I can save you the time of reading this review by saying one thing: there is only one thing truly "wrong" with Lacuna -- it's only a few hours long. While I love the #shortgame culture, this game made me want to spend hundreds of hours in it's realized world.

Now the real review:

Lacuna is a pixel noir detective game that was made by a humble team of developers that have created something that rivals most of the AAA titles in the genre.

The pixel art is absolutely stunning. I found myself marveling at the attention to detail. I wanted more areas to explore, more backgrounds to interact with, more chairs to just sit in and witness the world the team created.

The story is exactly what a noir game deserves - just enough intrigue and twists to keep you hooked while the character drama gives the world substance and detail. The world-building that this title does in a few short hours should make any writer blush. Each character feels multi-faceted and full of secrets of a life we will never get to see. There's also plenty of world-building hidden into the UI, with news articles and emails that are totally optional.

Speaking of the UI, it's equally exceptional and pleasing to work with. Everything about this experience is polished and comfortable.

If you enjoy the detective genre, then this is one for you. If you appreciate indie titles, then this is one you shouldn't sleep on. If you enjoy pixel art, then you could just look at this one and savor the artwork.

Oh wait - I thought of another thing that's wrong with Lacuna... nowhere near enough people have played it. Do yourself the favor and enjoy this pulp noir gem.

an intriguing and charming murder mystery that actually makes you think by showing you the clues but making you put them together. I like the clue menu and the hint system; if I got stuck it wasn’t ever for long. I think the writing was trying a little too hard to be quirky at times but it didn't come at the cost of the story so I didn't mind it; they all served a purpose and the characters themselves were unique and memorable.

I didn’t make much sense of the reveal though, the motive felt weak to me, and the ending felt somehow monologuey and abrupt at the same time.

This was such an amazing emotional rollercoaster.

I was searching for a good game with farming mechanics included and remembered that I wishlisted Harvestella 2 or 3 years ago and decided to try it. I am so happy that I made this decision because I loved every second of it.

Harvestella combines both farming and combat. The main story is combat-focused, and farming seems like a side job that earns you money, but it's really not. You have 4 seasons, each with specific crops, crops that you can plant in all seasons, and loads of machines to make something from everything on your farm.

I was not impressed in the beginning and didn't really like the world, but when I spent time in it, it became more beautiful. There is really good art direction in this game that you won't really mind the bad fidelity in graphics. There is no voice acting in this game, which is a bit disappointing because this is a Square Enix game that came out in 2022. Combat is not so good either; it just feels like a really old game. But at some point, you don't really care about that much because farming is more fun and enjoyable. Dungeon designs, for me, were beautiful, but the gimmicks were really old-fashioned, and there are so few puzzles that the game gives you solutions with text.

The strongest point of this game is the story. It's not really unique, but the interaction with your friends and dialogue between them are really good. It may seem too basic for a first-time player at first, but as you read the main and character stories, it really picks up and keeps you interested. The main story, at first, is too basic, but as you progress, it becomes really interesting, and you want to keep going. When you feel overwhelmed, you can focus on your farm, clear your head, and continue, and I really like that. Some games just infodump you all the way to the end. There are really shocking and emotional moments; the plot twists are awesome, and story points connect beautifully as you read it.

I'm not sure I'd call this a true horror game, but it's a pretty good open world survival horror game. This is exactly what I'd imagine an evil Thomas the Train to be. This game is unfortunately extremely short and takes less than 2 hours to finish the game. Normally I wouldn't recommend a game this short, but it is a great game for what it is. I'm hoping that in the future we get a second game that expands on this concept as there are very good elements in this game.

Adding a Nightmare mode added to the replay ability of this game. Nightmare mode is no joke, the atmosphere is significantly darker, Charles is incredibly more aggressive, and will hunt you down faster. There is a lot more strategy that goes into this game mode as you almost have to pre-plan your route to a certain degree. A lot of what you do in this game mode is dictated by Charles and one wrong step spells the end of the run. Having one-life makes it that much harder. After getting my ass kicked 3 times right out of the gate by Charles I finally planned my route and BARELY beat Charles in the end.

