Lofty Quest

Yes, I will recommend this- with some caveats. This is not a HOG like an Artifex Mundi game. I would call it more of an interactive visual novel. If you are hoping for a big AAA-type production- this is not it. Solo dev with a little help from some friends- set your expectations accordingly. Interesting mix of art styles- Minecrat meets anime meets detailed pixel art. Really nice music. No voice acting- if the sound the Charlie Brown teacher makes annoys you- well, that's what you are going to get for dialogues. Dialogues are also all in text (good for HoH and deaf players, but read on, please...), so you can mute the game and play silently. But if you need scalable text for any reason- you can only zoom in or out to scale it, and some zooming in will cut the text off of the screen due to where it appears, usually with no way to have the character repeat it if you couldn't read it all. (Some dialog will repeat, but most of it will not.) Again- [quote]Solo dev with a little help from some friends- set your expectations accordingly.[/quote] Can be played with a mouse only- LB, RB, scroll wheel. So good for anyone who can only play with one hand. On the downside- some of the scenes are very dark, and the colors are a bit muddy- people with low vision or color-blindness are not going to have an easy time with this game. Some items are very difficult to detect simply because the contrast between them and the surroundings they are in is close- they do not stand out and tend to fade into each other. There are few settings options- nothing for brightness or gamma, no accessibility options, The mechanics are similar to "No Longer home" by Humble Grove, though no keys needed- you control zooming in and out, and rotating the scene with mouse-only. Lots and lots of clicking- a short enough game to play in one sitting, but playing in shorter sessions may make your eyes and fingers happier. I will say the hidden objects you have to collect become more difficult to collect as the game goes on. The difficulty progression with finding and collecting these items goes from "Super easy" to "OMG my eyes are bleeding from trying to find these things!" at the end. The end of the game was not what I expected- the story was not terribly deep throughout, but it did have enough depth to make you want to know more. But at the end it just dropped out, and you watched it instead of being part of it. The castle section and final scenes seemed rushed, or cut back. Solo dev- so funding and time could have been the issue, but it wasn't the most satisfying ending for me. It left me wondering "What the heck?". The ending was a bit of a let down for me. It was a good game, though. Not a great game, but good for killing time, and one character will likely be vaseline and tissue material for some gamers who like big-chested anime girls, lol. Just don't expect any bouncing- the NPCs are static images- they do not go "boing-boing" across the screen. Was it worth the price? For me, sure. (Keeping in mind I paid the release price, which was 10% off.) But I can afford to buy all the games I want. If you are on a tight budget and are wanting something you'll get a lot of time out of- maybe not. Little replayability in this game- once you go through it, you know the story and where everything is. There is level selection, though. So if you miss a collectible along the way, you can replay a level to go back and find it. Interesting enough for me to recommend it, but I must also be honest about what the game is like- it's not a big dollar production, don't expect it to look or play like one. But it's a decent little game made by (mostly) one person. I support solo devs and small indie/independent studios when I can and when the devs aren't total jerks. I had some contact with this dev both here on Steam and on their social media account via DM- they were very approachable and responsive when I reported a bug to them (very quick hotfix that squashed that bug, too). They treated me nicely and respectfully- please do the same for them if you have any contact with them. (edited to remove paragraph about broken achievements- the dev pushed another quick hotfix- and all achievements trigger correctly now. Dev is responsive and fast with fixing reported bugs.)