Recent reviews by Emphy

Of all vaguely non-euclidean, occasionally surrealist, hand-drawn investigative folk-horror crime games where you bumble about in proto-swiss-challet cabins. This is, at the very least, top three.

Pretty enjoyable game. Seems like the dev made the game free, but I would definitely be fine with paying "something" for this? (And wish I could)
Being a lone dev is hard, and clearly some work and time went into this game. And that is worth something. And I hope the dev isn't discouraged (Hopefully just on summer vacation)
My overall experience is fairly positive, but I'll mainly (constructively) discuss some weaknesses, since I think that is more meaningful as feedback. (Just what I feel, maybe I'm wrong about all of it)

First, I suspect, the greyscale, low-poly art style\vibe, while serving the story well, and being stylistically fine, combined with the zelda\metroidvania-style "start with nothing and gradually discover ways to expand the map" gameplay (which I LOVE), might result in the beginning coming off as overly barebones, and creating a weaker first impression than perhaps deserved.
(I might be explaining this poorly, but essentially, when first starting a new game, immediately, every aspect of the game is simplistic or barebones (on purpose), which is fine individually, but... it happens at the same time, before anything else is introduced. So it's hard to tell what the game will be, or rather "if" it will be more eventually. Making expectations start really low, so people either quit before they get far enough, or just colours the experience somewhat negatively for a while. If that makes sense. I think the UI might also contribute to this first impression, it leaves a bit to be desired, maybe in terms of feedback, but especially visually. But I get that UIs are not typically interesting to design haha)

I don't know how to solve this in a good way though. Maybe giving the player a sneak peak of what is to come (world\abilities\etc.) (Not everyone watches trailers)
The first unlock shows up very quickly, so does the next one. Which gives an idea what the game will be like. That's great! But it's not quite enough to set any grander expectations. So as a player, especially with the game being free, I was unsure if it was going to turn out that it was some bundled engine demo-level that had been enhanced and expanded on a bit before being published, as sometimes happens. Or if there was a full game with more down the line. Luckily it was the latter :)
Obviously, Metroid does it by starting you of with (near) every ability, and then taking it all away. I suspect that might undermine or diminish the original intent in this game though? Maybe? But, if so, there are definitely other ways of teasing things, visually, functionally or... falsely?

Is it on the level of something like Supraland or DEPO? Ofc not, but, in general I felt like the game evolved into something more later, it had some good puzzles, some interesting exploration that kept me wanting to explore, and there's a bunch of things to love here. (I think it also has some solid groundwork for something else in the future? If the dev wants to explore the possibility of that. Whether directly in this or in a new game of some sort.)

I do understand what some other reviews are saying, but...
Ultimately, despite some issues, I don't think there is anything really, really bad anywhere? It's all very fixable stuff IMO.


Also, some stuff to be aware off until there is an update:
There are a few bugs, mostly minor, but unfortunately one potentially gamebreaking one (You can despawn and permanently loose power cells it seems, and they are of very limited supply. If you think you lost one, backup your save, don't do like me and check again if you really did lose it... by losing another lol)
There is also one optional puzzle post-game, that I think might have bugged and become unsolvable for me? Involving some... hands. Or maybe I misunderstood\misremember. (It's been a little bit since I played since I've been hoping to figure out the remaining stuff without replaying, but no luck. Could definitely just be me being dumb though.)

Fantastic as usual

Do geese see God?

This was pretty good. Going into modern retro 3D platformers I always worry about the controls being floaty, but this had tight responsive controls just like the classic ones.
The world had a pretty good size for the most part. I might slightly prefer more, smaller levels, but it did not overstay it's welcome I think.
I do wish there were more powerups, but what was there, was well implemented, and utilized in a variety of ways.
Not too challenging for anyone with used to playing 3D platformers, but not so easy it gets boring, just enough to keep you engaged in a good way.

Probably one of the better throwbacks on Steam.

As usual, fantastic. I have played pretty much every escape room game on Steam by now (not a joke), and 0 Deer Soft keeps putting out some of the best.

I appreciate the games being short, concise and satisfying experiences. (Usually 1.5-8 hours, with this free game being the shortest)
Sometimes I would like them to release faster. But I do also realize it's a two-person team. So keep up the good work!
But I can confidently recommend all Escape Memoirs games, they hold up. (This being the newest one at the time of writing, feel free to start with the first one)

The puzzle designs are nice and varied, and I love the optional hunt for secret trinkets, adding another layer of fun to the experience. (And they can be pretty difficult to find sometimes, even if the game tell you which room it is in. (That one trinket in the constable office in one of the episodes took forever!))
And the puzzles have a good mix of difficulty, ranging from fairly easy to "I've been thinking about this code I have to decipher for half an hour, and it just clicked"

I'm also thankful that all the games support co-op, actively discussing the puzzles with a friend gives room for more creativity and an even more engaging experience.

The only thing I don't enjoy as much is when, very infrequently, there is a puzzle designed around "doing things in a specific order" like trial-and-error pulling levers to move things in the environment, where you have to experiment a lot to find the solution, instead of studying the problem beforehand. To an extent I guess this can be studied and planned with a notebook and some creative thinking, but it sometimes requires too much visual planning for my aphantasia-riddled mind)
But that is very much a personal preference, and I'm sure there are people who love those kinds of puzzles too!

I'm looking forward to the next one. And the one after that. etc.

I think the ending was a bit disappointing. But except for that I think the journey there was very good, and in the spirit of old lucasarts titles. Definitely one to play.

Fantastic, like every Momodora game

I suspect this game might be mining crypto? Unless there is just some severe bug.
My vram is immediately pushed into crazy territory (100-105 degrees C) similar to running something like nicehash uncapped.

Despite the game itself not being very resource intensive. (The rest of the GPU running at 50-60~ degrees Celsius when capped to 60fps)

This game seems relatively unknown, which is a shame.
It is short, at about 2 hours. But it is such a high quality escape room game compared to tons of other higher profile escape room games, you can tell this is made by someone who doesn't just know how to make puzzles, but also how to make a proper, well designed game™
Highly recommended.

Fantastic. You don't need to have played Talos Principle 1, but I recommend it because the first one is exceptional.
This series is one of the only puzzle game series out there that can rival The Witness.

Pros:
- It's Talos Principle, more better, bigger. It's the only pro you need, and weighs up for all the cons multiple times over. The original was one of my most enjoyable gaming experiences of all time.
- A more fleshed out and engaging story with somewhat branching paths. (The original had a great narrative too, but this is perhaps more impactful due to the introduction of other living\interactable characters.)

Cons:
- More or less no secrets\easter eggs. Hunting those were a significant amount of the fun in the original, so that is very disappointing to me.
- You can still "break" puzzles, but to a much less degree than the original which even required you to break things to find all easter eggs\etc. Which heavily increased replayability and my form of creative thinking (How many ways can I sequence break and go out of bounds etc. There is none of that in this game). This is a one and done experience.
- Performance is kinda garbo. 5950x and RTX 3090 gives around 25-45 fps even with DLSS on performance (4k). Lowering various settings to high or medium had little or no effect on performance, just looks, so be prepared to lower the resolution.

Con or Pro depending on who you are:
- Lots and lots of talking, at least in the beginning if you decide to explore New Jerusalem. It can take you hours to reach the first "real" puzzle if you decide to explore. I like exploring, but I felt obligated to talk to everyone (as a completionist, not forced by the game) before I dared move on to the puzzles in fear of missing out.
- Too big? (At times)