this is my first desktop companion game.
This is an update to my original review. I have been reading quite a few of the negative reviews. Even though this is my first desktop companion AFK game, it absolutely plays like one. Yet so many people complain about progression like this is some hardcore game that you need to steamroll through.
Back in the day, I actually had a desktop companion that was an annoying duck that kept cloning itself. Not sure why I brought that up. The nightmares are coming back now.
One of the reviews stated that every time they rebirthed, they had to click something a thousand times just to get back to progressing. The game literally tells you to hold Shift to spend all and max that stat, or Control to use half of your currency.
Someone was complaining how hard it was to get to Rebirth 75. Man, why don't you slow down and just enjoy a little dude doing his funny little investigations on your computer, and just play it casually. The game was not meant to be a rogue-like burnout.
Update 2. I absolutely contradict myself in the previous statement below. This game can definitely be a roguelite that grabs you, and won't let go.
After putting so many hours in (most of those hours I was not around for), I did come across a few things that would be cool if they were added. Otherwise, the game's great, and now I want more like it.
My first thing I was going to mention: I actually found out you can do. I really didn't like how items had stacked up, and I had to watch them bounce and try to click at the right time. Turns out you can just use your mouse to move the items around in the area.
So my gripe is going to actually come off as though the developer put enough into such a simple game that it's actually quite addictive if you sit and play it.
They have built a pretty amazing loadout system. You get gear that buffs stats or have random passives, some stages, such as the third, severely limit your HP progression, but the stage drops gear for defense, so then it becomes strategic. Investigation points and cash go hand in hand because you get your cash after each investigation and then a big lump sum when it's completed. Each part of an investigation is awarded a certain amount of points and experience, and upgrading cash is determined by how many points you would get from that investigation. So you want to balance those stats out a bit.
Intelligence is like your attack power. The higher it is, the higher the percentage can get to complete whatever the little guy is eyeing with his microscope or finding the truth from the people in the area. Each time you fail, you lose health. If you die, you don't lose anything, but the progress towards finishing that specific investigation. Some investigations are pretty nail-biting because they will come down to the wire where you have practically no health and just maybe one or two more investigations to go to complete it. I absolutely love that system.
If you find yourself sweating, a desktop companion game like I had a few times already, You want to make sure you're upgrading all the right stats each time the cash flow comes in. I mean, this tiny dude is just walking around looking silly, and you're frantically trying to see what you can do to up your intellect so you don't fail the next investigation part. It quite honestly feels exactly like you are in the middle of a boss battle lol.
During these sweaty playthroughs, I thought it was pretty awesome that there's gear that has passives where, if you buy a certain amount of a specific tool, it also increases your intellect. The awesome thing about this is that you're realizing you do not have enough cash to upgrade your intellect, and you're not going to before the end of this investigation. But you do have enough to buy a crap ton of these tools. For instance I have three pieces of gear that are part of a set that will increase your intelligence by x amount for each x amount of this tool you buy, and now you just completed the investigation. Congratulations!
There can only be a certain amount of gear on the ground at once, which is understandable because it's not a very large area, and you don't want it getting cluttered with loot. Or maybe you do, I don't know.
I always keep six pieces of gear on the ground. They stack with each other, and they are all the same item. They increase the sell value of any item by 1.5.
After an investigation is completed, sometimes loot will drop, and it's not something you want. I drop everything I have in my inventory, and then I pick up what I call my sell loadout and then sell that item for way more than the original. Typically, the cash-out comes out to equal about 10 to 15 minutes of regular investigating, sometimes more.
I wouldn't say it's a gripe, rather a hope that they add some kind of saved loadout system or an option of instead of movinh the gear around on the ground, you could move it to the side of the screen, out of your way.
Speaking of
items on the ground don't go away if you rebirth or go to a different area, and I love that. I would still prefer my suggested loadout options, but hey, maybe that was their intention and part of the strategy.
I also want to point out one other negative review. Someone had complained that this game is not really an AFK desktop companion because going afk does very little for progression. Some people don't pay attention to game mechanics.
The total amount of cash you make, whether you're playing or you went on vacation for a week, tallys up into a stat, which plays a pretty huge role. I'll just leave it at that.
If you haven't bought the game or played it yet, this should be a lesson that people love to leave negative reviews when, in reality, the issue is an ID 10T error.
This is probably the longest review I have ever left, but there is so much depth to this game that allows you to play it consistently and addictively for quite honestly, way too long where you have to force yourself to stop or a chill desktop companion that puts in work when you don't have time to play.
