When I look at this game in my library I have to wonder why I even bought it. The developer was completely unknown, the screenshots look fine, the trailer is a tad bombastic and shows off the main mechanic of the game fairly well but it still looked like a very standard puzzle game. But boy am I happy that I did buy this game because this is easily one of the most polished puzzle games I've ever played.

Constant C is a puzzle game but with 2 extremely compelling and well-rounded mechanics: gravity switching and time dilation. Gravity switching is a fairly obvious one but the time switching mechanic is easily one of the most impressive puzzle mechanics I've seen. The world has frozen in time and only a small aura around the character has time flowing at normal speed. This means any object within that aura would move as normal but the moment it leaves, it instantly freezes in place and time. Unlike some puzzle games where the main mechanic is used sparingly because the level designer couldn't come up with puzzles good enough to use it well, this game is built almost ENTIRELY around these mechanics with a couple of small and REALLY well rounded twists .

The level of polish on display here is amazing. Great pains were taken to make the effects of the time dilation extremely obvious and how they would move if you were to bring them into your aura. The level design is amazing with a slow ramp up to some REALLY challenging puzzles later on that will rack your brains and also require a fair degree of platforming precision. In fact I have but a SINGLE complaint about this game and that is the platforming isn't precise enough. The character maintains almost all momentum in the air in the direction you point him even after you let your analog stick go and this makes it hard to hit some platforms properly.

Constant C is innovative and its well-used mechanics are on par with some of the industry's best. The degree of polish and love make it a very enjoyable experience.

While this is a relaxed experience for the most part, ending each year is a chore because you have to figure out what goes in what room. The game gives you no hints and I find it a bit offputting that the placement of the objects is already sort of decided. I wish they gave you the freedom to be as neat or as messy as you want.

It tells a pretty cute story of this woman as she grows up from childhood to college to romance and so on. It's pretty effective at it and you notice all sorts of patterns by the things she carries over through the years. Pretty cute and fairly short. It's worth your time if you like these sorts of chill games.

While I loved the serious and fairly realistic portrayal of movie making and the oodles of inside baseball, I did not love the core "mystery" underneath it all. It's trying to do something very weird and slightly different and shocking but it just doesn't land

But extra kudos for all the excellent acting across the board. I assume it's slightly hard to do the whole meta thing about acting as actors who are acting themselves and they pull it off phenomenally. I really loved everything about the movies themselves and absolutely had a blast hunting for clips just to see more of their performances

It's pretty decent for what it is. The puzzles require some thought and are sometimes pretty inventive with the mechanics, the combat can get challenging with large numbers of resilient enemies and some good boss battles and the game looks pretty good for an isometric puzzle platformer hybrid. There are a fair few cons though.

The weird camera angle and the weird way Lara sticks to some environmental objects make platforming a chore. It's not easy to see where she will land and there's almost no control of her when she's in the air which made me fall off the level many times. The physics make some of the puzzles and optional challenges extremely tedious to complete due to the unpredictable nature of the objects' movement. There are a few good boss battles with the final boss being the best and most memorable but some of the others are very poor and require next to no thought or pose no challenge at all. Some of the collectibles are placed in very stupid locations which makes me think they ran out of ideas early on. The game is also incredibly short taking me only about 4.5 hours to beat (I farmed the game for cards for 2 hours where I didn't play the game at all). There's some challenges and some hidden collectibles but I didn't find any of the rewards worth it and the levels themselves aren't exactly inspired or amazing to make me want to replay them. I've not played co-op which may be a separate experience on its own but I'm not sure.

Recommended on a sale if you have a few hours to kill on a puzzle platformer and you're attached to the Lara Croft name.

I never thought I'd have a tangible emotional connection with colored lines but here we are.

Linelight is a beautiful and fairly smart puzzler where you play a bright white line solving puzzles that are also on lines as you may see from the screenshots. Most of the puzzles are fairly difficult with each of the 6 worlds bringing their own gimmick to the table and requiring some level of planning and thought. There are a couple of puzzles that required completely random split second reflexes to get out of the way of some "enemies" but the vast majority are mostly about thinking ahead and executing a plan. The presentation is gorgeous with the added bloom and particle effects really adding to the atmosphere. The layered soundtrack is really good and adds a dreamlike gentle blanket over the experience. There's also real bonding moments with these lines as you start moving "together" and the game uses its mechanics well to create some really lovely moments especially towards the end.

This is a game I'd love to have recommended if any of the parts of it that make it a game worked well enough to substantiate a purchase. Unfortunately the game never really gets there.

The main hook of the game is in the "Destinies" portion of the fairly generic title. You're not pursuing a single path in the fairly short campaign, you're given multiple choices at various junctures. There are 5 chapters all of which take about 5-10 minutes to go through depending on how much exploration you do. There are short Arkham-style arena combat sections in these chapters and some minor stealth segments. There are a few branching paths as you go through these chapters but ultimately the chapter begins at a point and ends in the same point every time. Depending on the choice you might get a different location where the chapter takes place but this is how the entire game is structured. At the end of a whole playthrough of all the chapters, depending on your choices you unlock a different ending. Each ending is also grouped into 4 types and getting an ending in one type unlocks a "Truth". Your resources and skill unlocks carry over each run and the enemies also get tougher. The story is also told to you through narration by the main lead which somewhat excuses the minimalist character animations. The art and the music in the game is fantastic. The music sets up a nice atmosphere in each area without being too overwhelming.

Sounds interesting right?

The problem is EVERYTHING around this mechanic is dull as bricks. The combat is terrible and is Arkham-style combat boiled down to its simplest core. You literally button mash your way through with no thought. There are also plenty of issues since it's not clear who you're soft locked on to so sometimes you attack a completely different enemy than the one you intended. The enemy variety is so bad you'll see every enemy in the game in 2 runs. Since the levels always stay the same, getting maybe 2-3 endings will probably have you see every single location in the game and the exploration gives you meager rewards for the combat through gems which you really don't need. "Exploration" is locked behind different colored doors which you can only unlock if you craft the corresponding sword which acts as the key but I crafted every sword in 4 runs and explored every door in 6. Each sword also has a power that uses "energy" but these are awkward to use and I found them completely unnecessary and trying to use them actually killed me. Using them would also RANDOMLY deplete my stamina meter that you use to dash. There's some reused art work as the story unfolds through illustrations in a book and the comic panels that give you context for the narration sometimes didn't match up at all to what was being told to you. There were also lots of stupid bugs and the load times were insufferable especially the first time you load into the game. The cutscene skipping button would only work sometimes and having to listen to the exact same dialog multiple times made me sigh.

The final blow for me was the STORY in such a story heavy game being pretty bad. Events are randomly brought up that happened in the past that you're never really told about, some of the endings are extremely forced into going a certain way and there's really no way to watch that happen and not go "BUT WHY???", there's places where the same narration is told to you twice and the final ending is pretty bad. The writing isn't awful and there are lots of charming moments but it's not done well enough. 7 endings later I had absolutely no incentive or reason to put myself through 17 more just to get the achievement.

This was ambitious and it shows. I recommend you not get it for anything more than maybe $5 to check out the largely unsuccessful but unique story mechanic. The game should have been structured like a roguelike with randomly generated levels and less transferable resources across runs and maybe longer levels with more enemy variety.