democracy's little pogchamp 最近的评测

The biome added by this DLC makes all the other biomes in the game look like ♥♥♥♥. Praying for a refactor or something, Ice Age Tundra mechanics are incredibly fun to play with!

I like this genre of game, so I like to play different entries in it to see what new stuff, if anything, they're adding in to the mix.

This game's definitely enough of its own thing and extremely evocative of the media it's paying homage to, so if "Vampire Survivors, but it plays kinda like a deconstructed Streets of Rage, and there's more focus on using the environment to overcome the waves of badguys" sounds appealing to you, this game will be appealing to you. If you like those clips from kung fu flicks where the protagonist fends off The Badguys with whatever ♥♥♥♥ happens to be in the cake shop he got into a fight in, this game captures that manic improvised combat energy very well.

It's a little tough-going at first, as it is, aside from throwing plates/flower pots/soccer balls at waves of enemies, limited to just meleeing guys who also want to melee you. New ability/mechanic unlocks happen at a pretty reasonable clip, and while I intended to limit my review period to two hours, it was captivating enough that I obviously got like double that.

Kudos to the devs for, at least in the basic moves, as far as I've seen four hours in, not having any sort of fantastical moves. No hadoukens or kamehamehas or chakra blasts, it's just different punches, kicks, slams, &c. I am aware that combos deviate from that base somewhat, but they really stand out as a result.

Before anything else: it's at least three hours long, and worth at least one replay. Gameplay is simple puzzles and navigation, but the narrative's a good one you'll doubtless find relatable if you're someone who's experienced or been exposed to any level of ♥♥♥♥ Life Syndrome. Even off sale, it's $13USD, which is about how much a movie ticket is anyway, and "at least three hours" is a long-ass movie. Definitely worth the price of admission.

Anyway, if you're the type of person who likes gross games about flesh and humanity and horror and stuff, you'll probably like Mouthwashing.

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A slightly more detailed review follows:

Aesthetically, it executes the "dithering-heavy vintage style" that some games have been doing lately quite well. Text you're not supposed to be reading outside of menus can be a little difficult to parse from some angles, but I never got sick of looking at the visuals. They manage to be quite expressive with texturework on the lower-poly models.

Gameplay-wise, it's basically a visual novel with walkabout segments and the level/set design that goes along with that; Wrong Organ peppered details all over the place, so take your time and really comb your fingers through the viscera. As mentioned in the "it's worth it" at the top, gameplay also involves some simple puzzles and tense moments of timing; as far as I saw, you can't brick your run. (Though that might've been fun if it were possible.)

Narratively, it's nonlinear and jumps from time point to time point, but each jump is marked by gigantic text and a sting so if you've lost track of where you are, that's sort of on you. There's a few twists in the narrative that I hadn't seen coming; one of them in particular comes to mind as a total perspective-changer, so if you want to play the game, go into it blind.

Horror/Vibes-wise, it's claustrophobic atmosphere, interpersonal nightmare scenarios, the knowledge that this crowded bus stop bench's worth of people are absolutely doomed in a steadily dwindling supplies in the sense of air, food, and power sense, gore/body horror, segments that call to mind the Invisible Water Monster from Amnesia (a positive comparison), and some tension-shaking jump scares.
I didn't really care for the Mascot Horror, but it didn't get in the way of enjoying everything else about it. I just feel a little bit like "Cute Cartoon Mascot for Corporation" is well-trod ground in horror media these days, and the game's otherwise blisteringly, bloodily singular-feeling in other respects.

Early Access Review left 1 June 2023

The game shows promise. It's very similar to Terraria in feeling, which I find to be a good thing personally.

Hard to comment much on the content that exists in the game right now but if you like games like Terraria a lot, you can definitely get some enjoyment out of this game, even unfinished as it currently is.

Its soundtrack is weirdly awesome. Chillwave exploration and some beat-thumping tracks for bossfights.

