Myrmica

"Myrmica" is a student project from U-tad in Madrid, Spain. This narrative driven iso/top down adventure/puzzle game has you playing with your very own Groundhog Day sci-fi time loop. You manipulate the occupants of a fossil fuel facility by adjusting their schedules through each time loop as your mysterious overlords have you toying with the occupants. Unique idea for sure. The graphics here could be a lot better and it's text heavy, and normally I find these to be serious issues, but given the value you get for nothing, well, sometimes of all the kinds of "free" games on Steam the student projects are the best ones. Sometimes. Sometimes they're as bad as all the rest, but this one may very well be worth your time. The graphics in this game are serviceable enough to carry the gameplay. And while it's vital for any game to have impressive visuals (gaming is a visual medium, after all), there's more to a game than just the graphics. Here, you get a reasonably even match, enough to give this a pass. Unraveling the mystery behind the time loop and the occupants of the rig is worth plodding through the other elements of the game=. Not every "free" game really is. There's often MTX, or content locked behind DLC, or donations being requested, or any other number of things that could mislead gamers, but in this case I'm glad to say this really does appear to be a fully free game. Nothing demonstrates a developers belief in themselves and their work than giving it away without any remuneration. This is a service to themselves, and the gaming industry, and should be applauded. Of course, just because something is free, doesn't necessarily mean it's valuable. Even though this is "free", it failed to appeal to the 120 million+ gamers on Steam. SteamDB showed the game peaked at only 5 concurrent players... this is a dismal public reception. This was so bad they couldn't even give it away. Bearing in mind that free games don't add +1 to your game collector count, should you bother adding this to your library and downloading it? Yes, believe it or not. While this is far from a perfect game, the deficiencies and drawbacks can be overlooked due to the zero up front price and the value you get out of it. It's greater than the sum of its parts, and worth downloading if you're a fan of this kind of gaming experience.

[i]If you are curious about its title, MYRMICA, here is what one of the developers kindly shared:[/I] [b]" [...] one of my teammates stumbled upon "Myrmica" while searching time-manipulation-related topics. It seems like these kinds of ants were one of the first to be the subject of time manipulation experiments. Also, one of the themes of Myrmica is workers and their inability to stop being a cog in the machine, so the ant theme fits it like a glove. There are some smaller reasons here and there, for example, some species of myrmicas invade other ant's nests, manipulate their behavior, and from that manipulation destroy the nests from the inside [...][/b] Isn't it just BRILLIANT? I just wanted to put It up here for anyone interested. Let's go on with the review now: Double thumbs up for this ambitious game! Please don't [i]discount it[/i] because it's free to play and a university project: it's a game through and through with an insane potential and a generous length - it took me over 7 hours to beat. Despite the familiar setting on an oil rig, whose anxiety-inducing atmosphere never fails to creep out, and the time loop mechanics a la Outer Wilds, Myrmica feels new, fresh and unique, rather than derivative. I mean, just think about the MYRMICA Ants reference and time manipulation mechanics in the game! Being stuck in a time loop, reliving the same, daunting day over and over again surely creates tons of atmosphere, but there, where Myrmica shines the brightest is its solid plot, its existential questions about humanity, ideology and history, and its lifelike characters. Gameplay mechanics consist mostly of a tool capable of manipulating time. With it, our sneaky and [b] manipulative [/b] character will have to alter time perception for each of the oil rig workers, causing them to cross paths or perform specific actions at designated times. Unfortunately, the mysterious Entity is not the only enemy lurking in the shadows, and you will end up fearing game bugs as well as [i]it[/i]. The time loop mechanics, though, make it easier to find a way around them: all you have to do is quit the game and start over from the last time loop sequence. Those patient enough to brave the bugs and the in-text typos, will be rewarded with an unforgettable experience! Myrmica plays well on Steam Deck, except for draining your battery VERY fast, even at lower fps. It would bring me joy to see this game getting more love from players and quality testers alike, and receive a full debugging, some implementation, perhaps even an expanded storyline, and a price tag, so we could buy it and support the developers in their future endeavors! *** More reviews on my Steam Curator: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/thegamingmom

This game has evolved a lot since its first iteration thanks to the devs' determination and it has now become a really great narrative game. It has impactful dialogues, solid gameplay and original mechanics. ♡

It is made with heart, feelings (much more than expected) and time loops! Lots of my favourite topics mixed into a game. Don't be discouraged by the occasional bugs, it's a good experience. Hope to see a sequel.

A really weird and unique game. Its mostly just reading, but its still pretty cool. The world and the characters are really well made and the mechanics really unique. It was, and i mean this in the best way possible, not really fun to play rather then pushing forward to see how it all unfolds. This doenst mean this game is a wast of time, its just something to indulge in a strange world and uncover a mysteries story. And its free so at least one reason to give it a good look, I can recommend it

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Game has great climate, and has nice new time augmenting mechanics, but it needs few thing; -optimisation -difreent grade of hints system -marking previous non esential dialogues as already read in previos loops

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