Recent reviews by EnemyStarship

(A review of a game with so little time played seems very reactionary and lacks consideration, but the issues in the game are such that I did not want to spend any more time with it... Also, game development is incredibly difficult and I am nowhere near talented or intelligent enough to pull it off. This is being written from the perspective of a consumer who was very much looking forward to playing this game, while also wanting to support fellow Australians)
A very pretty game, but one that I feel has a number of flaws that really impede any enjoyment that could be had:
- a modern, kind of top-down/kind of isometric (sorry, not quite sure of the correct term) perspective game that only allows for 8-way directional movement, on an analog stick, is disappointing. The movements feels a bit 'sloppy' and lacks refinement, while also actively making some environmental traversal far more bothersome than it perhaps needs to be;
- others have previously mentioned this, but the sound mix is lacks balance - some sounds are mixed significantly louder than others, to the point of near-distortion;
- Collision detection on pick ups seems, I don't know, broken? Running around over items multiple times to pick them up is a frustrating experience;
- Tying navigation progression and map usage to randomly dropping currency is, again, really frustrating;
- early combat lacks 'finesse' - hit once or twice, run out of range, rinse & repeat. This prevented me from getting engaged with the game early on, particularly if you are fighting more than one enemy at a time;
- the most egregious combat issue, to me, is the actual number of 'hits' and the pause between hits - a two-hit combo (which did not perform particularly reliably), followed by a near-second long pause. Combining this with the previous issue makes combat not feel very enjoyable and almost stiff;
By the time I'd died trying to navigate a very narrow, twisting thorny pathway to release a captured little nut, I wanted nothing more to do with the game. I wish the development team the best of luck moving forward, but I don't want to play this any more.

Such a neat little thing with a really enjoyable mechanic that sits just on the right side of "F you!", in a way that makes it quite fun! I really enjoyed it, and for the price of free, I couldn't ask for much more!

Despite asking twice on the Discussion boards about an issue with the controller (the right trigger regularly doesn't work, despite there being NO issue with the controller [I've tested it]; and the first time asked was 6+ weeks ago, at the time of writing), no support or response has been provided. The game has seemingly been abandoned in a less-than-functional state in a way that, frankly, isn't acceptable. The game looked really interesting, but to receive NO response or help is incredibly disappointing. Requested a refund, which I didn't want to do, as I was wanting to actually play the game, but its abandonment, and the inability to properly play the game, has left me with no choice.

You could write thousands of words explaining to someone why this game is fantastic. And it would be incredibly worthwhile! Or, I could say this and say it all: of the near 70ish 2024 releases that I've played so far this year, Minishoot' Adventures is, right now, a top 3 Game of the Year for me. It is that damn good.

Play it. Finish it. Love it. Please.

Fun enough style of 'classic' FPS where constant movement and shooting is key to success, but the end product is let down by the sheer volume of bigger and spongier monsters that spawn/teleport in at specific intervals/after specific events that seemingly serve more to lengthen encounters and levels, environmental damage being HARSH (in a way that's just not fun), and elements of the level design being overly confusing, maze-like designs. In the time I played, which is often not long enough to make the most 'conclusive' judgement of a product (however, I felt that I needed to voice an opinion), the constant spawns and the numbers spawned began to feel a little uninspired and dull. It's OK. It's... OK. I feel like there're ways to 'update' this style of game while keeping the 'classic' elements that make the (ugh) 'boomer shooter' genre, and the games that have released in that genre, so popular and enjoyable. I don't feel like this game, in its current state does that, and clutches on to certain outdated mechanics/mechanisms. But, the studio also has their own vision and have stuck to it, so respect to them. Your mileage may, of course, vary.

The other thing I will mention is that the trailer feels a bit misleading in certain ways, as the weapons used in the levels (of what I played) aren't available to be used in those levels (unless, of course, you go back to old levels with those weapons...).

Requested a refund - was really enjoying the game, despite the crashes I'd experienced, but upon hitting the third, and possibly final, system in the game, progression is SO fundamentally broken, that it feels not possible to get further than the 2nd wave of the system. You either have to spec in an armour direction, with no ability to do damage (and, thus, get swarmed by enemies and die), or spec in a damage direction, with no ability to survive (and, thus, die in two rockets hits). The physics, which were relatively fun early on, caused their own problems as you pinball off asteroids around you either right into enemy fire or you come to a complete stop with no ability to gain enough forward momentum (or any forward momentum) to not die. It sapped every bit of enjoyment I was getting out of the game that I no longer wanted to deal with it anymore.

