CO-OP : Decrypted

Fun platformer from my first impression, only played through the first couple levels so far on normal but it is progressively getting harder with each level. The controls are simple, and the sound effects and music aren't overpowering or annoying. Graphics are kind of nice as well. From what I've played it doesn't feel like an early access game, which is nice. Single player is pretty fun because you use both robots, one at a time. This game has a Portal 2 type feeling to it, without the voices and the portal gun. Player Two and myself made a couple videos of our first time playing this game and uploaded them to YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/user/HiddenLevelStart), I will keep this review updated as I go with more thoughts. Update 1: Just unlocked my blue partner and the powers they share together. It's really neat. R3D has the power to absorb energy, and BLU3 has the power to use that energy and create an explosion. As the levels continue you switch back and forth from R3D to BLU3 to solve puzzles to make it to the end of the levels. It now feels almost like a multiplayer game while playing as single player. A very unique feeling. Update 2: Player Two and myself tried the local multiplayer for the first time, it was quite fun playing split screen where we each controlled one of the robots. She used the controller and played R3D, and I used the keyboard and controlled BLU3.

[table][tr][td][b]Note:[/b] This has been provided to me free of charge for review purposes.[/td][/tr][/table] [h1]Overview:[/h1] [i]CO-OP: Decrypted[/i] is a 3D puzzle platformer with robot protagonists, Red and Blue, than need to collaborate in order to get to the exit of the levels. While this is in no way a hard game, without new or original concepts and co-op a little to be desired for, this is quite an interesting game worthy of your interest. [h1]The Pros:[/h1] [list] [*][b]Enjoyable Singleplayer[/b] - Due to the nature of the game's progression throughout the levels, singleplayer is both achievable and fun, even if the levels were meant for co-op. The lack of time-based puzzles allow you to easily switch between the two and complete the level by yourself. [*][b]Long Levels[/b] - So far, the game features three chapters with seven levels each, but don't think you're getting only twenty one levels. Each level is actually a long tunnel of rooms, each with it's own puzzle. Most of them are ridiculously simple, but each stage takes about four to five minutes to complete. [*][b]Robot Powers[/b] - This is one of those games where you need to collaborate because each robot has it's strengths and weaknesses. Red moves fast, jumps further, can move boxes and charges Blue with energy, while Blue is slower, but can explode, destroying turrets, weak walls, or clearing piles of obstacles. [*][b]Nice Level Design[/b] - The game play is 2D, meaning you are restricted to only one Z coordinate, however, the levels are 3D, with nice decor, decent lightning, and great ambient music. [*][b]Challenges[/b] - Added replayability for the achievement hunter, you can challenge yourself with finding hidden orbs that require a bit more attention to reach or try to speedrun through the levels, or try not to die. Good luck! [/list] [h1]The Cons:[/h1] [list] [*][b]Too Easy[/b] - Because of its 2D movement system, the game really limits itself on how many things you can do. The only tricky parts are conveyor belts and deadly electric barriers. Most of the time, it's not a puzzle game as much as it is a jumping simulator. Also the levels are too linear. When you get to the most you can reach with one robot, you just switch to the other one, press a button, and all will make sense. You don't need to figure out when you have to switch robots, its always obvious. [*][b]Local Multiplayer Controls[/b] - The game is designed to work with a gamepad, but the controls are just as good and comfortable to use on a keyboard. But you can literally play this game only with one hand, using a maximum of 10 buttons at best. However, you cannot assign Player2 controls to other buttons on the keyboard. Instead, you are supposed to plug in a second controller, which is disappointing because 3/4 of the keyboard is left unused. [/list] [h1]Conclusion[/h1] A fun little game that could be an excellent game to play with your kids or your bored friends. Optionally Challenging without being boring, I recommend this to anyone who is looking for a casual puzzler. [i]If you liked this review or want to see more of my recommended games, you can view my reviews [url=http://steamcommunity.com/id/Jadarma/recommended/]here[/url], and be sure to follow our curator group: [url=http://steamcommunity.com/groups/Original_Curators_Group#curation]Follow Original Curator Group[/url][/i]

