Recent reviews by Fencer

Nice old-school dungeon crawler. I finished the demo in 26 minutes and I’m very curious about the rest of the game. And it only takes up 90 MB on disk, which is a pleasant change from modern demos that can be 10 GB or more. Good work!

Lifeless Moon isn’t a completely bad game, and if you’re a fan of so-called walking simulators (you spend most of your time simply walking forward), you might even enjoy it. After all, the very same concept was used in its predecessor, Lifeless Planet, which evoked a primal desire to explore an alien world, even if it did so in a somewhat monotonous way. Unfortunately, Lifeless Moon didn’t bring many innovations, and due to the total linearity of the story, it offers almost no reason to return to it once you finish the game.

What bothered me the most:

The game can be finished in less than 2 hours, unless — like me — you miss an easily overlooked side path at a certain point and end up hopelessly wandering in some kind of ravine where the developer apparently ran out of inspiration, so after a while you start bumping into invisible walls, which only increases the frustration. I understand that it’s hard to combine vast areas that are supposed to make you feel small and lonely in a massive universe while simultaneously giving the player nothing to do except… walk and run. Still, in Lifeless Planet I at least didn’t have that unpleasant feeling so often that my character was walking from nowhere to nowhere.

The beginning seemed quite promising. Sure, the author couldn’t resist a bit of melodrama, as they needed some way to set up the story. However, from that moment everything kind of stalled, and the whole plot began to feel like a carnival ride through worn-out Twilight Zone episodes. Yes, many of the effects looked nice, but they did nothing to improve the gameplay.

The story unfolds through logs automatically written by the protagonist. That wouldn’t be so bad, except: 1) It happens at the most inconvenient moments, and you have to manually bring up the entries with a key press, which becomes annoying over time. 2) The log contents are… simply boring. As a supplement to a more interesting means of storytelling and revealing the mysterious background, they would work, but as the sole source of narrative, they fail.

The occasional point-and-click puzzles are implemented in perhaps the worst way possible. Although the game is seen from a third-person perspective, entering a building suddenly switches to a first-person controller with a fixed camera. The only thing you can do is rotate the camera in all directions, which by itself is an unpleasant way to line up a hotspot with the cursor, and if the puzzle involves using levers or buttons in a precise order, it turns into a nightmare. I really don’t understand why the developer didn’t handle interiors the same way as exteriors — everything needed was already implemented outdoors.

Development of Lifeless Moon took 7 years, and the result doesn’t come close to reflecting that. It’s a shame — the premise had great potential, and if the creator had focused more on gameplay mechanics rather than unnecessary visual effects that ultimately appear only once in the whole game (the seaside scene), we could have gotten a relatively high-quality product.

Bellfortis is an engaging grand strategy game set in the early Middle Ages, offering a compelling blend of strategic planning and real-time battles. Players can expand their kingdoms through both military conquest and diplomatic maneuvers, providing a rich and varied gameplay experience. The game features three fully playable campaigns set in Central Europe and the British Isles, each offering several hours of immersive gameplay per faction. The developer has announced plans to add new campaigns, factions, and modding support, promising even more content in the future. Currently available in Early Access, Bellfortis is already a promising title for fans of medieval strategy games.

Disco Elysium is truly an extraordinary experience. I first played this incredibly original game a year ago, and even then, I was fully immersed in its brilliant story and, above all, the massive amount of text, without which the game probably wouldn't have gained its near-cult status. The game is hard to categorize definitively—is it a long and branching adventure with RPG elements, a simulator of an alcoholic with manic-depressive tendencies, or a non-action RPG packed with philosophical musings? It's likely a bit of everything, resulting in a blend that left a permanent mark on my mind.

Disco Elysium demonstrates that photorealistic graphics aren’t necessary to convey emotions to the player and to allow them to connect with the character they are playing. This is evident right from the start, when the protagonist staggers around his room, and we can almost feel the hangover radiating from him. The game is filled with such details.

I see the RPG elements as a double-edged sword. On one hand, without them, the game would lose its charm (shaping the personality with twenty-four traits and a multitude of evolving thoughts is an integral part of the overall experience), but on the other hand, I couldn’t help but feel frustrated by the randomness of the dice rolls, leading to bad decisions that I could only remedy by endlessly reloading saved positions and trying again (those double sixes have to come up eventually, right?).

The plot and political context are socially aware, subtly critiquing every kind of ideology or political stance (and you can choose whichever you like—you can even choose multiple and lie to different people). It cleverly mocks the flaws of any position while maintaining seriousness and delving into deep philosophical questions. It genuinely raises many ethical dilemmas. Of course, you can ignore most of that and focus on drug addiction and alcoholism. Whatever you choose, the adventure is always unique, and everyone will have a different journey.

In one sentence, I would describe Disco Elysium as a gripping dance between despair, hope, madness, and gut-wrenching revelations. Solving crimes and unraveling the tangled past of the protagonist felt like a dice game with fate, a bitter embrace of tragedy and redemption, capable of both fulfilling and destroying. And the person who eventually emerges from it all can’t help but subconsciously compare every new adventure game to Disco Elysium. A masterpiece.

Pros: Original story, vast amount of text, quality graphics, voice acting.

Cons: Some decisions depend on luck. And I didn’t really enjoy collecting bottles in a plastic bag.

Before delving extensively into Godot, I conducted several experiments using Unity and Unreal Engine. Undoubtedly, both of these engines are exceptional and likely a superior choice for large teams due to their Pro and Enterprise licensing options. However, the concept of a lone developer is also widely embraced, and there are numerous advantages to undertaking every aspect of game development independently. By not depending on team members, you retain complete ownership of the profits and gain a comprehensive understanding of the game from multiple perspectives, among other benefits.

