2021

What is TOEM?
Chill photo-taking missions in a goofy Paper Mario-esque world.

Who made TOEM? When did TOEM release?
An independent Swedish studio called Something We Made, this is their first full game. Released September 2021 for PC/Switch/PS5.

Why should you play TOEM?
Cozy locations, lots of wonderful, soothing background music, and little encapsulated moments of joy with unique characters.

Where does TOEM fail?
Not much creativity or challenge with the photo missions despite the possibilities, for the most part it is simply a game of point and shoot.

How would you rate it?
On a scale of Pass/Meh/Fine/Cool/Play It!...

TOEM is Fine.

What is Echoes of the Eye?
A DLC add-on to 2019's Outer Wilds, encompassing a new object found in the solar system, known only as "The Stranger".

Who made Echoes of the Eye? When did Echoes of the Eye release?
Mobius Digital, an independent game studio based in Los Angeles, notably founded by Masi Oka of Heroes fame. It was released in September 2021 for PC, Xbox, and Playstation 4.

Why should you play Echoes of the Eye?
The thrills of discovery of something tucked away in time, the horror of breaking into something not meant to be found, the satisfaction of piecing it altogether and understanding why things fell apart and how to heal what remains.

Where does Echoes of the Eye fail?
I eventually realized that everything I disliked about this game were things that were not leading me closer to solving the mystery; the things I did were me banging my head against a wall, and when I realized the solution, it always worked, or if it didn't, it helped me understand something I didn't before.

How would you rate it?
On a scale of Pass/Meh/Fine/Cool/Play It!...

Play it!

Scattered thoughts warning

Awesome time mechanic, I didn't actually expect it to develop into what it became by the end of the game. The map was 3 times bigger than I thought, the dungeons had some fun puzzles. Most of the bosses were a bit easy with the right gear, but it was still fun to figure them out. Water temple was awful like always. Swimming controls after getting mermaids tail is abysmal, who thought mashing the dpad was a good idea? I don't really get why they swapped it once the flippers were obtained. Also, the amount of dialogue was great, the characters in these early 2D Zeldas are so strange and genuine. Didn't care for Maku tree love interest or Ralph who basically had no presence but was supposed to be a major character by the end. Items were interesting, the switcher was unexpected but probably ended up being my favorite. Kept expecting it to be useful on enemies though, and it was more of an escape method than anything.

2013

There's not much that encourages you to stick around. I think in a time where this was the best a machine could manage, you could appreciate it for what it is and fill in the blanks. But the puzzles are just not interesting and the movement just feels bad, so it just feels like a slow walk through a boring museum. Sorry.

This review contains spoilers

This was a great historical game, the story does not feel over-the-top or too ridiculous, its grounded enough to be believable and yet it shows so many aspects of WWI. And the photography was wonderful. Because of the painterly style and the detail in every area, there was so much to take photos of, and I usually took more photos than was required. I do find it a little strange that the photos didn't reappear in the credits or something like that, as it would have been a nice way to wrap up the journey.

My biggest disappointment with this game was in the ending. I was happy with all the choices I made to get the ending I did (Peace), but it was one of the worst outcomes and left me feeling like I chose "wrong". Unsurprisingly, it is the most commonly obtained ending according to Steam achievement stats, with double the players choosing to go to Kurt instead of going home. I tried all of the different endings to see if there was a better outcome, but honestly, all of the endings involving going to Kurt are pretty bad, despite it being the most climactic ending. Any way you go with it, someone dies, unless you get the "Peace" ending, in which case everyone lives but Harry's life is destroyed and Kurt is left bitter and unresolved.

Bizarrely, by far the best outcome is to abandon your friends, and then have Kurt put down his gun in front of Barrett. Even the closing scenes in the "Forgiven" outcome imply that everyone's journeys were resolved and they left with some peace of mind and a life beyond the war.

