Recent reviews by dunvi

I won't try to compare this game to other games. There is no comparison. This game is about synthesizers. You interact with a world at your own pace, and music follows your footsteps.

If you have any interest in this kind of music (watch the trailer), and have a little bit of understanding of rhythm, you can play this game and enjoy it. I only played about 8 hours before solving the final puzzle, but it was easily one of my favorite games I have played in recent times. This game made me happier than any game I have played all year.

It is short and minimalistic. There are few instructions, no directions, and no words. You solve puzzles, and get very little from it. But what you do get is everything that you need, perfected. There's a wonderful feeling when the bass suddenly kicks in, because you solved a puzzle, with an added kick of enjoyment from hearing *your* music incorporated into it. Exploration is rewarded by finding little crystals that sing when you get near them, or the faint sound of a puzzle in the distance as you look over a world constructed with little more than basic blocks yet is still beautiful and intriguing.

The puzzles are impressive. The first puzzles you will encounter for each area are simple, preparing you for future puzzles without obvious tutorials, building to the final puzzles which can be incredibly complicated. Each puzzle is two parts - an approach puzzle, and then an ostensibly musical puzzle - yet despite what many on the internet think, each one can be solved with only logic, no brute forcing needed. There are not nearly enough puzzle games in the world that hit the right balance of solvable and difficult.

tl;dr: You like music? You like puzzles? You like creating instead of destroying? Pick this up. It's worth it.

This is a serious game. It can be predictable, or completely out of left field, depending on your experiences.

My review is simple. If you are at all interested, if you think you could play this, sit down, shut up, and play it.

If you play this game and you recognize yourself, turn off your computer, and take a deep look inside yourself. Then go apologize to someone, and learn how to be their friend, instead of making them yours.

And pro-tip: if you think this is a game about games, you aren't done looking inside yet.

I am super impressed with this game so far. I am a programmer IRL with a passion for both: getting people into the field younger, and also raising awareness of how programming concepts are applicable beyond the very limited scope layment are aware of. Ergo, I am always excited to try programming-themed games, and when I saw that the makers of Little Inferno had come out with a new game, I snatched it up no questions no research.

So here's the thing. I love trying programming themed games. I hate nearly every one of them. Nearly every one of them overbearingly forces pithy metaphors on you, and struggles to find a balance between infantile dumbing-down and overcomplicated concepts that don't lend themselves to the interface. Human Resource Machine has leapt straight to the top of my list for ability to convey programming concepts.

It's not perfect. The language is little more than the lowest-level assembly, which can raise the opacity of the puzzles for newcomers. As a programmer I am reaching the point where I desperately wish I could create subroutines, if only for jnez! And there are some nuances to the way the game calculates the number of actions your program requires that can lead to unintuitive changes required to hit the optimization goals - not to mention that neither of the optimization goals are actually realistic methods of optimization.

But so far I am enjoying the game, and would absolutely recommend it to anyone who has a little experience to basic programming and is looking for a casual game.

tl;dr
Talos Principle is The sleeper hit of 2015 and my personal choice for game of the year. This game has just about everything going for it. A puzzler that has its priorities set right.

PROS:
* Don't have to be a puzzle-wiz to complete the game.
* A huge range of optional, difficult puzzles for those who enjoy puzzling.
* Well balanced, quality puzzles. Easy solutions aren't stupid, hard solutions don't require MLG skills. Every puzzle is carefully tested to prevent cheap solutions.
* Rewards players who enjoy breaking games instead of obeying the rules. Easy recovery from broken/stuck states, no penalty deaths, and you get stars too!
* Story is easy to follow and minimal engagement is required, yet still will leave you thinking for days and provides pages of extra content for those who are interested.
* A candy store for completionists.
* Beautiful lighting, textures, music, sounds, and voice acting.
* Accomodates every type of gamer, even those who usually avoid FPS-style games.
* Every customization option you ever wanted as a PC master race gamer.

CONS:
* Models and animations look 10 years old.
* Music and sound effects can get repetetive and irritating by the 20 hour mark.
* A few puzzles and mechanics will probably force you to consult at least a hint guide or a friend (hint: you can put boxes on top of drones).
* Will make you question your intelligence, your eyes, your sanity, and your existence.
* So few cons I'm nitpicking.

The Talos Principle skirted on the outside of my rader for an embarrassingly long time. At first I thought it was a community mod (no idea where I got that idea) of Serious Sam 3, and had no interest in playing it. Later I dismissed it out because SS3 surely a puzzle game made by the same creators would feature every frustrating timing/precision based puzzle tactic I hate?

How I regret my assumptions! The Talos Principle is a puzzler that knows what it's doing. No other game has ranked alongside Portal for quality before The Talons Principle. Not even Portal 2 got the key to puzzling correct - the best puzzle games challenge your assumptions and make you constantly question what you really have, and what you can really do.

The Talos Principle does it right, and throws in stunningly beautiful landscapes, sounds, and a story that is both deeply engaging and yet incredibly minimalistic. Add dozens of hours of extra content for the completionists, from extra story content to extra puzzles, to a rewind mechanic and stars that encourage you to break the game in every way possible, and you have a game that is well worth the price and then some.

TL;DR Play this game if you have any interest in artistic games.

An absolutely brilliant game. The entire set is handcrafted out of paper and is beautiful to look at, the story is cute and engaging, and the puzzles are (for the most part) well laid out with a handy and well-designed book of hints for when you're really stumped. Absolutely worth the money, absolutely worth playing.

PROS:
* Beautiful design and artwork
* Gorgeous music
* Interesting and engaging story
* Good puzzles with solutions that are on the right side of "not obvious" and "not frustrating"
* In game hint system that's neither too tempting nor too difficult to access
* Female protagonist without centering around her gender...
* ...who deserves and receives the respect she earns through the game

FAILINGS:
* Some puzzle frustrations: lack of clear goals, difficult to see/find targets, timing puzzles with awkward handles
* A few hangs and crashes, two of which were reproduceable on my system (don't open the steam overlay when working with the water tank)
* No audio/visual options, couldn't adjust sound-levels in game (music was too loud in the endgame for some reason)

OTHER:
* Puzzle difficulty leans towards "easy" but I'd rather easy than frustrating
* Some of the stranger puzzles can be frustrating when you don't "see" what needs to be done right away, but every single one of them made sense by the completion of the puzzle. None need to be solved by pure trial and error

Read negative reviews closely, and you will notice a trend - complaints that boil down to disappointment that a point and click adventure/puzzler is too simple has no action elements! Completely ridiculous. This game has almost everything going for it.

Things just keep getting messier with every episode. I can never decide if I want to facepalm or punch someone because of their actions, but the best part is that the stupidity isn't because of idiot plot but rather idiot characters (just like the ones you meet outside your door!)

Beyond that it's the first game's experience with a couple of superficial quirks. It's a beautiful pseudo-2.5D world that could use a little better AA but still looks gorgeus. You interact with people who are distinguishable and interesting.You make dialogue decisions (and sometimes action decisions) that aren't always so black and white, with the option of saying absolutely nothing always there. You make big decisions that in the end you realize made no difference whatsover, but that little side response you made totally changed the plot's direction an episode later.

Totally worth the money to sit back with the simple controls, and watch the guts fly.

BTW wear goggles.

This game is way underrated. It has great design and a lot more replayability than I anticipated.