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The last three point&click adventure games I had played before Technobabylon were all a bit underwhelming, so I started this game without expecting much. But honestly, I was blown away by how good it was.

So, it had a great and detailed pixel artstyle that is consistent throughout the whole game. Character portraits are the best part, animations I would say are the weakest since they sometimes feel a bit stiff, but all in all, the game exhudes artistry in its visual design. Sound design is also excellent, with the voice acting being particularly good in helping flesh out the game and the story. Environmental sound effects were mostly fine, maybe unremarkable for the most part, but I love the sound effects you have when interacting with technology (such as entering and exiting Trance). It helps to sell the universe.

Mechanically, the game is your standard fare point&click game, but the episodic structure helps to alleviate inventory bloat and keep puzzles and scenarios relatively well contained. Most chapters have an intro cutscene, then a playspace which hardly exceeds 3 or 4 screens and 7 or 8 items you need to use, followed by an outro cutscene. This helps to make the pacing excellent, avoids frustration with having open ended puzzles and not knowing whether you have all the necessary items, and cuts on backtracking, making the moment to moment gameplay really enjoyable. This is really good design and other point & click games would benefit from that. If I could ask for one additional feature, would be a way to highlight interactables in a screen without having to pixel hunt. That would help me avoid a few instances where I thought I had found everything I could interact with, when in reality I had missed a small prop on one corner of the screen.

But the real meat of the game is the writing. Everything I've written so far are good things the game offers, but that wouldn't hold the game alone. The writing, the universe, the theming, the context, those things are enough to hold the game on its own. Heck, if there were books or movies set in this universe, I would consume them. It's such a well fleshed-out universe, and the plot utilizes it really well. I love the kind of small details that don't matter but help to flush out the world -- for instance, at one point, you can look at a world map and see the nations (or nation blocks) that are represented there. It's not reaaaaally that important from a gameplay perspective (it is one possible solution for a puzzle, but not mandatory), but hell, it was fun to see how the world looked like and imagine what chain of events led to this nation distribution and world order. Then you get small pieces of news that hint at world events, and all those things just help so much to make the world entirely believable. That was my favorite part.

The plot is mostly fine, characters are interesting and nuanced, but in the second half I felt the plot got too confusing and hard to follow, with a lot of twists. Not bad by any measures, but not my favorite element either.

TL;DR - if you are after a great universe setup, buy this immediately. If you're looking for a modern and streamlined point&click adventure, buy this immediately. If you're looking for an artistic passion project which doesn't compromise on gameplay or plot, buy this immediately. If you see anything from Wadjet Eye Games, you probably should buy it immediately

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TRI is a strong recommendation against. While the game is really creative and unconventional in a good way, the main game mechanics are still too janky to be fully enjoyable. Sometimes you understand exactly what you need to do, but struggles against the mechanics and the keyboard in order to be able to achieve what you want, which is one of the most frustrating things a game can do --- the challenge should be in figuring out the solution to a puzzle, not in executing it (at least not in a game like this -- maybe yes in a precision platformer, but not here).

If this was bad in the first 10 levels, wait until you get to level 11 and the whole light bending stuff. This is where you ragequite, believe me.

Now, don't get me wrong - this is a bold game. There are not a lot of first person puzzlers out there, and TRI is entirely capable of standing out from the crowd on its own. The idea of conjuring triangles out of nowhere to use as ramps, platforms, ledges, of defying gravity, walking on walls - this is not something you see everyday in a game. And my guess is because this must be hard as hell to implement. Well, TRI tries its best to implement it, and what we have is a playable product that suffers a bit from the jank mentioned earlier. Triangles are drawn but sometimes they are not walkable on. Sometimes they invert gravity, other times they don't. It's a bit too inconsistent and finicky to be enjoyable.

Aesthetically, it's a pleasing game. There are no photo-realistic graphics, but the stylized graphics we get are well done and enjoyable, and effects are usually pretty good. Most importantly, given the surreal geometry of the levels, the graphics are pretty readable which is something the devs could easily have fumbled. The soundscape is very unique and engaging -- it's a mix of zen with tribal sounds, and soothing tunes that carry enough energy to keep you playing, but not enough to drain you. It's a good mix.

There are outlines of a plot there, but we all know we're not playing for that and it barely matters. It doesn't hurt either, and to be honest, the few times you glimpse the fox running away from you are usually enjoayble. For achievement hunters (not my case), getting all the idols is an absolute chore even with a guide, and without a guide some of them are near impossible to find. While some might find this an engaging challenge, it felt like busywork to me. The base game is already challenging enough alone, and the idols add to the janky challenge, which is not something I was particularly after.

TL;DR: janky first person puzzle platformer with great aesthetic, both in visuals and sounds, but with meh controls and a steep difficulty curve that could throw you off more people than it retains

Absolutely amazing game. The 26 hours I spent with it flew by. I'm not usually a fan of visual novels, but when games like Persona or Murder By Numbers are able to integrate interesting VN scenarios with compelling mechanics, I become a sucker for them.

The music is absolutely stellar. It seems the composer is well known for other famous series such as Phoenix Wright, Viewtiful Joe, and Ghost Trick, and the soundtrack here rocks without mercy. The artstyle is consistent and generally well done, committed to the style. Writing is okay, there's a lot of text and it's generally easy to follow and doesn't get too grating, imbuing characters with a lot of personality. Where it slips a bit is in areas where the plot starts to go all over the place -- I feel the fourth case dragged a bit and it was easy to get lost on what was going on.

