Recent reviews by Pinchy

A historical account of events in Scotland

I managed to push through it due to experience, but the average player won't

The list of problems is big. Most of them I managed to write notes for:

1. The resolution kept breaking and zooming out so far the background broke Here [i.imgur.com], Here [i.imgur.com] and Here [i.imgur.com]
   
2. There are blank pits[i.imgur.com] that look like areas you can go down, but they instantly kill you
   
3. If you roll off of a platform and grab a ledge, then jump down whilst holding a direction, you can moonwalk.Roll left from the gravestone up top here[i.imgur.com]
   
4. I managed to die in some spikes under two vines[i.imgur.com] and wasn't actually dead, just invisible and inside the ground with no health
   
5. You cannot pass this poison[i.imgur.com] from right to left without getting hit as it is on permanently until the switch is hit
   
6. This large column[i.imgur.com] looks like it's in the foreground
   
7. I soft locked using the save cauldron. The menu overlayed[i.imgur.com] and was stuck on permanently but not usable
   
8. The opening screens bugged and became zoomed in after going into the house until a restart/save
   
9. You are given a tutorial for basic controls, the first key you get doesn't match the door in any way
   
10. Attacking in the air has a delay before you can turn around, but not for the dragon tooth sword
    
11. Fire spitters are at the same height but you can only duck some of them
    
12. Giving an early enemy high attack speed AND controllable projectile in an overhead position ramps the difficulty high right at the start of the game
    
13. The second boss was easier than some normal enemy setups
    
14. Before getting in the boat, you can drop between it onto the water and jump down off the water and die
    
15. There are almost unavoidable enemy patterns in some cases
    
16. Poison takes most of your health too fast in the early game
    
17. It's possible to roll into a one tile spaces and soft lock. You can't even access the menu to restart either
    
18. I found a text input glitch that skips the dialogue on a single button press and had to restart
    
19. I double tapped the ice ability and it just stopped working until I died, restarting did not work
    
20. I never a found point where buying health from the witch was useful

A self insert disguised as an Order of Ecclesia knockoff

An incredible contribution to gaming

Artisanal pixel art, good balancing and progressive learning to max each stage, funny, beautiful and all round awesome

Well rounded and no bugs

Limited or one time achievements aren't good since many have more games than they can handle these days

Nice, but...

Clean it up a bit:

Don't

Have hot starts (enemies attack right as the level loads)
Put unavoidable ammo pickups
Place enemies behind the exit trigger (E1M3)
Have some gratings you can shoot through (E1M5) and some you can't
Have enemies be able to snipe you through detail sprites/excessive visual blockers (E1M6)
Invalidate a secret by pressing switches
Teleport me to being stuck inside the exit room with a locked door (E2M10)

Bugs

Looking upwards and hitting the button in an elevator before it's stopped moving causes the elevator to keep moving up and you get pushed out of the world
The very first texture on the left wall in the Workshop is missaligned
In E2M6, there's an overlapping wall/z-fighting near some shells, a white light and windows overlooking an outdoor area. Also the secret near the door no entry sign in it's up position
If you hold right mouse to use the light spell then release to charge the warlock staff, on the second time it charges without it's animation and skips to the fully charged frame
The crystal testing kit is a wall texture that can't be damaged but looks the same as decorations that can like the desk
Hitting a secret destructible door with the flak cannon triggered a secret count for every projectile that hit it so I managed to get 19/9 secrets in E2M11 without even finding them all
The secret door with the radio decal makes it a one sided detail when it is opened
Using the pillar in the pit in E4M11 just makes me fall through the world. In the final room of this map, the small enemies just run through the moveable wall
Typo in the credits "Sountrack"
I completed the game on Hard, then when I started my first Hardcore playthrough, all the spells were visible in the upgrade menu but weren't buyable. On the second attempt (because the first bosses charge does massive damage with no cooldown), the menu is correct
After beating the first boss on Hardcore, E2M1 did not have the coloured background in the level select

Oddities

"Hath descended" messages for every switch regardless of what it does
You can step up into window ledges
You can smash the purple windows so they are a black hole but the light doesn't change
Exiting from a level makes you face that direction when spawning in the Workshop
Floating block in E3M1
E3M7 had an out of theme health vial
Desks floating in the air in E4M2
Paper thin sloped wall in E4M8. The exit brick wall over the fence let's you see the missing side
Decorative objects only visible from one side in the E5M3 exit room

Recommendations

Improve the music loops
Add episode and mission numbers to the single stage select menu
Bars that raise using switches should look different from bars that are doors
Improve E4M5 and E4M6 (too short, too simple)

[Good]
- Great pixel art
- Requirements toggle and autofill for crafting
- Satisfying combat (nice guns)
- Interesting creature designs and concepts
- Fully featured armour system with a cybernetic layer
- Nice secrets, some with fun, unexpected items

[Bad]
- Broken, circular progression to Titanium
- Annoying inventory. The game needs to explain how the filtering containers work and tell you how to/guide you to make them early. ALL items should be filtered into them. All these containers should have dedicated buttons on the UI. Sometimes the search/highlight feature just stops working
- The GPS should be an addon to the map, not something I need to manually find and click. Give it a fullscreen overlay with transparency options
- Conflicting progression, You should have to progress to at least steel level tech before even being able to enter the bases so most of the tiers of items and world aren't wasted. Give a reason to construct buildings as well.
- Many instances of poorly conveyed progression (You should _HIGHLIGHT_ and describe key items and buttons (reactor plating, placing the Satellite Transmission Decoder into the satellite, ship conduit button)
- Many missing descriptions, the buddy help feature should have unlimited range as well. The alien artefacts, especially the portal one, NEED descriptions or some sort of guide
- Disappointing "core" of the planet

At the moment, I can't recommend it. Maybe in the future when these problems are fixed

Supreme Commander Lite

';,,;'

1 D200 IQ Plays: The Game

The layers of mechanics took months to discover, a very rich sandbox of chaos

It's a game I wish I didn't miss out on in it's release year

One of the very few I enjoyed all the way to 100% and beyond