Westwood Shadows

The prologue, in my opinion, was the strongest part of this entire game. The puzzles in general were really well done, and competent. However, once the game decided to include the Shadows, it seems like the game struggled to keep up with what the demo originally had laid out for us. The Shadows themselves were included as a horror mechanic, but they did not seem overall "scary" and seemed more like a hindrance between you and the next puzzle, and once you learn that they stand there to attack the horror factor removes itself. Anyways, subscribe to Game Boat on YouTube where we streamed and reviewed this live with our chat. Much love to the developers, hoping to see more progress in the future.

It starts off so well and then goes downhill as soon as the prologue is finished. In the prologue, it's a puzzle game, and it's pretty good, the puzzles are solvable, not too obscure like in too many other similar games, Then comes the main game; no, no, no, no, no and no again. Now I have to avoid the monsters, shoot things, hide or runaway, top my health up, buy bullets and all that other rubbish that is just not needed. It would have been so much better to continue as just a puzzle game, why on earth the developers felt to need to ruin it is beyond me.

finish the prologue, very promising, and then the game drops dramatically in quality by offering you to shoot shadows. Why would I shoot shadows? Why would I expect gunshots to kill shadows? And nothing, you start shooting, but it's really tough to accept the design of these shadows, not very scary but also graphically lacking. I couldn't go on, for lack of fun and immersion, after church and about 5 or 6 shadow kills. relentless finisci il prologo, molto promettente, e poi il gioco scende clamorosamente di qualità proponendoti di sparare a delle ombre. Perché dovrei sparare a delle ombre? Perché dovrei aspettarmi che i colpi di pistola uccidano delle ombre? E niente, inizi a sparare, però è davvero tosta accettare il design di queste ombre, poco paurose ma anche graficamente carenti. Non sono riuscito ad andare avanti, per mancanza di divertimento e immersione, dopo la chiesa e circa 5 o 6 ombre uccise.

Played the Prologue and finished the actual game today. Really good. The voice acting was amazing and I was really invested. Some puzzles made me think too far ahead and losing the idea behind it, but generally the puzzles were ok to do. With help from my stream we finished it. I didn't feel a lack of ammo apart from 1 situation or a lack of saving coins either. Graphics were good, cinematics were a bit of a hit and miss, sometimes really good quality, other times less. But that may have been on my end. Either way. Well worth the money! :) (Partly a spoiler for a moment in the game) There was a chase scene in the game which made me almost quit the game, it was very annoying and I constantly ran out of stamina. So I had to press the shift on and off to make sure I made it and then I made it just barely. Also streamer sidenote, both the prologue and the actual game got me dinged by HBO International (Facebook Gaming). I don't know exactly what for yet (apparently footsteps are copyrighted...). If I get more insight I'll let you folks know, because getting dinged as a streamer is not nice, not for them, but also not for the game designer.

Что за фигню выпустили разработчики? Во-первых, она фризит, во-вторых демка была намного интереснее, чем сама игра. Бегает какой-то астматик и стреляет в тени...."очень интересно". Так еще и через каждые 100 метров нужно ингалятором пользоваться... Нет РУССКОГО языка. Я очень разочарована. Рефанд. Процессор - I7-6700K Материнская плата - Z170-K Видеокарта - NVIDIA GTX 1070 GIGABYTE G1 GAMING Оперативная память - 32 GB 2400MHz Corsair Vengeance Пришлось скинуть на "высокие", чтобы был относительно стабильно 60 фпс. То, что я играла 17 минут, не показатель того, что я была все эти 17 минут в меню. Я побегала по локациям, дойдя до часовни и пройдя чуть дальше, я поняла, что игра однотипная и с демкой вообще не сравнится. Демку я прошла всю на стриме и я была в восторге от нее. Она была очень интересная, с загадками, без оружия, без ингалятора, без кривых анимаций монстров и с русским языком...А это и рядом не стояло с демкой.

Westwood Shadows is a horror/puzzle/shooter, being light on the horror. I'm really sitting on the fence with this one because it's very mixed bag. On the plus side, the graphics and animations are fairly decent for an indie game. The music and sounds are good too. I like being able to buy bullets, batteries or O2 from vending machines using coins that you find. The puzzles range from easy to medium and are satisfying enough but will seem familiar if you play a lot of these types of games. On the flip side, during chapter 3, there's a chase scene that goes on forever and there's no indication of where to go, so it's blind luck if you manage to escape this big shadow on your first playthrough. I must of reloaded this part about 8 times as I kept running into dead ends and consequently getting killed. It was only through trial and error that I eventually escaped. It's a small part of the game but I found this section extremely tedious. Your supposed to be able to avoid contact with the enemies by lobbing bottles which should act as a distraction. However, this didn't seem to work for me. I think this is partly due to the trajectory of the bottle being too short. I was throwing bottles just a few metres away and gaining unwanted attention from shadows. I found it less bother to go guns blazing. The shadows sometimes drop more ammo than you expend and they're not that much of a threat, so it's all good really. The sanity mechanic gets annoying only when the protagonist ****s himself over nothing. Finally, the frame rate can drop from 60 fps to 40 fps on a mid/high end PC, particularly outside but I guess that can be rectified. Not a bad game overall. 5/10

Very solid game from a small indie team, barely any bugs or glitches, plays smooth throughout. Good atmosphere, good puzzles and nice levels. Interesting story so far, but am only a few hours in. One thing I hope will be ironed out throughout Early Access is the ability to "restart level" or from checkpoint when a significant event happens. Without wanting to spoil anything, when a sequence starts where you might die, it would be nice not to have to reload from a previous level and just get back to the action. And I still haven't been able to use a bottle toss successfully, I don't know why the shadows hate me so much

I would definitely recommend this game. I'd give it a 6/10. It's a good game don't get me wrong, but the game does have a few major flaws. I can understand that it was a small studio that worked on this and they tried to make it an amazing game, I would know because I'm an OG player that played the demo/prologue, but in the end, there were too many things that kinda drove me to confusion. Some of the story elements you don't really understand and the combat is just the same; Same type of enemy, same type of weapons. But I still liked the game all in all. I'd look forward towards this company next Installment! So definitely give this game a go.

Westwood Shadows is a great game. Is it flawed? Sure! But we are talking about an indie title developed by a small team that shared a vision and tried to launch their game asap and then actively listen to the community and the feedback, in order to make the necessary changes to their game. I really cannot understand some of the reviews here in Steam. I read reviews of the game by people that point out bugs and problems in the mechanics of the game but these people fail to see the point of Steam hosting such indie titles. The last couple of years we have seen so many broken games (Cyberpunk, CoD, Battlefield etc) that are AAA titles and are released in versions that should make the studios developing them feel embarrassed. Do you really expect a game from a small indie studio, be perfect from day one? The game still has the ambience and vibe of the Prologue while introducing elements of combat and maintaining the tricky puzzles. These puzzles do indeed exude a Resident Evil vibe although most of them are harder and actually require a bit of brain power. I am not yet sold on the combat aspect and perhaps the game would do better if it only had the click point adventure theme at this time, but I am sure the devs will support the game and patch most issues in the near future. If you are someone that enjoys fast-paced FPSs this game is not for you. If you are someone that enjoys taking the time to follow a solid story, enjoys the survival-horror genre and actually likes being mentally stimulated then definitely give this game a try!

HORROR: Great PUZZLES: Great FUN: Good STORY: Good MUSIC: Good VOICE / ACTORS: Good EXECUTION: Good SUMMARY: Solid, horror, puzzle experience game, with good mechanics and immersive qualities. To me, the overall quality and execution of the game exceeds the boundaries of an "indie" game.