Regardless of the fact that this game is a s^x game, it is actually a pretty good rogue-like dungeon crawler. It reminds me a lot of Rogue Legacy or Dead Cells, just on a more simple, "lewd" front. There are actually a decent variety of weapons and rarities to choose from, various spells, and various accessories to aid you on your journey. This game has 15 different levels and 5 boss fights to get through until you beat the game. The boss fights are very different and have some interesting mechanics. There are also a bunch of different monsters with unique move sets to find as well.

It took me 34.5 hours to 100% this game and two playthroughs. Once through normal mode, and once through hard mode while also maxing Scarlet. Overall, it's not bad and could actually have been a pretty good rogue-like if it wasn't a s^x game.

Shenmue was the most comfortable game I've ever played in my life.

Playing a Japan simulator, waking up early in the morning irl and ingame, going outside and running around Sakuragaoka while it was rainy IRL and also rainy in the game, while it played the FREE 1 soundtrack, just going around talking to people... It's so soothing, it made my entire being relaxed, immersed. I felt true happiness, a true sense of belonging in that world Yu Suzuki created. I wish this game was infinite and we were allowed to just live there forever.

I’m a big proponent of the idea that “limitations breed creativity.” That’s part of the reason I love indie games so much! Gorgeous photorealistic graphics and hundreds of hours of gameplay are all well and good, but with a low budget comes a willingness to experiment, to be rough around the edges in a way that connects with its target audience with a specificity that something with a bigger budget could never manage. That ambition is what I see most in I Was a Teenage Exocolonist.

IWATE is, first and foremost, a coming-of-age story. Mechanically and thematically I’d liken this game to Citizen Sleeper, but unlike that game which takes place over a couple months, IWATE is set over the course of 10 years. Your protagonist, Sol, is only 10 years old when their spaceship, the Stratos, arrives on the alien planet Vertumna. In this new and dangerous world, Sol navigates their teen years alongside the foundation of their colony.

The breadth of IWATE’s themes is astounding. The inter- and intrapersonal journeys had while growing up juxtapose the material conditions of the colony and their settlement in new territory, with environmentalism and colonization being the primary ethical issues explored. As a teenager, when can we trust authority? As a civilian, when can we trust those in charge? What do we do when those stupid, no-good, bossy adults are the ones waging war? What about when community leaders neglect the needs of the next generation they’re meant to foster? Being a teenager is hard, but try going through puberty and adolescence in the uncharted alien wilderness. Through these topics and more, IWATE masterfully weaves together sci-fi and coming-of-age into something greater than the sum of its parts.

\\ (The following section has minor spoilers.)

During your first playthrough, you eventually learn that Sol is in a time loop. This is, in part, a diegetic justification for New Game+; it’s not like, say, Undertale, where the true story can only be unearthed through repeat playthroughs. If you’re satisfied, you can put down IWATE after your first playthrough. But you’d be missing out on a lot.

For Sol, this time loop is a blessing, not a curse. IWATE holds a great love and empathy for humanity and our potential. You can’t do everything in a single playthrough. There’s no “Golden” end, where you max out every stat, befriend everyone, and lead everyone to a perfect tomorrow. Instead, you’re encouraged to construct the lives Sol could lead, the different people they could grow up to be. Each life is equally as valid as the next. What role will you play for your community?

\\ (Spoilers end here.)

Of course, it’s only natural that IWATE falls into some pitfalls with its limitations. The more choices there are for a player to make, the more choices there are that need to be accounted for. I wish there were more ways for characters to die, I wish there were more unique endings instead of career endings, I wish romance didn’t fade into the background after you’ve gotten into a relationship. I wish the team had more resources to really flesh out everything I’ve mentioned and more. But if they had had those resources from the start, would I Was a Teenage Exocolonist exist? Limitation breeds creativity, after all.

