Starcaller

Starcaller aus den Monarch Studios ist ein schnelles Rätselspiel bei dem es um Geschwindigkeit und letztendlich den Highscore geht. Wir befinden uns in einem kleinen quadratischem Raum bzw. Tempel, an jeder der vier Wände ist jeweils ein Rätsel angebracht. Wir können alles bequem erreichen und es empfiehlt sich das Spiel im sitzen zu spielen. Als sogenannter Starcaller müssen wir nun gegen die Zeit die Tempelmauern wieder restaurieren. Haben wir ein Rätsel gelöst versinkt die Wand und eine neue Mauer mit einem Rätsel wird hochgefahren. Ist die Zeit abgelaufen müssen wir ein bestimmtes Ritual vollenden und Sternensplitter in ein Portal werfen. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2496915749 Soweit zur Handlung und eigentlich war es das auch schon. Die Rätselwände wiederholen sich und werden mit der Zeit schwerer bzw. komplizierter. Es bleibt aber immer bei der selben Art Rätsel. Die Aufgaben sind immer sofort ersichtlich und ein schnelles Fortkommen scheitert dann leider an der schlechten Steuerung. Zumindest mit den Index-Controllern. Es fängt damit an, dass man mit den Triggertasten greifen muss, Fingertracking wird gar nicht unterstützt. Gerade Spiele wie diese, bei denen hauptsächlich mit den Händen gearbeitet wird, sollte man schon überlegen, die besten Controller zu unterstützen. Auch glitschten Objekte immer mal durch Wände oder ließen sich nicht anständig greifen. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2496916283 Ist die Rätselzeit dann um, im Spiel ist es dann Nacht, fallen die Wände um und wir befinden uns im Weltraum. Hier spielen wir ein seltsames Minispiel, um ein Ritual zu vervollständigen. Der Sinn dahinter erschließt sich mir leider nicht. Wir werfen also umständlich Sternensplitter in ein bestimmtes von vier Portalen. Werfen wir ins falsche gibt es negative Punkte. Dabei ist das Treffen der Portale oder Greifen der richtigen (gib es die überhaupt) bunten Splitter alles andere als physikalisch korrekt. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2496915172 Je mehr Rätsel wir im Tempel lösen, desto mehr Zeit hat man bei dem schlechten Wurfminispiel. Mir macht das Spiel so leider keinen Spaß. Die schlechte Index-Controller Steuereung und die glitchige Physik, die den Speedrunhintergrund von Starcaller dann doch etwas ad absurdum führt, lassen mich einen Daumen nach unten geben. 👀[url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32170554/]Mehr vom Sternerufer [/url] im Tempel meiner Kuratorseite. 👑 Powered by HoI 4 Deu Curators group in German / English 👑⠀⠀⠀[list][*] [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/30388691/] Follow Main group [/url][*] [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/40282064/] Follow Second group [/url][/list] [u]English:[/u] ------------------------------------------> Starcaller from Monarch Studios is a fast puzzle game that is all about speed and ultimately the high score. We find ourselves in a small square room or temple, with a puzzle on each of the four walls. As a so-called starcaller, we have to restore the temple walls against the clock. Once we have solved a puzzle, the wall sinks and a new wall with a puzzle is raised. When the time is up, we have to complete a certain ritual and throw star shards into a portal. So much for the plot and actually that's it. The puzzle walls repeat themselves and become more difficult or complicated over time. But it always remains the same kind of puzzle. The tasks are always immediately obvious and a quick progress then unfortunately fails due to the poor controls. At least with the index controllers. It starts with the fact that you have to grip with the trigger keys, finger tracking is not supported at all. Especially games like these, where you mainly work with your hands, you should consider supporting the best controllers. Also, objects always slid through walls or could not be gripped properly. Once the puzzle time is over, in the game it is night, the walls fall down and we find ourselves in outer space. Here we play a strange mini-game to complete a ritual. Unfortunately, I don't understand the meaning behind it. We throw star shards into one of four portals. If we throw them into the wrong one, we get negative points. Hitting the portals or grabbing the right (do they exist at all) coloured shards is anything but physically correct. The more puzzles we solve in the temple, the more time we have in the poor throwing minigame. Unfortunately, I don't enjoy the game this way. The poor index controller control and the glitchy physics, which then takes the speedrun background of Starcaller somewhat ad absurdum, make me give it a thumbs down. 👀[url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32170554/]More from Starcaller[/url] in the temple of my curator page. 👑 Powered by HoI 4 Deu Curators group in German / English 👑⠀⠀⠀[list][*] [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/30388691/] Follow Main group [/url][*] [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/40282064/] Follow Second group [/url][/list]