Things I Personally Hope to See:
- More depth of systems (town building, citizen management)
- More biome variety (which is an upcoming update, apparently)
- Vertical/height factors in building/terrain (this would likely require a refactor/rebuild of all systems but golly I wish it were a thing, then it'd be Terraria Dwarf Fortress)

Dungeon Munchies is a little bit of an acquired taste, but once you do, it's a good experience.

Gameplay:
Completely middle-of-the-road action-platformer combat play is propped up immensely by the meal/weapon combination system. It doesn't really elevate it to a higher state of play, but it's fun. Probably best played with keyboard and mouse, as the aiming was wonky as ♥♥♥♥ with a controller. The simplicity of the gameplay makes this much more acceptable than it would otherwise be. You can be precise and get through things without taking a single hit, certainly... but there's a fair bit of wiggle room. The cursor and controller would get into messy arguments about who was in charge, frequently requiring a game restart or switching program focus to something else, then back to the game.

If the controls were silky smooth with everything else being the same, and if there weren't the seemingly random conflicts of input when I'm not even touching the mouse, there'd be no real complaints. A simple game that controls really well gets more points than a simple game that controls okay. Sometimes, due to the stickiness of the selection, I'd wind up spending a lot of resources upgrading something I had no intent of ever using. This additional layer of required deliberation contributed to the overall Kinda Clumsy™ feeling the game had.

Story:
Ramps up kind of slowly, but once it got its hooks in I pretty much had to finish the game. Arguably the best part of the game. Characters were all quite delightful.

Aesthetics:
Passable-to-good. Some visual glitching in the appearance of the Zombie Chef protagonist, especially when it comes to attack frames and meals that change facial expressions. Some memey and Crude Humour™, mostly pertaining to things like whacking the stiff logs off the front of trees, etcetera. It's a weirdly horny game, or at least I found it to be.

Music was generally kind of forgettable until Ch2 onward, but that might be on me. Sound effects do their job - though it seemed like enemy sounds could get "stuck" in certain areas, and sometimes they were annoying sounds, so my playthrough was just perpetually periodically haunted by the horrid squealing death rattles of various things.

So I guess, out of 5, we'd say... Gameplay 2.5 (Mid), Story 4.5 (Great), Aesthetics 3 (Fine). This seems to be the dev's first game or at least their first released game, and I'm keeping an eye out for anything from them in the future.

Oldschool-style MMO. Ability variety, limited active slots, and magic effects on equipment allow for, at least in concept, a really awesome range of build possibilities. Helpful playerbase, fun lore and worldbuilding, absolute heaps of stuff for a newcomer or returnee to discover.

It's the only MMO I've played where "Dying" and "Cow" are skills.

It definitely looks a little scuffed, but it's a slow and steady work in progress. For some, given the extreme old-school vibe, it might add to the experience. If you demand Absolute Graphical Fidelity™ it could be a dealbreaker though.

Such a dumb, basic game but I keep finding myself coming back to it. Tempted to play the game people say it's a ripoff of, Magic Survivor, as that apparently *is* a mobile game despite feeling like a mobile game (as this one does).

All that being said, if you've seen footage of someone playing it and have thought "I wonder if it's fun," and you have $3 or however much to spare, give it a buy. Even shaving off dozens of hours of "I forgot I left the game open while working/sleeping/etc," it's provided a lot of enjoyment.

Kinda wish the generic +1 projectile per 20 levels characters were a little less carbon-copy though.

If Steam had numerical scores out of 5, I'd give it 3.75; if it did them out of 10, it'd probably be about a 7. There are better games out there, but this one occupies a "drink coffee, catch up on news, play a 15 minute Hurry Mode session of VS" niche that lets it stand on other merits.

EDIT: Updating this as of 0.8EA-- it's pretty good. Definitely still a very simple game, but there's a delightful amount of secret characters and things to unlock. I feel like it'd benefit from an Endless Mode, but given how the game feels like it's struggling pretty hard with absolute max curse enemy counts, it might not be able to handle it...

