Recent reviews by WITIDE

Unhinged game (affectionate)

Short but sweet, this game is a simple puzzle that starts by teaching you its basics and has you work towards the inevitable consumption of all things.

If you're addicted to Into The Breach, you'll be addicted to Tactical Breach Wizards. I don't want to diminish this game by framing it as some kind of ITB clone - it's not. It really is its own thing. It's just the closest thing that it resembles, and every one of its resemblances is flattering. I think this will join ITB on my laptop as a long-running touch-friendly go-to comfort game for many many years.

This is unbelievably good. Simple, high-information puzzle gameplay. Strong emphasis on positioning and sequencing in your turn. It's generous in that it allows you to undo actions within your turn, simulate outcomes as a result of your actions, etc. Once your turn is locked-in, it's locked-in, but like ITB, you can see most of what's going to happen before it does, so you're in control. This doesn't make it easy by any means! This can be a challenging game. The bonus objectives can be really tricky to pull off, but are not mandatory (unless you're me or someone like me) - also like ITB!

Normally I would think that too much similarity to another game would be worrisome, but I have been hungry for more content in the hard-to-find "high-information turn-based positional tactics" genre for a long time and this delivers. I'm still working through it but I really, really, REALLY enjoy it.

I'm eagerly awaiting the completion of this game's remaining chapters!

This is some fabulous blend of DMC's combat and N64-era LOZ's worlds. The moveset is fast, devilishly chainable, and pleasing. The world is quirky, detailed, and explorable. The characters are memorable, stylish, and interesting.

More please!

( Non-VR Review )

tl;dr: If you've played Riven 1997 before, this one is different than what you remember, but it is my opinion that all the changes are enhancements, and you will enjoy your new trip through Riven with some new mysteries and questions to answer. If you haven't played the 1997 one before, then you should know that this is one of the finest worlds ever created, stuffed full of environmental storytelling, puzzles, art, mechanisms, and mechanics. If you're into that sort of thing, try it!

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I'm a big, big, big fan of the Myst series. I played Myst pretty young, 6 or 7 or so, initially with my dad helping me click around, but he got frustrated with it and left it to me. It took me a really, really long time, but I figured it all out and beat the game... by trial and error if anything, honestly. My house didn't have Internet back then, so it's not like I could look up answers. I had my notebook and the game and time and that's about it.

Not long after, Riven released in 1997 and I begged my parents for a copy and received about a year later. This game took me a really long time, too, but not as long as it should have if I hadn't improved from my time with Myst at all - eventually, I learned how the world of Myst connected and why, and the world-consistent puzzles helped a lot. I could never go back to other adventure games that have disjointed, out-of-place, or nonsensical puzzle elements - the puzzles in these games are much more connected to the world. There is some justification for their existence. Myst was a bit looser with this, but Riven is strict. This sense helped me with Riven (1997) a lot, but the original release was nonetheless quite difficult. My struggle understanding and exploring the world, I feel, set me up to be good at creative problem solving for the rest of my life - I don't think I'd have the things I have now or enjoy the things I now enjoy if not for the lessons and patience I learned from those 5 noisy CD-ROMs in a cardboard box.

This 2024 remake of Riven made me nervous when I was going into it, before I had seen it. I knew that it was partially the fruits of the labor of the Starry Expanse project, which began remaking (and re-remaking, and re-re-remaking, as I recall) Riven in full 3D quite some time ago and formed the basis for this project which the original Riven (1997) developers Cyan then continued and completed. I was worried that I would find that the world didn't land the same way as it did before, or that the world would have been changed, or that somehow the nature of full 3D exploration would somehow diminish the value I used to receive from every still frame of image from the original. Not so.

At first, I was just thoroughly pleased to walk around and see the game from new perspectives. It's quite pretty. I wasn't disappointed. Then, I realized a bit too late that it seemed like I was somewhere that I ought not to have been so early in the game, and I realized something has been changed... several things, in fact. When I discovered the nature of one of the larger changes concerning the multitude of domes scattered around the islands, I was uncertain how to really feel until I realized that I felt the same brand of wonder that I remember feeling from the 1997 release, way back when. And just like that, I was sold.

Every change that's been made, I feel, has strictly been an enhancement. There's not a moment where I thought "Darn, I miss how it used to be." There were times I was surprised something wasn't where it was supposed to be, or surprised something didn't exist at all - but after a few moments of thought, I almost universally returned to "You know... that might be for the better." Some weird lore loose ends from the original now have justification. Some weird idiosyncratic elements of the original are now either replaced or contextualized enough that they blend in. I think it's all good. That's just personal opinion, though.

I'm exceptionally pleased by this remake.
A tiny spark of hope is now lit within me for a full 3D remake of this caliber of Myst III: Exile, someday. Am I being greedy?

