Recent reviews by lpsmith

I felt like this was a solid followup to the previous game, but that it didn't do anything particularly new in it. It was fun to see the old characters again, and they were still engaging, but they were the same sort of engaging they were the last time. The puzzles were switched up a little bit in places where you could control more than one character, but not a lot was done with that. The upshot is that if you liked the last game and want more, this has it.

Set in a slightly-dystopic sci-fi universe, with a relentlessly upbeat protagonist. The combat is fun if slightly low-stakes, and for me, at least, was mostly fairly easy with occasional forays into being really really difficult. I found the story to be nicely compelling, and the characters fun to spend time with. Recommended!

Creepy and atmospheric setting, with solid gameplay--as you progress through the game, you learn new things and get to apply that knowledge in new ways. For me, at least, there was never a time when I had learned something way too long ago, and to progress I had to suddenly remember that the flamzit would blong if you harpered it correctly. Instead, you were reminded to harper the flamzit throughout the game so when you needed someting blonged, it was never a mystery, and the game instead focused on showing you that if you harpered whelp instead of harpering wharp, you could blyn instead of blong, which would get you into the next section.

So to speak.

Maybe don't play the game if you're grossed out easily; there's a lot of disturbing imagery (more body horror-ish; less blood and gore).

The characters are the best part of this game--every one of them was interesting, realistic, and fun to interact with. They were even able to let you characterize the protagonist in an interesting way. The setting and backstory were reasonable and fun to discover, and the plot kept me sufficiently motivated, and pulled me through the story. Gameplay was a little slow, but rewarded exploration, which I'm a sucker for. Definitely enjoyed it!

A very pretty puzzle game that tells a surreal story spanning time and space, as you shuffle the locations and events from the life of a guy around, completing a quest undertaken when he sees an amazing creature as a young boy.

One of the reasons it works so well as a puzzle game is that your input is interestingly constrained, resulting in an interesting but not overwhelming set of actions available to you at any given time. At the same time, the available actions aren't *so* constrained that you solve puzzles by accident because there were only a handful of things to try, one of which worked. Instead, you usually have a clear goal, and can experiment until you see a way to progress. Very satisfying!

This was a solid Telltale game! Characters to appreciate and enjoy; a mystery to ponder and speculate about; a protagonist to characterize (and somewhat influence the plot); and the 'Q' button to mash. I ran into a couple glitches (several years post-release! Sigh.) which were always solvable by exiting to the menu and re-continuing the story where I had left off. (If you ever get a 'This choice is blank'!' dialogue option, exit and re-enter. This always worked for me; some users seem to report that multiple tries were needed.)

Do note that there is (cartoon) female nudity in one episode, which startled me and would have been embarrassing had my daughter been watching me play like she had the previous episode! I didn't feel like it was gratuitous, particularly, and it wasn't really played to be sexy, either--more on the gritty/harsh end of things.

There's also a well-done tag at the end of the story, which I appreciated.

A surprisingly addictive pixel art left-right tower defense game. Obviously intended to be played in learn-by-dying mode, which I don't often particularly enjoy, but somehow often felt appropriate. There are wikis now available for when you're done experimenting, but I recommend starting off not using them, and just figuring things out on your own. Then, whenever things get too frustrating, look up whatever it is that's getting the best of you, and try again. For me, finally getting the 'day C' achievement was particularly satisfying, as I was able to put together all the knowledge I had accumulated to that point, devised a strategy I hoped would work, and applied it--and it worked!

I remember enjoying playing FreeCell back in the day, and this game presented an enjoyable variation on it--the game changes in type and difficulty as you go on, and there are variations on the challenges and their complexity as you progress. My only issue with the game is that I maxed out the number of 'free cells' about 2/3 of the way through the game, which left the majority of the rest just a matter of repeating the same strategies again and again, instead of learning new things and overcoming new challenges.

A solid game that I found very compelling. Fairly straightforward and satisfying gameplay in service of interesting stories. I kept finding myself thinking, "Oh, I should just do this one more thing," whenever I meant to quit, and then would find myself still playing an hour later.

I recommend this game, but it's important to realize if you play it that it's not very good as a game: it's a point-and-click adventure game (which I generally enjoy), but it has issues. On the 'simplistically frustrating' front, there are interface oddities such as trying to figure out whether to 'use' a door to go through it or 'walk to' the door to go through it (the game sometimes allows either and sometimes required exactly one or the other, inconsistently). The game also really really really wants to tell you a story in a particular order, so in order to advance the plot, you constantly have to go back and do something that you already tried earlier, but this time something different happens for opaque reasons.

The story itself is interesting and deals with important topics, but tends to deal with them in a simplistic manner. It's nice to see the topics addressed, but can be a little disappointing if not concerning. To be more specific, but spoily: at one point you play a rape victim re-living the attack, but *this* time you fight back, and conquer your demons! The implication a) that no fighting back happened the first time and b) that fighting back is all you need to do to prevent rape, is not very realistic. On the other hand, I was glad to see the issue addressed in the first place; I just wished it had been handled better. I similarly felt that the Nimdok backstory was handled a little more ham-fistedly than the subject matter deserved. I suppose in general that if you take into account the fact that the story this game is based on was written in 1967, and afford it a corresponding level of slack and skepticism, it works out in the end.

However, those complaints aside, I definitely enjoyed the game, and found the characters and the story compelling. I would recommend either playing this with a walkthrough not far away if you only want to play it once, or plan on re-playing it a time or two if you want to discover the more obscure parts (and best ending) yourself.