Unfurl

11 August 2021 | S21E31

Half-Life 2
Humble Monthly/Choice

Do Not Feed the Monkeys

Acceptable
11.7 hours
14 of 33 achievements

I really thought it's going to be one of those games I love (it is dystopian, a little political, adventure/sim game). Yet it somewhat flops - first of all, you need a couple of tries before you understand the game, unless you check a guide (e.g. that some cages are just there with nothing going on). Randomly generated cages make the game more replayable yet it sometimes completely ruins the game (e.g. too many interactable cages at the same time). The game gives no warning / indication when the "monkey" is going to do something in a cage, making resource management much more difficult as you're inclined to stay at home rather than go to work, in order not to miss anything. Of course, after a day or so you can see a pattern in "monkey" behavior but by then you wasted a day and you only have 16. I finished the game on "normal" mode and I wish I could enjoy remaining "monkey" stories / endings in an easy mode, but that mode doesn't give achievements. I'll rate the game (barely) acceptable just for the concept and the idea but I can't say I really enjoyed it.