Recent reviews by Menace123

- If you haven't found this review helpful or if you have found a mistake please leave a comment below -
- If you want more reviews check my links at the end of this review -

My Family Rating
Everyone (10+)
Game style
Platformer
Rating
Between Good & Must Play
Play time needed
About half an hour
Controls
Keyboard or Controller
Size
About 170 MB


Pros
Nice little platforming parts
Nice pixelated graphics some good effects
World inspired by Tibetan theology and philosophy
Nice ending
Map and fast travel (even if the level isn't so big)

Cons
Few texts
Ambient sound / music a little annoying for the ears.

Despite the ambient sound / music, it's a really nice Indie game which is short and free !


Graphics

The pixelated graphics are quite nice but several effects make them look even greater. 3D-like models, moving flags, cloud of butterflies ...

Sounds, Music

The ambient sound / music isn't that relaxing and may be annoying from the beginning of game until mostly the end.

Gameplay

The gameplay is quite simple but you need to find it out yourself, the game will only give you clues the more you explore the level. You can't die but you can fall off and need to climb again. You can see the current level map at some part of the game. (the one that allow you to save the game and to fast-travel to discovered location)

Achievements

You can follow a guide, but it's better you found it out yourself as you can backtrack them at any time, even when you beat the game.



http://node2.projectplanet.cn/@steamcommunity.com/groups/M123-GR

http://node2.projectplanet.cn/@store.steampowered.com/curator/29521492/

Work In Progress
http://node2.projectplanet.cn/@steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=964304642

- If you haven't found this review helpful or if you have found a mistake please leave a comment below -
- If you want more reviews check my links at the end of this review -
- Note1 : I got this game discounted on Steam for $9 -


Family Rating
Everyone(10+) (with the In-game parental control for blood and mature language)
Game style
Shooter (+); Platformer (+); Arcade (~)
Rating
Must Play
Play time needed (perfect)
About 14 hours
Playthrough
Two recommended : one with 100% and one on Easy.
Levels
6 levels + 1 boss level
Unmissable / backtracking content
Yes!
Controls
Keyboard and mouse or Controller
Gaming/Achievement level
From Casual to Gamer
Size
About 9000 MB
Worth
Mostly its Full price


Pros
Nice prologue and ending animations
Great graphics
Great voice line (if mature content is on)
Awesome soundtracks
About 14 hours of gameplay
3 difficulties from Teen to Casual/Gamer
A health bar and a Scoring and Lives system
7 levels including an awesome and challenging boss fight
Collectibles, many different foes and powerups in each level
2 phases in each level : regular one and the pixelverse one (arcade)
Steam achievements

Cons
Greedy game with its graphics (you may need to lower everything)
Controller is great but analog stick is accurate for aiming
You most likely need to die to get some secrets (to get 100% on Hard)
You can outsmart most likely all enemies without taking damage from them
Diamonds in Pixelverse are missable (you can't back track the pixelverse areas in the current level)
A few part can destroy your current level progress (if you aim 100% on every one)

Despite its cons, this is an awesome I would highly recommend. As said just do not except a lot from the shooting parts as you can outsmart mostly every enemy but the game as still some great shooting parts and a great boss fight. Adding to the little challenging platforming parts, you have some pixelverse parts in every level. It's like Kuru Kuru Kururin (GBA game where you need to reach the exit without touching the walls), you need to avoid touching the dark pixel borders, avoid the moving "traps" and fight your way to the objective.


Story

You are Rad and like every child at your age, you love to play video games even past midnight. But your mother caught you while you were playing around the evening/night. So you were forced to sleep. You were awoken during the night by the bright screen of the TV and a strange glitch just appeared on it. You were then warped to a new world with a strange tribe with fellows and foes. Hopefully you met Dusty your console at the other of the real world, and Dusty is living and speaking this time ! With the help of Dusty and your trustworthy machine gun you will fight your way to save the videogame world !

Graphics

Sometime great graphics means greedy in resources and sadly that's the case. So you will most likely play the game with a lower resolution.

Sounds, Music

Sounds are like the old video games and the soundtrack is really great ! No need to use your own music.

