Recent reviews by Ralgaoud

This is not a good game. I'm not the target audience for this, but even if I were, this game is still bad.

It's linear narrative game where the "narrative" is inane dialogue that often feels completely at odds with the context.

The character art is nice and has a unique feel, whoever worked on it deserves praise. That's the only good thing I can say.

You just click on a jar of mayo under different guises and props, some of which are based on clever word play. There are a few story "arcs" which demand you to click sequentially through a number of guises (e.g. mayo as a kid, then she grew up, then she became rebellious, etc). The entire content of the game (including all achievements) requires exactly 10,000 mouse clicks. This is what you are paying $1 for, to click 10,000 times on a virtual weirdly sexualized mayo jar.

I played it between multiplayer matches to pass the time and still found it dull.

I guess it's alright...?

You're at a train station without a ticket, and you have to roam around collecting pieces of a ticket to make a whole so you can board the train. The station is curated by a manager who wants it to be the best station ever, so it has tons of strange art in the form of grafitti, posters and paintings. You observe the art, listen to the decent OST, and walk around talking to strange NPCs with odd deformities. I played this in 5 min increments as I alt-tabed from my multiplayer game while waiting for matches, so it was perfect for that purpose, not demanding so I can pop in and out easily. Takes about half an hour to finish with all achievements.

In Moonlight you play a creature fascinated with the moon and with the idea of travelling to it. A stranger to town, he needs to do the other furry NPCs favors to find someone to help him achieve his objective. The first NPC gives you a quest that rewards you with the NPC's own hat upon completion. This hat grants you instant rapport with the next NPC, as clearly if you deserved a hat, you deserve to be trusted. Thus ensues a short (less than an hour) 2D platfomer. There aren't any enemies, just a string of NPC to appease in a linear fashion. It is relaxed, has beautiful art/environment and *really* good music, there are several tracks which is surprising considering the length of the game, and they are all good.

While I do recommend this as an easy inoffensive palate cleanser between games, it did leave me slightly unsatisfied. I couldn't shake the feeling that this is more of a prototype than a complete product. It felt like the developer created this setting, mood, good 2D platforming mechanics, and then cut the project short. It doesn't help that almost all the doors you run into in the game are locked, adding to the feeling that there was something more there that was left incomplete. I would have liked if this had more content: more NPCs, a bigger town, more tasks, etc. Just to give the entire quest some weight.

P.S.: Found it cute that the developer dedicated this game to his two daughters, I hope that one day I am able to dedicate something beautiful like this to my children :)

You press a red button, new platforms arise from the water. You keep platforming your way to these buttons as they appear, in first person: you can jump, slide (through pipes) and wall jump. Relaxing, ends abruptly at 20-30 mins. Priced accordingly, sale a bonus. Can't be faulted really.

RNG, the platformer.

2D platforming is enjoyable even if difficult when there is a pattern to your obstacles, which is true for this game at first. Then I reached the 4th level, where you need to run up a slope with boulders bouncing towards you. They are somewhat randomized and don't have a clear pattern, so may the RNG be with you. I repeated that section plenty of times then at some point wondered if I was having fun. The answer was no, so I exit the game.

Streamline looks more complicated in gameplay videos than it actually is. Within a few rounds you can get a good grip of the game. The game can include up to 16 players. 15 Runners plus a Hunter. The Hunter has the ability to kill the Runners in one hit. The runners compete for points by collecting orbs of differing values while using a dash meter. The dash meter is filled by pickups and you gain more points if you collect orbs while dashing. The movement in the game is context sensitive, as you can wall-run and do similar acrobatic feats while holding a button. If you are killed, you become a ghost. A ghost can no longer collect orbs, but can gain an increasing amount of points by punching a randomly assigned, still-alive runner. The game is played in 3 rounds that last a few minutes and the point total is cumulative, so if you die early in the first round, you can try to make up for it in the second round (and perhaps sabotage the runners who have amassed more points than you). If you are still alive at the end of a round, ghosts disappear and a sudden death commences, where you are finally able to kill the hunter by landing a hit on him, you just have to survive long enough and land a hit. The Hunter is scored via a letter grade (F- to A+ it seems), while the runner with the most points wins.

There is intergration with twitch, as you can host or join lobbies by linking your twitch account in-game and then using the developer's twitch player at https://streamote.tv/. You do not have to install anything, as some people seem to be confused on how this works. The end result is that you are able to find lobbies via this website, join a party, and play with a streamer (or if you are a streamer yourself, host). Viewers are able to view the stream of the game and use a point system to influence the game through different global buffs/debuffs that they choose when to activate. They can also bet on who they think will win and rack up more points via bingo in the lobby.

To put it simply it's a competitive score-based platformer with asymetrical gameplay (Hunter, Runner & Ghost). It also involves optional stream integration, so that viewers may influence the gameplay. It's still early-access at this point, but feels solid and I have enjoyed the quirky experience so far. Recommended.

Fun puzzle concept where you have to carefully select the right order to retract the "hooks" without causing overlap between the segments. Difficulty is built gradually without getting too frustrating and the game does not overstay its welcome (took me a bit over an hour to finish the 50 puzzles). All for a cheap price. Easy recommendation.

When it comes to a free game, the consideration is whether it is worth your time. In this case, it is a no.

The game consists of 10 "themed" levels that are littered with nonsensical props and have a labyrinthine structure with plenty of dead ends. You wander around the level to find a key that will open up the door to progress to the next level. That's all there is to it. Not particularly fun or interesting. Got bored after the first couple levels but decided to plough through it. Takes 30-45 mins to finish.

Virginia is a"walking simulator", in the sense that you do not get to interact much with the game, you only provide prompts to drive the narrative forward. Despite all the characters being silent, they game still manages to impart a lot of meaning via gestures, expressions and behavior. You will, in general, understand what it is you are doing and what people want from you, but making sense of the cryptic story is another matter altogether. I have picked up on some of the implications, but you need to understand that the story isn't straightforward, there is a lot of symoblism and certain events seem to happen only for metaphoric value. I still haven't wrapped my head around the story I just played, but it kept me interested. The orchestrated music is ridiculously good and is the highlight of several of the scenes that happen in the game. I give this game a cautious thumbs up: it kept me interested throughout the playthrough and also interested in learning more about what I have played by discussing it with others. You need to be in an interpretive mood to appreciate it. On another day I might have given it a thumbs down!