Well, again according to Steam stats, that is the least seen ending. A third of people who made it to the end saw it. I can understand the intention of showing how the war is meaningless and we should strive to avoid it, but abandoning Kurt felt wrong, and there was no ending I was really happy with, despite there being 7 in total (most of them being devastatingly, clearly, bad outcomes).

Ignoring the ending of the game, I had a great time with 11-11.

Meh. The personification of the shapes was fun, but the gameplay is slow, annoying, and too easy. There were a few good ideas and the game didn't overuse them, but most levels were just basically walking linearly to the goal.

Really impressed by the scope and execution of this game. It was well-paced, had Earthbound-esque dialogue despite being older than EB, was challenging but not totally evil, fairly forgiving, unique locations and storyline, just altogether really a special game.

I can't imagine a much more fleshed-out and polished game than this on NES, but I suppose I now want to see how the sequel holds up!

Nice little game that didn't overstay and was pretty peaceful

Your enjoyment is proportional with how much time you invest in it. The more you soak in to the depths of the content (which there is a pretty huge amount of!), the more the story will really strike you. I loved the creativity and free-spirit feeling of this game, everything had a really personal touch from a variety of folks so it actually felt like an internet space. Such a cool concept, and so awesome to see it done right.

If you love Ace Attorney/Danganronpa, you might not enjoy this.

Despite a lot of comparisons being drawn between PK and those series, I see that as a bit of a stretch. While PK is a murder investigation game with plenty of dialogue and evidence, the similarities fall apart there. The trial does not involve punching holes through witness testimony, you don't get to know if you made errors in judgement, and there is only one grand trial for everything (albeit with multiple parts). If those are the similarities you were looking for in PK, I recommend doing a little bit of research into this game before deciding whether you want to play it.

Personally, I never felt the "click" while playing this game that I did with many other mystery/detective games that I love (Ace Attorney, Danganronpa, Return of the Obra Dinn, Nancy Drew, Her Story, Shenmue, Zero Escape). However, PK was a confidently executed, fresh take on the genre and I'm excited to see what may follow after it.

I really like platformers. I really like puzzle games. As soon as I hear enough good news about a game from either genre, I dive in instantly. I heard a lot of great praise for Lair of the Clockwork God, and seeing that it was a puzzle platformer, I picked it up without doing any further inspecting so to prevent spoiling the experience.

I didn't like LotCG. Not even enough to get past an hour or so of gameplay.

Here is why it didn't work for me:

- Glitchiness: 20 seconds in I got a glitch where Ben got stuck underground and popped up after a couple seconds. After a few more minutes, this had happened several times, sporadically. Then I got to a section where a NPC is supposed to interact with an object. Instead, the character glitched out and became invisible. I could only solve the puzzle by finding his invisible body.

- Controls: I started with mouse and keyboard, but it felt really awkward by default and the "look" function felt naturally suited for a joystick, so I switched to controller. Some of the buttons were assigned wrong, and by default showed up in game incorrectly (the game would indicate press the left button on the pad, but that would be incorrect). I'm not sure if that is just on my end with my controller, but I thought I'd mention it. The real issue was actually understanding what the function of all the controls was. Ben (or whichever the puzzle one is) has a typical set of point and click controls, but set to a quick menu where you can choose basic functions (Look, Talk to, Use, etc). The weird thing is, you can also always look at things with the joystick and hear a description. Not sure why the "Look" feature is doubled up like that. Otherwise the quick menu is a bit strange at first but then feels pretty natural.

- Platforming: It's hard to make a platformer with good feel, but this just doesn't have it. There is a strange snapping action that happens when Dan (I think he's the platforming one) jumps into the corner of a platform. It doesn't feel natural at all as can even hinder movement. This also became an issue with a bit of the platforming in the first couple areas where you had to make a surprisingly tight jump to a object that wasn't very visible (I think? I had a hard time navigating some areas, the background is very samey and I got lost within even smaller areas).

