ColorBlend FX: Desaturation

I really wanted to like this game. I feel like a lot of time and love was put into this game, and the dev obviously has talent and a bright future. I look forward to their next venture... but this game isn't worth the cost, by a long shot. I immediately felt this game comes across like a graduate thesis project on ragdoll physics in video games... such as "how do bubbles react when acted upon?" or something. There are verbal high-fives to friends, mentions of favorite bands, in-jokes and times where there is both an intentional breaking of the fourth wall and simultaneously an acknowledgement of that breaking. It's obvious the dev was having fun with it. And while those things DO make the player feel more closely bonded with the dev, it does nothing to increase the bond with the game itself. The title is ... terrible. It's awful. Another reviewer mentioned how bad it was and that they thought it was a DLC for something. That's absolutely true. It seems like an add-on for another game. And it's off-putting. It doesn't sound like a game at all. The dev commented that Desaturation has triple meanings in the game and it's a great name. Fine. But get rid of the rest of it... the Colorblend FX is completely unnecessary. Just call the game Desaturation! or (De)Saturation or something. Anything other than its current name. People really don't understand how the way something is named can immediately attract or detract customers. This name is doing the dev NO favors. The movement of the main character is clunky and slow and reminiscent of early mobile ragdoll-physics-based games. Given the graphics, I feel it could have played a bit better if the physics had been toned down a notch. Watching yourself slowly slide down a rock wall or flop around while falling is interesting only the first time or two... after that it just slows down the gameplay. The graphics were overall fine, but disjointed. The rendering of the midground objects and scenery were basically from a different dimension than the style used for the player and NPCs. The lore is that the humanoids are Potato Gnomes and made of dough, which is a nice way of covering up the fact that creatures and people are tough to model and the algos to make them realistically respond to a physics-heavy world are complex. But there is definitely a disconnect when the books in the background have more texture, details and visual interest than the characters. The background is comprised of highly-rendered and detailed trees, moving leaves, clouds, rocks, etc., which are well done but wasted on the fact they are all in the background. This isn't Skyrim or RDR2 where the player is going to sit and gape in awe at the stunning view... the background in games like these is just that - a background that vanishes into the distance while you're playing the game. It's a waste of graphical resources to make the background so overly-detailed. In a platformer, the order of importance and detail should go to the foreground primarily and then the midground. This game does not need individually-rendered blades of grass blowing in the breeze. A heavy reliance on instanced objects make for a fairly boring visual journey. Instead of applying a texture to a whole group of planks so there is more randomness in the patterns, every plank has the texture applied and there are only two planks, so the repetition is immediately noticeable. Add that to the fact that everything is gray and it makes the world seem flat. When there's no color, the eye tries to distinguish between objects by focusing harder on texture and detail, so those become more crucial in a game lacking color. The dialog is... basic. And meant to be amusing. And for the most part, it's fine. However, it could use some editing. It's too familiar and often written in a way that assumes the reader can understand verbal clues that don't exist since there is no voice acting. So a lot of the dialog ends up being vague. There's a general lack of clarity and succinctness to the dialog that could have been avoided by having a better writer do the script. Given the appearance of the Cyrillic alphabet in signage around the game, I'm assuming the dev isn't a native English speaker, which is fine. However phrases like "Access to this place can be really tough!" and "Finally, the elevator just decided to refuse operation!" just aren't really correct in English. And in English, elevators don't do any decision-making. These aren't big issues, but having a native English speaker with a good writing ability proofread and modify the lines prior to publishing would have made the game much more polished and reduced the not-insignificant number of spelling and grammatical errors. Regarding the Metroidvania aspect of the game, I wish I had the patience to overlook the clumsy character movement enough to discover more about it, because I know the dev really put a lot of effort into level design. The problem is, when you die ten times trying to do something that should be simple but isn't not due to a lack of skill or understanding, but because the ragdoll physics are so brutishly non-responsive, it's frustrating. I will say that the library was a smart way to introduce the player to key lore, items and concepts early in the game... needing to read books to gain insight that teaches crafting in order to obtain the map. I thought that was very well done. Again, I feel the next project by this dev will be star-quality. But this game... isn't it. In the future, I feel the dev would be really successful if they would focus in on a specific theme and use the same systems and tropes to get the player more fully engaged in the game world - instead of pulling them out of it. There's a consistent tongue-in-cheek and self-conscious undercurrent that makes me think the dev wanted to make fun of their own creation... perhaps hoping to de-claw future reviewers from doing the same. It's a game that's would actually be pretty good if not for the ragdoll controls... but would be better if it took itself just a bit more seriously.

Really cool platformer puzzle game with an awesome story awesome puzzle's and an awesome soundtrack i recommend it if you like puzzle platformer games! Also be ready for a little bit of rage in the parts where there are slimes ;) 10/10 ❤️!

Alright, I think I have seen enough. I'm giving this a narrow recommendation for fans of puzzle platformers. This game is most similar to airhead but it works better while having more bugs. The primary problems with this game are optimization and poor physics. The physics are particularly bad with glass for some reason. The biggest bug as of right now is the combine menu having glitched text when you select an item for combining. however, the puzzle elements are not too bad and don't interrupt the flow of the gameplay the way the mechanics in Airhead do.

The game is real good. Graphics is nice and honestly I've never seen such color concept in a platformer game. I've been following this title for years until the yesterday release and I must say it worths the wait. Keep the good work guys

yes

Excellent take on the metroidvania genre. Good balance between platforming and puzzles from what I've seen so far, and the art style/presentation is pretty unique and works well.

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33% in and loving it! Great puzzle game, not overly difficult but definitely requires some brain activity. The game controls well and the gadgets are very intuitive. So far there is no repeating the same thing over and over. The game-play is kept fresh and interesting. I have gotten frustrated a lot however that is always due to my own fault, mainly impatience 😉 With 33% completed so far it is well worth the NZ$24.64 for me already.

This game could make you rage quit a lot. But once you get the spring shoes, the game becomes much more interesting as you can jump much, much higher with them. In this game you are only defeated if you give up! ^^

Very fun game! Good simple visuals! Good writting! Never a dull moment!