Recent reviews by xul

I really wanted to love this - and in the opening moments of the game, I did.
As I played more, however, the beautiful visuals, music, and story were undermined by it not being a great game:
- The controls were frustrating, and it was frequently difficult to tell whether I could actually transition to a different part of the map, causing me to plummet and lose a bunch (or all) health multiple times. One time near the end, I actually managed to end up stuck in a spot where the game wouldn't let me climb back up _or_ down, and only by jumping and angling back to the cliff was I able to avoid being trapped there entirely (if I just jumped off, I would die).
- Visual glitches, things moving their position and certain things (e.g. the ski lift) switching between being in front of or behind a mountain
- Marking things and then comparing them with map? I had multiple times where I was confident I was in the right spot, but either hadn't marked it when at a summit or maybe needed to open up my map or something to confirm it? Very unclear, and very frustrating.

This is something different, but it's unfortunately not a very good game. I'm sure there's lots to be explored that I didn't (including pieces I touched upon, but didn't get to complete), but it was too frustrating for me to want to go revisit.

I'm not sure if I'd buy it at full price (I might, I've gotten hours of enjoyment out of it), but it's absolutely worth it when it's on sale. The game does not take itself seriously at all (listen to the "soundtrack"), and is a good time while still requiring a decent amount of skill. I found iterating over a level attempting to get perfect parking almost zen-like: minor changes and corrections while focused on doing it all without errors (which could be somewhat challenging and, yes, frustrating).

I'll echo the sentiment I've seen from others that the world map is sort of obnoxious at times. On two of the worlds, I ended up having to drive around for far too long just looking for a level I hadn't done (and couldn't seem to locate). Messing around on the world map is fine and all, but it would be pretty nice to have an option to just jump into the level.

It is "physics-based," so sometimes there's goofy behavior of the cars, etc. that can be a little surprising (and obnoxious). I also had some times where my past wreckage was still blocking the track when I respawned...so I'd end up hitting it and ruining another car's attempt. This was usually only when fine-tuning something near the start of the track, but still sort of sucked when it happened.

I "perfect parked" all levels but the very last of the inferno update (which I plan to revisit). Also might revisit some levels to try to get my times down and explore shortcuts (one of the joys of this game), as I know there are levels where I took the slower route and never found (or went back to find) a faster route.
There's some cosmetic ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ gated behind coins (that I guess you can get from daily challenges I haven't found? Or buy?), but it has no impact on the gameplay.

It's short.
It's cute.
It's free.
What's not to like?

It's clear that the developers are cat-lovers, which I certainly appreciate. As many have noted: dedicated meow button, but also rubbing up against legs, scratching rugs, etc.

The story and characters are interesting, the world is very immersive, and ultra-widescreen was supported perfectly. The actual game is pretty linear, with little opportunity to veer far from the dictated path, but it didn't feel oppressive.

This game is fundamentally a minimalistic, guided narrative wherein you uncover the mystery of what happened on the planet you find yourself on - serving as the "AI" guiding the stranded scientist as he explores the planet with your assistance. The story itself is quite compelling (if slow to get to the interesting part), but numerous typos in the dialog, a clumsy UI that had multiple glitches for me, and being forced to navigate waypoint-to-predefined-waypoint all ended up making this feel like more of a slog through a point-and-click nonadventure than a compelling game. I wish it progressed faster / was a bit less clunky, because the underlying premise is great, the music is nice, and I dig the aesthetic - but after ~5 hours to get through the "main" story...I was over it and had no desire to continue point-and-clicking my way through waypoints to finish mapping out the planet.

Fun - albeit short - game with some "whoa, dude..." moments.

I had some minor issues in ultra-widescreen (5120x1440) with menus being scaled such that they were huge (all fields didn't fit on the screen) and unscrollable.

The developer's own description - echoed by many of the reviews - really does sum up the game nicely: "a quiet game of life and loss." The player is dropped into the life of Talma, an elderly woman who is the sole resident of what was once a bustling family homestead, with effectively no instruction about what must be done. Instead, the player is left to guide Talma through (to again quote the developer) "a simple way of life tending to her homestead, surviving, subsisting, whilst increasingly disturbing letters arrive from her family in the city."