I did not expect this game to be as fun as it is. I guess part of the fun is seeing myself beat my own score as I learn strategies to go about this game. I love puzzles, I'm a huge fan of puzzles, and most of my favorite games consist of puzzles. This game doesn't exactly have the same mind-bending puzzles as some other puzzle games, but they are puzzles that don't necessarily need too much thinking (except for the one with the wheels and matching symbols). Even if they aren't the thought-provoking puzzles I thought I was in for, the gameplay loop is extremely addicting. Seeing myself beat my own records and landing in 1st place is part of that addiction. It's definitely easy to pick up and learn, but there is a good enough difficulty curve that I improve in some area each run. I do hope to see more puzzle variants though (although having too many puzzle variants would overwhelm me, now that I think about it). There is a bit of jankiness in some mechanics. I notice that with the players' hands colliding with the walls has messed me up in some puzzles that require twisting of wheels. Sometimes I even feel as if there is friction with some wheels because my hand isn't grabbing it in the way the game expects. It's also hard for me to accurately twist the wheels in the matching symbols puzzle. I had to train myself to grab the star fragments/crystals because I often would smack it rather than grabbing it when I quickly go for them. It would also be nice if we can rebind the controls because I'd like to use my grip button rather than triggers to grip stuff (on Oculus Touch controllers). Overall, I really enjoy this game because it's fresh and unlike anything I've played before. The gameplay loop is addicting and rising up on the leaderboards is satisfying. There may be a few bugs with the players' hands, but it's easy to retrain your movements to avoid that (bug fixes/patches are welcome too). I didn't pay attention to it beforehand because it fit so well, but the music really sets the mood of the game and each ritual that I do.

[h2]Controllers Fixed[/h2] The controls have been fixed! There's no more issues of sticky controls. I've tested this myself on Quest + VD, WMR Native and WMR +SteamVR. There is a very slight offset in the positioning of the controls when using the WMR OpenXR runtime but this is a bug with the WMR software itself. It is better to use the SteamVR runtime instead. You can do this by going to "Developer" in the SteamVR dashboard and click on the option to set SteamVR as the OpenXR runtime. Big thanks to the devs for working hard with daily patches to try and resolve this! This helped me set a new highscore!! [b]Original Review[/b] [h1]One for the Hardcore Puzzle Lover[/h1] This is for the puzzle lover who loves trying to break highscores and speedrunning. You are shown 4 puzzles at any one time and a timer counts down. Each time you solve a puzzle, some time is added to the clock. Solve as many puzzles as you can to keep the timer going and set a high score. Beautiful atmospherics, wonderful and most importantly highly replayable puzzles. The increasing level randomized puzzles offer a nice variety of challenges for the puzzle solver. An elegantly simple concept of pitting puzzle solvers against each other in a beautifully crafted theme and environment offers a relaxing and mesmorizing puzzle solving experience until you are 2 points short of setting a new high score. This is not a puzzle game for the people who wants to take things slow. This is for the unapologetic, competitive, can't stop bragging speed puzzler. This is for the one who loves to set a new highscore and post about it on the discord and say "in your face!" I might be getting carried away here. I'll see you on the leaderboard!! [strike]In all honesty, there are some bugs leftover with regards to some controller implementations (due to SteamVR's early OpenXR implementation) for certain controllers but the devs are working hard on it. They have been extremely responsive on their discord and seem very passionate. The obvious issue is a "sticky" feeling to the trigger on affected platforms but it's not hard to adapt to it for the time being. The sticky trigger doesn't happen on the Quest when using link but does when using VD.[/strike]

Really delighted with this game. I expected a single "game" to last a little longer, but after playing through a couple times, I actually appreciate that I can pick it up in bursts and I don't have to play through to a good stopping point when I am ready to be done. I've played about an hour so far, and will be playing a lot more to try and get a better score. I love how the puzzles get more complex as you complete each type!