To make it very clear: there is an inherent 'unfairness' to 'reviewing' a game with such as short a playtime as I have, making it almost disqualifying in and of itself. Largely, Steam reviews with little play time are mostly troll reviews with the intent of offering actually useful or constructive to say - the key word there is 'largely', as first impressions of games can be formed VERY quickly, and with so many games vying for consumer time, sticking with something longer arbitrarily serves no purpose.

The other side of this coin is that I just didn't want, and almost couldn't bring myself, to play anymore of it, despite a nice enough art style and an intriguing core conceit around corporate culture (and the expectations within), while actually having something to say about everything around the traditional structures and employee expectations of corporate culture and not just using it as an aesthetic decision. It's a real shame, as I was really very hopeful when I saw video of the game, but the reality of the execution doesn't meet the promise.

The actual act of playing the game and engaging in the game's combat system feels like a chore, particularly as the very deliberate animation priority 'system', and the choices of the design around that, feels very much at odds with the beat-'em-up/belt action form. Most games of this type feel very 'light', having a snapiness to combat input and allowing for a more 'mashy' style of play that presents satisfying 3-6 hit combos quite quickly. However, here, that is an almost sluggishness to the combat, and a feeling that each attack takes way too long or has way too many frames to be effective in dealing with the enemies you face, particularly if you have enemies on either side. Sometimes, this style can help give the individual attacks a greater heft or weight, but I don't think it achieves that here. This is escalated by the odd choice of using 'down' on the d-pad for block, which goes against all built up/expected muscle memory from years of the genre. There is something for having a vision and making design choices that run counter to 'tradition', in order to present something that is your own - I can absolutely respect that (for as much as it sounds/reads like I don't). But 'down for block', in a game like this, in the heat of the moment, is something of an unnatural input for blocking, as it's generally used for directional input or ducking - this means that you're getting hit at times when you almost shouldn't, and, for me at least, really hindered my ability to enjoy the limited amount of time I spent with it.

I know this reads as harsh, possibly even arrogant. And some criticisms could very much be hand-waved away as a 'skill issue'. This borderline diatribe serves one purpose and one purpose only: to offer MY personal opinion of the game, and to elaborate on why I had no desire to play any more of the game than I did before writing this. For those that like or love it: awesome! Do you, and that's cool. For me though, I can't recommend people buy and play this game. Play the demo for yourself and see what you think.

Great idea, super neat thing, and really cool that it exists! And I'll never play it again because I'm not smart enough for this whole 4-dimensional business! That does not mean that I think this is a bad product or game though. Not even close...

If you can understand the (I'm guessing scientific/physics?) concept of a 4-dimensional space (I remember the hypercube from Numb3rs, but Charlie Eppes I am not) and how to theoretically move (and hit a golf ball) in that space, I'd wager this will be absolutely up your alley! I don't understand it, but was still fascinated by the different ways it tries to present the 'world' for you to view and play golf in, and the way it built the holes around its core premise. It's truly awesome that games like this can exists and can find an audience. It does the best it can to explain the lofty and heady concepts it presents - but, sadly, can't fix brain hole that no work good.

The game's target audience is no doubt loving this thing. But as for me, I'm gonna crawl back to 1995, to a time and place where I could understand mini-golf and it only existed on a 2-dimensional isometric plane, and cry myself to sleep... Bravo to the developer!

Just a really neat, pleasant 'builder'/management game that still encourages active engagement during the day, giving you a decent amount to look after as you go. A fantastic art style, aurally nice, and a charming little project with some really nice vibes - a great little after work game!

Being beholden to timers and RNG, particularly with regards to resource management/distribution, left me falling at the same hurdle on 6 out of 7 runs, seemingly without the means to actually overcome said hurdle (or those means being provided too late to be meaningful/useful). There is the framework for a good game underneath this, particularly if you have played something like sokpop's Stacklands before, but not being able to retain/gain the materials you need to make any meaningful progress robs the experience of any joy.