Total Reload

Total Reload is a puzzle game full of increasingly complex switch, lever,and gate puzzles. It's first person, features some simple but polished graphics with a spacey robot theme. Gets hard! But fun. Starts simple but gets complex as more interlocking and sequential layers are added. Definitely worth checking out if you're a puzzle gamer. For more niche curation, follow me at: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/27440015-CSH-Picone/ Want more honest niche & indie reviews? Check out: https://www.cshpicone.com/gaming

A robot plummets from a transporter high above the ground, its descent ending in a violent crash that knocks its systems offline. When the internal repair software finally completes its automated routine and the machine reboots, the artificial intelligence that governs it, an entity known as Hawking—, makes a startling discovery. Although the robot’s central processor survived the impact, the repair process has split the AI into two operational halves. Hawking still possesses control over cognition, speech, and reasoning, but the robot’s motor functions, its ability to walk, interact, and manipulate the environment, are no longer under its command. Instead, those functions have somehow been assigned to you. Hawking is your sole companion in this desolate facility, and your relationship with it evolves as you progress through the world. It reveals fragments of its purpose, its history, and its mission, though not always in a straightforward manner. Throughout the environment, you’ll encounter mysterious symbols etched into walls and panels. These symbols become conversation triggers: by focusing on one, you can ask Hawking a question tied to that symbol’s meaning or context. The game’s central mechanic revolves around energy transmitters—small pedestals rising from the floor and marked with a lightning-bolt emblem. Interacting with a transmitter causes the same icon to appear on your interface, indicating that you’re now holding an “imaginary wire,” a kind of flexible energy link. With this wire, you can create power connections between the transmitter and other elements within a room: doors, switches, elevators, or any device featuring the matching bolt symbol on its surface. When you successfully connect two points, a visible wire materializes, forming a live electrical link. Disconnecting or rerouting power is simple. If you decide that a connection isn’t useful, you can sever it with a button press or carry the wire to a different outlet. The mechanic becomes inventive when you realize that the system allows for persistent connections. For example, suppose a transmitter powers a door. You can open the door, grab the wire from the outlet beside it, and walk through the doorway while still holding the wire. The door remains powered until you reassign the connection elsewhere. It’s even possible to swap wires between devices without interrupting their energy flow. Most power links use blue transmitters, the standard energy nodes. However, you will also encounter red transmitters, which function differently. A red transmitter comes with at least one pre-attached wire that cannot be removed, while the other is either red or blue, though only one of these outputs can be active at a time. Some devices require a single energy source, while others demand multiple. This limitation is what turns simple wiring into true puzzle-solving, forcing you to choose which device receives power at a given moment. Puzzle rooms branch off from the primarily linear main stage, and progress is frequently gated until you complete the challenges within these rooms. Entry into puzzle zones is handled through black, inactive screens that act as portals. These same screens also let you travel between distant sections of the main facility, gradually revealing how vast and interconnected the environment truly is. However, you're always pushing forward, and there's no backtracking. Inside each puzzle chamber, your objective remains the same, which is to deliver the required number of blue energy connections to the exit screen. Doing so sends power back into the facility’s central hub, unlocking new pathways in the main stage and bringing you one step closer to your ultimate destination. As you delve deeper, you’re introduced to energy cubes, which you can manipulate using a specialized tool. When placed near large black tiles on floors or walls, these cubes activate the tiles, energizing smaller adjacent tiles that serve as new wiring anchors. Later, they can be used to block laser beams and either activate or deactivate moving platforms and elevators. Distance is irrelevant for wire placement, the system will automatically route the connection even across large gaps, though barriers like metal grids can block your passage while carrying wires. Similarly, forcefields will prevent you from moving through them when holding a cube. Despite the complexity of its puzzles, the game remains remarkably fair. Falling off platforms into the liquid below doesn’t result in significant punishment; you respawn close to your last safe position, retaining all your progress. There’s no repetitive backtracking or repeating the steps you’ve already done. Puzzles are smart, occasionally requiring timing and some platforming skills, but they’re all manageable. Overall, the game has generous content, and it'll take you around 8-10 hours. The main critique is the voice, which sounds monotone and robotic. While that’s understandable given the context, it could still be improved. Additionally, the absence of secrets, achievements, or even little things that would reveal more about the lore makes the game quite boring. You’re just going through puzzle rooms and listening to a robotic voice until you come the end.

