Inside the Crow´s Nest

I would recommend this game but there are definitively some areas that could benefit from improvement. The concepts are good and the story is compelling but some of the mechanics could be improved. The movement was generally difficult but especially with a game controller. Over time, I was able to gradually adjust and figure out work arounds but it caused a lot of what I feel is unnecessary frustration. Additionally, if you ended up in a blind corner (i.e. behind an object) and you were unable to see your character, it was very easy to get stuck and have great difficulty getting your character out. I think it would help significantly if you could have the character move left, right, up, down, and diagonally instead of just moving the character up and down with left and right rotations to adjust direction. I was very hesitant initially with the two part save mechanic (having to find not just the save spot in the world but also find a candle to use it) but there were enough candles that it worked. I know this type of save mechanic is not a new concept but it is also something that I feel can increase player frustration with little benefit. I do appreciate the game mode that allows you to enable checkpoints though. It was very helpful to reduce some of this frustration. The audio may need some fine tuning as well. The growling caused by the enemies is nice to have to know you are in the room with one but it is too loud in balance with the background audio. Additionally, the growls are a little too frequent and it becomes repetitive and annoying if you are in the same space with an enemy for more than 30 seconds. Make the growls more subtle/blending the audio more or even just reducing the frequency of the growls could potentially help significantly. Speaking on the story itself, it was good and interesting and, frankly, what prevented me from rage quitting after my frustration with the control mechanics. The puzzles are good in that they are challenging but still pretty solvable. The combat was well balanced for me personally (I prefer more puzzle to combat which is what this game seems to achieve). You may benefit from adding a melee weapon option (especially with the current game mechanics) as when the enemies are on top of you, sometimes the range weapon seemed a little buggy or lagged and it was difficult to run away from the enemies. This is not something I feel is necessary but may be a nice option. Finally, the ending was fairly abrupt and the story short. With this game being in early access and free that is to be expected but I hope the devs are able to keep working to flush out the story. I think the concepts are cool and would love to see this game improve and grow. *Extra note: I have not attempted to obtain all of the achievements but I saw some comments about issues with the secret character sheet and the mysterious balls. At the time of this game play, I too cannot pickup the first ball in the prison (Act 1) and do not know if that is what is supposed to unlock the secret character sheet.