The Cloudberry Abyss

A very solid and enjoyable gameplay loop. One thing I commend the game for is both how random yet fair the gameplay is. Often in these fnaf like experiences, there's always a tradeoff between solid yet boring fairness versus frantic yet unfair randomness. It matters in these types of games cause the goal is always resource management. Basically: "Make your resources last long enough to survive for X minutes" Which isn't objectively bad, alot of games use this format and it allows for lots of strategic gameplay. But at the same time, it means that a random setback objectively makes you more likely to lose no matter how skilled you are, cause the time limit is fixed and your resources by no fault of your own can (sometimes) can be drained to an unwinnable amount depending on how unlucky you are, which never feels good to be on the receiving end of. I really like in this game there is no time limit or resource management. This allows for both very fair yet very random gameplay. As surviving is (99% of the time at least) always possible, it just isn't easy. So whatever setbacks there are in terms of gem placement or monster timings never ends up feeling unfair as the delay it causes only results in you having to frantically survive for longer, not frustration due to a guaranteed loss as the only thing that could make you lose is your mistakes. Of course this game is in a very barebones state right now and honestly needs lots of polish in the way of art/assets as honestly it wasn't very scary to me at least, and I didn't really get that much from the story either. Obviously this is my opinion and I don't think I speak for everyone when I say this but I at least personally really liked the gameplay, and think its a good foundation moving forward. As of now this games seems to be in extremely early access so bear in mind this review is for this game's first release version, future updates in the future are very likely to change things. So this'll probably be outdated soon.