The game is slow, and repetitive, as it centers around the daily routine of Talma and the changing world she is mostly isolated from. If you don't enjoy exploring, and following the story, it will just feel like tedium. If you do, however, this is a real gem of a game - gently (and then more dramatically) evolving as you continue playing, with many subtle changes happening along the way if you are watching (and reading) for them.

Through its understated approach, The Stillness of the Wind really captures a sense of loneliness, isolation, and (fading) memories that can border on despair. The mention of "increasingly disturbing letters" is also very accurate. It's assuredly not a "light" game. The ending I reached sent a shiver down my spine.

It's exactly what it says it is - beautiful, peaceful, relaxing, short. If you're having a bad day, I really recommend playing it. Even if you aren't, you should enjoy it.

I really want to like this game. The graphics are simple, but pretty, and it seems to be telling an interesting story of the Iñupiat people (and information about them). I just can't recommend it because the controls weren't great and if you're not playing with two people, the AI of whoever you aren't controlling (Nuna or Fox) is beyond useless. It would get stuck far behind so I couldn't advance, run on ahead of me, suicide off ledges randomly, and sometimes lag so far behind that moving obstacles I had handily avoided would kill my AI-controlled companion and cause me to have to reload. Add in managing to glitch on ledges so my character would be stuck twitching mid-air, and characters randomly refusing to face the direction I was indicating, and it gets frustrating fast. The good news is the save points are incredibly frequent. The bad news is you will undoubtedly be using them even if you don't screw up anything yourself.

I threw in the towel after the third time climbing up several spirit ledges and platforms (controlled by Fox), alternating between the two characters to get both to the top, only to have the uncontrolled character dive all the way to the bottom - requiring me to start the whole process over again. Add to this the fact that when the characters got too far apart, the platforms by Nuna disappeared (causing her to drop), and it was just too frustrating to want to deal with. If you have more patience for this sort of bugginess, or a couch co-op friend handy, maybe you'd enjoy it more as it did otherwise seem quite charming.

Zachtronics is one of the few developers whose games I'll buy on release, knowing that I'll invariably get a quality "design-based puzzle game". Opus Magnum is no exception.

Compared to some of his other games, Opus Magnum definitely feels more accessible - there's no coding in assembly, no need to RTFM, and no space constraints to work around. It feels like a polished, more "casual" (if such a word can be used to described a Zachtronics game) version of SpaceChem. The only constraints you ever seem to have are a few specialized parts (e.g. "Glyph of Disposal") having limited numbers in a design. Otherwise, you are free to take as much space and time, and as many parts, as you need...at least for your initial solution. If you're like most players, you'll inevitably end up wanting to "tighten up" your solution and make it faster / smaller / cheaper.

As with most of the Zachtronics games, which could stand alone without any story, this game has a well-written little story to drive the narrative and puzzle-building along. It also has an unobtrusive ambient music track which is well-suited to the gameplay. As with Shenzhen I/O, Opus Magnum contains a mini-game, in this case one that seems inspired by go and mahjong. It's ok, but I preferred the Solitaire from Shenzhen I/O.

It took me a minute to get used to the synchronized timeline, but once you do it ends up contributing to this game feeling more "casual" as you don't have to manage synchronization. It may eliminate the ability to do some clever tricks, but once I got used to it I haven't felt impeded by it. The only thing that's really tripped me up so far is not being able to branch / jump as I've made a couple solutions that had some initial setup that only needed to be run the first time. In both cases, it was a simple fix to eliminate the initial setup ("run once") portion that was tripping me up.

I do wish there was a way to set breakpoints to run until reaching a specific point, an option to zoom out on the design area, and an option to zoom out on the instructions area to show a longer timeline (especially) and more mechanisms (to a lesser degree). I also found myself wishing that when my solution stopped (by error or manually) the cycle it stopped on would remain indicated in some fashion. One final little gripe: you can tell a mechanism to repeat everything it had done or reset itself, but for both of these the actual actions taken aren't visible unless you are actively running the machine (it just shows a line indicating how many cycles it will take to do). When trying to create an action for another mechanism to match a repeated block, it meant having to either start a run to see the actual actions or remembering which cycle within the repeated block the specific instruction was. For example, trying to time a "grab" action on one mechanism to match the "release" action in a repeat instruction on another mechanism could mean remembering that the "grab" is in the third cycle of the repeating block (as all you would see is the repeat instruction with a line extending out however many cycles the complete repeat takes).