Overall, I found Jixo 4: Magical Nights Collector’s Edition to be not worth my time or money. The puzzles are okay, the art is bad, and the game is so generic that it’s impossible to state anything that makes it unique. I am not a fan of AI art, and I didn’t enjoy looking at it for the couple of hours I played. If you are looking for a great little puzzle game with cute graphics, original artwork, and unique puzzles, the Jixo series and other Mixo games do not seem to be the place to look.
I don’t have a whole lot to say about A Cat named Gossamergoober. I like the vibe; it’s goofy and weird in a way that I find appealing. But the gameplay and the levels aren’t fun, and they are filled with bugs. They don’t seem to have a goal or a point a lot of the time. The controls aren’t the best. I think A Cat named Gossamergoober could be a fun game with a lot of playtesting and tweaking, but it is not yet worth your hard-earned money.
Some of the puzzles were really clever, but others were, as stated above, unintuitive. This was a remaster, yet there were still grammar mistakes. The graphics were so dark as to make playing A Rite from the Stars: Remaster Edition difficult. The only thing that the new one has better over the old appears to just be the price, which is a couple of bucks cheaper. I didn’t get very far in A Rite from the Stars: Remaster Edition, because it was almost unbearable to play. I think this is a game that could have been left in 2018.
Overall, Home Domes just wasn’t very fun, wasn’t intuitive, and it feels like it needs a UI overhaul. I think there are some interesting ideas there, but none of them were done particularly well. I don’t think I can recommend Home Domes, even to someone who loves the sim genre.
Even for a single dollar, I don’t think 100 Hidden Cats: Pirates is worth it. It’s just kind of boring; if you do have some little ones at home that like pirates and cats, they might be horrified by the fact that every single cat is obviously in danger. I can’t really recommend this to anyone.
Supermarket Duck Dash feels like it’s supposed to be hectic and fast-paced, but you can’t move at any kind of speed without knocking everything else back out of your cart. There is also a whole bunch of stuff you can’t reach up on really high shelves. I think the best I did was a couple of small items that barely stayed in my cart. Overall, it was not a well-made game, and it was not fun. It’s a real shame; this could be an amazingly fun, silly title, but it fell short of the mark it was obviously aiming for.
Overall, Bubble Dogs was kind of fun. It’s a simple game that feels familiar to play. As much as I love Suika-likes, I couldn’t love Bubble Dogs, which is so incredibly sad. Because a puppy-themed Suika game should have been right up my alley. I would prefer a slightly more expensive game with a lot more thought put into it.
Sippy Disco: Light Up the Dance Floor is a colorful, cute puzzle game with some good ideas. The puzzles started easy, but got really hard very quickly. But there is just so much incomplete about Sippy that it feels like a prototype. I like the basic structure, and I like the puzzles, but I’m afraid this game is not worth picking up.
I was so disappointed in Small Town Detective. I wanted to love it, but it was so hard to get into and figure out. This game was a massive disappointment for me.
Step By Step Hero has a lot of heart in it. You can tell it’s a pet project that someone poured a lot of thought into. But like many loved projects, this one suffers from what feels like a lack of play testing. There is so much going for this game, and it could be really fun if it weren’t for the step counter. It is incredibly difficult to make a walking simulator, and this one just missed the mark. With all that being said, I am looking forward to PixelSlop’s next title. I’d be interested to see what this developer has learned from making Step By Step Hero and what changes they plan to make in their next title.
I don’t like this game. Under The Moon is in need of some honest playtesters that are looking to improve the game’s appeal. I think it could be amazing with some simple editing: Edit the riddles for grammar. Put a little more effort into the riddles that are just descriptions of objects. Make the roads much, much shorter. Worry less about ray tracing and worry more about making what is there interact well with the world.
I get where the developers of Model City were going with this game. It has a lot of potentials to be fun, but a lot of changes will have to happen first, in my opinion. Needless to say that I was super disappointed with this game. I really hope the developers rethink Model City and rerelease it; I know that with its pretty graphics and interesting puzzle setup they could do a lot more. I know I could have figured out the math behind this puzzle game had I spent a lot more time with it, but I really, really didn’t want to. There was nothing to pull me in and keep me spending time with Model City.
I can see the value in this as an educational tool, but it’s not entertaining to play. Not to mention that it’s easy to tank your own business. It’s incredibly detailed, but the details are laid out in a way that is just boring. For $30 USD, I wouldn’t recommend this game to almost anyone.
Overall, The Hundred Year Kingdom was just kind of boring to me. I liked the look and the idea, but it didn’t feel like any of the decisions I was making actually mattered. There wasn’t a whole lot to do except look at the cute anime girls. I didn’t really get the whole idea of the game. Perhaps I didn’t play enough of the game to get to the fun part, but in my humble opinion, games should lead with the fun part.
Sadly, the story of Entwined: The Perfect Murder feels rushed and the characters are bland. And although there are some unique puzzles, they are rehashed too often. This game is only worth picking up if you really, really love HOG games. Otherwise, there are better point-and-click adventure games out there.
I had a very hard time getting anywhere near the end of this game. It was so slow; it would have been better off as a real visual novel instead of making the player do long, boring hours of forced labour. Delivering real mail would be a lot more interesting. The delivery mini-game padding in this game makes it less likely that visual novel fans will love this game, and the repetitive nature of Lake will ensure that adventure game lovers will also not really dig this title. I’m not entirely sure who the target audience for this game is, but I feel like it misses the mark completely.
CrossAbout could have been a cool idea. It’s a neat, unique concept, but it feels a little bit lacking in some areas. I always love to support non-profits, and I like puzzle games, but I’m not sure I can recommend this one. It was close to being fun, but didn’t quite hit the mark for me.
Mimi in Meowndering House has great puzzles, adorable cat noises, and is a simple game to pick up. I like a lot of aspects of it. However, the unskippable replay every time you restart a level, coupled with a handful of smaller issues, made it feel like it was never playtested properly. I think that Mimi in Meowndering House could be a great game with some tweaking, but it is not quite there yet.
Overall, Chicken Run: Eggstraction was pretty disappointing. There was a lot that was so good about it, but the play had a lot of issues with it. If you can grab this title on sale, and you like these types of games, you should pick it up and try it out. However, I don’t think it is worth the full price. Like many licensed games before it, Chicken Run: Eggstraction was more focused on the animations rather than the gameplay. I think it would be a lot more fun if you had someone to play with as well. The co-op would give you someone else to help mitigate some of the issues I had.
Bye Sweet Carole is fine, but it doesn’t live up to the hype. Overall, it’s just aggressively fine; it’s not super fun to play, but it is really gorgeous. I hope the developers keep working on this game.