Gameplay

Like any Shooter from the 90s area your goal is to reach the exit of each level and reach the final boss of the world. To do so you need to make your way by killing foes you may encounter using only your gun or your melee attacks. To be able to exit the level you need to find the 4 parts of the exit token scattered through the level and reach the exit. Hopefully you got a health bar (hearts actually) a pixel dust bar and a few lives. After you collect enough diamonds you will get an extra life. The pixel is divided into several small bars, the first one always regenerates over time. You need to collect pixel dust from fallen enemies to charge that bar. Each melee attack will consume one small bar.
Adding to that you have some secrets area in each level which gives different things. Even outside these areas you can find hearts and power-ups.

These power-ups will greatly help you to wipe the world from all of these foes ! You got 4 power-ups : Rapid Fire (beware of the greatly increased recoil), Grenade launcher, Phoenix Cannon (like a flamethrower but it’s actually throw it !) and a Big Purple Laser Blade !

You will encounter about 5 kind of foes : the regular ones, the giant ones and some nasty "dragonflies". Some can only hurt you in close combat and some can hurt you with projectiles.

As said earlier you can defeat most of all enemies without any trouble by outsmarting them : shooting from a safe distance. But sometimes you may need to take some risks.

Adding to that you have some great platforming parts, but mostly easily doable.

In each level you get a few pixelverse parts, like Kuru Kuru Kururin, you need to avoid touching the dark pixel borders, avoid the moving "traps" and fight your way to the objective (the orange arrow) : most likely smashing an object to warp it back to its place. Sometimes instead of smashing an object you need to use pixel dust. It took me a little while to understand that. If you run out of pixel dust while doing that, you lose a heart and go back to the world. Hopefully you can stop before and gather some pixel dust by beating some foes that spawn in the pixelverse.

Achievements

They are all easily doable except one or two which involve fighting the boss. Other than that, you need to beat the game on Hard with 100% which can be a little tedious but easily doable after you know the levels. Some achievements require you to perform a specific run: finish a level without killing any enemy, finish a level killing everyone with only melee attacks ...

Mostly because of the Boss speed run you need to play the game again on Easy to make it Easier obviously. Only the boss on Hard may be difficult to beat but if you farm lives you can try over and over.
So if you want to get 100% on Hard you may need to retry many time each level. Some secrets will require you to lose 2 hearts and if you're not quick enough (sometimes you won't be able to survive) you will most likely lose a life. Hopefully these secret areas tend to give a life, but a few don't.

Unfortunately some naughty crates may ruin your current level progress, yes you heard me! For 2 secrets areas you need to jump on boxes to reach them. Sometimes a collision occurs when you land on them (the crate fly away) and so you may not be able to reach the secret area after. Also sometimes you will need to destroy crates first because the TNT crate will spread them in the air, destroying a few of them and a diamond may appears in the sky.
But fortunately you won't have this annoying issue a lot. Only 2-3 small parts are concerned.

You can follow my steam guide for the achievements.

http://node2.projectplanet.cn/@steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=951417731


http://node2.projectplanet.cn/@steamcommunity.com/groups/M123-GR

http://node2.projectplanet.cn/@store.steampowered.com/curator/29521492/

Work In Progress
http://node2.projectplanet.cn/@steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=964304642

- If you haven't found this review helpful or if you have found a mistake please leave a comment below -
- If you want more reviews check my links at the end of this review -
- Note1 : I got this game with the steam summer sales 2017 for $0.5 -

My Family Rating
Everyone (10+)
Game style
Puzzle (+)
Rating
Between Good & Must Play
Play time needed (perfect)
More than 5 hours
Controls
Mouse and/or Keyboard
Size
About 150 MB
Worth
between Full and Discounted Price


Pros
Nice music (+)
120 really challenging levels
a scroll-bar feature that allow you to easily navigate through the levels overview
3-star rating depending of your steps
24 wiki pages / tutorials for all the gameplay features
Free in-game currency used to easily get 3 stars
Steam achievements
Steam trading cards

Cons
Only 2 music for the whole game (-)
Only one save file at a time
Great game but you may want to chill after playing it for a while
A dozen of levels with secrets walls (you can't finish the level on the first try)
Some achievements require you to farm treasures after beating the game at 100%
These achievements are to sell treasures to a goblin involving some nasty business

Despite of all the cons listed above, I really loved this game ! The only bad part that I still hate a lot is that you need to farm for a while after beating the game to get the last 2 achievements. And the farming part isn't optimized.