But it would be pretty fun to push the limits of the Limit Break the most recent (at time of editing) update added.

Oh, and while the game definitely still feels an awful lot like a mobile game, they've pulled some things with stage transitions and the like that make it feel much more standout. Though the secret boss of Stage 5's whole shtick did manage to make me feel nauseous, so if lots of moving still images turns your stomach a little, be advised that there's at least a couple one-time exposures to that in the game.

maplescape good game

Nice crossplay between PC (browser or steam-based) and mobile devices. Doofy sense of humour in all the quests and writing. Surprisingly enjoyable if you're into the idea of managing multiple characters all working toward one goal: building up the power base of your account.

Probably needs some kind of player-oriented competition to have utter longevity but, really, between OSRS/RS3 and this, this is - being a small indie project by what, one person? - much smaller in scope (at present) but really comparable, like, mechanically, with the added advantage of "the game plays itself, doing whatever you left off on, while you're away." It's that AFK Progression that really clinches it for me, personally.

Also, the sheer variety of content in the game is kind of astounding - when it comes to the minigames for all the different skills, the various Production mechanics innate to each world, and the multiplayer dungeons, it's honestly staggering to remember that all this has come from a comparably small team. The dungeons in particular have been a lot of fun to drag my friends, who I have tricked into playing and enjoying this game, along to play through.

also the game's music is a bop in, like, every area.

Sometimes... things that are expensive... are worse.

Other complaints mentioned here fell in line with my experience. They're basically like Meat Minions that can't upgrade/train, can't be sent on missions, blow up your security checkpoint when they get karate chopped in half by agents, sleep noisily and forever (Charging Stations), occupy the same slots normal minions do, require separate infrastructure, recruit (build) slower, &c &c.

It's a cute idea but after trying out having, like, 10% of the workforce be mechanical (and more of the Guard workforce be such), I decided to drop mechanical workers entirely and I'll probably do the same with the mechanical guards on my current playthrough.

They're just, uh. Not very good. I'm not asking for pay-to-win, of course, but considering the additional costs and infrastructure behind the mechs, I guess I thought there might be some point of appeal. It's just disconnected from the rest of the game's systems while eating the rest of the game's resources.

Like... you can upgrade beds for minions eventually, there are upgrades for food services and so on. I GUESS the fact that their stat-regenerating infrastructure is just one object is kind of nice, which was what was behind me using them as extensively as I did before, but as I continued tech progression it felt like mechs just lagged further and further behind with stat regen and overall usefulness, especially bearing in mind that they're competing for slots with minions who can actually get sent on missions and promote.

Surprisingly engaging story for what's basically an idle game; the worldbuilding and setting work is also quite unique and was fun to experience. Town building is fun and reason enough to come back to it after beating it, at least for a HUGE NERD like me, and working on filling out the Encyclopedia's also something I've got my dorky, dorky eye(s) on.

Gameplay is very basic, but with a fair amount of depth - tile combos and the like require forethought and planning, and the whole "make the game more difficult for yourself, in order to get better [stuff]" is a fun angle.

Really picks up once you unlock the additional classes and the Gold Cards for your decks. If I have a gripe here, it's that Gold Cards could stand to come online a lot sooner. Some further explanation and clarity in the mechanical minutiae of the game would also be welcome - with the summoning class in particular being pretty unclear as to what affects what.

Finally, the aesthetic's just absolutely KILLER if you're into DOS-era-feeling sounds and sprites, even without the goofy CRT Screen Filter™ on. The music and artwork combine to make a whole vibe that's honestly, as I'm typing this, really tempting to just come back to and experience for a while.

All in all, if the game looks interesting to you from the screenshots and/or trailers, or any other play you've seen of it, then you're probably at least a little bit of a dorkass like me and I can say you will enjoy it. Yes, it is unfair at times. Yes, you have no control over what your Hero does. But it's all great.