[h1]Overview:[/h1]
'[i]Awe[/i]' is a polygon style puzzle game where you manage planets by placing objects on the surfaces of said planets in order to progress. You're thrown into a star system straight away with the opportunity to name a group of planets to which you'll have to populate with various types of objects. On the surface, it seems like a relatively casual game with an aim at zen and relaxation but strays far from it. Throughout your playthrough, the game will throw in all sorts of different game mechanics in an attempt to mix things up and make things interesting but ironically turns the game into a broken, confusing mess.
'[i]Awe[/i]' isn't a game where you play god, look after a cute little planet and put knick knacks here and there. No, it is far from that. It's an inconsistent, hodgepodge of shifting colors, torturous wait times and horrible game programming. If you're looking for a game where you actually feel like you're a god like the description on the store page says, this is [b]not[/b] the game and I'll explain exactly why.
[h1]Gameplay:[/h1]
This is one of the most frustrating games I have ever played and that is saying a lot considering the type of crap I subject myself to. For starters, you're given no information at all on how to play. You're just chucked into the world with zero information on what you're supposed to do. It took me a good 5 minutes before I even had a remote idea of what I was doing and unlike many of the players who got lost and threw in the towel, I pushed further, although I wish I hadn't.
There are 5 solar systems and each one has 5 planets. In each level you're given an empty planet, rows of unmarked colored triangles and something called "Awe". Most people would just poke around for 2 minutes, scratch their head, get bored, quit the game then go play something better. I however decided to debase my brain to the world of '[i]Awe[/i]' and try my hand at what seemed like a cute, colorful planet maker. So we know the goal is to populate the planet but with the information we have, where do we even start?
Basically what happens is you click on the colored tiles on the planet to which the triangles with the same color will then react. The goal is to tap different colored surfaces in sequence to the rows that you see both on the left side of the screen and the top. The rows on the left side will unlock different objects that you can place on the planet. The top row will award you with shards of Awe used to buy objects. This is the only way to replenish it and placing down objects cost more as you progress.
So far it seems pretty easy. Just match the color patterns and that's it right? It is until the game starts throwing curveballs at you by introducing mechanics that make what should be a relaxing game an annoying mishmash of garbage. Once you finish the first solar system, you move on to the second and third which aren't too bad. The only differences are that the planets look different, there are more surfaces, some patterns are reversed and the colors on the triangles fade in and out.
Now the fourth world is where things start to really get irritating. This world is where seasons are introduced. A backwards ass feature where over the course of about 10 seconds, certain tiles will change to a specific color 4 fold representing the 4 seasons. Initially you had a fixed amount of colors you had to worry about, but now you have 4 new ones that rotate every 30 seconds. And if it sounds confusing now, it gets even worse. Instead of looking at the triangles and matching the pattern, you now have to look at the triangles, find out which ones have the color of the season that you're currently on, figure out the pattern, then complete the sequence before the season ends.
And what happens if you don't do it fast enough? The season ends, the color you need is gone and you have to wait 30 gruelling seconds for it to come back. You can't fast forward time. you can't skip seasons. You have to wait. The worst part? If you have enough objects covering the planet, there's a chance that the color you need doesn't even show up. So then what? Wait [b]another[/b] 30 seconds for the season to come around. Seriously, I almost went insane at this point and I was only on the fourth solar system, there were two more! And it's not like you can do anything else while you wait either. You can only unlock objects in a specific order. It's horrendous.
Then the fifth solar system is where the game dropped the bomb and surprisingly, becomes impossible to beat. I'm not kidding. In this part, it adopts every mechanic from the previous 4 solar systems but this time, unlocking objects requires colors from two different seasons. But each season only has one color and only one season can be present at a time. So what do you do? Well this is where the game finally tells you something but in the most godawful way via a vague sentence that says (and I quote) "[i]Choose Your Creation to Keep the Color of the Season[/i]". What does that even mean? The game does the [b]worst[/b] job at being even a tad helpful.
What it [i]actually[/i] means is that you can put an object on a tile that's the color of the current season and when it changes, the tile with the object on it will remain that color essentially making it permanent. Why not just say "[i]Place an object on a surface colored by the season to keep it forever[/i]"? It blows my mind. But now that we know, the game will be a lot easier right? Seasons won't matter so long as we place objects on each seasonal tile, we'll have a permanent set of each.
Sigh, sadly no. For [b]some[/b] reason I don't know if due to a bug or bad programming, this does not fully work. As far as I know, you cannot place objects on any seasonal color except for one. This means you can't retain the rest of them and some patterns [b]require[/b] colors that are 2 seasons apart. There isn't enough time to get both of them in the span of a season cause if you start a sequence and don't progress it fast enough, it resets. This is what broke the game because in one of the levels, in order to get the second one, you have to have a permanent one of the first but there's no way of obtaining it.
How the programmers overlooked such a game breaking flaw is beyond me but seeing how the game is literally unbeatable, that's already a negative review in my book. But hey, if I'm doing something wrong, I'd love to know cause right now I can't put myself through anymore of this repetitive torture.
[h1]Controls:[/h1]
Although already stated that the game tells the player little to nothing about how to play, it [i]is[/i] as simple as point-and-click I suppose. It's at least responsive but that's not saying much.
[h1]Graphics:[/h1]
What normally is something I would say looks decent becomes a detriment to the gameplay. While the game [i]does[/i] look nice and vibrant, the colors just make the whole layout confusing. You're supposed to be finding and matching colors but with the shaders, pink looks like purple, blue looks like turquoise and grey looks like dark blue. It makes solving planets annoying cause you think you're getting one color but you're getting another.
[h1]Audio:[/h1]
Somewhat decent. I can at least say that the music and sounds are soothing. That's only one of few things the game got right. It reminds me of sleeping to the brown noise I occasionally put on but maybe it's because that's what I'd rather be doing.
[h1]Conclusion/TL;DR:[/h1]
'[i]Awe[/i]' is a repetitive and boring puzzle game disguised as one of zen. It could've been a nice relaxing game but the developers tried too hard to give it crap it didn't need to be good ultimately breaking it and making it unbeatable. 80% of the product advertised is false. It is [i]not[/i] a god game. It is [i]not[/i] expressive. It is [i]not[/i] soothing [b]nor[/b] relaxing. It is [i]not[/i] easily solvable and it does [i]not[/i] maintain the player's interest. This was bad.
