Recent reviews by Crater Labs

This game is a glorious cross between point and click adventure games, roguelike game loop progression, and just a smidgen of Sea Of Thieves' style of puzzle solving. I loved it from the start; some of my friends who only love one of those three things didn't let it click for them at first, but I encouraged 'em to give it another shot and they're coming around. I still haven't gotten to the antechamber yet, but I'm loving it. Be sure to bring a notebook!

This is one of the finest visual novels I've ever had the fun of reading. Fiction Factory Games really understands the give and take between the "narrative" side of visual novels and the "video game" side of it, and while this doesn't lean quite as much into the gameplay side of things as their previous game (Penny Larceny: Gig Economy Supervillain), it still manages to hit the sweet spot. The music is great and feels like a throwback to the glory days of 90s synthesized music like Return To Zork or Free DC or some of the Space Quest games.

The game makes the interesting choice to only voice the side characters (and the primary antagonist of the game, who is arguably a bit of a side character in the sense that he doesn't really speak to you much even if the plot revolves around him). I like the voice work, even if it caught me off guard; it adds a great element to the game, but also didn't feel like the most seamless integration when most of the game is silent. Having said that, I loved what the voices added, and look forward to hopefully getting more voice work in future Fiction Factory games.

And story-wise, it's also a good spooky sci-fi story. I almost hesitate to call it *true* horror, but I think I'm splitting hairs about genres if I do that. I feel like more could have been done to emphasize the unearthly and supernatural nature of the things, but the upside of that is that the game never overplayed its hand, so the digital terrors in the game were never fully understandable, even if some felt a little easier to grok than others.

All in all, pick up this game. It's free. What are you waiting for?

There's some absolutely fantastic games here. Most people don't know more than a couple of the Genesis or Mega Drive hits, and this is a great way to relive old favorites. My only complaint is that sometimes when I run it, it's incredibly slow to the point of being unplayable (something that I notice with a lot of Sega games. Is it Denuvo? I dunno.) Regardless, when that little annoyance isn't happening, this is great. Plus, hey, it gives actual ROM access, which is nice if you enjoy mods to improve game performance or tweak how things play. So give it a try! (And hurry, it's gonna be delisted soon...)

This game is a delight. It presents that magic element of so many good platformers: simple controls that take practice to really master. The various yo-yo techniques presented herein all make sense and are all easy enough to pull off, but with when it comes to putting them all together and recognizing the best times to use them in the game's worlds, it takes some learned experience. In some ways, it's almost a shame that this game is on Steam, it feels like the kind of thing that you should stumble upon in an arcade with its own dedicated cabinet and a strange, custom, yo-yo based controller. Alas, that experience is denied us, but this reality where it's easy enough to play on a computer means more people will find it, so that's great.

My only complaint about the game is that the world feels just a little more abstract than I'd like it to be. What you're looking at is definitely a series of levels in a video game, and the people within the video game are constantly being inconvenienced by their video game-y existence. In some respects it's like those older N64 platformers where most of a game world would just be imaginatively put together CGI environments that you could parkour through, with every game being both a celebration of how far computers had advanced up to that point but also an admission that it was about as far as they could go. Penny's Big Breakaway feels like it's celebrating that style of game world in a similar way (and I think it's important that we celebrate that kind of game design, because it's great) but the world also seems aware that it could be more, and the NPCs within must endure. This existential quandry is almost entirely a superficial and aesthetic concern related to my own tastes, though, and while it's an issue I had it didn't actually stop me from enjoying the game at all, so do with that what you will. At the end of the day, I recommend trying it. Have fun!

This is a great game that feels like a throwback to a very particular era of gaming. While it's billed as a nod to arcade games of the eighties (and you can certainly see that inspiration there), what it actually *felt* like to me was like I was playing the kinds of PC games that I would load up on DOS back in the nineties. I was a little behind the times with my computer games at the time, of course, but playing this made me really nostalgic for Commander Keen and Jazz Jackrabbit, even if most of the gameplay is a more direct nod to arcade titles like Bubble Bobble.

Having said *that*, I think this game is really, *really* good. I don't think it's as good as Donut Dodo, but that's like saying a deluxe hamburger isn't as good as a fine steak, sometimes you're more in the mood for one than the other. These people understand what makes arcade games great, and they've geared this game to be that. So definitely play it (and also play Donut Dodo, which is a nod to a slightly different era of arcade game (think Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, and Popeye for that one, while this one is more Bubble Bobble and Sonic the Hedgehog. Less Atari, more Neo Geo)

tl;dr: this is a great game! Buy it!

This game takes the visual novel format that Fiction Factory Games already did so well in Arcade Spirits and The New Challengers and pushes it into a more "game-ified" space, and it's awesome. One of the big criticisms I hear of visual novels is that sometimes they're not really games, they're just stories you read and occasionally you get to make a decision that impacts what ending you'll see. I think in most cases that's fine, but Penny Larceny is an experiment to push that visual novel format in a new direction to something more game-y, and the experiment pays off well!

While still very much a visual novel, the game is broken up into a series of "heists", with each heist having a number of stages: casing the joint, formulating your plan, and pulling off the crime. The game actively scores you as you engage in your criminality (using the in-world conceit of a gig-economy app that leaves a rating for your performance.) The whole thing is simultaneously evocative of classic heist movies, but also feels like a classic video game with individual levels, set piece challenges, and to a lesser extent "bosses", though that's more an aspect of the story than the gameplay.

