NeutronRock
2023
A little SokPop take on a photography, catch 'em-all game. It's hard not to love everything this team makes, even if I wouldn't necessarily recommend the games to others..
2024
Balatro is a really neat idea. All the clever, thinky fun of a roguelike deckbuilder transformed into a poker-themed puzzle. It's very similar to an earlier game Luck be a Landlord, but with significantly better visual design and polish.
Draw cards from a deck to play poker hands and score points - use the money earned to buy outrageous power ups (jokers) or upgrade individual cards. Come up with a long term strategy to aim for, build your deck and bonuses towards it and watch the mega points roll in.
It's incredible fun for a few hours - after which the novelty had somewhat worn off and the arbitrary chase for points no longer felt fun. Balatro is one of those games that really borders on being "addictive" in a problematic rather than a fun way.
But still - as a clever, polished, exciting new thing and as a game to be "solved" (by whatever your personal defintion would be) rather than played endlessly, Balatro is a gem.
Draw cards from a deck to play poker hands and score points - use the money earned to buy outrageous power ups (jokers) or upgrade individual cards. Come up with a long term strategy to aim for, build your deck and bonuses towards it and watch the mega points roll in.
It's incredible fun for a few hours - after which the novelty had somewhat worn off and the arbitrary chase for points no longer felt fun. Balatro is one of those games that really borders on being "addictive" in a problematic rather than a fun way.
But still - as a clever, polished, exciting new thing and as a game to be "solved" (by whatever your personal defintion would be) rather than played endlessly, Balatro is a gem.
2023
Ultimately I just didn't enjoy the premise for as long as I thought I might. It's a neat idea, feels like a fun co-op title - but gets a bit repetitive a bit too quickly
Having said all that, if someone twisted my arm it's a game I'd be tempted to try again
Having said all that, if someone twisted my arm it's a game I'd be tempted to try again
An interesting retro-inspired 2D adventure, designed to play like an old-school NES game. It's not bad, but in a world filled to the brim with excellent 2D action-platformers.. it's incredibly hard to recommend something that isn't great.
A short 2D action/puzzle platformer. It's probably a bit better than you might expect it to be at first glance. It does what it needs to solidly for it's very short <1hr length, and the visuals grow on you even in that short space of time.
A pretty bog-standard metroidvania that's not particularly polished in its mechanics and felt a bit weak to play. In this genre there are just better options to go for.
2019
Reventure is a 2D platformer largely about finding various ways to die and unlock all available "endings". It's okay, but not mechanically that interesting and I just can't find the concept of trudging through areas looking for slightly different ways to end the game that interesting. It's a gimmick, and one that didn't have much of a shelf life for me.
It's an okay puzzle game, but not really much more.
2019
It's a short, feel-good, walking sim and it does all of those things fairly well. It's chill, has a decent ambience and a pretty neat visual style. It's free, so if you're interested just download and play - but it's not the truly sensational experience you may get from other walking sims.
2022
It's not terrible, it's just a bit limited. A fairly basic 2D platformer without the best controls. Even for a short, sub-1hr game, I'd still not recommend spending your time here instead of elsewhere.
2023
It's about as fun as you can get with this sort of arcadey, Tetris-like game. You drop small moons, asteroids and planets - which combine with other copies of the same planet/moon and create the next-larger sphere. Continuing until there is no larger object to create.
The celestial body theme is great, it's visually really neat and the polish of the animations (in particular the momentary delay before a new planet pops into being) give Cosmic Collapse a lot of life and energy. It's fun, but all you're doing is dropping planets and at some point you'll have had enough of doing that.. still a very strong little time killer.
The celestial body theme is great, it's visually really neat and the polish of the animations (in particular the momentary delay before a new planet pops into being) give Cosmic Collapse a lot of life and energy. It's fun, but all you're doing is dropping planets and at some point you'll have had enough of doing that.. still a very strong little time killer.
Still has the recent Football Manager UI/UX issues - but FM24 has introduced a plethora of genuinely game-changing mechanics to reinvigorate the football management experience.
I played FM22 when it was released for free and it didn't take long to realise it was worse than FM19 which I already owned. The user experience design of Football Manager has taken a shocking downturn. This is ultimately a spreadsheet simulator with a theme, but SI have designed all the menus and screens to look thematic - while being significantly less practical to use.
Another good FM release. Some odd (read: poor) UI changes, but not as bad as what would come later. The purple colour scheme was also a bold choice, but the game was good.
It's Football Manager.. the standard is usually pretty similar. FM18 made some changes that were better than before, and some that were worse.