I had this game on my wishlist for quite some time. When I saw it on sale, I was very exctied, so I bought a copy for me and friend to play together. I couldn't have been more excited to finally get a chance to sit down and play it. Then, I finally tried it, and boy was I disappointed. -I had to restart levels the first five times in a row because one of us either glitched through the floor, got stuck in a wall or ended up between some boxes or a shelf and couldn't jump out. -The options menu is not well designed. It started me in 1024x768 and I couldn't turn the sound down because the bar was underneath the words. Then when I changed resolution, I could only click on the bar, so there was no fine adjustment. It was either 1 or 10, couldn't set anything in between. -At times it would randomly increase the volume to maximum for no reason. -The servers were very laggy, especially when looking at your partners screen. -There were switches that my partner would activate, it would show it worked on his screen, but the platforms never came down for me and we had to reset. Glitches and stuff aside, the game just isn't as fun as I was anticipating. It has some cool mechanics, but in the end we just found ourselves bored quickly. There doesn't seem to be any real story and the game just isn't that challenging to warrant wanting to continue playing. I will give the game another try when it comes out of EA because I really want to like it, but my hopes are very low.

TL;DR: Amazing platformer with great potential and capable devs, playing co-op recommended. The game is available in the Indie Gala Friday Special Bundle 16 at the time of writing (for another 14 days) and I would strongly recommend buying it. According to the FAQ in the game hub only two people are working on this game which makes the game so much more impressive. Graphics are great, the gameplay fun and the puzzles interesting and somewhat reminiscent of Portal 2, just, you know, without portals. If you're an avid fan of the genre you will not have too much problems with most of the puzzles but still some are fairly challenging. If you have opportunity to play the game in co-op use it, it's implemented well and a lot more fun than singleplayer. I have not yet completed the game (I'd estimate I'm at roughly two thirds) and I reckon it would take about 6-8 hours to complete the game at this stage. Don't forget that it's still in early access so it will most probably get quite a bit more content later. Most of the achievements are somewhat easy to achieve, either through normal playing or a small effort but some are pretty hard (speedruns, completing the game without dying and the like). The thing I like most about this game are the devs. Usually criticism or bug reports will be ignored, bugs stay in the game forever and sometimes games are completely unplayable. Threads in the game hub will not be answered for weeks and if they're answered it's usually not very helpful (looking at you Magicka 2). That's not the case here, the state of the game is great for an early access title, better than many other AAA games were and are, and the devs usually respond in about half a day, lots of the bugs getting fixed within a day or two. Bottom line: if you like platformers give this one a try and support the amazing developers.

[h1]I Don't Understand This Game[/h1] I don't understand the thought process of this game. 1.) [b] I don't understand how you can make a 2.5D game with zero 2D-gameplay mechanics other than moving in the X and Y axes for directions. [/b] The hidden orbs are not that well-hidden and the one-or-two puzzles that utilize the 2D design feel forced and unneeded when, you know, you could move around in 3D as an alternative. The game has/is a 3D environment that wants you to imagine it's only 2D. Funny enough, when you zoom-out for viewing the room, the game looks and plays like a 2D-ish game. (I'm not joking; there's a room at Level 14/15--I don't recall since they all blur into one--where each player is "trapped". Only, the forcefield blocks one part of the floor/screen when you could just walk around it, There's no facade.) 2.) [b] I don't understand how you can have a game called CO-OP and gate access to cooperative play until Level 3. [/b] It's not that long of a wait, 10 to 15 mins at most, but it still makes no sense. Look at Forced, Ibb & Obb, Castle Crashers, etc. 3.) [b] I don't understand why design a cooperative game where one player has to wait for the other player.[/b] I tried out cooperative with my significant other and we were doing the same thing I did for single-player: Waiting to advance based on the other player's involvement. 4.) [b] I don't understand how this game is out of Early Access. [/b] The game is far too short and takes way too long to get going on the cooperation (you two are only in the same room ONCE in my playthrough.) Not only does the game feel like a proof-of-concept of a game, there are tons of bugs and optomization problems (still). Thankfully the controller options work and the controls are fine. 5.) [b]I don't understand why create an aesthetic, a world, and cool designs for robots but give none of those things any bit of personality.[/b] If you were hopping for the Portal Coop Bots, think again. I just refer to them as the Suck Bot and the Boom Bot. That's all they do in the game, and there is no deviation or something to change up their mechanics. You pick up boxes, you move them and suck up energy. (R3D) You can't jump to save your life; you need R3D to give you a lift--with boxes--and the only fun you have is blowing stuff up, which can cause horrible screen-tearing effects. (BLU3) 6.) [b] I don't understand how a Purist mode is all that interesting [/b]. I'll be upfront and say that I haven't played the "Hard Mode" setting. But I fail to see how, when you beat the main-game, conserving your energy bursts will be any more challenging. There aren't alternative paths or extra obstacles designed to make you backtrack. The only challenge is not misfiring early too much, which I never had a problem. 7.)[b] I don't understand how you can use one song, ONE, for the entire game with some variation.[/b] Yes, there are small differences and sound-effects thrown in, sometimes, but it still sounds like the same song. (Where is that trailer song? I have not heard anything like it. Nor have I seen the cutscenes.) 8.)[b] I don't understand how you make enemies pointless in a 2D game. Especially turrets.[/b] You can run through the enemies and not worry, so long as you don't stay too long in the camera's spotlight or you remember to jump past a turret. 9.)[b]I don't understand anything about the lore because no context is given to me. [/b] I played UP to chapter three and gave up because I didn't get one clue of context about who am I, what am I doing, why is everything trying to destroy me, and why should I care. [h1]Going To Be Brutally Honest[/h1] This game is boring and fails to engaged the player(s) either as a cooperative game or a puzzle-platformer itself. This game needs to be scrapped and started over again. If you're going to use 2.5D elements for gameplay, just make it a 3D platformer instead. There is a far shortage of those kind of games from indie-games and maybe the gameplay might be better suited with larger environments. You might even expand upon the game's intial ideas into something unique and well-worthy for cooperative play.