Nono-wise, most of the game is 15x15 nonos which are usually challenging and time-consuming but not overbearing. Sometimes you'll see a 10x15 or 20x15 but those are uncommon. There are also quick-time nonos which are always 5x5 and don't allow for 'skips', which is an interesting twist that is not used a lot of times. The hint system is really good and generous, but you absolutely don't need to use it or use guesses at any point.

All in all, if you like nonos, this is a good coat of paint on top of the base puzzle. Maybe you already own it on EGS for free, so give it a go while we wait for Rosiminc to get back into our lives :)

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While I thought Golden Light was a first-person shooter, it's more apt to describe it as a first-person tactical espionage survival roguelite. Moment to moment gameplay here is mostly scouring the floor you're in, looking for keys which will give you access to the next floor, while avoiding traps and enemies (and combat), and collecting resources that can all be used in multiple ways. Got a consumable? You can either eat it or throw it at enemies to trigger status effects. Got a new weapon? You can either use it (with very poor control and damage in general), throw it (for status effects) or eat it (?) as well. Managing these resources while deciding when to engage in combat is the core to the game, and it took me almost four hours to really understand it, since it's a very obtuse game (and unashamedly so).

So, if you want a run and gun game, this is not it. This is a much more cerebral and cautious kind of game. Buyer beware.

Outside of the 'dungeon floors' you have a hub world that is as weird as the levels, and even after beating the game I'm still confused as to how to navigate it. There's certainly a proper way, an optimal path, but I have absolutely no idea what it is.

Now, I didn't love the gameplay, and hence is why I wouldn't recommend the game. But one thing that it gets absolutely right are the vibes. Visual design, sound design, enemies, environments, loading screens and transitions, everything is super well alligned to the vibe the game wants to convey, and there's something really satisfying to see gel together. Unfortunately I couldn't get over the gameplay jank so it's still a no-go for me, but if you know exactly what you're getting into this could be your game.

Yeah, no big review here. The game is basically multiplayer only, and I played a mix of online matches with folks (not many active players from what I could see) and offline matches with bots (decent for the most time).

I have no clue why I entered this GA (well, most GAs are like that hahaha) but overall, Goat of Duty is fun-ish. The game modes I played have a great Unreal-arena style feel to it. Matches are hectic, with you respawning and immediately running around looking for a better gun than your pea-shooter. It's a bit hard to get used to the goat's models for headshots and stuff, but it's not a massive deal. One of the most unique mechanics here are the ramming charges, which can be used as either movement options (to cross gaps) or offensive tools (to send enemies flying and drop them off ledges). Speaking of ledges, most levels are built around endless pits incentivizing you to throw your enemies from them.

While good fun, it's not a game I see myself playing for long or in the future. It's fine, but I think we are finished here hehe

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An almost perfect experience. Soundtrack, artstyle, gameplay mechanics, narrative, length, everything simply works. While the last level took slightly longer than I'd have liked, I was genuinely emotional when it ended. No filler, all polish.

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The Inner World is a decent but far from perfect point-and-click adventure game. Graphics are very charming, and voice acting is mostly well done. I didn't encounter any major bugs, besides some translation mishaps on written elements vs. the spoken dialogue (probably the person who translated the script was not the same one who translated the in-world graphics). Writing is mostly okay, with a nice story that goes by pretty quickly, some decent jokes, and some meh ones. Overall I couldn't fault it.

My two main issues come from the spoken dialogue and the difficulty/moon logic. For the spoken dialogue, it's really well done, but characters have a lot to say about everything, and they talk somewhat slowly. Also when they're talking, action is interrupted, so the game flow is reaally, reaaaaallly slow. Pacing suffers a bit from that, but it's a bit hard to see how the game could avoid that, being a point-and-click adventure game. The moon logic issue is one that is almost inherent to the genre, and makes me wonder why I still play it. Chapters 1 and 2 are mostly fine in this regard, but from Chapter 3 onward, the logical leaps you have to make start to get pretty wild. At least the game is decent enough to provide a really good hint system, and there's even an achievement for making use of it!

Overall, it's nothing ground-breaking but has a few issues here and there. Good for point-and-click adventure game fans, but might not be everyone's piece of cake and I'd stay away from it if you're not a massive fan of the genre.

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On A, I thought I was having fun
because of interesting mechanics, charming graphics and decent voice acting

On B, the plot thickened,
with new characters, more twists, and quaint settings

But by C, I was getting tired,
of the slow gameplay, the repetitive nature of the puzzles, the pixel hunting and the moon logic,
plus endless pop-ups celebrating every mundane click with meaningless achievements,

And by the time I finished my ABC and got to D,
I was ready to uninstall this uninspired game and never look back on it

At first glance, Poirot's world seemed bright,
With mysteries to solve and clues in sight

The art style charmed, the voices rang true,
Each scene painted in a vintage hue

But patience wore thin as the hours crawled by,
Click here, click there, with many a sigh
"Achievement Unlocked!" the screen would cheer,
For picking up a spoon or walking near

The puzzles grew stale, logic went astray,
What should have been thrilling became child's play

From Andover's start to the final scene,
This adaptation felt stuck in between—
Not quite a game, not quite a book,
Just a tired mystery that lost its hook