Recent reviews by Goldrust

An artistic masterpiece with several very frustrating flaws.
Its easy to look at the screenshots in a game like this and post "Best Game Evarrr !!1! yay!!! soo coool!".
But this game is nowhere near perfect and I will do my best to point out the highs and lows.

Like the first game, this sequel is a JRPG with a super surreal beautiful cast of characters and atmosphere.
This game is longer and larger than the first game, clocking in at around 10 hours to complete.
BUT... bigger doesn't always equal better!

+ Again, the colourful cast of characters, the animations of the spells, the environments, the claymation cut scenes, all are super original, beautiful, and a marvel in stop motion artistry. There really isn't anything out there quite like these games.

+ Lots of secrets to find, places to explore, the game plays out like a PS1 game from 1997. Picture a surreal weird game in the vein of the OG original Final Fantasy 7.

+ The story and lore is expanded greatly over the predecessor, the npc's actually talk and make sense this time around.

+/- The game has an original sound track with very polarising music selection. From oddly beautiful smooth jazz to supremely annoying drone - metal scratching - static - #^%# seizure inducing noises that made me want to throw my headphones across the room. I had to play on mute for about 3 hours of my 10 hour playthrough. Some people love the soundtrack, I couldn't do it, and I listen to vaporwave and slushwave often, go figure...

- The game is unnecessarily difficult to learn, and has almost zero direction. If you are playing without a guide, you will get lost and wander in circles for over an hour at some point.

- There are side scrolling minigames introduced in this sequel, where your character is so badly controlled in sections you will spend 10 minutes trying to jump on from one ledge to another over and over again. Its not just me, many reviewers echo the same sentiment. I watched people on YouTube having the same problem.

The first game was a nicely tightly wrapped package and easy to digest.
This game the developer threw everything and the kitchen sink into it: new game modes, platforming, 3D dungeon crawling, and half of the new stuff just doesn't work, its annoying.

The sights: 10 / 10
The story: 8 / 10
The music: 6 / 10
The gameplay: 6 / 10

I knew this game would be for me 5 seconds after I first got control of my character. I searched the toilet next to me and found a "Warm Burrito". That being said the game isn't actually lewd at all, just very weird. This is a light 4 hour RPG, with a very colourful, beautiful, surreal, stop motion art style.

+ The whole game is a marvel to look at and play. The cast of characters, enemy designs, landscapes, are all highly original, weird, colourful and beautiful.
+ The original music and soundscapes are also well produced and fit the game's aesthetic perfectly.
+ Lots of fun secrets, characters, and spells to discover. I felt as if I was playing a Final Fantasy game from the Super Nintendo era. Lets get that boat and airship!
+ Once you learn how the flow of the game works, everything is very enjoyable and smooth. You can't really die and lose progress in this game. When you die you just teleport to a beach area to get stronger and level up, and then teleport back to where you were exploring originally.

+/- The story is really weird and difficult to put together, part of the surrealist experience I guess

- At the beginning of the game, you have to move around often and dodge enemies, because you are too weak to fight at this point. This creates a bit of confusion at the very start because you won't know how the game works yet, and that dying / levelling up is part of the process. First explore to find other characters and build your fighting team.
- There is a blind spell that many enemies use throughout the game, too many enemies in fact. (Get the piece of armour that prevents blindness 100%) When the blind spell is used by the enemy the whole screen flashes bright white for a second, and this can happen 20 times in one fight. I like to play games in the dark and this spell really hurt my eyes. The enemy blind spell worked on me instead, I think I lost some vision! You can turn off all the spell effects in the main menu, but then ALL the spell effects are turned off, even the cool interesting ones, which is a shame.
- The F12 button does not take screenshots for Steam like in regular games. Here it resets the whole game back to the main menu. Luckily I didn't lose much progress when I pressed it, but many others have, be careful.

We need more games like this to push the boundaries.
Overall Rating: 9 / 10

I played this game for 2 hours, and I had alot of fun with it. Basically you are in a small submarine and given 7 coordinates, (with X, Y, and Depth markers), and you must investigate these 7 spots in order to rescue people lost in the depths.