- Puzzles: Think "Secret of Monkey Island" but with nothing to actually piece together. This game doesn't explain anything to you - which I'm fine with! This game is clearly an homage/parody of those older point and clicks. Yet, the beginning puzzles are ridiculously simple while also being convoluted. For example: There is a cloud of poison smoke. "Ok, I guess I need some sort of tool to get past this, or maybe I just need to platform cleverly?" No, "look"ing at the smoke tells you you could use a make a sort of periscope/snorkel with a pipe you obtained earlier. And it just tells you that, so nothing to solve anymore, just do what game says. Maybe this was supposed to come across as a sort of aping on the ridiculousness of early adventure puzzle games, but the joke shouldn't have to replace fun gameplay.

- Humor: This is the last thing I wanted to address, because humor is very subjective and I don't think it's worth arguing about what's funny and what's not. But for me, it just didn't click. From very early on, it's apparent this is a meta-commentary on video games, specifically indie puzzle and platforming games from recent years. But it just keeps digging into these topics without any relief, and I personally dread that sort of 4th wall breaking introspectiveness, at least when it comes as constantly as it does in this game.

I gleaned from only a bit of gameplay that this game just wasn't my cup of tea, despite this being my favorite flavor. Oh well.

Cool first person puzzle game. Did a surprisingly great job of translating the senses into puzzle types, even for smell/taste. Some of the secret/bonus puzzles were unfair to the player, which can be frustrating if you refuse to use outside help. The music loops were a little short in some areas, which is unfortunate because the music was actually quite well suited to the atmosphere of the game. Also, I found the movement to be a little too fast. It was fun to speed around from area to area, but when you actually were trying to navigate carefully it was a nuisance. Overall, I would say the unpolished parts do not really take away from the main game, which has a fantastic collection of puzzles with nice variety.

Ah, revisiting Layton in HD is amazing! Sharp, full resolution graphics and sound make a huge difference. It's amazing that we can see the game in this way, it's the video game equivalent to a movie recorded on film getting a modern release at full resolution. No new art, the same but finally at the highest quality. Also, having all puzzles (weekly downloadable puzzles + hidden door + game's own set) in one place is awesome. I'm glad they didn't leave anything out.

Other than the HD upgrade, there are very few new additions. The memo pad has wider array of tools, there's an options menu with a playguide and volume adjustments, some very minor puzzle adjustments to accommodate for mobile... and that's about it.

While there wasn't much room for improvement over the original, I'm disappointed by a few choices. First, the most grievous error is in the one functionality that was updated: the memo pad.

The original DS release's memo pad was extremely bare bones: you could write in black, and you could clear the screen. But it did the job most of the time. The HD version added: colors! stamps! pen sizes! an eraser! undo/redo buttons! And yet somehow they really screwed it up. It's already hard enough to write memos with a fingertip (next time I will definitely use a pen with a touchscreen nub), but the memo pad's functionality will make you want to use it as little as possible. To write anything other than in the thinnest pen size in black, like let's say, in a second color, you have to: press the colorpad, choose a color, press the pencil icon, tap the screen, and then you can begin writing. It's hard to understand how frustrating this is unless you experience it yourself. Note-taking can be so crucial in many of the puzzles and it was turned into such a chore for no good reason.

Another weird decision was: they actually added an an accommodation for writing on a touchscreen with your finger! Awesome! It is used on one single puzzle. What. On puzzle 68, and only on puzzle 68, a magnifying circle appears besides where you tap and shows where you are drawing your line. I almost wish they never added to that puzzle, because every puzzle after that I kept thinking how a magnifying glass would be so useful. I just don't understand why that wasn't a game-wide option.

Overall, while I think this is the best way to play the game, I wish they did just that little bit more to make the definitive version.

This game is everything it needs to be. It uses it's core mechanic to the fullest and comes to a close before anything gets too familiar or repetitive. The game could have easily been released without any sort of story or art direction, but the extra touches really made it something special and unique. It's now one of my most favorite first person puzzlers!

