Bio
(any/all) Xジェンダー

I like games

★★★★★
1.0: Trash    クソ
2.0: Meh      まあまあ
3.0: Good     いい
4.0: Recommend お勧め
5.0: Godlike    神
Personal Ratings
1★
5★

Badges


Well Written

Gained 10+ likes on a single review

2 Years of Service

Being part of the Backloggd community for 2 years

Busy Day

Journaled 5+ games in a single day

Loved

Gained 100+ total review likes

Organized

Created a list folder with 5+ lists

Popular

Gained 15+ followers

GOTY '22

Participated in the 2022 Game of the Year Event

Listed

Created 10+ public lists

Donor

Liked 50+ reviews / lists

Roadtrip

Voted for at least 3 features on the roadmap

Gone Gold

Received 5+ likes on a review while featured on the front page

Liked

Gained 10+ total review likes

Best Friends

Become mutual friends with at least 3 others

Noticed

Gained 3+ followers

Elite Gamer

Played 500+ games

Gamer

Played 250+ games

N00b

Played 100+ games

Favorite Games

Outer Wilds
Outer Wilds
Kentucky Route Zero
Kentucky Route Zero
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
Disco Elysium: The Final Cut
Disco Elysium: The Final Cut
Hotline Miami
Hotline Miami

639

Total Games Played

005

Played in 2024

462

Games Backloggd


Recently Played See More

Brown Dust II
Brown Dust II

Mar 19

Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent
Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent

Mar 14

Terraria: The Stars Above
Terraria: The Stars Above

Jan 23

Terraria: Fargo's Mod
Terraria: Fargo's Mod

Jan 21

Terraria: Calamity Mod
Terraria: Calamity Mod

Jan 18

Recently Reviewed See More

I've never felt so in control of an onscreen avatar and yet so utterly out of control. The physics which the game's mechanics fundamentally depend on feel so incredibly random, and yet weirdly consistent? To master the game is to develop an intuition for how and when the physics will screw up and fling your character in a strangely predictable way. It's almost like you're using the game's glitchiness to overcome its own shoddy construction.

And yet it all feels so intentional, like it was meant to feel stupid, such that only the truly deranged could appreciate its exceptional game design. The obstacles seem impossible to overcome at first and yet, after throwing yourself at them over and over, you find that they are actually rigorously playtested tests of dexterity that provide specific challenges so that the player would be forced to intuitively master impossibly subtle mechanics to overcome them. Every tree branch that blocks your path begs you to hook your hammer in and climb it. Every jutting piece of rock that seems just out of reach taunts you, almost as if saying "Bet you wish you could jump, huh? Well...have you tried?" The simple placement of the terrain provides such a natural tutorialization of the game's unique and inspired mechanics that is nothing short of masterful.

An important question to ask, though, is now that I've completed the game, would I play it again? Hell no. This game is a nightmare to play. It's incredibly glitchy and chaotic and an incredible test of patience. I can't tell you how many tens of times my hammer fell through a length of rope for seemingly no reason. Or how many hundreds of times I tried to hook my hammer into a piece of rock after "jumping" into it, only for the tip of the hammer to read my movements as a "thrust" and fling me directly in the other direction. It also doesn't help that the game doesn't even lock your mouse to the window, so if you accidentally move your mouse away into a second monitor, you lose all control of your hammer until you realize what happened and move it back in, making it a rare case where a dual monitor set-up is actually a disadvantage. Nevertheless, while playing the game does let you recognize the genius of the design, I really would rather do literally anything else than play this game ever again. I'm certainly glad I played it all the way through once, but from now on, keep this thing the hell away from me.

Okay before you play this game, you actually have to do some troublesome set-up. I managed to find this video with like barely any views explaining what you gotta do. But basically, here's how to make the game playable:
1. Find and download the latest patch, v1.005. The Steam version actually never updated to the last patch, it's still on v1.004. There's a new gamemode and some new weapons.
2. Edit the Config file in the game's folder to change the resolution. You can also disable some visual effects like motion blur (god I hate motion blur).
3. Set the mouse DPI super low in the settings. This is counter-inituitive, but it makes you move way faster and makes the controls actually feel really good and satisfying. Also gives you less carpal tunnel.

Okay, as for the game itself, it kinda rules. I'd actually rate it way higher if it had some better UX and wasn't so goddamn janky. Here's some rough thoughts:

First of all, I really dig the aesthetic. It's like this Central Asian and Arabic steampunk world with Sci-fi Lovecraftian elements where people fly this contraptions hitting each other with hammers. It's a story about honor and vengeance and warring tribes but also there's flying worms and ancient machines and it's all just so weird and unique, I absolutely love it. The music's also just so good but I really wish there were more than like ten tracks.

The main attraction is of course the gameplay. And like, goddamn, it's so weird and unique and cool, I can't help but respect it. It's all dependent on the inherent joy of moving your mouse to swing a hammer and using momentum to just utterly smash the hell out of a dude. And it definitely delivers on that end. But what I wasn't expecting was even more gameplay options beyond that. You can equip blades and become more of a controlled assassin rather than a mindless flailing abomination like you might think from a game like this. You can throw daggers and equip shields and combine weapons to alter your swing physics based on weight difference. You can even shoot guns! The developer obviously put a lot of thought into different playstyles and really wanted to test out how much depth you can squeeze out of physics-based combat. I've never really seen anything quite like it.

Ok, so for complaints. There's the troublesome set-up obviously. There's also the crazy amount of visual effects that make it kinda hard to understand what's actually happening on screen. I can't tell you the amount of times I died and was like "literally what even killed me?" Also the game in general is like weirdly difficult at times. Sometimes enemies will just fly in out of nowhere and you have like a half a second to react before you get just utterly smashed in the face with a mace. There's a few times where the game asks you to be more precise with your hits, which I feel like is really testing the player's patience with the physics-based nature of the combat, but I kinda respect it I guess. I think a lot of people will be confused by the complicated story, but personally I don't really mind if a game just straight up doesn't care if you can't follow along. I find it charming, in a weird way, idk.

But yeah, if you're willing to do the set-up, you should definitely give this game a shot, there's honestly nothing else quite like it.

idk maybe I'm a sicko but I thought some of the deaths were like, weirdly funny. That fishery section was pretty neat though, cool use of controls.