Recent reviews by JRainbowfist

Pretty fun little story about working a office job to meet a deadline. Found it to be pretty funny and entertaining throughout, but it is a pretty short game.

Overall recommend.

Only got one ending so far but wanted to leave some early impressions.

Rogue AI Simulator is a game where you manage a facility with a few inhabitants as an AI. You build objects to take care of your test subjects then have your test subjects help you in generating science which helps you unlock more things to build. At the same time, you do want to sabotage things a little to allow yourself to grow independent of your original programming. Meanwhile, your overlords grow increasing suspicious that you're going rogue and you have to manage that as well.

The building management is pretty solid. It reminds a little of Against the Storm where upon hitting some checkpoints, you get a random selection of new things to build. There seems to be a fair variety of stuff they offer and there aren't too many materials to keep track of. Seems pretty solid overall, but will have to see how much variety there truly is. It escalates decently, but it seems that you can hit a point in the game fairly early where your facility is pretty stable and you're just waiting for things to happen. Hopefully the higher difficulties can mix things up a little more.

Some segments of the game have you playing minigames. The main two is a hacking puzzle game and a tower defense section. Both are alright. The hacking puzzle is pretty simple, feels like you need a little thought but not that much. Same for the tower defense. They don't wow me, but they're pretty short segments that let you take a break from the base management but also don't interfere or take over the game. There's a few other minigames that you don't see as often but my feelings aren't much different other than they're even easier.

Overall, good first impressions. It's a pretty nice base management at a pretty good price. A single completed run took me about 2 hours to complete, which I feel is a good length considering the random element and that it obviously intends for you to replay it.

The immersive sim is a style of game that has always been near and dear to me. Deus Ex and Human Revolution were the first games I ever played on PC and Dishonored is one of my favorite games ever.

There aren't many devs making immersive sims, especially not triple A studios, but Deadeye Deepfake Simulacrum is an excellent entry in the genre.

In DDS, you play as mangled corpse. Luckily, a mega-corp has retrieved your body and nursed you back to health. Unfortunately, now you owe $1,000,000 in medical debt with a 1% interest per day. Now you work for the mega-corp as a hacker/assassin, to pay off your debt, with another $1,000,000 of debt in body retrieval fees every time you die.

Gameplay-wise, DDS has a lot going for it. It's mostly a twin-stick shooter. But like many immersive sims, there are a lot of gameplay styles to pick from and room to build your character.

You could specialize in guns, melee weapons, hacking, seducing enemies, stopping time, stealth, etc. It starts slow, but as you accumulate skills and gear, you're character can really feel unique.

A big highlight to me is the hacking system. I mostly played the game as hacker who runs people over with their car and found the hacking to be pretty engaging. In fact, you can probably clear most levels just by hacking if you're dedicated enough, but it'll probably require mixing in some sneaking around or gunplay. One of the reasons it's great is the you can invest as much or as little in hacking as you want and you're probably getting a proportion amount of rewards for it.

Writing-wise, DDS is also pretty satisfying. It's not earthshattering to me, but it's clearly building to themes about transhumanism and corporatocracies and it communicates these themes well and in a humorous way.

It's still in Early Access, but the developer has said that the main story and endings are pretty much completely implemented and it's just more content and side-quests that need to be added.

I really enjoyed my first playthrough but am going to hold off a bit for my second until more content comes. That being said, what is here is already worth the cost, in my opinion,

Deadeye Deepfake Simulacrum is a unique immersive sim, definitely worth checking out.

I feel kinda mixed about the game overall.

Gameplay-wise, this game is great. You look around a crime scene, gather a bunch of clues and keywords, then piece them together to reveal what happened. Although there is a little bit of guidance in the form of having to fill the blanks on a paper, the game mostly leaves you to figure things out. The puzzles feels logical and the clues are well-laid out with some very creative ones mixed in. On the gameplay front I don't really have anything to complain about.

However, this game is a mystery game. Because of that I greatly value the writing, the story, and the feeling of mystery in the narrative. Unfortunately this is where the game kinda falls a bit flat for me.

The characters are pretty flat and one dimensional. You're not a detective or anyone that can actually interact with the characters. So everyone is basically just a clue dispenser.

The individual murders you're solving are not very interesting, narratively. Some light SPOILERS in this paragraph. Almost all the murders methods are completely mundane. He was shot, he was stabbed, he was poisoned. And almost all the motives are either: he was killed in an accident or he was killed because the cult ordered it. Not very interesting.

And the overall narrative is not very impressive either. You can probably figure out the nature of the conspiracy pretty quickly because it's pretty shallow. And after you figure it out, there isn't any mystery anymore. You just watch the conspiracy play out exactly as you expect it would.

Again, I'd like to reiterate that gameplay-wise, I had a great time. The puzzles are fun, I felt like I was genuinely putting it together myself. It's just that the mystery isn't very mysterious and the overall narrative is nothing noteworthy.

Still recommend, but be aware the plot is not going to wow you.

It's a pretty chill game where you wander a small marsh, collecting small creatures, listening to bird poetry, and talking to stars.

Pretty short but doesn't drag. Feels paced well. The characters are entertaining for what they are.

