So, this game is *criminally* underappreciated. At the time of writing it's got, what 7 reviews? Not even enough for Steam to form an average. If I could give it two thumbs up I would, but on Steam I only have one hand I guess.
It's a resistance story, the last bastion of free humanity against a New World Order of aliens who merely claimed to come in peace; a conspiracy tale that lends well to the game's mechanical similarities with Deus Ex. As the trailer advises, there's no "direct combat"--no just plain shooting a guy. The closest you get is sneaking up behind an enemy with a stun prod or something, but by and large you're hacking objects for their functions (e.g. hack a car, drive it through a barrier), or using items and tools like EMPs and time bombs.
The pixel art, by the way, is gorgeous, and meticulously detailed. How it appears in Steam's video window, especially if you're viewing on mobile, really doesn't do it justice. And while at times it can be easy to miss a pickuppable object in the environment because it's all so miniature and fine, that becomes part of the charm of the world, the way the useful blends in with the background to make it all feel equally real, as well as part of the challenge of exploration--you actually feel like you're searching somewhat, as opposed to just glazing your eyes over and scanning for icons or glowy bits.
I've only played 4.5 hours, and still haven't engaged with much of the actual mechanics for building up your resistance base, so can't yet comment on how that works (will edit to do so), but the basic structure of the game is that you begin at your resistance hub, take posted jobs, and head out into procedurally-generated city blocks patrolled by squid cops, at which point you pursue whatever your primary objective may be while simultaneously sneaking around, looting supplies for both yourself and your base, and rescuing other survivors to bring back to your base and add to your resistance movement.
The game would be fun enough if it was simply a proc-gen extraction looter with Deus Ex-style tools and hacking in place of outright weapons, but the fact it has a broader arc, both mechanically and narratively, in the form of building up your resistance, really ties it together. I'm looking forward to getting to know that aspect better, and will try to remember to edit this review once I have.
But for the moment, this game has already earned a thumbs the fnck up, and after 4 hours with it I'm quite certain I'm not going to suddenly run into some aspect that completely changes my mind here. I've seen enough to know this game is worth more than having 7 measly reviews, at the very least.
---This part's mainly to the dev, though players may find it useful, too:
To the dev: If there's any critiques, it's that there's a few spots in the tutorial that should be clearer--e.g. when Winston says "go check out that poster by the couch over there," the damn thing is tiny, and I missed it at first even when I was standing right there at the correct couch (which is rooms away from where he says it, so I was already unsure if it was even the couch he meant). A camera-zoom over to it with a bobbing arrow on top of the poster would do wonders.
And you should be able to get Winston to repeat the directions indefinitely, in case someone missed the text--here, and in general, but especially here, the first time. I noticed that, talking to him again, he reiterates the instructions once more (which I'd actually read, but wanted to read again cus I wasn't finding the job poster/couch and I thought I might've missed something--though I hadn't), but after two times he just says, "What is it?" Maybe more realistic that he doesn't converse like a tape recorder, but I think being able to remind yourself of objectives is necessary, even small ones like that. Maybe if you want to keep the way the dialogue works, just make sure objectives, even tutorial ones, show up in some other objective-tracking log. You never know at what point someone put the game down for a moment and then picked it back up, and the tutorial is really so critical here. I have a hunch that these sticky moments are the primary reason for the total dearth of reviews.
There were one or two other moments like that in the tutorial, but I can't remember them offhand. But I'm sure those have been obstacles to some players who pinged off at the first hint of friction and never looked back, and while that's maybe kinda lame, it's also kinda normal, so it's worth fixing those things. If necessary I could even play through the tutorial again to try and re-identify those other sticky parts. Everything works perfectly well, the actual mechanics are solid, but the explanations *of* them, or more specifically some of the *instructions,* were not always clear.
In fact, I remembered another sticky point in the tutorial--you come into a room where you first get the EMP and time bomb. The bag on the floor, where you get them from, was unclear at first. Just give it a bobbing arrow overhead or something, so players learn that's what searchable containers look like. I thought it was just part of the set-dressing, because, like I said earlier, the items blend in with the world. And as I say, I do like that aspect--an option to have glowy outlines or something might be welcome to some but I'd hope it'd stay an option--but mainly I think making that first searchable container more clear would help show people what to look for in general.
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To the players: take the above as confirmation that, if you get stuck in the tutorial at some point, it's (probably) *not* bugged, and you're most likely just stuck on an unclear instruction or visual detail. Trust me, the tutorial's not long, and it's worth learning how to play so you can get to this cute, colorful, dense, ambitious little pocket-Deus Ex.
This is the quintessence of the hidden gem. So pleased with this find--I urge anyone who's found their way to this page, and these reviews, go ahead and give it a chance already. Your exploration will be rewarded.