Performance/Stability: Good. Played on Linux via Proton, zero issues. My rig is quite capable and was able to play on high settings with no trouble, hitches, stutters, or slowdowns.
Music and Audio: Excellent. Played with headphones. Robyn Miller's music is beautiful, haunting, and evocative. The sounds of the mechanisms and machines are all so satisfying.
Visuals: Great! I was worried they would be inferior to the pre-rendered stills of the original, but technology has advanced so far...
Story: Fantastic. I've played every Myst game and read every Myst book. I'm not objective.

This game is ridiculously cute, and has been pretty fun.
If you enjoyed A Short Hike, or Lil Gator Game, you'll love this. If you like goofy characters in a goofy world, you'll love this.
Like others I've referenced here, it's a little short, but there's plenty to do and the world feels full and quirky.

This game is awesome. Worth more than the $5.99 it's currently listed at, in my opinion.

I'm a gay dude, so I'm not horny for the polygonal but undeniably thicc furry MC. I'll tell you what I am horny for, though: the movement mechanics in this game. You can go from rapidly sliding over the ground and hopping across chasms, then suddenly shift into precise chaining of jumps and wall kicks to get to a ledge that seemed too far away not that long ago. The upgrades in this metroidvania are mostly movement-based, unlocking new traversal opportunities less with keys and doors and more with new tools that will let you go down that weird path you found earlier. Composing these tools together to get new places is your job, and it just feels so good.

If you're a fan of great traversal systems, this is for you.

I'd love more of this.

rittzler, Please charge a bit more for your work. This would still sell just as well at a $14.99 price-point.

It really hurts me to mark this as a "not recommended", because my first several hours with the game were amazing. Absolutely worthy of an "overwhelmingly positive" rating. A rogue-like card battler with fantastic mechanics and an amazing atmosphere and an intriguing environment.

But after these relatively few hours of (incredible) gameplay, the game rips away everything of value and replaces it with boring, over-complicated monotony. All the polish of the first few hours is gone. I know this sounds really harsh, and it's probably my fault - I didn't look into the game enough past the promotional material (which does not accurately represent the apparent majority of the game), nor did I look into its creator, who evidently has a reputation for doing this kind of thing in the name of hyper-convoluted narratives, so I'm clearly barging into someone else's house with my own strong opinions, but ...

I needed a warning and I didn't get it. This is my warning to others.
If you like what you see in terms of the promo media, the game is mostly NOT anything like that after the first couple of hours.

this game goes out of its way to not be demanding, and that's a great thing. it's short, but sweet. every system was a joy to interact with. even the normally-tedious act of 100%ing and doing all achievements was enjoyable without monotony. i normally dislike time trials of any kind but even the few this had were enjoyable, fair, and felt great because of the good traversal.

the characters and dialog are cute. if I had to describe this game's gameplay in terms of other games, it would be "a short hike" meets "breath of the wild".

This was already a masterpiece of a strategy/puzzle game before the Advanced Edition dropped-- out of nowhere-- filling the game up with even more in the way of content, mechanics, and puzzles for free. If you ask me, it was worth more than $15 before, and it's worth even more now.

This rogue-lite chess-style (near-)perfect-information turn-based strategy/puzzle game (phew) sees you command a squad of 3 mechs, fighting an alien invader known as the Vek. It's played on a 8x8 isometric grid, and at the start of each turn, the enemy moves and declares its intent to attack a target: either one of your mechs, or a structure full of civilians on the map that also power your mechs. You choose how to respond to these movements and impending attacks by directly attacking the enemy, redirecting or moving the enemy, or defending their targets.

Each available mech squad is different, and each available pilot inside the mech is different, and each can respond to the Vek's attacks in different ways. It might sound easy, since the enemy tells you what they're going to do at the start of each turn (the so-called "perfect information" part of the game), but it's far harder than you might expect to manage the effects of all their actions, and your own actions too. Sometimes you'll have to balance competing objectives, or intentionally place your mechs in the line of fire with no alternative in order to avoid another outcome.

The rogue-lite elements come in the form of pilots and persistent unlocks. Your pilots gain experience and skills (up to a certain limit) and one can be brought with you between each run, assuming you don't let them die first. Oh yes, there's runs - a persistent currency based on completing achievements can unlock new mech squads for your use. The pilots come on their own over time.

It's just good. I have more hours in this game that it appears here, because I've owned it on Switch for a while, where most of my progress is. I'd say I probably have about 400 hours in this game, and it's been something I consistently boot up and return to over time to unwind by killing a few Vek. This week, I was surprised to start it up and find a huge increase in content by way of the (free!) Advanced Edition content. Now there's even more to do!

I liked The Witness a lot, so I thought this was funny. It's sort of to the Witness what Pyst was to Myst.
Stupid humor (in a good way), exactly as serious as it needed to be. Good quality for what it is!
The ending puzzle is a masterpiece.