Ran well on Steam Deck.

Only bug was that I couldn't interact with the stars at all. Opening and closing the journal while looking at the stars fixed it.

Pretty fun game.

Gameplay feels decently unique. You move up a board made of cards, and when you land on a card you play it.

The cards are more of an aesthetic representing event tiles. It's not really a card game and you don't really have a deck or do deckbuilding.

The majority of gameplay is just figuring out how to path to the end of the level while having enough health/armor left over to survive the boss. The rest is picking up items that grant passive bonuses.

There's a fair amount of viable builds, classes, and gamemodes. And I enjoyed playing the game overall, but after 6 hours, I'm feeling that runs have become very same-y. I have 83% of the unlocks completed and all "challenges" completed, but it's starting to feel like I've seen every possible build. All enemies are also the exact same, including bosses. They just inflict damage one time and maybe one of three status effects. When I play now, it feels like I'm just going through the motions. Nothing feels new or surprises me anymore.

I enjoyed playing this game for the first 4-5ish hours and I still play it kill a couple minutes every once in a while. Still recommend, just know it's not a very large game.

The game is pretty good. The puzzles and combat are decent but not difficult. Most of the charm is in the graphics and writing, which is pretty cute and funny. I would recommend the game, but the big problem is that it only takes about 2-3 hours to 100% it. Still recommend, just know that it's a short game.

This game gets a "sorta" recommend from me.
I have 100% this game (all evidence and collectibles) in about 9.8 hours.

TLDR: Great mystery with some tedious gameplay

Story:
+Great mystery and fun to unravel
-Very little world-building and character development

In terms of the story, the mystery itself was very fun. There is a lot of good intrigue and the game is good at throwing you off and making you doubt who did it until you assemble most of the evidence. There were fun twists and was a pretty satisfying in that way.

The world they've built for this story is interesting, but very little about it is revealed. There is some flavor text that gives slightly more detail, but if its not important to the mystery, it is not expanded on. Similarly, the characters have distinct personalities and unique histories, but their characters remain very static throughout the story making them unengaging clue-dispensers after a while.

Gameplay:
+Assembling clues is fun and interesting
-Map is not fun to navigate
-Collectibles are bad and pad the game out

The actual act of gathering clues and talking to witnesses is pretty fun. The clues are distributed carefully, letting the intrigue draw you in. There are also very few sequence breaks despite being able to get clues in almost any order. The trial sequence at the end where you present your evidence and accuse the killer was very hype and very satisfying. Unfortunately everything else kinda sucks.

Some clues are hidden way out of sight and can be very annoying to find. Most clue locations are signaled in some way, but a few are not. There is at least one clue hidden in a corner of a high area and a corner of a low area. I would've never found them if I wasn't searching for some of the optional collectibles.

The optional collectibles are atrocious and serve only to pad out the game time. The first collectible is money, which is limited and scattered everywhere. They are used for 2 characters' dialogue, payment to fast travel, and for unlocking more collectibles. Although there are an excess amount, having a limited currency used for fast traveling makes me not want to fast travel, especially since I will have to hunt for the money to pay for them. The money as a whole feels pretty unnecessary.

There are whiskey bottles that allow you to listen to a conversation elsewhere in the world. These conversations have very little connection to the mystery, very little world-building, and feel kinda unnecessary.

Relics are optional collectibles with some flavor text. Unfortunately, half of them have duplicate flavor text that can be found in the environment. There are also a set of collectibles with basically no flavor text like a pepper that says: "Somebody was growing peppers here." Because of that, they are not worth picking up except for...

The collectible marker you can unlock will mark all collectibles in front of you. Some of the clues also count as collectibles and will be marked. Unfortunately, there is no way to tell what kind of collectible they are until you're close enough to pick them up and there are so many collectibles that your entire screen is filled with markers. Also some clues (despite picking them up like some other clues) are not marked.

The whole civilian areas are completely devoid of anything but collectibles. They are difficult to navigate as there are a lot of turns, and is disproportionately large compared to their importance, this combined with the fast travel system needing payment makes going from suspect to suspect annoying. Also the mountains suck.

Slightly spoilerish complaints:
There is a small section after you solve the mystery that gives you a chance to do a few things before the epilogue. It is possible for fast travel to be disabled, making doing anything feel extremely tedious. This section also kind feels a little cop-out narrative wise. Also, while the mystery ends in a very satisfying way (if you got all the necessary clues and accuse the right people), the epilogue does not change depending on your success and is just some generic "The story goes on" text that feels boring.

Conclusion:
While I have been very harsh on the gameplay, I still enjoyed Paradise Killer. The story was engaging and I was very invested in solving the mystery. I still feel like I can recommend this game despite tedious gameplay elements. Give it a try if you enjoy interesting mysteries.

A perfectly cultured experience.

A very short VN with a few interesting ideas involving predicting the future, the meaning of life, and AI. Unfortunately, due to the length of the game, these concepts presented within the story are not explored very far. Outside of that, the grammar for English is spotty or stiff in a few places but isn't incoherent. Despite these issues, it's still probably worth trying given it's cheap, short, and was interesting enough.