Recent reviews by alex

Egg Squeeze is a game where you squeeze one or multiple eggs just before it cracks. There's no way of knowing when it will break.

It's a pretty short game, having around a couple of hours of content depending on your skill and luck.
If you plan on getting all of the achievements, it will take much longer to complete.

It's fairly priced, and has a catchy OST.

9/10

Shotgun King is a chess turn-based roguelike where you blast away your white army's pieces across 12 floors and a final boss. After every floor, you are presented with two pairs of card choices. A black card to buff yourself, and a white card that will buff your opponent. As the game goes on, both you and the enemy (for the most part) linearly become more powerful. There are many cards, as well as several shotguns you can unlock.

Throne Mode
The games titular mode, basically what I described above. You start at rank 1. When you beat the game, you unlock the next rank, all the way to rank 15. Each rank progressively makes the game more difficult.

Endless/Chase Mode
I hardly played these modes, so I can't comment much on them. Endless mode is similar to Throne mode, but there is no final boss. You stop getting cards past the 12th floor, but the white army gets more pieces and buffs the more you go past this point.

Chase mode is unique is that it's an endless survival mode. Pieces come from all sides, and you can only have a limited amount of cards at a time. It can be chaotic and fun.

For this section I'll be speaking within the context of Throne mode.
This game's largest flaw is its over reliance on RNG as balance. Nearly everything you do involves RNG in some way. The pellets from your shotgun can completely veer off course. The card choices you're presented with can save your run, or ruin it in an instant. The AI will make questionable moves at one point, and then turn into Stockfish the next turn.
Despite these grievances, the game was still fun to play- to a certain extent. After all, RNG is something you can expect in every roguelike game. That is, until you progress further into Throne mode. The later ranks in Throne mode exponentially (and artificially) increase the game's difficulty, whether it be increasing the HP of white pieces, to improving the AI. The deeper you go in Throne mode, the less and less skill remains a determining factor in if you'll win or not. This is especially true for rank 15, an insanely tedious, difficult, and unfair modifier, as well as the final rank. To be fair, it is the final modifier, so it should be challenging, although it didn't "feel" challenging. It felt like rolling the dice over and over again until you got the right cards. This holds true for some of the ranks preceding rank 15 as well, but to a lesser extent.

There tons of cards in the game, and yet you are only presented with two pairs of cards as options. Despite rerolling and other anti-RNG mechanics being in the game, it doesn't feel like it's enough. If the devs plan on adding more cards in the future, a third pair of card options should be considered.

Some black cards are utterly useless for the current build you have, and some white cards are obscenely powerful for the later ranks. (Unkillable queens, allowing rooks to catapult rocks at you, giving bishops the ability to move orthogonally, allowing knights to carry every piece around it towards you, etc)

Chances are you'll find an amazing black card, but the white card paired with it will absolutely ruin your run, and the other card choices aren't good either. At a certain point card choices just feel like picking the lesser evil.

The first floor of every run is the same set of pieces, with neither side having any cards. This can be a bit stale if you're retrying runs, trying to get specific cards.

-Achievements
This will only matter if you're a completionist/achievement hunter. The achievements in this game are awful. Most of the achievements consist of winning a run with 3-5 cards. Winning isn't even the issue, getting the cards are. It can take an insane amount of runs to finally get the right combination of cards.

In a given run, you get 10 cards, and white also gets 10 cards.
Some achievements require both white and black cards, some only white and others only black.
Some cards can only be found in specific conditions, or require other prerequisite cards.
There are 156 cards in the game, split somewhat evenly between black and white cards.
Let's just say it wasn't fun getting these achievements.

Despite everything I've written, it is not a bad game at all, at least if you're playing on the lower/fairer Throne mode ranks. It's clear the devs put a lot of love into the game, so these criticisms are subject to change. The game also has a decent OST.

TL;DR: If you're a casual player/don't care about achievements then it's really fun. If you're a completionist, beware and good luck (literally).

7.5/10

For just a few dollars you get a game with tons of content and an amazing soundtrack. The DLC's are also cheap. Still being updated with new content to this day. 10/10

It's a simple, fun platformer game with a good art style and a few hours of content.
Easy achievements.
Buy on sale.

In my personal opinion, OneShot is the best story-driven game I've ever played. It is a very emotional game that leaves you with an empty feeling, wanting more. I haven't found anything that could surpass it story-telling wise.

As for the differences between the original OneShot and OneShot: World Machine Edition:
Both are essentially the same game with slight differences.
Without spoiling, in OneShot many of the puzzles require you to make use the actual PC you're playing on.
On consoles, this isn't really possible, so WM edition provides you with a sort of fake virtual machine to play in.
In addition, WM edition comes with extra cosmetic features and collectibles.

So which one should you play first?
I suppose it doesn't matter too much, but some would argue that the original OneShot meant for PC will have more charm.
Regardless, it's pretty much the same game.

At the time of writing this review, WM edition lacks a points shop and badges for the game unlike the original, but it may come in the future.

Overall,
The game is fairly priced for what it provides.
It has a very touching OST.
It has an amazing story.
It has Niko.