+ I noticed that some reviewers were complaining the game needs a save function, it does not! You do not need to do all the 7 markers in one run! A few are insta death! Once you find out the ones you need to complete just do those. A perfect playthrough will take less than 10 minutes if you go straight to the right locations. Process of elimination.
+ Finding the coordinates seems tough at first but after about 20 minutes you will figure out how to direct your sub properly to the locations to get there faster. Also remember there is a Booster Switch to temporarily go faster at the front of the sub.
+ 95% of the game you are stuck inside the small submarine doing nothing but driving to the next location, if you get bored easily this game isn't for you. However for people that love these little atmospheric relaxing claustrophobic games, (like me), you will like it.
+ The noises on the headphones were creepy, creaking metal, whale noises, haunting and atmospheric.

- One thing that was super annoying was the Tab button to bring up the coordinates. The in game paper sheet covered the view for the booster button and the button to turn the engine on. This was annoying to keep pushing the Tab button on and off to see everything. It would be nice to see both at the same time on the screen for more comfortable control of the sub.
- There could be more locations for a longer experience, and the locations could be more eventful in general.

If you have lots of patience and enjoy these type of submarine games, you will probably enjoy it.
The asking price is a bit high for what you get, try to wait for a sale.

Overall rating: 7.5 / 10

There are 2 games here, House of Velez Part 1 and House of Velez Part 2. Part 2 is purchased via DLC of the first game. For seasoned survival horror gamers, Part 1 will take around 45 minutes to complete while Part 2 will take around an hour and a half.

+ This game is famous for its super graphic, detailed, over the top death scenes. Be prepared to see your character get dismembered, skinned alive, ripped apart, beheaded etc... Very similar to current Mortal Kombat fatalities, but with demons and more sadistic.
+ The atmosphere of the game is unique and incredible. Most of the game you are wandering a detailed mansion, underground dungeon, or in castle type rooms.
+ The monsters designs are unique and extremely gross.
+ The voice acting of your main character is excellent, she did an amazing job, really stands out.
+ Original well balanced puzzles and puzzle difficulty.

- To get full screen working properly on 4K monitors, you have to push F1 and F2 at the same time, this should be in the note section of the game. The note section says only push one or the other.
- Some stealth sections are too difficult and cheap.
- The controls are all over the place. The main action your character does to avoid enemies, you literally have to hold 3 buttons on the controller and tap a 4th, annoying.
- There is no fighting or weapons in this game, it is 100% stealth. I think it would have benefited with some action or less stealth kills.

Overall I give this game a 7.5 / 10.

BIG NOTE: The developer is currently working on a remake. It has been in the works for a long time, and it looks AMAZING. Hopefully it gets released this year. The new game looks much more modern and polished.

This game took around one hour to complete the main story and then approximately 20 minutes to find all the "Secret Objects" to obtain the "Secret Good Ending". All in all I really enjoyed my time with it. Right now the game is on sale for $1 and it is a steal at that price. The original asking price of $10 is a bit high however for 1.5 hours of gameplay.

+ The game plays out like very light survival horror anime game, complete with references and atmospheres akin to silent hill & fatal frame. There are no weapons or fighting to do, basically you are walking around your apartment for an hour uncovering an interesting story while ghastly things begin to appear around you.
+ The game had some genuinely creepy sections.
+ The use of sound on headphones is excellent, playing with headphones in the dark is a must. The patter of ghost feet running around you, doors creaking, furniture moving around, was very atmospheric and well done.
+ The game is well made and has a polished feel throughout.
+ The story kept me invested, I wanted to know what was going on and what happened to the main character's friend

- The character model you control is too close to the screen, a quarter of the screen at all times is looking at the back of her head.
- The enemy ghost could be designed a bit scarier, was a bit cheesy at times.
- A run button would have been nice, but I understand why they didn't add one.

Grab it on sale!
Overall: 7.5 / 10

I'm spent. I shook the rat hard and vigorously for 45 minutes and received all the achievements.
Basically its a walking simulator in a house, you shake the rat to "Charge" the rat, and then once your rat is charged you "squeeze" the rat to open doors, or to use items around the house.

The game takes a horror turn during the last half of the game, I wasn't expecting that at all.
The later half of the game was atmospheric and fun to explore.
There actually is a bit of a morbid story here when you put all the dialog and scenes together.

