Metal Garden

BSoD

While a bit confusing to navigate at times, the movement, style, and story kept me going. Bleak as heck, I love it.

It's a very minimalist shooter. It's interesting enough to keep you engaged throughout. I kinda wished it continued after the end tho. I wanted to learn more about the world.

absolut atmosphärisch <3

I got the game because it seemed very atmospheric and has overwhealmingly positive reviews. Unfortunately the game doesn't feel very atmospheric when you actually start playing it. Movement is floaty, guns don't pack a punch, AI is offensively simplistic (honestly, the game would've been better without enemies and just traps or environmental danger). Some of the areas are okay, but overall the game is very lacking even for free.

The moment to moment gameplay is lame, but the level art and map design is mindblowing every time it shows off scale. That's what you bought it for, not the shooting. It's pretty in how abandoned and serene and flat it looks, concrete and fog with some overgrowth. The player, weapons, and the enemies are slow and floaty, unintelligent, not interesting to look at or fight. Not a puzzle game, just 3d platforming with pulling levers and elevators. Too much ammo, and only for 3 guns? Might need a dynamic ammo spawn system, or something else worthwhile to encourage scavenging and exploring. And never enough handgrenades, or any obvious way to line up the grenade throw. The movement mechanics are suited for the maps more than the enemies, but there were still a few invisible walls that the super double jump won't parkour clamber up. I don't like the revised animations, they bring too much momentum to a glacial wide open game, they don't gel with the thematic focus. Character SFX is forgettable, but the environment SFX has a few nice moments.

By far one of the best games I've played this year. Even though it only took me 4 hours to finish the game and get all of the achievements, it felt like [b] so [/b] much more. You can feel the heavy atmosphere laid out by the wonderfully crafted world, you feel the need to explore as much as possible, to find out more about what is happening, what your goal is. The sound design is also great, they are the cherry on top of the experience to fully immerse you into this world. The gameplay is surprisingly good as well. Shooting feels good and fun, the platforming is also super smooth and enables some creative solutions to some puzzles you'll encounter. The injury system is very interesting, some of the debuffs you get actually annoy you enough so that you'll be careful when fighting next time. One tip I would give to new players is to start with the modifier that disables spawning of med kits. By the end of my playthrough I had 10 of those stacked in my inventory that were never used. This game is really generous when it comes to checkpoints and healing stations so you probably wont feel the need to use med kits that often. Besides, you get an achievement for finishing the game with a modifier so there's that as well. All in all, perfect short game, a 10/10 for me! Especially since this is the first game made by this dev, looking forward for more in the future!