I’ve played through IWATE twice, and I plan to play it many more times in the future. It’s ambitious and its breadth of scope is breathtaking. I haven’t discovered everything and I don’t think I ever will, but it’s that sense of infinite possibility that compels me to see what else I Was a Teenage Exocolonist has to offer.

“The child you were will not return.”

I will be talking about all the chapters in the game one by one so its spoiler territory. I wanted to write this after Ishmael's chapter but said to myself nah I'll do it after Heathcliffs, which probably made my thoughts more organized. I'll probably update it after chapter 7 (canto 7, Don's chapter). For my thoughts on the game as a whole, this is the best gacha out there and it will only keep getting better and better with their writing quality and their ideas to implement evolving as Project Moon adds their previous ideas on it, expands the lore and gaining new insights while they experimenting/ making those ideas real. Even if you hate gachas this is still a must getting into if you love Project Moon's other works because it literally includes all of the previous ones, also its not entirely gacha as you can get everything with playing and in time. I think making Limbus gacha was the right choice because if it was a standalone game how would they add the new stories later, like, new dlc for new chapters? Sure you can use the argument ''they could finish everything and then publish the game'' and my response would be good luck waiting 5 years, with no chance of getting fixes after it releases and no cool other versions of sinners we get every week on banners, because you would probably had to play the game with base sinners if it wasnt gacha. Plus waiting for new cantos/in between stories of cantos (events) is the sweet nectar.

Prologue: What a cool introduction to a new story on pmoonverse with giving us two familiar faces from the previous entry (Leviathan) and making us question why Vergilius is here now and what the hell is going on with Dante. Wow our character cast is immortal as long as Dante can revive them, there are so many possibilies for pmoon to explore with this, like for example making extremely dire situations because they can challenge what a normal human cant with immortality. Oh Mili and Studio Eim (Studio Eim please upload the soundtracks to spotify please I beg thee) will keep on working for Limbus huh, okay we got music side covered they cant go wrong, cant wait for Mili songs in the future.

Canto 1: Our first sinner to get his conclusion and character development, it was good and exciting with a surprising ending. Gregor makes peace with his difference from others. We got so see more information on what happened to lobotomy corp branches after the previous entries, looks like we search for golden boughs and we got more info about smoke war because Gregor is a smoke war veteran and story took place in Gregors memories because of the golden bough. We also saw the main villains. So, characters and their stories are actually from literature and Limbus integrates them to its own story huh, cool, we can speculate what to expect from their books.

Canto 2: This one was weird and underwhelming from previous canto, I assume they rushed this because they were working for other aspects of the game and next canto and release date was nearing. There was no climax and Rodion didnt get her resolution, also no new info except there is a gambling district in the city. At least we saw funny interactions of the cast and how they are getting used to each other and to the job they do. Still sucks for Rodion but they might come back to this later.

Canto 3: Overall incredible and peak and makes you wonder how we come to this from canto 2's bland ending. We saw our most meek and always terrified sinner Sinclair get courage to stand up to this cantos villain, Kromer, and I think this is the most bitter one after Heathcliffs canto, people understate/ forget what happened to his family and town from what I've seen. If I remember correctly this is the first time we saw distortion since Library of Ruina, they keep on continuing building on the lore. Also we got our first Mili song (if we dont include opening Mili song) bgm, going more in line with LoR's formula. Made me wonder how can they top this at the time of experiencing it, which, it was at the launch of the game, what I mean is it looked hopeful for future content, if you start wondering how can they top this, pmoon tops it, works in reverse. This was also the hardest time for both devs and players with so many bugs or lack of quality of life options. If devs stopped giving a fuck we wouldnt get what limbus is today, so I applaud their hard work, just like what their stories conveys, they faced the fear and built the future. Most of the bad opinions about Limbus stems from bad launch or Velmori incident or people who hate the gameplay (skill issue)