So ridiculous its hard to even rate, however I had some fun with it.
I think this game was made in a 48 hour contest or something along those lines.

I'll give this game 6.5 rat shakes out of 10.

In this game you play in a super surreal landscape. The game consists of a main area surrounding a pond, with approximately 5 mini game areas you can enter and explore around the pond. Each minigame area is unique, a few with objectives and a few are just surreal weird landscapes to walkthrough. The whole game takes around 1.5 hours to see everything and explore all the minigames.

+ Lots of colourfull weird characters to meet and discover
+ The developer wrote a 69 page manual that you can download, (that is pretty much useless for the game), but it is very artistic and interesting to read the lore
+ The game is cheap, worth the $1 asking price

- The game can be buggy, I couldn't get certain achievements to pop
- The in game characters spew nonsense constantly, I get that is what the game is going for, but it came off annoying and not fun
- There are many collectable icons on the screen and I had no idea what they were for, the 69 page manual did not even reference them.
- The "Secret lair" was underwhelming and useless

Passable for the 1 hour, $1.00, art expo, if you're into this sort of thing.
Overall 6 / 10

I seem to be on binge with these ultra short indie games lately, this one took me 25 minutes to finish.

In this game you enter a small village and have 5 days to interrogate and torture the inhabitants to find out which one is The Witch.

+ Each game night you dream a beautifully rendered creepy stop motion cutscene, these were fun to watch.
+ The whole game is creepy and well designed throughout, very atmospheric.
+ The story keeps you invested and hooked till the end.

- The end is a total letdown.
- The game is too short.
- There is no real reason to play again, no replay value.

This game is more of an artistic graphic novel than an actual "game".
However, I recommend buying it for a buck or 2 for the beautiful stop motion cut-scenes alone.

6 / 10

Ok, so my the total playtime for me to beat the game was 15 minutes, without a guide, I have the screenshot to prove it.
My total playtime is 20 minutes. This includes 2 minutes of getting a coke from the fridge and another 2 minutes as I was trying to fool around with the graphic settings at the start of the game.

Many of my friends gave this game a good review, but I can't in good conscience recommend a game that took 15 minutes to beat from start to finish.

As for the game itself, basically you are locked in an abandoned store / warehouse and have to escape while dodging and evading a serial killer running after you with scissors. There are a few items to collect, doors to unlock, and a few notes with "lore" regarding the scissorman serial killer. The controls work well, some of the camera angles are annoying, and the VHS camera filter was also annoying at times. The game is 100% stealth, there are no weapons to use.

Too short and without substance, game solely relies on PS1 nostalgia and a certain artistic flair.
Should be free, or a demo for a larger game.

3 / 10

Gameplay: In this game you start off in your office in an office building, all your fellow employees are missing, and you are alone. There is a well spoken narrator talking in your ear giving you directions on what you should be doing. It is your choice either to listen to the narrator, follow his directions and complete the game, or venture off on your own to find other endings (exits) from the building all by yourself. Each game run lasts for about 10-20 minutes, and then you start back in your office again for another run.

+ The game runs smoothly, there are several nice environments to look at and surprises to find.
+ The game has an original concept.
+ Some of the things the narrator says are interesting and funny.
+ For the first hour you are in a sense of wonder, exploring everywhere to discover as much as you can about this world...

- ...Until you found out that the game is actually a one trick narrator pony. The game is short, repetitive, anemic, without any real interesting surprises or depth. This game is like going into the shallow end of a beautiful pool and thinking "WOW! this pool is nice!!!"...and then walking over to the deep end and finding out there isn't one, the whole pool is shallow.
- Around the 2 hour mark I found the constant chatter of the narrator's voice grating and annoying.
- I found most of the endings, around 90% of them, without a guide around the 2.5 hour mark. Steep asking price for amount of gameplay provided...
- None of the endings are particularly interesting. There is no grand ending or super finale to be found.
- Lots of the humor fell flat for me. The game narrator says "I'm not humor I'm art"... well the art fell flat for me too.

I didn't think it was as fun as most of the reviewers on this website claim, but I did enjoy the first hour before I knew exactly what I was getting into.

Recommended on a deep sale.
Overall: 5.5 / 10