Ah, Pompom. I love it for what it does right, I hate it for what it does wrong.

Pompom is a fantastic game - as long as you play it as the creator intended! That's not necessarily a bad thing, most puzzle games have you find the logic to arrive at a satisfying solution, and I think Pompom counts as a puzzle game. And it's great to find the intended solution, watching the hamster bounce off of enemies just in time and land neatly onto each platform. However, the game's best moments are when you totally wing it and manage to catch every pitfall and stumble into a perfect combination of mistakes that somehow lead you to victory. The problem is these styles of play - solving a puzzle and creating your own solution - are totally at odds with each other.

I often found myself struggling to get past a section, getting SO close to collecting all the coins while maneuvering past the obstacles, just to get hit, slam escape and hit "Reset to Checkpoint" once again. Then, finally, when I'm almost ready to give up, I try a different method - and everything starts lining up instantly. All my struggles were not really necessary, the solution was right there, I was just doing it the "wrong way". And sometimes, I never find the "right way". I end up carefully conserving the bubble to grab the coins and escape past the area that I could not get past properly, either because I didn't have enough items, enough time to stop and think up a solution, or I couldn't figure out the intended route.

It's about time I mentioned that Pompom is EXTREMELY ambitious: nearly every single level throws a new gameplay mechanic at you that totally resets your mastery of the game back to zero. So all these frustrating moments were temporary, once I got through them it was almost certain I'd never see a level like it again. And the ways the levels explain to you what the new tool is going to do before you try it yourself, or how the new enemy will function before you have any items to avoid it with, are astoundingly clever. It functions so well in a game that doesn't let you control the character, but it's a feature that could have easily been missed. Like, for example, in the Temple Zone level where you get the rope, and it doesn't explain how to use it! Wasn't that confusing and annoying? Well, at least there's something to compare against.

At the same time, if a game has 100 different mechanics, it's unlikely they will all be perfect. It's not always clear what parts can be interacted with, or what those interactions will do. I think some sort of highlighting around any clickable parts (like the buoys, the chandeliers, etc) would go a long way. The controls can also be a bit frustrating. Because the game only has two buttons - left and right click - they sometimes overlap each other. More times than I can count, I have accidentally placed an item while trying to click an interactable object or pop the 2nd chance bubble, and because I placed that item, now I'm short a item, and now something is blocked off by that item, now I need to try to die on purpose to try and salvage this run - it can easily be the thing that kills an attempt.

Despite a large portion of the credits going out to testers, I don't think the levels were playtested enough. There are some levels that I can see from the developer's perspective made so much sense, but just don't come across that way to a first-time player. For example, there is a level in Spooky Zone with levers that rotate the entire stage. One section has a lever in an awkward spot - kinda hard to grab, but doable with some clever block placement. This leads to a cache of coins + the carrot, awesome! The only thing is it is extremely difficult to get back to the level after this. I struggled for so long with it before realizing I wasn't meant to grab that awkward lever, it was supposed to be used later, after rotating the level. But because it COULD be grabbed and DID lead to the treasure, I was sure I was doing it right!

For a genre of game that doesn't have much to build off of (maybe Lemmings or Oddworld? I have played neither), this game got so much right. It's easy to point out it's failures and shortcomings, but it's genuinely amazing at times how the central idea was so fully fleshed out. And the artstyle is absolutely spot-on. This game feels like a long lost SNES title. Every detail down to the repeated "Pompom, You can do it!" at the end of every zone, the little skits that play out during opening cutscenes, the simple goofiness of some of the spritework, the wonderful, 16 bit soundtrack, are so endearing.

Pompom can be wonderful. It's concept is refreshingly new, it's clever with how it uses it, the game always feels fun and alive. Pompom can also be awful. It's frustratingly rigid, unfair at the worst possible moments, and the spicy pepper level is too gosh dang hard. But I played through the whole thing, always eager to see what new challenge I was to overcome next.