For instance:

1. Open-source and free: Godot is an open-source game engine released under the MIT license, which means it's free to use and modify. This makes it an attractive option for independent developers or those on a tight budget. There are no strings attached. When you create a game using Godot, you retain complete ownership of everything without any commissions or paid licenses involved.
   
   
2. Lightweight and efficient: Godot is known for its lightweight nature and efficient performance. It has a small installation size, quick startup times, and runs well on lower-end hardware. This makes it suitable for projects with limited resources or for targeting platforms with lower specifications.
   
   
3. Ease of use and beginner-friendly: Godot offers a user-friendly interface and an intuitive visual scripting system that allows developers to create games without writing code. It also supports traditional programming languages like GDScript (Python-like), C#, and C++, making it accessible to developers with different skill levels.
   
   
4. Community and documentation: Although Godot has a smaller user base compared to Unity or Unreal Engine, it has a dedicated and passionate community. The community actively contributes to documentation, tutorials, and asset sharing, providing support and resources to developers. At the time of writing, the official Discord server of Godot boasted nearly 64,000 members, with the beginner-focused channels being among the most actively utilized.
   
   
5. Collaboration and integration: Godot integrates smoothly with various free tools, particularly Blender. This collaboration proves highly advantageous, particularly considering the limited availability of official assets in Godot's asset store compared to Unity or Unreal. However, this situation encourages us to develop our own assets, resulting in a game that is entirely unique in all aspects.

Regarding my practical experience, I discovered that Godot is the perfect engine for rapidly prototyping a new game. In essence, within a span of less than two weeks, I managed to develop a playable demo of a 2.5D space shooter while simultaneously learning the various features of Godot and becoming acquainted with GDScript. Put simply, Godot empowers anyone to create their own game with relative ease.

A big thumb up! If you love point-and-click adventure games with a deep story, chilling atmosphere, and slightly deranged characters, don't look anymore.

I was one of the early testers of the demo, so I could have observed the development progress. I was really impressed by how quickly the development team responded to my bug reports, and although the current version is not completely bug-free, I am sure that the full game will be polished to the last detail.

I agree that the storytelling used in the game could give a misleading impression to a new player. However, I think that it is what makes Saint Kotar something better than just another point-and-click adventure. The story is unveiled quite slowly, and it will probably require to play the game several times to understand all details fully (it reminds me of some Black Mirror episodes). It's just my opinion, but I prefer this approach over something like "You are here. This is your task. Follow clear instructions.".

I strongly recommend Saint Kotar: The Yellow Mask to everyone.

As a lifetime fan of point and click adventure games, I was waiting for Lamplight City with a great expectation, mostly because the published videos and screenshots promised a cool classic gameplay along with a dark and mysterious atmosphere. Now, after finishing the first case, my feeling are somehow mixed and if Steam allows me to give a neutral rating, I would definitely use it. Yet I still incline a little more to the positive side, so let's give it a thumb up for now. Over and all, it is still a playable adventure game which is quite rare in the time of 3D action hits, VR, AR etc. A resemblance to Gabriel Knight 1 (the original version from 1993, not the horrible remake) cannot be denied when you see the system of dialogues, caption font, city map style, even the slightly touched voodoo.

However, there are some annoying things I would like to mention.

macOS bugs:

1) The game does not remember settings, so even if I change fullscreen to windowed, the next time I start the game it is back to fullscreen.
2) When you click a hotspot (attempting to perform an action) right after a conversation ends, nothing happens and you must click again.
3) No achievements are unlocked. Yes, I love achievements and each time I play a new game, I wish to get them all. However, the idea of playing this game over again (once the bug is fixed) to receive the already earned achievements does not make me too happy.

The gameplay issues and annoyances:

1) Documents are hard to read due to badly chosen "hand writing" and anti-aliasing. Using a standard font would not probably look that cool but at least I wouldn't have to struggle decrypting the text, even on a big display.

2) Comments (on magnifying glass click) are always the same, even if the hero already knows new information. What is worse, the comment dialogs are always the same too which makes you turn to fast clicking (to skip them) each time you accidentally explore an already explored item. Since Lamplight City obviously focuses on the retro style, I didn't expect a stunning modern graphics and animations, but the more I would like to see a deep and complicated story with many turnouts and detailed conversations. It is nothing like that - the story is, unfortunatelly, pretty straightforward and does not make me feel like I am playing a different kind of detective game, as the teaser video promises.

3) Instead of an inventory as we know it from classic adventure games, there is a casebook which is automatically populated by clues, suspects, leads etc. as you progress in the story. However, there are no items to use, which degrades the whole interactive play to exploring (magnifying glass), talking (mouth) and occasional opening/closing (pointing finger). I am not an advocate of bizarre puzzles like "combine a duct tape, a maple syrup and some cat hair to make a false moustache" but removing the items completely is, in my opinion, a step in a wrong direction.

4) The scenes are too static, most of them never change during the whole case. Once a NPC appears there, it will stay at the same position for the rest of the chapter (maybe except the hero's wife), which makes me feels like everybody is just waiting for me the solve the mystery ASAP. Although you can examine various things, the number of those which can be really used for something or push the story forward is very low.

As I said in the beginning, Lamplight City is more a good than a bad game. Still, 15 Euro seems to be quite a high price, considering the imperfection and design defects, I would recommend to wait for a sale.

A very pleasant surprise. It's great to see that adventure games are not dead and I hope they will never be.

This is definitely one of the best free to play MMOPRGs I ever tried.
Please don't get discouraged by reviews claiming that it is not playable without paying for extra services. I have been playing Rift for more than a year (including end game content like raids, etc.) and never felt a need to pay a single cent. If you are looking for a great fun with thousands of other players (and without any regular fee commitments), you don't need to look anymore.

An ultimate horror experience with amazing storyline and great gameplay.