Recent reviews by Autolycus

Disjointed and uninteresting, and marred by ludicrously long load times for extremely short periods of gameplay. Also suffers from the common point-and-click issues of things making sense in multiple instances, but requiring specific and poorly indicated interactions.

Pretty good, overall.

Little red lie prominently examines the lives of two characters from separate sides of the tracks. Sarah, a 38 year old who is wrestling with her lack of prospects, and Arthur, an arguable sociopath who makes his millions selling false hope to the downtrodden. The story is told almost entirely through their own eyes, maintaining a cohesive balance quite well between two unreliable narrators.

The general themes to expect are where the lines lie between hope and hopelessness, and between success and failure in the modern economy. Bouncing these concepts between the id, ego, and super-ego of our protagonists, the author keeps you on your toes while you analyse what's being presented to you as fact, lie, or a grey area between.

For the most part, this is pulled off as convincing introspection and projected observations of the world our characters come from. It's not perfect, though. There are moments where the disconnect and vagueness detracts from the whole. On more than one occasion I asked myself why a character expressed something that seemed out of place with their regular thought process. It never stopped the pace of the story though, so that I can easily forgive. However, what was more pace-breaking and detrimental to the overall tone were the two awkwardly placed moments where the player is addressed directly, and ham-handedly insulted. It seems backwards to shatter the fourth wall for a moment, especially when it's seemingly done for no reason other than to treat the reader like an inattentive child. They feel like they were shoe-horned in for some sort of shock value, where a moment of silence for the audience to digest the previous scene would have been far more appropriate.

I argue that these inconsistencies detract from the overall experience, but they definitely don't ruin it. I got a lot out of the game and I think the stories told are worth reading.

Around 4 hours of content but as the majority of that content is reading, your mileage may vary.

Lazaretto is a really great example of spine-tingling atmosphere used well. The sound design keeps you on edge for the length of the game and some really neat visual tricks are employed to play with your head. There is a litle bit of jank but it's pretty easy to forgive when everything else is so effective. I haven't sworn at a horror game this much in years. Big thumbs up from me.

Some really interesting and inquisitive writing buried beneath a whole host of translation issues.

Recommended, though be prepared for some sentences that are really difficult to parse, and a lot of re-reading until things make sense.

It's slippery and everything feels inconsistent. I could probably fill a textbook with lessons called "What not to do in your precision platformer", which I'd gleaned solely from playing this game.

You might like it if you enjoy ice levels and awful feedback.

Absolute garbage of the lowest tier. Even idling it for cards was a waste of time. If you got it for free you got ripped off.

I want to hate this, but the puzzles are genuinely brain twisting and quite satisfying to complete.

Movement and hitboxes are godawful, but you get used to it.

One legitimate gripe though: For the love of all that is sacred, tell the player where the exit points are going to spawn before they've finished the rest of the puzzle.

That aside it's pretty well put together.

Great production quality with some enjoyable puzzling. I never felt stuck in Hector, despite there being some relatively obtuse solutions to some puzzles.

Does suffer a fair amount from requiring you to return to previously explored and picked apart areas to see that something's changed, despite nothing indicating that's the case.

As far as the humour goes, I'd say it's its biggest let-down. There are some amusing bits to be found, but overall it's very predictable, which is the worst thing comedy can be. When every punchline is this is "gross/stupid/absurd" it wears a little thin.

I still recommend this, as there's no neutral option and it's not utter garbage.

Incredibly charming and fun. Some of the best dungeon puzzling out there, and that's just the main game. The extra-challenging side dungeons are ludicrously satisfying (and abhorrently fiendish).

This isn't really my style of game, but I had a decent amount of fun whacking soda and balls at the Man™ for a few hours. The levels are a good mixture of trial and error, precision, and puzzle solving.