Graphics

In spite of the little pixelated animation at the beginning and at the end of the game, graphics are great. Every thing is well animated and the level design is colorful.

The only real thing is that the game is lack of worlds : you have only 2 kind of patterns/worlds : the castle one with grey walls and tiles and the library with wooden flooring and book shelves.

Sounds, Music

You only have 2 music for the game. One played at the beginning (and maybe that one at the end too) and one for most of the game. So, adding to the same world patterns, it can make you bored.

Controls

You can only play the game with a mouse and or a keyboard. (Controller not supported)
Despite using the mouse may seems easier : you just need to click and your hero will choose the fastest way to go there, that trick won't works sometimes : your hero may sometimes take the longest path because a monster or closed door (even if you get the key) is blocking the way.

In addition, when you click on a tile which have an item, you need to take it. (Unless your inventory is full.) OR you can use the keyboard to move on that tile without taking it. ( I think you need to press the spacebar to take items.) But most of the case it can work with a mouse by clicking before or after the said tile.

Gameplay

The gameplay is always improving by adding new features which make every new level more and more challenging to beat with a 3-star rating. Obviously (or not) when they had a new feature into the game, you get a tutorial level which is obvious and simple to beat.

To beat a level you need to reach the exit door with a limited number of steps. If you reach the exit with 12 steps or above, you get a 3-star rating which grants you a treasure. Otherwise you will get a lower star rating or you will need to restart again if you have no more steps left.

So the game progressively adds new gameplay mechanisms up to 24 features. That includes : new items, new monsters, new traps and new NPCs. And this makes the game very challenging and interesting.

You will also unlock 3 features :
your inventory where you will see your in-game currency, treasures and others
the goblin with nasty business where you can donate all your treasures in exchange of a few items
the in-game tracking where you can check your progress for your achievements

Achievements

You will get most of them by beating the first 100 levels. Only 3 are farming related achievements and they only count after you've unlocked the in-game quests tracking. So yes, unless you've beaten every level with 3 stars and got to the bonus level every 5 levels, you will need to farm them for a while.

WHY ? Because of a goblin with nasty business. Yes, everyone knows that buying things from a goblin is always too expensive. But that one ? Well its prices always extremely increase every time you buy something.

If you are like me, you will need to play 5 levels to get nothing but a bonus room appearing in the levels overview. If you are unlucky you will get a room with secret walls (17% of chance) which you mostly can beat it again on the first try. Obviously the bonus room disappears if you run out of steps. And then you need to have another 5 levels to beat to get a new bonus room.


http://node2.projectplanet.cn/@steamcommunity.com/groups/M123-GR

http://node2.projectplanet.cn/@store.steampowered.com/curator/29521492/

Work In Progress
http://node2.projectplanet.cn/@steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=964304642

- If you haven't found this review helpful or if you have found a mistake please leave a comment below -
- If you want more reviews check my links at the end of this review -
- Note1 : I got this game on IndieGala inside the Every Monday #109 Bundle for $2 ($0.3/game) -

My Family Rating
Everyone (10+)
Game style
Puzzle (~); Physics-related (+)
Rating
Between Good & Must Play
Play time needed
About half an hour
Controls
Mouse only
Size
About 140 Mo
Worth
between Full and Discounted Price


Pros
Nice music (only one for most of the game)
Nice physics mechanisms
Over 9 different blocks with their unique abilities and other stuff
Minimalistic

Cons
No save feature : you quit = you start over
No tutorial : you need to find out yourself but easy to understand
2D gameplay in 3D : sometimes the blocks fall in the Z axis
Sober interface

It's kind of a Zup! game but without any explosions, achievements and save file. The game is nice, short and I would mostly recommend it.


Graphics
Despite its sober interface and its minimalistic graphics, the game is still pleasant for the eyes.

Sounds, Music
The sounds aren't annoying and the only music you will hear is quite nice.

Gameplay
The gameplay is quite simple, one of the white block must touch one of the lower beams to beat the level. If one white block falls off the screen, the level is restarted. To clear a level you need to use the physics and the black blocks which you can destroy by clicking on it.

