 14.0 hrs in game


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Umurangi Generation is pretty much the ultimate “lo-fi beats to relax/study to” game. There’s not really a whole lot to playing it. You just walk around taking pictures of things in environments that are totally static except for characters going through animation cycles. And yet its culmination of lo-fi graphics and music is still absorbing enough that I played through each level multiple times and got 100 percent completion.

It’s one of those games with low-poly, low-resolution graphics designed to look like it was made in the late 90’s (other examples like Paratopic or Sagebrush deliberately evoke the original PlayStation but Umurangi is more like the Dreamcast). But instead of being a horror game its vibe is somewhere between Jet Set Radio and Neon Genesis Evangelion – colorful urban landscapes, anime-inspired characters, rap music, impending kaiju doom. It works so well that during my first run I kept playing just to see where each new level would take me. These levels aren’t just attractive in a sort of retro, cozy way, they’re also packed with small details, just begging you to photograph every inch of them. The chillhop music fits all this perfectly. I bought the soundtrack and still listen to it.

Real player with 13.7 hrs in game

Umurangi Generation on Steam

Alekon

Alekon

This is a very simple game idea. You take photos of mostly happy, colorful creatures, solve some simple puzzles, play minigames. What makes Alekon very interesting is the memorable creature design, but it’s worth mentioning that, as you go further, it’s getting harder to memorise all of them.

It’s fairly easy to move forward in the game, you are not forced to finish everything (but some skills make your life easier, specially if you try to make every photo 10/10) I would say childfriendly, if we don’t count some of the minigames are kinda hard (But as far as I see, the devs are taking feedback and fixing those, so you can partly ignore this comment) and the situation with the Shrooma minigame, that felt a bit odd.

Real player with 19.8 hrs in game


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Playing status: 100% achievement

Grindy Achievement(s): No.

Optional Achievement(s): Yes (35 achievements).

Difficult Achievement(s): No.

Guide: Click here

Intro

Alekon is a first-person photography game where you have to explore islands and take photos of the creatures living in them. Fictions, as what the game called them, are going to show up in the hub world afterward, giving you some tasks to finish.

Real player with 19.6 hrs in game

Alekon on Steam

Typefighters (Steam Edition)

Typefighters (Steam Edition)

I’m gonna keep it very short and very.. whatever. I played this game a year ago and I took it again now just for fun xD

Well, I won only one thing in my entire life - European championships for typing speed or something like this. I mean, various titles in the same “competition” type XD

One can probably argue that this is one of the many causes that forced me to undergo surgery three times on my right hand, but this is another story.. xD

Well, I have always typed like at 700-800 characters per minute (NOT WPM, that means WORDS per minute! 800 words per minute I think not even an octopus). So this game was one of my very first choices on Steam.

Real player with 55.6 hrs in game


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This game has very great potential and I love the way it’s programmed. It has a very simple design, focusing only on the typing with no superfluous graphic distractions. The amount of modes is nice, and provides variety for those who want a simple game to play, and it also offers multiplayer options with people online. I personally play the Stream Mode, as it lets you know your WPM (since I purchased the game to help me type faster). HOWEVER. At the time of this review, I am VERY disappointed in the word choices: fake words, misspelled words, Roman numerals, acronyms, unnecessary apostrophes, proper nouns that aren’t capitalized, and way too many words about reproductive organs. I’m not sure if users are the ones who contribute to the word lists, but since you have to be online to play this game anyway, I think it would be better if the game just pulled words from an online dictionary instead.

Real player with 9.0 hrs in game

Typefighters (Steam Edition) on Steam