HEXCRAFT: Harlequin Fair

cool weird game, slightly incomprehensible but clearly has a lot of vision behind it

A very confusing one to review. I liked playing it a lot. I was fortunate enough to play the demo and it assured me I would. But when I boil things down, a lot of flaws got in the way of me enjoying it much more. - I was enchanted by the spellbook--you unlock spells throughout the game and can use it to mess with the environment. By the time I unlocked any spells I was far and beyond needing any of the sandboxy ones like summoning neutral hostiles to attack people. I couldn't conjure a reason to ever use spells to take anything down when I was never punished for using a gun instead. - No holds barred, the atmosphere is amazing. It's a creepy game but the bottom line is that it's a survival horror more in practice than concept--it's got no jumpscares and still got me pretty good naturally, plus the style is extremely unique in how crisp and muddy everything looks. - I actually thoroughly enjoyed being aimless without instruction. I always knew there was something to do somewhere, but that was ruined twice at the end of the game. Once when the item I was looking for was in a part of the map I had already searched thrice, every time the place was empty but I'm guessing I progressed enough to finally spawn something there. The other time I actually had to flat out look up the location of the final item I needed to finish the game because I passed by the not-obvious-enough clue a hundred times, and that proved to be its own herculean task--the only true guide to this game turned out to be a speedrun. - The combat is the worst part of the game handily. The atmosphere is immaculate and there's all these gadgets you can use to your advantage, and yet every encounter boils down to you and your opponent standing still and shooting at each other. They always stand still, I try to dodge but most of the time I get hit anyway because I'm trying to dodge bullets. When I'm not dodging bullets I'm running away to hopefully heal back up. Everything contributes to an eerie, immersive, genuine experience and then the clunky rigid combat pulls me out of it every time. - I was pretty disappointed to eventually learn that NPCs [spoiler]die forever, mostly because anything they add to the world is extremely fleeting, they inevitably die during your effort to progress. Their place in the world is the most interesting part of the game, and while it's only natural they'd die permanently, they were gone before I truly knew what I had, and I found it tacky that they're usually replaced with nondescript neutral enemies. I was unable to truly enjoy their mechanics, but at the same time, they were able to give me directions to locked map areas early, which on the surface seems like a neat way to progress freely but led to me progressing strangely, like unlocking one of the last spells first.[/spoiler] - The free DLC was a pretty sweet addition. Despite all my expectations and knowledge, having slight shifts and a remixed area led to a satisfying second go at experiencing the game, even if it was more combat heavy and less ambiance heavy to its detriment. In the end, despite all my complaints, discovering this game was intoxicating and I realize that all these gripes are more so tied to a first-time experience. I might play this game again immediately, and I will live with these 'flaws' as characteristics of the game. I'm afraid playing it again won't be nearly as good knowing so much more than I started with, but I know for a fact years later I will revisit this game and fall in love again. I enjoyed this more than enough to seek out other work from this dev, who seems to have a bit of a following and a consistent style. But without a doubt, this game will not be for everyone, and I think 2 hours is more than long enough to decide whether you'd want to refund or not. Try this.

Interesting game but I wouldn't recommend it unless you were familiar with what you are buying already.

this game keeps me up at night, what secrets are left to be uncovered? what is going on? I don't know but it's very compelling

Weird as heck but really fun! My one big piece of advice to anyone starting out playing- don't be afraid to cause some havoc! I'm sure it's possible to beat the game without getting a lot of people killed by random monsters, but I sure as heck didn't manage it, lol

apocrypha of a city in eternal twilight

Another gem from Oleander Garden

This is the very rare Immersive Sim that doesn't follow in the footsteps of the old Looking Glass/Ion Storm games, but builds a design language of it's own. The world is small but deep, and rewards experimentation. Just go in, try to go somewhere new or find something new, and slowly learn how the world works.

Started a war in St. Clair between cops, crusaders, and horrors from [redacted]. In the end a witch and I were the last living things, and I was too terrified to confront her. A fever dream of an immsim. Takes some time and lots of experimentation in your room to get used to, but what doesn't? It probably isn't for everyone, but you won't know unless you try. I'm looking forward to going back and figuring out where all the things I missed are.

it's fire