There are mostly two ways to win every level :
The puzzle one in which you use the right combination of blocks
The quick reflex one in which you act fast making the right choices

Despite its simple gameplay the game tends to be a little challenging by adding news blocks, beams and even boulders. (about 9 different objects)

Each block have their unique abilities: White for not moving on its own, Black for being destructible and Red for getting rid of it. Yes, you need to dispose of every red block in order to finish the level.

The only mixed part of this game in addition to not having any save file is the 3D feature in a 2D puzzle game. This will make some parts funny and a little more challenging as every collision may move a white block next to the edge. Only one level was kind of insane because a white block almost always fall off the screen regardless to what you did. This level was quite short so after many tries, I finally beat it.

Finally, the final level is quite challenging.


http://node2.projectplanet.cn/@steamcommunity.com/groups/M123-GR

http://node2.projectplanet.cn/@store.steampowered.com/curator/29521492/

Work In Progress
http://node2.projectplanet.cn/@steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=964304642

- If you haven't found this review helpful or if you have found a mistake please leave a comment below -
- If you want more reviews check my links at the end of this review -
- Note1 : I got this game on Humble Bundle inside the Yogscast Jingle Jam 2016 Bundle for $30 -

My Family Rating
Everyone (10+)
Game style
Action (+); Platformer (~); RPG (~);
Rating
Between Good & Must Play
Play time needed (perfect)
About an hour
Playthrough
One or Two.
Environnement
Linear levels
Controls
Keyboard or Controller
Gaming/Achievement level
Casual mostly
Size
About 140 Mo
Worth
Discounted Price


Pros
Awesome 8-Bit soundtrack (Gimme more)
Several ennemies and bosses
Nice equipments and figthing features
Speedrun and New Game +

Cons
No difficulty - Easy game
The game can be beaten in less than 30 minutes if you rush
Ennemies and bosses aren't a real threat

If you have played The Adventure of Link (AoL the 2D side-scrolling game), well it's like this universe but in a smaller world, not that polished and much shorter to finish. I recommend it while discounted if you like the 2D old school side-scrolling action games and also for its nice 8-bit soundtrack.


Story

As the young elf Vireo, you will heed the call of adventure: choose a weapon, choose a side, and rise to be the hero your city needs as a monstrous enemy approaches as well as a horde of monsters. Hopefully there are 2 factions that are the protectors of the city : The Gunmetal Vanguard for the Strength and Honor and the Seekers of Arcadia for the Intellect and Knowledge.

Graphics

As an Old-School player you may like the colorful pixelised 2D-side-scrolling.

Gameplay

As mostly any old 2D-side-scrolling adventure game, you will heed the call of adventure. beginning with a low health and a basic weapon.

At the near beginning you can choose your faction, and it have a few effect on the game actually. To describe the factions the Vanguard with the strenght are close combat fighters and the Seekers with the Intellect are for medium and long range combat.

Adding to that you can manage your inventory with equipments and items and can buy and sell stuff from various shopkeepers. You can earn coins by defeating foes, opening chests, destroying stuff and selling some worthy collectibles. And you can also find ammunitions, keys, bombs and sub-weapons. You can only have one sub-weapon at a time, and can swap it for a new one. All subweapons require ammunitions to be used as well as one peculiar weapon.
The story and game are set in 6 chapters which are more or less 10-15 minute long. (shorter if you rush) In each chapter you have a sub-boss at half of the level and a boss at the end. You game is saved after beating any sub-bosses or bosses. Each level have fighting, bosses and plaforming parts. You can die in two ways : from getting a fatal blow and by falling in spikes. If you die you loose one life and start over at the last checkpoint. (I think you have like 3 lives)Hopefully you can also feint death by Escaping during your death and loading again the game and so you won't lose any life.

Sounds, Music

If you have already loved some 8-bit musics in the past, you may also love that nice soundtrack of Gunmetal Arcadia. The sounds are nice too.