Buggy as absolute hell. My boyfriend and I got it to play together because we need more co-op games. It was grueling to get past the 3 levels that you have to do to unlock co-op, since 2 of the 3 ended up bugging out to the point where I had to restart them completely. Maps didn't load, features didn't work, etc. Eventually I managed to get through the tutorial and we tried to start up a co-op session. He got the room made, and I couldn't even access co-op at all. It was totally grayed out despite doing all the same things he did, and getting the co-op unlocked notification. I messed about with settings and my connection for about 10 minutes before deciding to try and complete an extra level in hopes it would re-trigger the unlock. Two minutes later, the level crashed to the menu. Controls are not great, either. Half the time the game doesn't register your jumps and you have to be unbelievably precise about your movements because the game is NOT precise at all. You have to balance it out. It's a struggle. I want to like this game. I really do. It looks neat, and despite all the problems the puzzles WERE engaging. But as it stands now, it's just not playable. Fix it, please.

It's a 2D platformer that shows some inspiration from portal. Simple but bland gameplay with regular visits from the glitch gremlins. I must note that i was under the impression while playing that this was a free-to-play game, but apparently it sells for $9.99. I must've received this game in a bundle some time ago and not even noticed. It is not the worst, nor the most broken game i've ever played, and i struggle to say anything negative about it other than the gameplay can be summed up simply as "meh". But it does certaintly seem more like a graded project for a visual design course than a $10 indie game. I can't imagine paying half of that and being satisfied in today's market.

-Game breaking bugs (falling through floors, getting stuck in walls, getting stuck in the floor, blue robot spawned in a black room and couldn't move or do anything) -Soundtrack is mostly just a buzzing noise in the background -Gameplay isn't actually cooperative, you don't interact with eachother, you just play single player in separate maps at the same time until your progress is blocked, then you wait for your friend to progress far enough to let you move on again -There are no actual puzzles, just simple platforming and pressing buttons -Huge input delay, when you press the jump button the robot will jump half a second later -Can't have two local players both using the keyboard for some reason, you have to have a controller (fortunately I do) -In the options menu, resolution is set using a slider bar, in which all the aspect ratios are jumbled into one and you have to click on the bar in 50 places until you happen to find the resolution you want -Bought the game for local coop, but you are forced to play single player for half an hour to unlock multiplayer. What the hell? TLDR bad game don't buy, shame on me for not looking at the reviews before wasting my money

Tags: Combat Arena & Smashbroesque Additional Tags: Delete Local Content & Remove from Library (1.7 Gigs) TLDR: The portal style sidescroll 3D art direction with Xbox360 pad support was a solid start but the game failed to deliver a fluid and smooth local co op puzzler experience. Game bugs out on you, you do not realize it, make your friend you dragged to play with you feel dumb for not being able to help you fix the puzzles and just creates an unhappy situation. This is a local co op puzzle game where you have to work as a team to navigate yourselves to the exit point of a level. Lots of flipping switches, using teleporters and arguing with your friend about how to go about doing things. Apparently the game is bugged to high heavens which would explain why we had such a hard time with it and seemingly were going nowhere, getting bored, and feeling dumb.

purchased it purely as a cooperative game to play with a friend. Won't let you go co-op multiplayer until you have completed the first three levels as a single player ! For me that was strike one. No save games is strike two. A little glitchy is strike three. I will be asking for a refund. Having said that the graphics were pleasant and the concept was kinda kewl. Just not at all what I was expecting or hoping for.