Is this a relaunch or something? Why does Kids feel like it came out 13 years late? I can imagine this game working if it was from idk 2005, like you're browsing around playing some generic flash games then suddenly you find a random weird artsy game, and you're naturally hooked (something similar as to why Samorost worked in that context). But the thing is Kids came out in 2019, and it has no business being from that year. About the game's message... it's about as deep and subtle as a Steve Cutts short. Nothing to see here.

If you can get behind the idea of a horror game about cars trying to kill you, then this is actually pretty good.

It's very short, but manages to be anxiety inducing for most of the run time. I always got an inexplicable intense feeling of terror from people chasing me (even if it's not threateningly), and that's what this game felt like, although this time it's an unstoppable metal thing trying to murder you. The concept is silly, but there's enough self awareness humor to appreciate, like the cars taunting you by playing loud music or the ice cream truck that plays daisy bell (which holy shit, that got me). Something to note is the devs decision to make the game take place in a snowy setting, I thought that was a clever way of justifying the cars' crazy movement. Apart from some minor clunk, the only negative thing to mention is the story, that to me personally didn't contribute much. But that's not to say it shouldn't be in the game, I just think it could've been done better. Overall a good surprise, go try it if you have an hour free.

Oh boy. Oh dear. Oh god. Alright.

Everything about this game presentation wise is an absolute knockout. The visuals are gorgeous, the sound design is excellent. The voice acting is very strong. The atmosphere in general is wonderful and you feel isolated and trapped, but not alone. Even though you're suppose to be...

I played this twice and the second time, I made sure to look hard at any moment that highlighted why most people hate this game.

I really want to like this game more than I do, but the way it handles its subject material is way too poor. It lacks the impact it's intending and only makes you question what they're even trying to say. The ending in particular is awful.

This is one of those games where the narrative just bogs down this really gorgeous and well put together experience. And it's a shame since it happens all at the end as well.

Just get Edith Finch instead.

For a god-like all-knowing powerful being, the puzzles it throws at you are a really pitiful attempt at stopping you... Something ludonarrative dissonance something something.

I was enjoying the game whenever it let you explore (specially those sections that give you the illusion of an open world), that's where the dev's world design shines (great atmosphere for what is a minimal style), that's accompanied by some interesting moments of subtle world building or quirky interactions. But sadly ruined by mundane puzzles and clunky platforming sections that take away from the experience. Also, what's the point of the breathing mechanic? You use it for like 10% of the game, and it practically only exists to distract and not let you immerse yourself. Maybe the devs should've stuck to the premise of it being an "artistic experience" and not a game, even though it sounds pretentious as hell in the steam description. Anyway, I don't want to rip too much into this game since it's free, and the most offensive thing it does is being amateurish... Overall, a decent short game. Discovered "BLAME!" thanks to it too, so I'll probably go right ahead and read that.

(Oh, if you have a monitor with an energy saving feature that turns it off whenever the screen is black, turn that off before playing because the game's really dark, and lifting the gamma to max on the settings seemingly doesn't help lol.)

There is no other game like dwarf fortress.

The complexity of this game borders on insanity. Every limb, every finger, every muscle, every eye is simulated and reacts to liquids, attacks and anything that happens to the creature to which it belongs. Each dwarf has a deep personality, likes, dislikes, challenges, strength, relations with other dwarves. And cities have jobs, government positions, prisons, crime and soldiers. And cities belong to kingdoms with leaders and armies. And these kingdoms find themselves in a big world, that’s simulated for hundreds of years, before you actually enter the world. Monsters, Wars, Alliances, and Legendary Items shape a whole unique world. And this is built up on a world that uses realistic simulation to build a world with different vegetation, temperature and humidity.

This is just scratching the surface of the simulated world of DF. And the really crazy thing? This whole simulated world is just the backdrop for the actual gameplay. The actual gameplay where you lead the construction of a dwarven fortress, in a 3D world, with complete freedom. It is the ultimate sandbox. Build a Tower, build a giant hall, build a water pumping system that makes an indoor canal, build a town, build an inn, build a forge, build farms, build animal pens, open up the caves deep in the ground and defeat ancient horrors. But you can also go deeper. Let’s say you collect a lot of bones from fighting beasts or animals. You can then collect up those bones and then give it to a dwarf to sculpt them into artifacts, which you can sell. But bones on their own are not worth much. So you can have another dwarf polish gems from deep in the earth and then decorate your bone trinkets with these gems. Now your city has a truly unique ware to sell. And every step of this process can be programmed to happen automatically based on available bones, finished trinkets, amount of uncut gems etc. And this is just one example. There’s also smithing weapons, smithing armor, carving wooden furniture, making stone furniture, making steel, making any mineral, making your minerals into weapons and armor, making your minerals into furniture, making siege weapons, making instruments, farming, making food, making drinks, fishing, making honey, making clothes. The list goes on and on. You could play this game for hundreds of hours without seeing half of the possibilities the game has.

And on top of this gameplay you also have the unique ability of the game to make emerging storylines, just based on the dwarves' interactions between each other, how you interact with them, and how you shape your fortress. If you know where to look you will see these stories, and they will stay with you as some of the most memorable gaming experiences of your lives.

Now the game is not without flaw. The steam version is an improvement to ease of use, but certain parts of controlling the game is still clunky and outdated. And in large fortresses (150+ dwarves ish) lag is a serious problem. But with all I’ve said being only a small part of how cool this game is, and how unique it is, I think it would be unfair to see it as anything else than one of the best games of all time. 10/10

Yeah, no. This is not a good game. The visual aesthetic is amazing, and the concept is cool, but the mechanics are pretty trashy. Extremely weak and flighty guns that have no weight behind them, combined with generally simple level design and unintuitive controls.

I love me some weird, dystopic, and artsy-fartsy games. But the game actually needs to be good for me to commit. This game is all substance; it's all meat and no veg. It's gleeful in how post-modern it is with its presentation, but the actual game under the hood is just drab.

This is awesome as an art project. It's lame as a game. This is insanely overrated. It's not offensively bad, but it's certainly not a fun experience unless you already have a long, cylindrical object up your butt.

Painfully ironic that a game known for its anti war message in home computers (version which I haven't played but have seen some parts of) was ported to a Nintendo console, so with kids for a main target, and with a company known in the 90s for trying to be the least controversial possible... being misinterpreted by Codemasters in every way possible.

It plays straight the seriousness of the missions you are sending the troops to, and they don't even bother putting the part in the opening song with the satire in the lyrics "go up to your brother, kill them with your gun, leave him dying in his uniform, drying in the sun", which leaves the rest of the game feeling like a tasteless banalization and glorification of war with funny screams as people die instead of a satire where you sadly keep sending individually named soldiers to die and make you realize what you are doing. The infamous "recruitment" screen which starts piling up graves as your soldiers die in the field, leaving a strong visual impression, is replaced by having a technically impressive menu system (which still lists the soldiers whio died in a separate screen), which next to the digitized speech samples and the FMV intro running in the Game Boy tells me the porters were more interested in making it look cool than actually conveying an emotion as simple as it was in the original PC game.