Recent reviews by Hashable

I really liked it! Great if you like Metroidvanias as well as if you like solving puzzles. Challenging platforming at times (though I realized that there are some ways to make it easier if you come back to them after beating the game) but overall really fun. The higher-level stuff kind of goes over my head sometimes so guides were helpful when I got stuck at the 90%+ mark.

I found that on big screens, turning the scan lines off helped eye strain. On the steam deck, though, the lines were beautiful!

I spend more time metagaming than gaming.

this is an awful game -- early access jank and questionable copyright. but it's fun and silly and a good way to kill some time with friends. who knows if it'll ever really polish, but it's fun for now :)

it's fun because there's a lot to do

EDIT: so much to do

First of all, this is a steno game. What is steno? Look here at me playing this game on a QWERTY keyboard and a steno machine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtQzTUEuPWo You can see that I don't write individual letters, rather words at a time. And writing words at a time means that my hands don't move much, much less than a QWERTY keyboard where you have to type every letter.

The steno machine is much faster at text entry than a regular keyboard, but it takes months to become proficient. Part of the reason that many haven't heard of steno is that for the longest time it wasn't public information! A major stakeholder in this game, Mirabai Knight, tried to bring steno to everyone, starting in 2010. She first had a program made that interfaced with steno machines and handled all the steno logic → that program is Plover, and I use and develop it now.

That was a great first step. Free software meant that anyone could download and play around with a steno engine. But, software is no good without hardware, so that's where the SOFT/HRUF, Stenosaurus, and Stenoboard come in → they are all efforts to make the hardware cheaper (compared at professional steno machines that start at $1,000, these efforts are about one to two hundred dollars)

Great! Hardware, software…but how do you do it? Mirabai worked with a technical writer to create "Learn Plover!", a free online textbook that teaches steno theory. Many people I know, myself included, self-taught themselves steno using this book. That makes hardware, software, and learning resources. But once you are at the basic level, it's a lot of practice. In steno school, they just listen to people talk at pace and rewrite what they say. It's boring and costs lots of money.

Steno Arcade is the opposite of boring and expensive. It's supposed to be fun, to help people learn steno in an engaging way, and it tops off Mirabai's dream of free stenography for everyone. The difficulty scale is meant for a steno machine. 100 words per minute is rather "easy" for an intermediate steno student, but you'll see that regular keyboard users will find it impossible (and it nearly is). However, I really encourage you, if you want to write faster, to start learning steno. There's a great, active community, and it's a very fun skill. I use a steno machine instead of a keyboard full-time now, I write code with it. I'm writing this review on a steno machine.

So, by all means, try the game and enjoy it for what it is at the "very easy" level, and know that if you want to do the hard levels, an entire steno community is around to help you learn. It's not easy, but nothing worth your time is. I've been going for less than 2 years and I write at about 150 words per minute. Some people hit 225 (the graduation speed for steno students) in less than a year, some take up to 4 years. It all depends on how much time you put into it and how dedicated you are.

I'm excited for Steno Arcade to grow. As it is at the time of review, it's good for about 30-60 minutes of fun and I can see myself drilling and building my dictionary for the harder levels. I still replay levels when I'm feeling bored and want to practice the steno machine. (I should add that I've played the game since before it was on Steam and so my play times are off by a few hours)

Great local CO-OP experience for 2 players.

The game has all right music, okay graphics, and annoying voice acting (almost ironically entertaining), but is terribly fun. It's difficult and scales well, a rogue-like that very heavily rewards grinding for items. It's a fun, randomized experience, and will keep you coming back for hours. The characters are all quite different, and it's up to the user's play style to find out how they want to play.

Distance has surprised me, in terms of what I ever expected from an Indie racing game with such an ambitious identify.

It is really quite amazing, filling me with quite similar thrills to Hotwheels Racing for the N64. You can do flips, fly, use boost, and just generally do what you want with your insane, tron-like vehicles.

I've played through the official content in splitscreen (which works flawlessly) and the community content introduces a new challenge. I hope to see a more coherent single player game because the mechanics of this game are fantastic.