Canto 4: Very emotional canto with again another peak ending and another question of ''how can they top this?'' (Im repeating myself and I will keep on doing it but its literally this every single time, plus my vocabulary isnt much good for me to talk about it detailed, but still I want to write a review about the game most excited I get nowadays, which is waiting for new limbus stories). We got to see why Yisang is depressed, we see the league of nine and we learn more about the most important aspect in the entire game: mirror worlds, its basically paralel universes of someone you can see on the other side of the mirror or extract with a another complex tech. Thats basically how we can use different versions of our sinners in combat and its inventor is Yisang. Another cool concept and how it makes Limbus work as a gacha, you wouldnt imagine a gacha with a low number of just 12 characters keep living in this medium but it actually works wonders with giving you more worlbuilding in those mirror world versions and stories of the characters, everything Project Moon does and implements expands on their lore (even the sandwhich restaurant HamHamPangPang). Plus you got to see more of the sinner(s) you like so basically a clever way of fanservice. Now getting back to canto, Yisang gets over his depression after confronting his past coworkers and seeing his smile on canto ending song and later cantos, seeing him become more sharing and talkative just melts you and gives you a smile too. If you get invested in these 12 characters you definitelly see them develop and change later with how they interact differently from earlier cantos, a genius writing as always and a living story, never staying stagnant, seeing those are one of the best enjoyments you can get from this game and other Project Moon works in general.

Canto 5: Ishmael is the most logical sinner aside from stoic and a machine of a being Meursault, but, she was also the most hotheaded one beside Heathcliff (which at this point Heathcliff became calmer after getting to know limbus crew better so Ishmael was the only one left out of the group) because of her obsession, which is, getting stuck on the thought of killing Ahab and getting her revenge. She would disagree at some points with Dante's choices in this canto and act on her own because she thinks its the most quick way for her to get to Ahab, making Limbus crew at a disadvantage or in danger, but at the same time she is the only one with immense knowledge on seafaring and the place they are on. Another point why she does this is because at this point in story sinners know they will get their spotlight, after witnessing it 4 times before they know it just like the player, their time will come, and Ishmael knows. Heathcliff knows too, with knowing hes the closest or next on the canto list, he tries to stole hair coupons for his canto and makes the situation hopeless unknowingly, because those hair coupons were Middle's, one of the fingers in the city, which never forgets the crime done to them. This was the thing I was talking about in prologue section with making the situation dire, Middle is way above their level and they fuck our sinners up hard, not even getting revived again and again saves them. At the same time it is about time for Middle to learn immortal sinners weakness, Dante, with no way of our own color fixer Vergilius to come help us (this is also the moment Fraudgilius memes appear). In the end Ishmael gets over her revenge after a fight with Ahab inside a whale and finds her way back, starts to make positive relationships with other sinners after breaking herself apart from just seeing one single goal. Again with this canto they increase the production value from previous ones, easily tops the previous canto again with overall quality increase and ending and they fix minor things like pacing issues in canto 4 which I didnt mention. We dont see Velmori's art anymore because of the incident (a sad korean drama and a lot of misunderstandings on english players side because of the confidentiality contract Project Moon made with Velmori at the time of drama) but I have to say, I prefer Naiga's art more, it works better with Limbus's tone and setting and more in line with previous game. Still, Velmori's character expressions were cute.

