Shadow Trick

[quote]A review copy was provided by the developer.[/quote] [quote]Follow my Curator page, [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/41363546-Fruit-N-Doggie-Reviews/]Fruit N Doggie Reviews,[/url] so you can be updated whenever I post a new review.[/quote] [h1]Overall Rating - Seriously Flawed ★★☆☆☆[/h1] [h1]First Impressions[/h1] Shortly after starting Shadow Trick (ST), I was perplexed by the level select screen. It only showed a total of 24 levels, and after beating half of them, I hadn't earned any achievements. I closed and reopened Steam before clearing the first level once more, and unlocked a few achievements all at once, yet had to defeat the first couple of bosses again to get those. The game was proving to be both much shorter than I'd expected, and not as free of bugs as I'd have thought. [h1]Gameplay[/h1] This game is a platformer with some puzzle elements to it. As you explore the small levels, you can shift back and forth between the foreground and the shadowy backscape. For the most part, it's possible to go between the two planes freely, but there will be a few exceptions, such as when a platform is available in one location but not the other. If you'd get shifted into the same place as one of those platforms, you can't go there. Merely moving slightly or even jumping and shifting in air is all that's needed to overcome that minor hurdle. Aside from the absence or presence of a platform, how they behave can also change from one side to the other. In the shadows, objects are treated as immovable, such as chain links or accordions. On the other side, you can freely move through those links, and the accordions squeeze down as you stand on top. Conversely, glass blocks and flames won't show up in the shadows at all, since they don't block light and have the means to cast a shadow behind them. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3582561934 [h1]Controls[/h1] Although the controller handled most matters alright, it wasn't without a few issues, including the sense that the jump height was a bit too limited. For instance, when you take damage, your ability to move left and right is momentarily paused, even after you die and respawn. It's kind of like you have to jostle the character back into an alert state before you can control it again. Also, be very careful when you're around ladders. Climbing onto one while in the shadows is a bad idea, or switching from one state to the other, as it dropped me into the ground any time I made that mistake. Once I was out of bounds, I couldn't get the character back into the level properly. [h1]Story[/h1] There is an opening cutscene, but it's hard to infer very much about what's going on since much of it seems accidental. Perhaps a text summary would have been helpful. However, if you gather all of the moon crystals from every stage, you can get a good ending. It just seems like a strange choice to have an ending without better establishing the setting, bosses you fight, or the main character. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3582565823 [h1]Visuals[/h1] Overall, the visuals in ST have a cutesy appearance, with even the skeletal final boss not looking very sinister. Most of the floor and environment looks to be made of playing blocks, or something to that effect, in part because of the bright colors they have. A decent amount of enemies look toy-like as well, although there's plenty that don't quite fit that mold, like the fish and frogs. There's minor distortion as you switch back and forth in focus between the foreground and the shadows in the background. However, it's necessary for the concept to work at all, and I think it does a solid job of making the players' focus shift to the proper place, without a significant sacrifice to how the game looks. Something that might prove helpful is to, ironically enough, treat the shadows as the more permanent structures. Often enough, something in the foreground is malleable in one way or another, such as contracting platforms, while in the shadows it won't budge. That's why you're able to walk through a chain link in the foreground, but it's an impassable barrier in the shadows. [h1]Sound Design[/h1] Ironically, you might want to mute this title, because otherwise the music and sound effects are very quiet. Even if you turn up the volume on your gaming device to maximum, there's not much power from the game's sound department, with no way to alter that in the settings. It would suck to switch to something much louder after playing this game, and blast your ears from the unexpected jump in volume. Otherwise, there was nothing out of place or wrong with the music or sound effects, but there's no way to better balance out the noise levels so it's louder without blasting your device to the limit. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3582562512 [h1]Pros[/h1] 🌟 There's interesting interactions between the different planes of the levels, meaning that the concept was used decently. 🌟 The hidden moon crystals aren't too hard to find, but require you to pay attention and think about your moves. [h1]Cons[/h1] ❌ I feel like the jump could have a bit more height. Quite a few platforms are just barely in reach, along with enemies you need to land on. Part of me wonders if it was accidental, from other errors left in the game. ❌ There's no indicator during the level to show whether you've missed any moon crystals or not. You also aren't shown what level you're on as you start each one. ❌ Certain sections seem to be particularly annoying on purpose. [h1]Tips[/h1] 🔍 It's not uncommon to have one of the moon crystals in a location where if you proceed too far, you can't return and get it without having to restart. Just pay attention as you're progressing, trust your gamer instincts about hidden items, and you should be fine. 🔍 Some enemies and hazards need to be triggered by approaching carefully in order to get past them without taking damage. [h1]Final Thoughts[/h1] I'm baffled by the numerous reviews for this title, because most of them have many more hours spent playing the game than is needed. I lost interest before finishing all the levels, but I hadn't reached 60 minutes, with only 6 left to beat. There's not anything inherently wrong with a short experience, but that wasn't the impression I had going into this playthrough, largely in part because of those inflated play times. ST only has 24 small-scale levels, 4 boss fights, and some missing elements in the presentation I'd expect from any game, short or otherwise. Sadly, I don't think I had unfair or lofty expectations, but for $5, I thought there was going to be more than what I found here. Maybe this would be fine to pick up for $1, or in a bundle, yet for such a short playthrough I expect everything to work properly. Since that's not the case, I wouldn't recommend this game. [quote][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32732116-IndieGems/]Follow our curator page: [b]IndieGems[/b] if you like and want to see more reviews like this one.[/url][/quote] [table] [tr] [th]PC Specs[/th] [th]Performance[/th] [/tr] [tr] [td]Ryzen 2700 RTX 2070 16GB RAM ADATA SSD 1920x1080 [/td] [td]The game has problems working with its own ladders, and didn't initially activate achievements. 🌡️ - ST is a bit sickly [/td] [/tr] [/table]