Achievements

There are mostly 3 kind of achievements : story related, factions and speedrun. Only the speedrun is a little challenging but not that much. You can check some speedrunners on internet : they rush the game taking advantage of one powerful subweapon to beat every bosses.


http://node2.projectplanet.cn/@steamcommunity.com/groups/M123-GR

http://node2.projectplanet.cn/@store.steampowered.com/curator/29521492/

Work In Progress
http://node2.projectplanet.cn/@steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=964304642

- If you haven't found this review helpful or if you have found a mistake please leave a comment below -
- Note1 : I got this game on Bundlestars inside the 3D Realms Bundle for $4 -
- Note2 : You can actually play the original game for free -
- If you want more reviews check my links at the end of this review -

Family Rating
Between Teen (13) & Mature (17) - violence, blood, crude humor, "partial nudity"
Game style
First-Person-Shooter (+); Exploration (+); Platformer (~); Puzzle (~);
Rating
Between Good & Must Play
Play time needed (perfect)
About 20 hours
Playthrough
One.
Unmissable / backtracking content
Yes, mostly.
Controls
Keyboard and mouse.
Gaming/Achievement level
From Casual to Gamer
Size
About 550 Mo
Worth
Between Full and Discounted Price


Pros
About 20 hours of gameplay (8+ hours for the mains campaigns and 8+hours for the bonus)
New expansion packs (bonus campaigns)
3 difficulties from casual to gamer (no difficulty needed to perfect the game)
Very good number of open medium-sized linear levels
Good varieties of enemies, traps, weapons and items
Nice gameplay mechanisms
Nice humor and voice lines + some sexy content
Graphics tweaked for higher resolutions
Original cheating codes works - except for one level ?
Nice fortune cookies that tell you something 100% true !
A bonus single from Lo Wang

Cons
May be repetitive after you‘ve seen most of the game has to offer
Expansion packs easier than the regular campaign especially the bosses
Few bosses to beat

If you haven't played Shadow Warrior, well then you missed something! You can play the classic one for free or consider buying the redux one at full price or discounted.
So, Shadow Warrior is a little fast paced-shooter where your goal is to make your way to stop the Zilla corporation from dominating the world. In order to do that you’ll need to come across many levels and in each level you need to find some more or less hidden keys or solving some puzzles.


Story
"The Zilla Corporation is the most powerful of these conglomerates and will stop at nothing to achieve domination unseen by any other corporation in the world. Lo Wang, Zilla Corporation’s legendary Shadow Warrior, discovers this corruption and the dark powers being summoned to aid his employers in this quest for absolute power. As a man of honor, Lo Wang vows to battle these demonic forces with an arsenal of explosive weapons, his silent blade, and a razor-sharp wit."
So yeah your goal is to save the world from the Zilla Corporation several times!

Graphics
Do not expect a lot from this redux, it's mostly tweaked graphics for higher resolution. But the game doesn't aged so much, which is good.

Gameplay
Like any FPS from the 90s area your goal is to reach the exit of each level and reach the final boss. To do so you need to make your way by killing every enemy you may encounter using only your katana and shuriken at the beginning but you'll progressively unlock a wide variety of deadly weapons ! And of course you can save your game at any time!
Adding to the weapons, ammunitions, health pack and armor pack, you'll also find several items you can use. This includes a portable medikit, caltrops (shuriken like but for the ground), a repair kit (to repair American-made machines), a poison gas and an item that make you invisible. Another good item are the fortune cookies which give you a true fun fact and an additional 50 HP to your health up to 200 HP.

In order to reach the exit you most likely need to find several keys, some are in plain sights and some are pretty well hidden. Sometimes you need to solve a puzzle instead: moving things, using machines or finding the right combination. And a few times you need to beat a boss instead. In my opinion bosses were much more aggressive and challenging in the main campaigns ant not at all in the bonus one.

You will come across huge amount of levels with most of the time hundreds of enemies to defeat! But don't worry Lo Wang with his skills, weapons and voice lines are here! And each level is very different, except you may be tired after playing the game for more than 8 hours.

Anyway, in each level there is a fair amount of secret areas to find and sometimes a secret exit to play a secret level! Well they are most likely faster to finish but it's not that obvious as you may think because they are also enemies here! And the good thing is you can backtrack at any time during the level and you can also show the in-game tracking too.

After beating a level you'll have you score with your time.