Canto 6: We came to Heathcliffs canto that he were despairing for this moment on both canto 5 and intervallo events and at the time of writing this is the best one with so many interesting things happening. More Leviathan lore, more mirror world and the technology for making identities lore, Vergilius beating the Fraudgilius allegations, our own sinner distorting, Dante getting a spotlight and we getting a boss fight similar to Black Silence reception in Library of Ruina, they have a beef with wifeless guys I swear. I didnt mention earlier again because it looked more fit here but this canto is the most clear we see Carmen trying to distort someone with voicelines and all because the one distorting is the closest to our team. We even see 2 cg arts of Carmen, that passes in the blink of an eye, from Lobotomy Corporation. After an absolute peak and cool of a boss fight Project Moon says nah its not over and breaks the hearts of the players more with a meta, fourth wall breaking gameplay cutscene, no wonder canto's name is Heartbreaking. Heathcliff's canto's ending is the most bitter with how it ends but he still has hopes for the future and determined to bring *** back. This is easily the best canto right now but I trust them to surpass themselves again in Don's chapter, we'll see in 3-4 months later.

A game about choices that doesn't understand their role in storytelling. A horror game that doesn't understand horror. A game that concludes a decent setup with an embarrassing ending.

The first half is bursting with jump scares, even the extremely silly ones where a deformed face screams at you directly, giving this high-budget game the feel of a free Unity horror game. We get some actual breathing room towards the end but at the same time the jump scares that still do occur destroy any leftover atmosphere. This is worsened by a dumbed-down narrative. The Storyteller is a childish addition, the archetype of a mysterious meta person who's above the narrative. His sole contributions are nebulous predictions and a patronizing pat on the back if you managed to save people - and maybe he reprimands you if someone died. I wouldn't know, I didn't bother to check any more endings.

And y'know, I got to my first ending and it sucked ass - a completely unexplained conflict suddenly emerged for that shitty 'ooooOOOoooo the evil thing is still out there' moment. I redid a dumb decision I made towards the end and saved everyone, but that ending is almost exactly the same and it still sucked ass. I even watched an ending compilation and they all sucked ass. If I let someone escape early and then save everyone else later on, why does that first someone come back to the spooky ghost ship alone and they don't even try to call each other before, while in the other endings he returns obviously not alone?

As often present in horror media, there's an ideology of nihilism where mostly bad things simply happen and you're forced to live with them. This cheap trick has little bearing because death can be thrown in at any time. Even worse, the game later tries and fails to rationalize the spooky happenings instead of staying with a purely supernatural explanation. As seen before in The Suicide of Rachel Foster, rationalization does not make horror more grounded, believable or impactful.

So what bearing do your choices have in the end? In a good narrative or even your local DnD campaign, the entire world changes with you. Here, there are binary choices: you survive or you don't. There is no moral, there is no larger point, character arcs begin and get thrown away. There's only a bunch of cutscenes with no emotional release. The gamification of the narrative can be seen by people commenting on how shocked they were when an early innocuous decision has grave consequences later on. One person even said that the storyteller is their favorite character. He's not a character, he's the writer's desperate attempt to give a nihilistic narrative an even more nihilistic twist.

Games like this are built on the belief that there's always a choice, but this one doesn't have an answer to any of them. As The Armed sang not so long ago:

Expectations, secret rattlesnakes
It’s never really how it happens
It’s never really how it happens

Very short but charming game that has you moving a hole around to swallow objects.

The hole enlarges as more objects fall into it, which seems like a setup for something more systemic, but disappointingly it's more like a puzzler where you just hit a sequence of specific events to progress. There is little rhyme or reason to how the hole enlarges, and most levels don't require you to do much besides tracking the size order of objects on screen. Even as short as this game is (a playthrough took me 90 minutes), a lot of it ends up feeling like busy work.

The game stands out with its sunny low-poly art style, and lolrandom humor, delivered by way of JRPG-esque dialogue cutscenes. All of this is very of its time, reminiscent of something like A Short Hike, and while the vibe is immaculate, the humor and story unfortunately feels very low effort compared to ASH, like it's just throwing random stuff at you and going "tee hee isn't this wacky and silly?! @_@".

There's a lot of potential here. I think with a more deliberate narrative and gameplay progression, this could have been a really interesting game. As it is, it's a charming diversion but not much more. Perfect game to get on deep sale or in a Humble Bundle. Two and a half stars.