I really enjoyed what I played. This is one of those games that you can keep coming back to for a short game, similar to Beat Saber. I played with a Reverb G2 and had no problems. I'll definitely play more again soon.

This is a beautiful, fast paced, and fun game. It is hard to know how to categorize it. It has puzzles, but it isn't the typical puzzle game where the point is to solve all the puzzles and then you are done. Each puzzle type is randomized and has different levels of difficulty. It comes at you fast and furiously. So there is a puzzle solving element, but you also have to build skill in order to solve each puzzle quickly as it comes at you. One of the reasons I love this game is that it is a room scale game (granted, a small room), and it makes full use of having 2 hands! There's some unique hand tech at work under the hood here, very different from how hands work in most other VR games. It really has to be experienced to be fully appreciated. There's an active discord. I've provided a couple of ideas to the devs and they were very responsive.

[h1]Experienced on the Meta Quest 3[/h1] I think it's more than okay for the price. It's a challenge puzzle game. You basically get a collection of puzzles that get more challenging as you go along in different runs. At the end though, you have a throwing competition to get a high score and climb the leaderboards. This throwing competition seems at odds with the puzzle game mechanics. Shouldn't it just be how fast you're able to do a puzzle run? If you love pure puzzles games, this game will probably be right up your alley. There's a nice variety of puzzles and they're not too challenging, at least not at the start (they do get more complex though the more you play). It's standing-space room-scale so you can just reach out and play the puzzles. The grabbing mechanic seems to have been fixed and I had no issue although it does take a little while to figure out what the game wants. You can play comfortably seated. It's not really my jam though. So I won't score it or do a video review. [b]Rate ?/10.[/b] [quote]Please note: I received a free Steam key through the Steam Curator Connect program. If you enjoyed my review, please consider joining my Steam Curator group [url=https://steamcommunity.com/groups/Oculus_WMR]Oculus Rift Reviews.[/url][/quote]

I thought this game looked quite pretty and wanted to give it a shot. It is basically a very pretty closet where the walls slide in and out with extremely simple tasks on each wall that ramp up in complexity as each one is completed. After a few minutes of simple tasks on walls around you, the walls fall away and you are now in space playing an odd portal basketball game where only one portal gives you positive points and all the other portals give you negative points. The good portal randomly changes every 10-15 seconds as you quickly try to cram as many of the floating crystals in the hole as you can. So the puzzles you see in the trailer appear to be tasks that give you more time to play the portal basketball game. And the portal basketball game is the only thing that appears to affect your score. This is not the greatest game in the world, but I can roll with that much. The real problem I ran into is the awful grabbing and physics in the game. With by valve index I couldn't grab the tools that were needed to interact with the puzzles, there is a pickaxe wall, and it was next to impossible to smash the crystal on that one for some reason. The game lost my interest extremely quickly so I didn't bother remapping the controls for the index, but I did check to see if there was already something in the controller mappings... It didn't even appear that the game was capable of having it's controls remapped at first glance. I wanted to like the game, but sadly it was only eye candy without a solid game under it. It honestly reminded me of those toys you see in doctor's offices where toddlers can slide beads back and forth around crazy wires. Just busywork.

Cool game, definitely worth it. Neat graphics and cool little riddles. I sadly had to refund it, because my Rift S' Audio kept crashing all the time, but I don't think this has something to do with the game. I had this problem in the past with another game as well.

Hands work now, teleport doesnt (vive cosmos) very fun fast paced puzzle solving :D OLD REVIEW : [I unfortunately cannot get my hands out of the floor upon starting using Vive Cosmos. will update review if fixed. game looks hella fun tho.]