CyberRebeat -The Fifth Domain of Warfare-

CyberRebeat -The Fifth Domain of Warfare-

I’m a huge enthusiast for the cyperpunk genre, and a premise this unique at $5 was hard to pass up. I definitely enjoyed my time with CyberRebeat and would recommend it to anyone who find its premise or subject matter interesting, especially if you find it on sale like I did. However, it’s also important to note that, as a VN itself, its production quality is considerably underwhelming (though it thankfully did not deter my enjoyment as much as it may others).

Let’s start with the good though: The story is lengthy and very engaging. I found myself hooked from beginning to end and wanting more after the credits rolled. The characters and their designs are also a plus: I felt the characters were very well-rounded, not pulling too much (or too little) from their personality traits or backstories to leave a lasting impression on the reader. Background art doesn’t wow much but gets the job done and, similarly, the BGM is also enjoyable despite a relatively short track list (an OST release would be a nice bonus).

Real player with 24.3 hrs in game


Read More: Best Programming Hacking Games.


Video review (including score):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezTIrfJlKSQ

The rundown:

Pros:

  • Good character designs

  • Language-switching feature

Cons:

  • Barebones settings menu

  • Lack of keyboard controls

  • Text issues

This visual novel is a rather odd release. On one hand, it is a VN about hackers and the world they live in, a concept rarely touched on in VNs. On the other, it is a freeware title that is still available to download on the developer’s website, although without the English translation. The game may have some good art, but it definitely shows signs of being a freeware title, and not in a good way.

Real player with 17.1 hrs in game

CyberRebeat -The Fifth Domain of Warfare- on Steam

The Caregiver | 終焉介護

The Caregiver | 終焉介護

As a fan of Chillas games, this is possibly the first negative review I’ve given of his/hers games.

Pros:

  • Bigger maps than usual (or so it feels).

  • Superb atmosphere as usual.

  • Sprint ability!

  • Collectibles.

  • Good story.

  • Good sound design.

Cons:

  • Objectives are a bit unclear. Like, after cleaning up urine one would assume next step is to put the cloth used in the washing machine, but I guess in Asian countries you just throw things in a plastic bag and keep it around your house…?

  • AI enemy very fast finding and attacking you when needing to perform actions. You need to run around and close doors behind you all over the house for at least half of the clocks in order to try and make it in time before being killed.

Real player with 5.8 hrs in game


Read More: Best Programming Horror Games.



Curator page here-- [url] DaRevieweD #81 [/url] -- [i]New review every Sunday[/i]

The Caregiver (TCG) is the most recent j-horror experience to come out from Chilla’s Art (CA)- who doesn’t even need an introduction at this point! It’s no secret, I’m a huge fan of theirs; I actually want to review all of their games but it’s easier said than done because you must have nerves of steel and not prone to mini-heart attacks. If you love Japanese horror movies, and want to be a glorified “extra” then play any one!! My first ever was when I worked in The Convenience Store (TCS) , but that’s because I was shopping for more than I bargained for.

Real player with 3.5 hrs in game

The Caregiver | 終焉介護 on Steam

ComPressure

ComPressure

One of the best zach-like games to exist thus far; A perfect rendition of simple rules leading to complex interactions. The retro pixel art and story featuring historically accurate rock star scientists lends itself well to a fun and engaging game about building the worlds first analog computer. The developer is active and responsive, adding more content fairly frequently, and the community is already both friendly and competitive.

10/10, would request lewd etchings again

Real player with 395.8 hrs in game


Read More: Best Programming Automation Games.


First and foremost: This is a positive review.

I’m unable to beat this game however (PEBKAC) though, so I’m going to caution prospective players:

This game is HARD, and the tests in each level are NOT comprehensive, nor will they give the same results when run individually versus the ‘run all tests’ results. It’s VERY possible to make solutions which pass in test-all but fail on every single test when run individually. Chasing the test scores can easily box you into a dead-end solution path.

The test score results are NOT an actual metric for how usable parts you design are, and almost every part is meant to be used later after it’s made, without any clear description of errors compounding or what to watch out for.

Real player with 16.5 hrs in game

ComPressure on Steam

while True: learn()

while True: learn()

After finishing the whole game, despite of my strong objections that I’ve written about in my original review (below), I’ve decided to change my review into thumbs up.