Sounds, Music
The music is fine, you can play with it or mute it. The best part are the Wo Lang voice lines. You may not be tired of listening him over and over again.

Achievements
They are all easily doable, only one will need a bit of practice which is a speed run of any level. But here again you can over use the save feature if needed, and the speed run is 1 minute long. (55 seconds or less to beat the speed run time)

The only tedious achievement is the one where you need to find most of the secrets area, but don't worry you don't need to find them all. If you die during the level and found any secret again it will count.

There are several achievements which are level related, so be sure to make a save at the beginning of every level in case you missed it. You can still use the level select cheat code but it seems it doesn't work for every level.


http://node2.projectplanet.cn/@steamcommunity.com/groups/M123-GR

http://node2.projectplanet.cn/@store.steampowered.com/curator/29521492/

Work In Progress
http://node2.projectplanet.cn/@steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=964304642

Seems to be a great game even it seems less about exploring as the other review says.

BUT I can't play the game at all, even after tried many things, I still got that black screen :
- made sure my NVIDIA graphic card is selected
- updated my drivers
- deleted / dowloaded the game again
- checked twice the integrity of the game
- disabled my anti-virus
- changed the game resolution

BUT nothing helped. If someone got a round around to fix that it wouldbe awesome !

- If you haven't found this review helpful or if you have found a mistake please leave a comment below -
- Note1 : I bought this game as a steam bundle -
- If you want more reviews check my links at the end of this review -

Family Rating
Everyone
Rating
Between Good & Must Play
Worth
Full price


Play time needed (perfect)
Around 1 hour
Levels
82
Gaming level
Between Casual (+) & Gamer (-)
Game style
Puzzle
Graphics
Fine
Music
A relaxing ambiant music
Controls
Mouse only.
Tutorial
No, it's a FIY : Find It Yourself.
Glitches / bugs
No.
Size
About 136 Mo


GRAPHICS
Graphics are fine even if they are a little blinding with some flashy colours.
SOUNDS
With an ambiant music the game feels relaxing, only the sounds doesn't fit in that category.
GAMEPLAY
The first levels are really easy : you need to switch the pieces until you made one or several closed tracks. After that the difficulty is increased. You have a 3d-view and unlock also some tiles that can only be rotated. Then the harder ones will have both rotating and moving tiles at a time.

The game will also features some black & white tiles, the aim is to have all of them white by separating them. That type of tile can't touch another in any adjacent side, if you want to solve the this puzzle. As previously said, the game will also these 3 mechanisms : sliding, rotating, separating.

Finaly in the later levels you'll have some bizarre shapes that you need, like the lines, to create a closed shape.


http://node2.projectplanet.cn/@steamcommunity.com/groups/M123-GR

http://node2.projectplanet.cn/@store.steampowered.com/curator/29521492/

Work In Progress
http://node2.projectplanet.cn/@steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=964304642

- If you haven't found this review helpful or if you have found a mistake please leave a comment below -
- Note1 : I bought this game in a bundle -
- If you want more reviews check my links at the end of this review -

Family Rating
Everyone
Rating
Must Play


Play time needed (perfect)
At least 5 hours
Playtrough
One. (Two if you go on a perfect game on your second one.)
Puzzles
34
Gaming level
Between Casual & Gamer
Achievement level
Between Casual & Gamer
Game style
Puzzle, Point n' Click
Graphics
Nice
Voices
Very nice. Including humor.
Music
Good
Story
Very good.
Environment
Move freely in different areas.
Controls
Mouse only.
Tutorial
Yes, a little.
Unmissable / backtracking content
Everything is backtrackable. Excluding 2 achievements : get 25 gum in Minesotta and get perfect on all puzzles.
Glitches / bugs
No.
Size
About 295 Mo
Worth price
I would say its worth $5-6.


GRAPHICS
Nice graphics, if you like the comic book drawings.

VOICES & MUSICS
We have some very good voice actings with good humor including the dark one. The musics and sounds make the game creepier when needed (a little) and make a good atmosphere for the game.