The second step in the Steamy Neutronization! Another simple, short 'n' sweet li'l game. As with the previous one, Shovel Pirate, it's not without its frustrations here and there, but it does its job: being a nice novelty. Nothing to blow you away, as should be obvious at this price. But I like the gimmicky concept and smooth animation, and it has two banger music tracks. So yeah, it's neat in my book :)

really cute game! I like its theme of the game: the level themes and artstyle is very pretty as always the music is extremely catchy and boppy the levels are interesting and challenging enough to keep you engaged even with the length of the game being relatively short, i think its worth the price though i do have some stuff i had problem with: the blur effect is horribly strong, it mixes horribly with the pixel art making it kinda unappealing to look at (alongside with the unfitting glow effects and water shader) and makes platforming between layers kinda uncomfortable at times same for the way the layers are mismatched, it makes jumping between layers confusing a lot of times and esp annoying in some bosses regarding the bosses, theyre extremely uninspired, all "jump on boss 3 times" while i believe the theme of shadows couldve been utilized way more with these bosses, same for the enemies, though this is just my nitpick the level formula also feels bit too familiar, 3 objectives per level, samey enemies from other games, (not talking about the sprites - talking about the enemy itself), but the game is still great, its not that the formula is bad, but its just run its course as someone who played all of your games even with all that, i would still recommend buying this game, i still like neutronized games and i want to support him as much as i can, im glad this game takes more lessons from shovel pirate's blandness

