Minute of Islands

Gameplay-wise, Minute of Islands falls under the umbrella of being slow and repetitive, which, as a flaw as it is, fits well with this game's theme on the topic of addiction, obsession, broken habits, main character syndrome, meeting high expectations, letting go, and self-isolation. You're probably surprised hearing this, as I was when I first understood the underlying subject matter it's going for, especially coming from a child-friendly-appearing game. In some aspects, the first 3 levels were a chore to get through; I'll say it is worth playing through them til the end, as the last level speeds run through for satisfactory resolution and relief of what our main character has realized from the errors they made. And yes, the main character, named Mo, is a flawed one, which becomes more apparent as you play through the game, to the point I was really anxious about if the game would acknowledge it at all or not. I'm certainly glad they did as part of the main conflict, making it a roller coaster of an emotional journey. If you only care about the narrative, this game is great for you. Tedious, maybe, but most definitely a pleasant, eye-opening experience with a lot of depth we can all relate to. The world of Minute of Islands is a creative one for sure, with unique lore and world-building where giants exist and the play an important role. Do pick this game up if you have patience and are interested before I spoil the rest.

The game seems pretty and starts a bit intriguing. You want to know what happens, but if you play on pc, the controls are weird, and sometimes wont listen. There are also way to long cutscenes where nothing happens and it makes it boring to play and dread getting on the boat. I quit before finishing it because the story seems jumbled up and the "spirit world" is tedious work because of slow mechanics. If this however were to change in an update, I might be open to play it again.

Mo, you have been so brave. But true courage isn't just about enduring and fighting on. Sometimes, the greatest courage is admitting that you're tired, that this burden is too heavy for you to carry alone. You don't have to be 'the only one'. You don't have to prove anything to anyone. Your family doesn't need a perfect hero. They just want you to come home, to live, and to be part of them. Allow yourself to rest. Allow yourself to receive help. And allow yourself to forgive yourself for the things you couldn't save. You are enough

Picked this one up because the artstyle reminded me of Adventure Time but upon playing it the world reminded me of AT too. Not as weird and wild as that show but there is so much mystery and intrigue over how the world works, how it ended up this way, that kind of thing. Something terrible happened and over the course of the game you slowly start piecing together what that something is. I honestly feel like I only learned about a small fraction of a giant world and I'd love it if the developers ever wanted to make a follow-up and show more of this world, but if not that's fine too. But all this is just set dressing because what the game is truly about is Mo. I love narrative games and this one has a lot of meat to it, giving us a good character driven story with some fun puzzles along the way! Great game would recommend.

Are you experiencing a strange frozen screen showing that you’ve reached Chapter 3 for no reason when launching the game for the first time? I figured it out by changing both the display language and the apps language to American English. I’m not sure if this method works on other operating systems, but it works like a charm on Windows. Edit: I made a mistake in the explanation... sorry! The change has to be done through the Windows system language, not the game or Steam language. Sorry.

[b]spores[/b] [hr][/hr] 2/4 great visual but SLOW and tedious

Occasionally I'll remember an indie game I enjoyed, and I'll visit the games Steam page to see if the team behind it ever did anything after that. Oftentimes I find out that the team fizzled out after that, or released a pandering game that didn't really make sense with their skill set or pedigree. It's rare that I find a follow up that actually interests me. I really enjoyed the Inner Worlds games, which combined an interesting whimsical story with just a bit of darkness, and actually had puzzles that felt satisfying to figure out without resorting to a walkthrough. I feel like there's a lot of insecurity in the narrative indie game space about how much of a game you're actually making, and it seems like Studio Fizbin didn't feel confident about the point-and-click genre, so we end up with a game that's mostly walking simulator but breaks that up periodically with sections it almost feels too generous to call puzzles. They're really just tasks that add a slight bit of friction and movement, and I don't honestly know how much they add to the experience. And that's a shame, because the experience itself is rather impactful. Minute of Island revolves around the idea of a chosen one whose been failing over time. It doesn't take long in the narrative to appreciate that Mo's efforts aren't really amounting to much. She was given a task of great importance, but it doesn't seem like she's made anything better, even for her small cluster of islands, and the mission we're given at the start seems like a bandage on a bullet wound. The art definitely does a lot of the heavy lifting here. Fizbin makes a decaying world of biological horror look surprisingly gorgeous through the bright color palette given to the deadly fungus and the ruined seaside environment. There's a pervasive sense of dread and defeat throughout. Not many games really deal with failure despite often having routine fail conditions, so it was a nice break from the usual Hero's Journey formula. Beyond the needless game play mechanics, there's a few quality of life things that were hard to get over. In general I almost never find video game characters fast enough. The speed you get with the run button should probably just be the standard speed, and run should be nearly too much. Almost any unique action, like crawling through tunnels, takes an agonizing amount of time, involving a laborious animation that you can't speed up or skip. The game regularly screeches you to a halt for the narrator to say her peace, which feels unnecessary because I'm capable of moving and listening at the same time. I don't know if it was an attempt to pad out the game length, or if Fizbin felt that every word said was so important we shouldn't be multitasking. Beyond anything else, for me completing a game usually means its at least solid, and I left Minute of Islands genuinely moved by the experience. Maybe the themes of failure and not giving in to sunken costs were too biographical for the studio, because it doesn't seem like they've shown an interest in making games like this sense. It looks like they've taken the path I described at the beginning, making a dull-looking roguelike that mostly just seems like a reskinned Hades. But maybe I'll check back in another 5 years. EDIT: I should really google the studio before making statements like that. They got shut down by their publisher a few weeks before their Hades-like even came out. It just adds another layer of sadness to the whole thing.

👍

3/10，3分都是美术和音乐的。游戏性一坨，剧情一坨。痛苦不是伤害他人的理由。

good and fun but i just suck at puzzles