Coldwake

A short story, told by keywords in a frozen apocalypse. Don't sweat the weirdly-colored screenshots, they're just showing off - that's 100% user-initiated configs. I... won't be describing this game. Not really. Not if I don't want to ruin it for you - look at other reviews if you want spoilers. Suffice to say, mechanically-speaking, you scour logs looking for the keywords needed to advance the plot. A cpl bush-league cyphers [spoiler](ROT and Vigenère)[/spoiler] are required - nothing major for any dedicated puzzler. Is it worth it? It's short, but if you appreciate a good plotline, it's definitely worth the price of admission.

It takes me a lot to genuinely review a game. This game... god I wish there was more like it, at first you start off like "something isn't quite right" then you find yourself being drawn into the subtle story hidden in hidden logs. The game is full of parts where you have to take in game puzzle outside to solve. The story is amazing, the ending is so sweet... honestly the best 2.4 hours of my life playing games. It leaves you feeling fulfilled and smiling.

A real blast from the past: an oldschool terminal game. Coldwake is hard to describe without giving away too much. It's you, the soft glow of a terminal window, a world encased in ice outside, and it's up to you to find out what happened. Don't expect anything ground-breaking. Coldwake is as simple as it gets: all you get is a terminal prompt, a file browser and your wits. You read log files and fragments of the whole, figure out keywords to unlock more and eventually piece together the story from bits and pieces. It's simple and enjoyable ride if you like these kinds of games. If you are used to more stimulating gameplay then you might find this downright boring, but if for the older generation out there, Coldwake is a real gem. What I'm saying is, there are worse ways to spend ~2 hours or your life (or $4 for that matter). At least this one is entertaining. Give it a go!

A very interesting and charming game! It may not have crazy secrets or replayability, but it tells a story, and does that well. While the game is on they shorter side, it is well worth the $3, and I highly recommend trying it. You will probably be done in 60-90 minutes. There are a couple puzzles, if you can call them that, but they are very basic encryption no one should have issues with. By the end I got genuinely invested, piecing together the story felt great. This was a good one!

A bit short, but the ride is well worth the three dollar entry fee. The story is very intriguing as it unfolds. Chasing the breadcrumbs through the logs leads to several "Eureka!" moments after you've pieced enough information together. Overall, this is a fantastic little game. 9/10

A very good use of £4! The story itself is emotionally compelling, the character writing feels very genuine, and its presentation only adds to the narrative instead of just being something tacked on. Don't worry too much about missing key lore due to the command typing mechanic, the game has an inbuilt mechanic to help direct you to important commands/keywords eventually. The narrative is also not too difficult to follow, so don't expect to need to write notes to fully understand it. The music is also pretty good, and helps accentuate those emotional moments while serving as a good backdrop to the reading experience. Loved the diegetic audio in the background, hearing the key clicks while I typed really got me immersed. Pretty short game overall, I finished it in a single session and very much enjoyed my time with it.

It's a short, beautiful little game where you read through logs on a terminal to discover new commands that give you new logs to read. Mechanically simple, the game uses this to tell the story of what happened until this point. While the retro-terminal aesthetics are also very nicely done, and the soundtrack is excellent, the story is really where the game shines – it packs quite a bit of emotional impact, much more than I would have expected given the length of the game.

This game is a great example of well-executed simplicity. While not as graphically ambitious as Stories Untold or Hypnospace Outlaw, it does the "console mystery" effectively with only a few moving parts and a very intuitive interface. In spite of appearances, it is not a horror game. It's a much more relatable story told through hidden keywords. The game isn't long, maybe 2 hours tops if you read everything, but for $4 I think the experience is worth the price of admission.

Nice, touching story.

Genuinely a cute game. A bit sad, but cute. Fast to play, took me a bit over an hour, including the ~20 minutes I played of the demo before buying the full thing. I wish it were longer, and also that they'd put in some kind of in-game way to translate the cyphers (if there was one, I didn't find it). I think it's worth the small price, and I hope they do something bigger with this format in the future, because I really did enjoy it.