Girl Genius: Adventures In Castle Heterodyne

This is not meant as a slant toward the game, but as others have said on here, there'll be a lot of positive reviews from the fans and kickstarter, and I do want to lvl the field a little, so other people know what they're getting at. I love the comic, have for years, and was more than happy to fund the kickstarter. I was looking forward to this game. Unfortunately, it's a sensory nightmare for me. NOTE that I said ''for me'', for this is just the way my eyes and ears and mind messes things up. I'm truly sad that this happened, but I want other epileptic people to know this can happen, even if I didn't notice any extreme flashing of light and such. I don't know if this was the best way to bring the story into other formats, though. The story, characters, and details make sense for us that have read the comic, but for someone stumbeling into this game without knowing anything, it'll be a confusing mess. I honestly think this game would be better if you follow some of the other inmates. Yes, having them fix the castle doesn't fit into the comic-world, but there are other ways to tell this story that would engage more people that don't know the story. I still want to play the game, so may circle back every now and again to put in 30min or so, but it'll be a longer playthrough than expected.

While I very much enjoy the webcomic, I bought this mostly to support the creators rather than because I expected a good game. I was correct; instead of a fun romp through the world of Gaslamp Fantasy, we get to drive 'Baby's First Soulslike' through a lifeless hinterland littered with the wreckage of better ideas. I just hope the Foglio's got some of my dollar. In the future, I'll support them more directly.

Why do puzzle games believe that there must be bosses that require "twitch" skills. 8-P Otherwise the game is ok... Buy it on Sale.

i love the comics enough to back game kickstarter. sadly the game doesnt capture the sassy wit or my attention. i dont regret giving my support, just doesnt engage. needs voice overs i think

This is a rudimentary 3D adventure puzzle game that feels a little too easy / basic to me. I only played 30 minutes before pulling up a full play through and skimming it. From what I saw, things don't get all that much more advanced that what I played. This means you'll have to really enjoy slider and lever puzzles that would feel at home on the N64 or PS2. The screenshots and trailers may make you think this is a 3D platformer, but there is no jump button and the closest you get are jump pads that launch you int he way you're facing. You can also deploy a smaller robot to run around and pull levers. With no prior idea of who the characters are or this IP, the story didn't do a lot to get me invested, kind of just plopping you into a castle for 'reasons' but to be honest and fair I didn't really slow down to really take in a lot of the story as I wanted to get to the core mechanics before I exicted the return period. If this came out in early 2000s, people would say it was a clunky clone of Ocarina of Time's and Ratchet and Clank's mechanics, only worse, and it would have been forgotten by now.

I have been sitting on this game for a while, which is a shame, because it really was quite fun! Difficulty wise, I found most of the combat to be fairly easy, with the difficulty resting in the puzzles. Most of this was the fun sort of difficulty of trying to solve, but the platforming did suffer from a fair bit of how narrow the selection was for the grapple-gun or trying to knock explosives the correct angle. The trap mechanics did make for some genuinely innovative puzzles, that I haven't seen before, and makes the game worth it for fans of the genre. The one thing I disliked was the boss fights. The patterns were unintuitive, and the timing to dodge was so difficult I had to drop down to Easy - where outside the boss fights, I would have been fine with going through on Hard. I got through them all, but they were by far the lowest part of the game for me. Still, the puzzles more than made up for it, as did the setting! I'll admit the writing didn't quite shine through, but it's hard to adapt vol #7-10 of the webcomic and make it clear without shoving pages of dialogue down the player's throat. The story was a functional adaptation, and the item descriptions made up for it. The biggest QoL changes I'd make would be giving more error on the grapple gun and adding both more actual hints to the loading screen (say, some advice on the less intuitive puzzle mechanics) or just more jokes. After an hour, I'd seen them all.

A fun hack and slash with legitimately difficult bosses, and a TON of lore from the "Girl Genius" comic series. Includes unlockable copies of those comics as a bonus!

Exceedingly charming, the game very easily captures the magic of the comic with a condensed retelling of Agatha's exploration of Castle Heterodyne, and creates a detailed 3D layout of many of the parts of Castle Heterodyne we've been allowed to see thus far, which in and of itself is worth the price of admission. It's not without flaws and extreme clunkiness (Various quality of life issues, but nothing game-breaking, at least not that I've come across), but if you're a fan of the comic, this'll be up your alley.

I'm not at all familiar with the source material this game is based on, never even heard of it. I just bought it on a whim bc the trailer was giving me traditional 3D Zelda vibes, and it has not disappointed one bit. I am familiar with the dev team Rain Games tho, bc I have Teslagrad and World to the West on my Switch, both great games with some great puzzles. I played about 4hrs of this game when I first bought it and then fell into an Elden Ring hole for like 200+ hrs, and I gotta say, this game made it so easy to pick up where I left off after having forgotten literally everything. Gameplay mechanics, characters I've met, enemies I've encountered, lore and the story so far was all conveniently easy to access within the inventory menu and I was all caught up in less than 10min. That's major bc I've literally had to restart some games that I jumped back into months later feeling completely lost and dumbfounded. Everything about this game just feels so well done, from the art and comic book aesthetic to the fonts and UI and menus, nothing feels cheap or amateurish, like one might expect from smaller indie devs. The story has been good too, despite me not knowing anything about the comics. The gameplay is really what does it for me tho. Again, huge Zelda fan, and while I like BOTW and TOTK, I miss the OoT thru SS era of Zelda, and I like to look for games that take heavy inspiration from those games. The way you expand your arsenal of gadgets thru progression is very reminiscent, and so far I've acquired a hookshot and a bomb, as well as this little pocket watch critter with a cute running animation that I can use to solve puzzles, kinda like the beetle in Skyward Sword but better, and he also gets upgraded abilities thru progression. Also, lots of hidden things to collect if you so choose. It's basically a 3D Zelda game if Link was a mad scientist girl exploring a massively huge mansion full of environmental puzzles and whatnot. The puzzles are challenging enough but won't break your brain. An easy recommend if you're a fan of old school Zelda games or Girl Genius. If you're a fan of both, even better!

Годная смесь платформера, головоломок и метроидвании по интересному сеттингу, вольно пересказывающая приключения главной героини игры (и серии комиксов Girl Genius) Агаты, впервые попавшей в замок Гетеродин(ов). Неплохой геймплей, головоломки в основном несложные, но есть пара мест, где можно поймать то самое заветное "Так вот как оно работает!" Персонажи, в отличие от комикса, выглядят в основном как декорации для Агаты, но взаимодействие между ними всё же на уровне. Героиня, ругающаяся или воркующая с замком - чистый вин. А вот боёвка без огонька, а если учесть финального босса... такое ощущение, что делалась чистая адвенчура, а потом решили прикрутить туда ключемахание с перекатиками. Из минусов - сюжет в игре больше рассчитан на людей, знакомых с комиксами, а человек неподготовленный будет (по крайней мере поначалу) смотреть на сюжетные перипетии с выражением "@#$, кто все эти люди?" и "да чё тут происходит-то?". Хотя в игре и можно открыть аж 13 томов оригинального комикса (то есть намного дальше, чем представленная в игре часть сюжета). Впрочем, любителям адвенчур и фанатам Girl Genius рекомендую.