10/10

I find that most of the negative reviews of this game focus on the campaign mode for the game.
I had originally bought Teardown in late 2020, interested in it for its physics/voxel based destruction, and was similarly disillusioned and overwhelmed by the campaign mode. I refunded it that same day. I didn't care about the campaign, I just wanted to destroy stuff.

Three years later I re-purchased Teardown, still with the intention of completely ignoring the campaign. I played tons of sandbox + workshop mods and it was a very fun and satisfying time waster. The game has a very active modding community with many high-effort mods. The workshop content is essentially endless.

I eventually decided to try the campaign and found that it wasn't as bad as most people think.
Many of the missions are indeed timed missions, but the fun is mainly in planning your heist, improving it, and watching it be successful. This can range from making holes in buildings, using your environment, using vehicles, planks, cables, etc. You can be as creative as you want, every level doesn't have one sole solution and can be completed in essentially infinite ways. It was fun exploring the maps and creating the best routes.

Of course, there are also a decent chunk of levels without any time constraints, but have different quirks to make it challenging. Without spoiling anything, the missions later on get a lot more...interesting. Also, as you beat more missions, you will unlock more tools that will make your life a LOT easier.

There are also various settings that make the campaign easier, such as adding more time to the alarms or giving you more ammo. You can also use overpowered mods from the workshop in the campaign if you so wish.

All in all,
The story is good.
The maps and levels are high-effort and detailed.
The OST is amazing.
The DLCs I can't comment on as I don't own them, but they seem overpriced to me.

So, if you are looking for a game to just destroy stuff, Teardown is a fine choice.
If you want a puzzle/heist game, play the campaign.
If you want both, then you get the best of both worlds.

Overall, a 10/10 game.

This DLC is the opposite of the main game, you have to discover the pathogen, limit its spread, and cure it before your authority crumbles.
The issue is, this mode simply isn't fun at all.

In the main game, it's fun watching humanity try preventive measurements to stop your disease, watching it seep through the cracks and infect them. In this mode, you try quarantining everything, limit infection rates/death rates, appease the population with compliance measures, and watch it all be for naught as everything gets infected and dies anyways.

At the start of every game, you have to quickly explore many countries to find the plague as fast as possible. You have to always get Investigate Outbreaks, Deploy Field Operatives, and Government Partnerships every time, which gets repetitive. If you don't, the disease will have spread to a ton of countries and you simply lose. The upgrades are pretty bland too. Most of the upgrades simply reduces the plague's infection/fatality rate, but if a lot countries are already infected they are completely useless.

Cure mode also implements an incredibly stupid amount of micromanagement in a poor way. It mainly features painstakingly flying your field operatives to highly infected countries to reduce the plague's severity there...very slowly. If even one out of the 58 countries in the game gets too infected/killed off, you will lose due to rapid authority loss.

Take the Necroa Virus, SImian Flu, and Shadow Plague from the main game. All of these plagues also feature a lot of micromanagement, but are actually fun. You watch as your plague becomes stronger and infects new countries, and with skill and planning, you will win. Cure mode is a lot more frustrating and luck based, and you will lose even with the best planning and strategy.

For the defining, anti-fun mechanic of this game, its Authority. Essentially acting as a health bar, if your authority reaches zero, you lose. Authority is random, you could be doing just fine for a while, and suddenly it starts dropping -5 per day, even if your infection/death rates is low and stable. Your authority will drop at a ridiculous rate from deaths/panic, and this is from the easiest difficulties as well.

Maybe if this mode did not have an arbitrary, random mechanic like authority, it could be decent.

If you could have multiple field operatives it could also be better. The Frozen Virus has a mechanic similar to this, with an upgrade allowing your Field Operatives to contain both the country they're in and the surrounding neighboring countries as well. Why something like this isn't available for the other plagues, I do not know. It actually makes the Frozen Virus fun to play against.

Certain plagues, such as Fungus, Prion, and Bio-Weapon are so unfathomably and terribly designed it makes you wonder if the game was playtested at all.

Only buy it when it's on sale and if you want the achievements.
P.S., turn on pity mode in the settings and complete each plague on casual for the achievements. You're not missing out on much.

Overall, a 3.5/10 DLC.

For just $5 (when on sale), you get the entire base game with all plagues, genes, and official scenarios able to be unlocked.
Compared to the mobile game, where everything mentioned above is behind a paywall, this is a total steal.
The PC version also has saving and loading, which is invaluable for more difficult challenges.

You inflict a plague on humanity, and your goal is to wipe them out. It is generally fun, even if some of the higher difficulties and scenarios are total RNG. Some of the achievements are also RNG pain, but that only matters if you're a completionist.

Buy it when it's on sale (which is pretty often).
Overall, a 9.5/10 game.

I went into this game completely blind and came out very satisfied. The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile is a very cathartic, gory game with a definite flash game era vibe and art style to it. I'm normally very bad at fighting games, but I found the combat system in this game to be easy to understand and control, but be prepared to have hand pains if you're playing with mouse and keybaord. 100%'ing this game was a somewhat frustrating and challenging experience but totally worth in the end. I think this game is worth it when it's both on sale and regular price. If you want an old school, gorefest, hack and slash game, then buy it. 10/10

100%'ed all achievements in 2 hours, it's okay. Good level design. Greece level is very pretty. Buy it on sale.