STORY

The story takes place years after Agent Nelson Tethers solved the biggest case of his career. He heard that one person related to his solved case has gone missing but that's not all, a whispering madness is still creeping from mind to mind, and a troubling recurrence of... creatures... is lurking into the town. And on top of everything, the FBI's Department of Puzzle Research has marked the case closed.
There is only one thing that can do Agent Tethers, he must go rogue and venture back to the eerie town of Scoggins, Minnesota to solve the mystery of "the Hidden People" once and for all.

- I made the mistake to play the sequel instead of playing the first game, but it won't spoil the first game at all so you can play them in ny order you want. -

GAMEPLAY

As a point and click, you can move freely. With your truthworthy scooter you can fast travel to any locations you've heard from many town folks. You'll need to inspect and solve puzzles in order to uncover the truth of what is happenning to this town. You'll also be able to talk with the town folks to help you in your investigations as you can't do it on your own even if you know almost everything about this town excepting the current events. You'll uncover that something bigger is related to these events : something creepier and very dangerous.

Since the town did a "gum censure" you can't buy gums which are very precious to you to help you to concentrate on the case and on the puzzles. Hopefully our man still like to chew old gums found here and there, under a table... And maybe on the floor. Anyway, these gums help you to get hints for any puzzle you want.
You can stop and resume a puzzle at any moment. (You still need to get back to where you found it) Each puzzle works the same : you have a guideline and sometimes you have rules if there are. After that you can try to solve it or use hints to help you. When you submit it to the Puzzle departement you'll get a rating : a gum bonus if you don't use any hint, a tax bonus if you've made no wrong answers and a 10-star rating as an overall rating.
As said the difficulty ranges from Casual to Puzzle Gamer, many puzzles are easy but some need more time to solve. There are some harder puzzles like the Monosaki Puzzles, Logical suits and a few puzzles. Monosaki one require you to think out of the box in term of mathematics.

The game also have a small mini-game at the nearly end, to beat, different from the other puzzles. This one is the only one which ask you to think and act fast but you can always retry it until you get it right.
Finaly only 2 achievements can be missed. The one that requires to get 25 gums in Minesotta, even it's hard to miss. And the one that ask you to get the "Puzzle Agent" rank : mostly perfect all the puzzles including the 2 bonus one but not the tough one.

You can backtrack everything even if you hit the point of no return. You can try any missed or shelved puzzles including the ones in space and the mini-game.
I can only recommend this game and maybe the whole sequel. It's different than a Professor Layton puzzle game but still very good.


http://node2.projectplanet.cn/@steamcommunity.com/groups/M123-GR

http://node2.projectplanet.cn/@store.steampowered.com/curator/29521492/

http://node2.projectplanet.cn/@steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=964304642

- If you haven't found this review helpful or if you have found a mistake please leave a comment below -
- Note1 : I bought this game as a steam bundle -
- If you want more reviews check my links at the end of this review -

Family Rating
Everyone
Rating
Must Play


Play time needed (perfect)
About 2 hours
Levels
70
Gaming level
Between Casual & Gamer
Achievement level
Between Casual & Gamer
Game style
Puzzle
Graphics
Nice
Music
A relaxing ambiant music
Controls
Mouse only. Drag n' Drop.
Tutorial
No, it's a FIY : Find It Yourself.
Glitches / bugs
No.
Size
About 124 Mo
Worth price
It worths its price.


GRAPHICS
Very nice graphics, and you got a nice picture after completing a level.

SOUNDS
With an ambiant music and some sounds, the game is relaxing.

GAMEPLAY

The first levels are really easy : you need to slide the pieces from nodes to nodes to their respective positions to reveal a nice picture.
After finishing several levels you'll unlock some new gameplay mechanics : merging parts, symetry axes, warping nodes, rotating nodes, shape reducing/increasing nodes, color tracks with switches.

As said earlier, the difficulty is between Casual and Puzzle-Gamer. The difficuylty is increasing but you'll have some easy and relaxing levels to let you learn some new gameplay mechanics.
The latest levels contains many mechanics and require more time and patience to solve them but are still short.

I would greatly recommend that game even if the game is short. We would ask for more in a new sequel !


http://node2.projectplanet.cn/@steamcommunity.com/groups/M123-GR

http://node2.projectplanet.cn/@store.steampowered.com/curator/29521492/

Work In Progress
http://node2.projectplanet.cn/@steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=964304642