Entropy

Playing Entropy were among the most fun 10 hours I had in 2024. The game is humorous and has a lot of personality, and it integrates a lot of fun mechanics as well as a moderate challenge in normal mode (there is also a hard mode available) so you don't have to pull out your hair too much and it's just about shooting stuff and having a great time. There are lots of weapons and skills/combos available, bosses, bits of dialogue and little easter eggs/secrets sprinkeld along to discover. The music is great, very cohesive and accompanies the game nicely. You don't need to think twice about this one, it's a hidden gem!

Fun top-down shooter. Space construction-themed. Hasn't been polished very much, seems like it was made by an amateur. But that doesn't really matter, the gameplay is what matters, and that's reasonably good. The controls are not always obvious. It's not always obvious what you are supposed to do. The creator understands their own game, but the player may not immediately understand what the creator was intending. This game could benefit by watching a player learn to play the game from the beginning by themselves, and seeing if the experience could be improved. At the very start of the game, it was not clear where to put the initial pipe. I was expecting to see a broken pipe: like, there would be a pipe section on the left, and a pipe section on the right, and I was expecting to have to put the pipe in the middle. I thought that the window at the top kind of looked like there was something missing there, so I kept trying to place the pipe there to fill in the gap, and it didn't work. I resorted to walking around all over the place and trying to find a place to put the pipe. It took a little while, I was a little trapped. Eventually I figured out that I was supposed to place down the pipe and use it to walk over the gap to the right, but it wasn't obvious that this was how the pipe tool was supposed to be used. I thought it was used for fixing pipes, not for placing down a platform that can be used to walk over gaps. I recommend somehow indicating on the screen where to place the pipe the first time. Because the initial weapon (constructing pipes) does not obviously depend on where you're aiming, and can instead be aimed by walking in various directions, the player doesn't immediately learn that this is a keyboard-and-mouse game, where aiming the crosshair using the mouse is important. Instead, they may think that this is a keyboard-only game, until later in the game when they have to work out how to use a ranged weapon. It isn't obvious what can and cannot be interacted with. There are many buildings and vending machines and such that look like perhaps they could be interacted with, but are in fact just part of the background. However, the elevators can be interacted with, but they look as if they could be just a part of the background. Players may not easily be able to work out how to interact with the elevators, because they might just assume that they cannot be interacted with. There is some text which vaguely tells you, but I think it could be taught more clearly to the player. Minor inconveniences: When placing the pipe to the side, it's a little annoying that you can only place the pipe at chest height and not leg-height. Also, the visuals for where you place the pipe do not match up with the area that you can walk on after placing the pipe. Perhaps the pipe should snap to the gap you placed it at? When you are standing and shooting while near a top wall, your bullets can immediately hit the wall because the top part of your body is effectively inside the wall.