wish i could leave a neutral review. There is a lot to like about this game, but it feels like reading a pretty good book except every once a while there will be a page that can reset you entirely, so you have to read the book again. the book is good, but you don't want to read it again. Spend hours making progress doing lots of jobs only for it to all disappear if you mess up defusing a bomb. I know its a rogue lite, but dying does not feel like a fun chance for something new, it feels like you have to sit through hours of content that was only interesting the first time. once you fixed one toilet you've fixed them all.

I refunded this game because I thought I could not figure out the puzzles with the short time limit.

I was wrong.

THERE IS A VERSION WITH NO TIMER, and IT MADE THE GAME SOOOOOO MUCH BETTER!

THE STORY 10/10
THE PUZZLES 10/10 (NOT BORING EVEN AFTER COUNTLESS DEATHS because of - - - -)
HIDDEN LORES 10/10
BASEMENT UNLOCKABLES ARE PERMANENT (even after death)

JUST PLAY.

YOU ARE WILBER in DIFFERENT DIMENSIONS

I loved the art style, humor, and game play of Uncle Chop's Rocket Shop. The opening hours are the strongest part of the game where you are frantically trying to understand the manual as day timer ticks away and you probably end up making a mistake anyway. You get punished, but you are able to get back to where you were very quickly, so for me the game hit the sweet spot of me madly spinning screws trying to avoid failure, but not totally disheartening me when I did fail. I think the rougelite nature of the game ends up harming it as you get deeper. It does not feel fun for a reactor to suddenly exploding or an FTL module with gumballs flumoxing me and ending my run without me understanding what was happening, and not having a chance to try again until I play through 40 or so minutes of game to get back to the same point. Uncle Chop's Rocket Shop does have a solution to this though! A second game mode where you can you do not have the day clock ticking away so you can spend more time thoroughly reading your manual.

In the end, I really wanted to experience the endings without the punishment the game was dealing out, so about 20 hours in I started backing up my saves and also printing off physical copies of a few of my most needed manual pages (I'm talking about you Clifford and Swine Test). These two steps allowed me the handicap I needed to finish the game while still having fun.