I ended up winning this game in a drawing and was eager to see what sort of game a two man team could put together. Total Reload plays on the nostalgia of Portal with its focus on logic puzzles. The demo mainly shows off the wire puzzles, but once you dig into the core of the game different mechanics are introduced with energy cubes, lasers, and gravity switches which slowly step up the difficulty and complexity of the puzzles. Visually definitely dated, but it doesn't get in the way of the experience and the voice acting was as expected from a project of this scope. The puzzles were entertaining and I sunk about ten hours into my first completion (though I can't remember if I left the gaming running unnecessarily so that number could be off) The progression of the puzzles was fine and I feel a lot of people will breeze through the beginning section of the game with little to no difficulty. The challenge does increase with each "stage" and I'd say once you acquire the gun it'll be more noticeable. There were moments where I would need to stop and think about what I was doing or even stop the game and walk away after I had a proper think. I enjoyed it though because it wasn't easy and I understood the choices I was making to solve the puzzles. Meaning, I wasn't able to brute force my way through. My only CON during my play time is I wish stages were more defined because I had no idea how far into the game I was at any given time. I don't know why, but it bothered me not being to gauge how far into the process I was. I really was Hawking connecting wires and dropping cubes with no clue to how close I was getting to the trigger.

Total Reload - хороший и интересный экземпляр технологического "мистоида". Начиная с небольшого набора окружающих объектов и предметов Вы начнете разгадывать пространственные головоломки, периодически общаясь с искусственными интеллектом. По мере продвижения мир куба-хранилища начнет трансформироваться в том смысле, что появятся новые элементы не только усложняющие решение загадок, но и насыщающие цветом всё вокруг. Игра постепенно вовлекает Вас в происходящее, в нужный момент давая подсказки и время от времени развлекая рассказами и даже забавными шутками и отсылками на продукты современного творчества. Сложность я оценил бы в диапазоне от средней до высокой. Всем любителям "мистоидов" советую однозначно, получите немало удовольствия. На ярко выраженном "кубизме" и серо-белых тонах графики советую не зацикливаться, ибо впечатления от процесса прохождения с лихвой перекрывают данный нюанс. Всем остальным рекомендую скачать демоверсию и попробовать поиграть час или больше, чтобы определиться по теме покупки. ---------------- Итог: 9 ярких энергокубов из 10 возможных. Лучшие рекомендации от автора-аналитика игрового портала Questtime.net С уважением, Klaverm.

Firstly - I won a giveaway for a code from one of the devs over on twitter (thank you) so that's why I'm tagging as received for free. Solid 6/10 game. Very puzzle heavy with some inspiration taken from Portal. Definitely a game more for the puzzle fiend than the casual puzzle gamer. The difficulty level of some puzzles is quite high and I'd say the game comes with a decent learning curve. You start with a not particularly explanatory tutorial level and progressively pick up more pieces of equipment as you move through the game, which are also not always 100% explained to you. Essentially, you are going through the game and hopping into sub-levels to connect up wires to a transporter pod before heading back to the overworld to move further through the game. It's repetitive and, for the length (I finished in around 12.5 hours), I can see a good portion of puzzle gamers wanting to put this down for a while and try something else before coming back to it. When I say the difficulty level is quite high, I'd consider myself more on the puzzle fiend level than anything else and I got stuck on 1 level for over an hour and another level for a good 30-40 minutes. It's definitely missing some things that would be useful like level naming or numbering, a hint system or a reset button. I think all 3 of these would make navigating and solving some of the puzzles a bit easier. I'd also say it's not a game I'm in a rush to re-play at the moment. If there were some improvements added and maybe the story was explained a bit more (with less reliance on the clunky question system) I may re-play. Not my favourite puzzle game of all time but glad I got the chance to try it out. I'd still recommend to anyone wanting to try a tougher puzzle game.

Очень приятная игра. Честно говоря, приятно удивила. У меня было всего полтора часа на то, чтобы поиграть, но уже с первых задачек стало понятно, что разработчики делают интересный и самобытный проект: с приятной графикой, оптимизацией, сюжетом, юмором. Да, изначально кажется, что это чем-то похоже на «Portal», но атмосфера у них разная. Обучение происходит сразу по ходу игры. Загадки могут озадачить (особенно если ты куда-то торопишься, отвлекаешься, невнимательный и уставший) — будьте готовы напрягать извилины и соображать. Но, как я понимаю, в головоломки идут как раз за этим? Кстати, если долго тупить, то даже будут подсказки — это тоже предусмотрели. Мне как стримеру приходится частенько проходить много странных и недоделанных игр состоящих "из ассетов и такой-то матери", так вот после всего этого «Total Reload» выглядит и играется просто отлично! Очень приятно, что отечественные разработчики сделали такой проект и что у них есть силы довести его до ума. Даже удивился, что у игры пока так мало обзоров, поэтому и счёл нужным сразу оставить свой положительный отзыв. Поначалу чуть неудобно было использовать Q, E, F на разных функциях, но за час примерно освоился и стало уже привычней (это прямо как пытаться играть в «DOTA2» после WASD шутеров, ага). Из минусов можно отметить странно звучащий саундтрек, который ещё и пожат очень сильно, что вызывает клиппинг и неестественное звучание. Это даже вдохновляет меня когда-нибудь самому попробовать написать саундтрек, как если бы меня попросили его написать. В общем, игра отличная и я уверен, что её стоит брать. Спасибо организаторам премии IGRA за возможность пощупать проект!

dude! if you like to think with your head play this game. Good gameplay, good soundtrack, and a good story.