Xoo: Xeno Xafari

good

This is a weird little collectathon made in the OHRRPGCE engine (which I'm frankly astonished works on modern computers). There's no real gameplay here; you just walk around picking up items and sighting creatures, and what items and creatures show up is based on RNG that's affected by your stats, which you can only increase with books that are [i]also[/i] RNG-based. As such, I would recommend you try one of A. Hagen's free games first and see if you enjoy the writing, since that's the main draw. (I played and enjoyed the Android version of Void Pyramid.) The writing is pretty charming (at least in my opinion) and the music is nice. I have only two complaints (other than the lack of actual gameplay): First, there aren't enough unique sprites for the various items you pick up, and often their description doesn't match them - e.g., you'll pick up a mottled red egg but the caption will say that it has a black-and-white checkerboard pattern. I get that that would be a lot of extra work for a game essentially made by one person, but... yeah. Second, the full-screen mode doesn't work, or at least it didn't on my computer. When I tried it, I just got a black window that I couldn't interact with. Thankfully Alt-Enter worked so I could undo it and get the game to work again.

I'm giving this a thumbs up because of the writing and graphics (both great), but I'd like to recommend it cautiously. It's an enjoyable game as long as you understand what it is before playing it. My expectations were a bit off -- I originally expected the world to be procedurally generated with endless exploration, but it turned out to be ~50 or so screens that you end up revisiting repeatedly (especially if you're like me and totally forget that consulting your maps will tell you what screens you no longer need to revisit). The gameplay simply consists of walking up to stuff and looking at it -- perhaps collecting it based on one of your stats if it's a collectible. It's entertaining and relaxing, but now that I've finished I can say that I would have preferred a much higher spawn rate, more impactful upgrades, and a much shorter playtime. This may seem first world problemy, but the lack of Steam achievements also didn't feel great for a game that required a lot of grinding. Anyways, it was good for a calm little experience, but I think it helps to know what you're getting into before you play it. On a side note, I reeeeally enjoyed Void Pyramid by the same developer.

I am just loving this game!!! Yes, I just refunded it, but only because I found out I can play it on my android phone too. So I am going to buy it for my long trips in the car. It's perfectly relaxing, easy to pick up, lots of amazing writing. I have always struggled to find good android games, so this one is the perfect hidden gem for me!

[h1] Cute little collect em all [/h1] Xoo: Xeno Xafari is a game all about spotting and jotting down wacky and out of this world creatures. I recommend this game to anyone who loves to fully collect and complete everything from a game. A few cons would have to be the grind-like gameplay to find all the critters and collectables. It gets tedious towards the end of the game when you're trying to find the last few Xenos so do look out for that. I enjoyed the emails you receive while staying on the island, its pretty neat to know someone cares about me while I'm embarked on a journey. 8.5/10

Fun collectathon game with entertaining descriptions.

Xoo is so dang soothing. It is nice to just wander around and look at weird monsters who will definitely not attack you. A big part of the joy of this game is reading all the text. If you love funny text in adventure games, you will love this game too, and if you hate the hard puzzles in adventure games, well, then good news! This doesn't have those, so you are safe.