The end result is an episodic series of game levels that can be taken in fun, satisfying chunks, meaning you can play through a bunch of them in an evening, or just one or two if you're looking for something light, fun, and enjoyable that'll wrap up.

I haven't taken the time to replay it much yet, but I'm planning on it. The game has numerous heists I haven't done in my initial playthrough, and I want to go back and get a higher star rating on some of my first runs. Also I only really worked for one boss, a computer named Hate-4000, and I wanna see what the other bosses can offer.

On the subject of going back for higher ratings, though: the game is very encouraging in letting you know that the stars don't ultimately matter to your success, they're just a measure of how your peers or potential future employers might think of your work when they hear about it. I'm sure that they affect *something* (probably better endings), but so far my favorite ending to a caper was a heist where I only got one single star. I wouldn't say I succeeded, but the mission goals changed, the boss was happy with it, and at the end of the day things were really satisfying story-wise, so the fact that I got one out of five stars is almost barely a factor. I'm not going to replay it out of a desire to complete everything, I'm replaying it out of a desire to see everything, if that makes sense. It's a subtle distinction, but an important one, and one this game understands.

Anyway, I love everything about this game, despite only seeing what I assume to be about a sixth (maybe a twelfth?) of it. I play slowly, but what I've seen is great. If you like heists, quick adventure stories, or well-written superhero comedy that acts as a fable about the tragedies of the economic realities facing a lot of Millennial and Zoomer people in the workforce, then you should definitely get this game. (Oh, also the music is amazing, lots of cool electro-swing, fun heist/mystery tunes, occasionally some moodier noir-movie stuff for when the characters are introspective and bummed out about life, all of it really well done. Okay, that's the end of the review, bye bye!)

There are three ways to enjoy Five Nights At Freddy's games: the first is to enjoy the mechanical challenge in front of you. Classically it's a high-stakes game of red light/green light, sometimes it's mini-game puzzle solving, this time it's adventure/mystery 3D interaction with survival horror elements. The second way is to get really invested in the background lore and mystery, so that you can figure out why this kid named Gregory's mere existence tells you so much about a Purple Guy who doesn't* even appear in the game. But the third way?

The third way is to vibe with what's happening in the moment. And I maintain this is the best way to play all of them, and the way that this particular installment was designed for. Yeah, yeah, lore lore, missing children, bite of '87, blah blah blah, THIS is a game where you are a kid locked in a pizza restaurant after dark, and the robot mascots are out to kill you. The pizza restaurant is also the world's biggest combination shopping mall and amusement park ever, somehow. You will use all of the pizza place's go-karts and pizza manufacturing facilities and mini-golf courses against your pursuers. YOU WILL PLAY LASER TAG AND THE LASERS WILL ACTUALLY BE EFFECTIVE AT FIGHTING THE KILLER ROBOTS. All of this will happen with the friendly, avuncular guidance of your big brother best friend guardian teddy bear rockstar superhero pal Freddy Fazbear. Unlike the first game where getting stuffed into Freddy will kill you, this time stuffing yourself into Freddy Fazbear will be your saving grace against all the other killer robots. All the naysayers who are like "but it was glitchy upon release" or "but this game messes up the lore so badly" are blinding themselves to the sheer awesome vibes that this game offers right now (and those glitches are mostly patched out by now... mostly, anyway)! Hop into this game, order up a bunch of pizza, and be a superstar as you live every twelve year old kids' fantasy of being a butt-kicking, rock-n-rolling, laser blasting, race car driving, robot smashing troublemaker that no responsible adult can contain no matter how hard they try, all while being locked in a pizza restaurant/arcade/movie theater/candy store/playground for the night! This game ROCKS and I will challenge anyone who thinks otherwise to a game of Hide And Seek on Roxy's Raceway.

My only complaint: all the collectibles feel tacked on. They're an interesting little bonus that adds some gameplay moments and helps to break up the action of constant exploration and pizzaplex traversation, but they're about as inconsequential as they come, with only a few actually giving in-game bonuses. Ideally, I'd have liked it if you could get certain miniscule bonuses for completing sets of items, but as it is the bonuses you can get are locked to certain collectibles. Don't get me wrong, I love collecting things, Zork 1 is one of my favorite games ever, but these things needed more sparkle. Maybe if you had an avatar that you could customize with all the shirts and hats and masks you found? I dunno.

Oh, and the DLC is pretty good too. My only complaint about it is how linear it is. I definitely preferred the open-ended nature of the main game. But DLC's gonna DLC, y'know?

Anyway, yeah. My complaint about the collectibles aside, this is a great game. Start playing it now, superstar!

This one's actually pretty decent. Episode 1 leaves a lot to be desired, but this particular game fixes a lot of the first episode's issues. Honestly, kinda wish there was a part three to go along with this.

A wonderful, if simple, visual novel supplemented with some light point and click adventure game elements and an occasional runner-style mini-game. Well written, hilarious, great music, and if you're a fan of the characters they're done very nicely. Can YOU figure out Who Murdered Sonic The Hedgehog?!

This game is great. I bought it on a recommendation thinking "Ugh, fine, I'll try it" emotionally ready for a Pac-Man clone or something, but what I found was a *delight*. I've lost hours of multiple evenings at this point, only finally finishing the first round (probably would've gone faster but dangit I had to chase the glowing donut score multiplier). This is fantastic. If there's anything in you that likes the classic arcade vibe, this is what you wanna get. It isn't like how games back then were, it's what you *remember* them being like.