It took me some time to analyze my thoughts, and while I still have strong objections about inconsistency of various gameplay mechanics, the game truly has a charm, is well done and doesn’t deserve negative review, even if as a programmer purely analyzing the consistency of the gameplay I’d rate it negatively without a second thought.

Real player with 30.3 hrs in game

Let me start off by saying that I actually really enjoyed playing the game. The challenges are fun to solve and while they generally were not very difficult, I often found myself going back to old exercises and solving them in different ways.

Nevertheless, with the current state of the game, I cannot recommend it since there are just too many flaws that I cannot overlook even for an early access title.

Many of these are easily fixable,which is why I will go over the major problems one by one so that the developer(s) can consider my feedback.

Real player with 25.1 hrs in game

while True: learn() on Steam

Zero Page

Zero Page

Zero Page is a single-player survival horror puzzle game that dares you to survive the horror of solving puzzles by yourself in space. If that wasn’t horrifying enough, you’re also going to have to solve them on a deserted spaceship using the only piece of equipment that still works: a personal computer from 1981. But with a little bit of BASIC and a lot of high-stakes debugging, you might just live long enough to find out why you’re alone, why you’re in space, why you’re on a dying ship circling an unknown planet, and why that ship wants to kill you.

Back to BASIC

Find out if you’re smart enough to not die in space, armed only with a machine that struggles to count higher than 256 — a highly accurate recreation of a classic 1980s personal computer, complete with floppy discs and a joystick.

A Game About Thinking (The Thinking Man’s Shooting)

Put that laser gun back in your space pants. You’re going to have to program your way out of this problem, by writing code that actually physically changes your environment.

Also a Game About Action (The Action Man’s Thinking)

You won’t just be sitting at an old computer — well, you will, but not fictionally. In addition to programming, you’ll also get your hands dirty resurrecting an ancient spacecraft — patching critical holes, pressing important buttons, and bringing systems back online so they can start keeping you alive again.

Zero Page on Steam

Midnight Protocol

Midnight Protocol

I don’t have many games in my library - I’m quite picky in my tastes. I’m not usually one for hacking games but the Demo left me wanting more. After 22 enjoyable hours, I’m evidently happy to have added this game in my library. I waited to give this revieuw untill I finished the story for the first time - It will certainly not be the last. I’ll take some time to revieuw a few aspects of the game that might interest you most:

Gameplay/Mechanics: 8/10

A game is nothing without gameplay, and a hacking game sets a promise: it will not be just ‘a game’ - but one with depth, complexity, and decision making. To achieve this, Midnight protocol structures its gameplay around levels that feel like a labyrinth or puzzle. A Digital dungeon, if you will. To get around the various obstacles such as firewalls, encrypted nodes and ‘antagonistic’ system operators that chase you down you get access to hardware you can tailor to your playstyle, as well as a host of programs each with their own up- and downsides. You quickly learn how to balance them carefully, using fairly easy commands to allocate memory to the programs you need in order to finish the level. Suffice to say, Midnight protocol nails the hacker-feel you’ll expect. It is not all roses and sunshine of course - there is quite a reliance on RNG to many of the mechanics of the game that can make you second guess your decisions while they are actually fine, or save you when you know you had no right to make it. Aside from that, i found myself at times trying a level, finding where the hidden obstacles were, and avoiding them alltogether once I got to reload the level. This was- at times-unavoidable, and felt wrong. I’ve since noticed that these hidden obstacles are slightly randomized, at least in some levels, which alleviated this somewhat. Perhaps the developers could not just list potential ICE, but also include a map at the beginning of the mission (once you enter a mission you see the layout anyway, except in rare instances), that does not show the obstacles, but layout of the nodes beforehand. With this information I feel I personally would not have had to reload to adapt my strategy as much as I did.

Real player with 41.0 hrs in game

| 🔵 POI | ✔️ Pos | ❌ Neg | 💡 Ideas | 🍿 Video | ⭐ STAR |

FINAL REVIEW

🔵Ultimately MP is a puzzle game running under the guise of a hacker game.

🔵Each Network is a puzzle, and you must defeat the puzzle using commands & tools.

🔵MP could be considered a Lightweight Hacker game which introduces turn-based gameplay

🔵Has some additional unique and impressive gameplay mechanics.

🔵I was instantly Immersed by the story and the characters.

Real player with 29.2 hrs in game

Midnight Protocol on Steam