I got my copy via my Steam group*
It's a miss for me Fin, I was hoping you would expand on the good aspects of the first game like those cerebral moments, but for me this game was mostly misery, frustration, and tedious gameplay, with very little reward in between, not to mention various technical issues or puzzle softlocks. I could not finish it, I got bored of doing the same thing around the 6th zone, I gave it a fair chance, it's just actually mind-numbing, and I constantly feel like I have to tolerate various issues with the game design.
In contrast to your first game, it's less about exploration and more about the 'stealth gameplay', but the mechanics were not good enough to build the entire game around them. You can literally run past the dudes when they look forward, either that or the mechanics do not feel consistent with those eye guards, sometimes they may or may not get me doing the exact same movement. Those dudes are also literally everywhere, and it's not so much it's hard, it's very tedious to constantly wait, or trying to figure out what the switch activated, yea there are lines showing where they go, but sometimes it feels misleading too. The boxes have a tendency to softlock puzzles, perhaps the character should be able to pick them up instead, like carry them around. I also don't like that save points are at the start of the zone, considering that some of them could take 15 minutes to figure out, it should be every section.
The worst part, even the narrative moments can't do much to salvage this game, there are very few of them and rarely do I feel like they give me anything to work with. I often feel like I have to play the game for 60 minutes just to get a few random text lines that don't tell me much of anything, and even if they do, I do not get the overall picture of what you trying to convey, mainly because the world does not look interesting, the locations do not look interesting, and I do not care for the characters.
Another thing I would point out, I know you have this red filter or whatever it is, but the coloring is not going to hide the default looking level design, there are too many areas that have a very assety feel to them. I know you can do interesting level design, I have seen you do it occasionally in both games, but I would rather you do less stages that look completely unique, than have more stages that have a default square shapes. You don't really need to create many unique 3D objects, I am just talking about shapes, don't overuse square tunnels and right angles, the game ends up feeling cheap. Pay attention to how the lights work in the tunnels, there are moments in this game where it feels cool to move through the weird environment with limited visibility, but each time I find a generic looking location you lose that illusion.
[h1] Pros: [/h1]
(+) The puzzle gameplay by itself is not bad, I like that they get more challenging and make you think, and yet because of everything around it, so many things get in a way, it's anything but a relaxing game.
(+) There are some locations that feel more interesting to explore and it feels like you put more manual effort into the game, that should be the norm, not 10% of the game.
[h1] Feedback: [/h1]
- Try to avoid making areas that look very default, you don't have to make any complex models or architecture, just make the areas look unique enough so it feels like the location has some theme going for it. Not sure if the game uses assets or not but many objects look very cheap, either don't use them or make something more unique. Also, maybe try to find different textures that you can apply to walls.
- I think you meant to place some glass tiles in some walls because you can't take the light out of some lamps, but they look invisible to me, maybe you need to give them a bit of a blue hue.
- The boxes have a tendency to softlock puzzles, maybe the character should be able to lift and carry them.
- The game in this case should save between each completed section and not completed zone
- I thought the stealth gameplay was done very poorly, it's easy to run past everything, if anything it just feels like you doing the same thing for hours, while often waiting for the right moment to move
[b] Overall Thoughts: 5/10 [/b]
Even if you making a puzzle or gameplay oriented game, I think your end goal should still be escapism, considering that you still trying to add some cerebral elements, it's not always the generic puzzles that make the game, it's the locations or the new visuals you get for solving them. It just feels like your reward for solving a puzzle is another puzzle, and instead of making cool stages or cool narrative elements, you just running around or waiting, or just very confused. The puzzles overall were not terrible, but everything around them is not great.
[code]Niche, obscure and underrated games: http://store.steampowered.com/curator/31294838-Hidden-Gem-Discovery/ [/code]