[i]Shadow Trick[/i] is a puzzle-platform game in which you play as a wizard that can switch between the foreground and background as a shadow. The game is linear in its progression, with 24 levels that have 3 hidden collectables (moon crystals) in each that are required to see the game's ending. Quite a few of the newer Neutronized titles are smaller in scale - [i]Shovel Pirate[/i], [i]Slime Labs 3[/i], so it's nice to see one that offers a few more stages. At this point it's quite standard for Neutronized games to involve having to replay levels and collect all of something in order to see the actual ending. I'm not a huge fan of this setup but I don't really have complaints about it here. This game even has four bosses and spoilers (maybe): [spoiler]You need to beat them without taking damage to get all the moon crystals[/spoiler]. I do love the aesthetic of the game. The redrawn sprites of familiar enemies and the various themes look wonderful and charming and are enhanced with the game's soundtrack, which incorporates a lot of high-energy, cute chiptune. My only nitpick about the environment is that when you enter water, it doesn't really feel like you're interacting with water besides when you first splash the water's surface. The shadow mechanics incorporate nicely with the water (you float as a shadow and sink when solid), but I really wish there was more sense of the character being underwater. It just felt like you were in air. I also would have loved to see more water-based enemies. The only fish you see in the screenshot are the only enemies that are found beneath the water's surface. The levels themselves can get quite challenging when playing for the first time, but when re-attempting them, I realized that a lot of them were surprisingly short. The game took me about 2 hours to beat, with an extra hour spent idling in the game when I went afk and forgot to close out of it. I'm sure I will clock more hours once I start working on the wiki pages for it. The most difficult part for me was the perception of the shadow - having the foreground be out-of-focus obscures part of the shadow's vision and that can make it difficult to figure where you're going. I also noticed some areas that I thought would be solid as a shadow weren't (certain windows are non-solid as shadows even though in other instances, they act as platforms). Furthermore, some of the levels themselves are quite buggy, particularly when it comes to switching into shadows near a ladder - I fell through the floor several times when becoming a shadow near them. I like the bosses for the most part, though I found the last boss to be frustrating because it's so dependent on RNG. [spoiler]Sometimes I would jump near the top to land on the boss and then a snowflake would just spawn so I wouldn't make it down in time to land on the boss' head. Furthermore, that red ghost can still damage you if it just started firing a projectile after you jump on it and it disappears, which is super frustrating.[/spoiler] Granted, it is a fairly simple boss, so it's more of a test of patience. The third boss was probably more challenging than the final one for me. There were some times where I could run under the boss and it would drop down immediately but other times, it would kick out its leg. I'm sure there's a pattern to it but yeah, the reaction time was very quick on it. This boss' aesthetic was my favourite out of all of them though. If you're looking for a retro-style indie game that takes after some pixel art browser Flash games of the 2000s/2010s, this game may hit the spot. It is a relatively quick sit and there isn't really much replayability as the collectables are required for beating the game. But overall, I'm glad that Neutronized is still actively making games to this day and this was right up my alley.

Жалко что игра короткая, но всё равно мне она понравилась: За гейм плей, и за музыку, и за главную фишку к игре способность перемещение 2D пространства в тень. Я так скажу игра стоит своих денег! Я рекомендую для тех, кому интересен такие инди проект. #SuperCatTalesPCport

shadow trick is peak neutronized -fun gimmicks -two ways to solve a platforming problem -one thing i disliked was that the snowball guys could see you in shadow form, when no other enemy could (except the dark matter spheres) -absolutely BANGER music -some collision issues in areas -nice area theming -nice enemy design and most of all -SWITCH COMPATIBLE CONTROLLER ICONS WOOHOOOO (why doesn't any other game have them??????????) -i don't like the snowflake gimmick, as it is very bad for speedrunning shadow trick is peak neutronized

I really like this game, but there are a few issues: - I think the game needs cloud save data like other games. If you play on one device then play another you have to start over. - If you change into a shadow, then climb onto a ladder, the character falls and gets stuck (I broke the game). Some type of glitch. - I think there needs to be a UI for the moon objects so you know how many you have on each level (I keep forgetting how many I have after I grab them). But the moons aren't hidden so most of the time you won't miss them. Audio There is a weird glitch with the sound: - If you start the game with your computers speakers, then sound will not come through on headphones. - If you start the game with your headphones, then sound will not come through on computers speakers. You have to close the game use the sound that you want, then start the game again.

Like other Neutronized games before it, Shadow Trick is short and sweet. You can beat it in about an hour, but that's by no means a bad thing. The main idea of turning into a shadow to find secrets and sneak up on enemies is pretty fun! I like that the levels make you use the two forms judiciously at times, and aside from a few frustrating choke points, the game's overall a good time!

This game is giving me heavy Nitrome vibes, short and sweet, and I love it. This was fun to beat it 100% in a single day, however the controls feel like they're poorly implemented (in other words made for mobile in mind), the snow thrower was the most annoying thing on earth that could see me even if I'm a shadow, and the snowflakes are purely rng which I didn't like [spoiler](especially at the last boss)[/spoiler]

beautiful from start to finish