tl;dr - Is this a great game that will keep you on the edge of your seat? No. Is it full of bugs? Yes, a lot. Are they game breaking? No, just highly annoying & unprofessional for a paid game no matter how cheap. Is it worth purchasing? Yes; however, with two stipulations: 1.) it's on sale (yes, I know that it's regularly $0.99), and you are an achievement hunter. Other than that, this is a definite pass.
First off, this feels like a student project, so I will be critiquing it as such. Please, someone correct me if I'm wrong, but this is the feeling that I get when playing. Now, this game is chock-full of bugs. And, I mean a lot of bugs - from graphical to audio to textures to screen tearing, and probably more that I simply am forgetting despite having played through it twice not a moment ago (the second was to take screenshots for this review).
So, what's good about this game? The atmosphere is great. The god rays are ridiculously good. I'm very impressed with them. The level design is intuitive; there was never a point where I felt that I was lost. And, the achievements are extremely easy, and able to be 100% completed in about 15min. Aside from these, there really is nothing else good worth mentioning. The bugs simply far outweigh any of the few positives of this game.
So, why the recommend, you might ask? Honestly, it's an easy 100% for achievement hunters. Apart from the numerous & persistent bugs, it was somewhat enjoyable taking a break from other games with the bonus of another completed game for my profile. Is it worth $0.99? Absolutely not. It could be forgiven of a lot of its misgivings, if it were free. However, I got this on sale for $0.66. My metric for analyzing if my money is well spent is $/time. I spent $0.66 for 20 min of playtime. I did enjoy it somewhat, and I've spent far more for less time & enjoyment than this.
If the developer ever reads this, here are some recommendations for improving/fixing this game, and I will have uploaded screenshots to my profile for your perusal .
1.) Whatever that black line that cuts through horizontally in the middle of the screen it needs to be fixed ASAP!
2.) There is a white line that randomly, yet consistently, appears throughout the ground.
3.) A black zig-zag that looks like a tear in the warp appears at the beginning of the game (in both of my playthroughs).
4.) Persistent floating grass at the first bend of the road should be rectified.
5.) Many of the fences are disconnected in very disconcerting positions, and a lot of the posts are either misaligned or simply non existent.
6.) Various interactions would be a nice addition.
a) For example, an interaction with any of the achievement landmarks.
b) Instead of forcing the player to walk around the extremely long path around to the
tent, an interaction to hop the fence would have been nice.
7.) The invisible walls around the trees & bushes should be minimized.
8.) Various parts of the frozen lake move like jello.
9.) The church is missing two visible walls, yet the invisible wall is still functioning.
10.) Huge frame drop going through the field of grass before the abandoned town.
11.) There were options in the menu for subtitles & voice level, yet there were neither in the game for me.
12.) The graphics options are highly irritating. Simpler/more common screen resolutions or an auto-detect feature would be a nice addition.
13.) This is an idiosyncrasy of mine, but an option for rotating the camera using "q" & "e" would be greatly appreciated.
Edit: Typo
