Recent reviews by Raytheron

This game is fun to play alone and with friends! It reminds me of the movie Honey I Shrunk the Kids, which I always loved. It has a cute and interesting story and fun mechanics. I love the exploration aspect of it and the visuals are awesome. Also, I can have an aphid as a pet!

Runs well on the Steam Deck, but you may need to change the default controls.

I am having a lot of fun playing Palia alone and with friends. There are incentives for playing in a group, like bonus loot. There are a lot of quests and building/decorating features for solo play. This game reminds me of Animal Crossing and Luma Island, both of which I also enjoyed.

I really enjoyed playing Luma Island. It runs great on the Steam Deck! It reminded me a lot of Animal Crossing, which I also enjoyed. I loved that there is no set bag space, your bag just gets bigger automatically, so you never need to worry about storing your stuff or running out of space! There is the option to build storage chests in case you want to sort stuff or just not carry all your belongings on you all the time. I also liked that there is no hunger or sleep management. I could just run around and play and play without having to stop. The luma creatures are cute and fun to collect and have follow you around!

Drop five hay in the cow's pen in the first town (before the town proper) and come by at least every 5 days for some free milk you can sell back to the owners of the cow! This is especially helpful to get coin so you can start the game with 2 professions!

I thought the fishing mechanic was cute and interesting...at first. Then it just kind of annoyed me. I preferred the way that fishing up treasure with the magnets worked, compared to the fishing mini game for catching fish. I'm still on the fence about the whole thing. Chasing the fish around obstacles with the bobber was really fun at first. Then it became tedious.

I found the multi-player function to be lacking. There didn't really feel like much point in playing it multi-player, except maybe as a cute and safe game to play with a younger child. Everything can be accomplished single player and its easy to miss out on doing one time only things, like the quest completions, when there are other people running around too. It was nice though to be able to have a friend hop on and grind up some resources for me towards the end game. So overall, I found the ability to invite another player useful, but not especially rewarding or engaging. My friends and I started this game planning to play it together but just ended up enjoying it solo. It was still fun to talk about with each other while we played our own saves though!

I am concerned by the posts saying that the devs do not know if our current saves will be compatible with the pirate content update. I do not want to have to start the game over from scratch. The game is a bit grindy, but that is ok and fun, the first time around. I would not want to grind everything again just to be able to reach the new content. If we have to start from the beginning, I likely will not play it.

I love this game and I hope the developer adds more content to it! The limited time holiday events are fun too! Also, I NEEDED that glittery flashlight.

Devour is a really fun, spooky game that you can play with up to 3 friends (4 players total). There are different difficulties and the game also gets more difficult as you progress within the level. There is an interesting story about a cult that runs throughout the entire game. I really like the 'death' mechanic because you aren't taken out of the game completely if the monster catches you. You can be revived by a friend and you can crawl while down and injured. There are un-lockable traits that help you and your team as you progress. I really like all the opportunities to strategize with your fellow players, like kiting and stunning the monster with the UV light and destroying items at a certain time to deal with the ramping difficulty. I also enjoy the collectibles hidden throughout each level. I love searching for items in 3D environments! The founders pack and different costumes, pets, etc. are reasonably priced. There are also plenty of alternative costumes to earn for completing achievements and limited time holiday events.

This game is a lot of fun and purple is the best color so I must have the purple glow sticks! :)

Escape First Alchemist is an escape room style puzzle game. It can be played as a single player game or has online co-op for up to 4 players. There are frequently multiple puzzles available at the same time to keep all the players engaged. There are also collectible cards to be found hidden throughout the rooms. There are 10 steam achievements to complete. The puzzles are easy to medium difficulty which makes for a logical and relaxed play-through with friends, while still giving enough of a challenge to satisfy adult puzzle fans.

The game could be improved with the ability to zoom in on the computer. There are some very detailed books and pictures in the environment that have small text that I would have liked to see better! The messages that are directly related to solving puzzles can be picked up, and the text is also printed clearly on the screen beside the note so its easy to read. However, a couple of the drawings we had to enlarge in paint on the computer so that we could see it clearly.

I played this game with 2 other people and we had a good time. I really enjoyed all the details in the scenery and the frequent messages that gave information about alchemy and the story background. It took us just under 3 hours to complete at a laid back pace. I only completed half the achievements during this play-through, so I will definitely go back and play again solo to get the other achievements and try my hand at the puzzles my friends solved.

I'm looking forward to playing the upcoming Escape First: Alchemist 2 with my friends! I also went ahead and purchased several other puzzle games by OnSkull Games that look similar to this one.

I've had no problems playing this on the Steam Deck so far!

Runs well on the Steam Deck!

Monument Valley: Panoramic Edition is a 3D optical illusion puzzle game. I first played it on my cell phone many years ago. I enjoyed it so much that when I saw it was available for my Steam Deck I purchased it again. This version comes with the DLC of the original game (Forgotten Shores and Ida's Dream) already included.

Monument Valley runs well on the Steam Deck and the touch screen gives the intuitive feel of the original cell phone game. There are 19 achievements and there is a sequel that can be purchased separately.

This game is really worthy of its "overwhelmingly positive" rating. The art is gorgeous and you may find yourself taking a lot of screen shots. The music is beautiful and soothing. The clever 3D puzzles make great use of perspective and optical illusion. The background story is also intriguing and not what I expected.

The puzzles are mostly easy with a few challenging places. You have to think outside the box! The developers did a good job of creating a game that gives your mind a bit of a workout but isn't so hard that it is frustrating. I only got truly stuck on one spot and ended up looking up the solution, then promptly face palmed when I realized what I had overlooked.

The chapter design allows you to play through a small section at a time. Its great to play if you want to relax with a few puzzles and some chill music before bed.