Recent reviews by Hupfen

A puzzle game disguised as a Souls-tinged Zeldalike. Cute fox. No idea what anything says. If I told you much more it would ruin the experience.

Mechanically, fine. Most of it was pretty easy. Rhythm mechanics weren't that great but weren't really necessary (and the one mini-game that did require them was easy enough to make it cooperate). Lot of little wonkiness and glitchiness, but it hardly ever impacted actually playing the game.

Narratively, pretty interesting. It's hard to make a game self-aware and still interesting but this got the balance about right. I was left wanting to see the next adventure with these characters, which I didn't expect. Figured I'd be sick of them.

(Disclaimer: though I did purchase the game, I was asked to participate in the private beta pre-release.)

Very stylish deckbuilding rouge-lite. Chipzel and Marlowe's work take Terry's fairly solid design and give it the charm necessary to stick it out through the bad rolls and frustrating fights. The game is RNG personified, and (aside from two very obvious cases) never rigs luck for or against the player. The 30+ episodes do make for a lot of variety, but honestly, there's at least a dozen you'll play once and never again. Fortunately, modding the game is very simple even without Workshop support (just search the game on itch.io to see what I mean), so even if the items and enemies start to feel repetitive, the structure is flexible enough to keep spicing it up.

(I played this game early thanks to the developer. If you want to watch someone stumble through the first few hours, for some reason, here you go: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/394885177 )

A good puzzle game causes you to feel both dumb and smart. Dumb when you struggle with what seems like should be an obvious solution, smart when you finally figure it out. Not inconsistent in its mechanics, not "oh, how the hell was I supposed to figure that out?"

Which is why Baba Is You is a good puzzle game.

The mechanics are simple: Noun is Noun, or Noun is Trait, or some combination thereof. Everything plays out Sokobon-style, adjusting what Noun is Noun and what Traits the Nouns have by pushing around the actual words. Sometimes it's really simple: Wall Is Stop, push away the "Wall", and now walls don't block you.

And then pretty soon you're opening a wall with a starfish.

This game is all about challenging your assumptions, both in terms of how things operate and what things even are. Keys don't have to open doors, which is nice when Door Is You. Words being physical objects means you can shove a key with the word Key. Many puzzles aren't about reaching the goal, but redefining it altogether.

There's a great puzzle where you're stuck in a room with a key. There's a door in front of you. You immediately think the key will open the door. That's what they do! Nope, Key Is Defeat. And even if Key was Open, Door isn't Shut. If you don't look around and think about the implications of various rules, you end up dying to touching a key that wouldn't even unlock a door that isn't actually a door.

It would be very easy for all this to feel cheap, with tons of "how was I supposed to know that?" moments. Fortunately, interactions and elements are introduced gradually enough that it's all learnable. And their behaviour makes sense; if something is Float, and you're not Float, you can go under the thing. Because, of course. So if something is Float and Push, and you're not Float, you're not Pushing it. They aren't necessarily easy or obvious, I was getting stuck on levels by the second or third world, but the pieces do all exist. And of course, all the rules are physically on the game board, so they're right there for you to read.

This concept could easily allow for a ton of edge cases that just let you cheese your way through everything, but I'm glad to say I didn't encounter any. Many puzzles have multiple solutions, but no matter what, it felt like an earned solution. If you're "breaking" the game, it's because the game wants to be broken.

My 2.5 hours got me through about 30-40 levels, and they were definitely getting harder as time went on. With 200 levels, expect a solid amount of playtime if you're aiming to 100% this. By then, the music might get a little grating (it's a touch repetitive), but based on the steady feed of new mechanics, I suspect the puzzles won't.

There isn't a demo, but this game came out of Nordic Game Jam 2017, and that (somewhat rough) prototype is still available: https://hempuli.itch.io/baba-is-you

Received free copy from developer, after reviewing the demo for Demo Disk: https://test-steamproxy.haloskins.io/steamstore/curator/33682239-Demo-Disk/?appid=896460

I was drawn in initially by the art style. Not only is it distinctive, it doesn't actually grate on the eyes by the end of the game. That, frankly, was a surprise. It makes some of the lore and setting more confusing, but it doesn't confuse the combat, which is the important part.

The combat is Soulslike, but it's a faster and more forgiving style. At the same time, your heals are more limited. I found it easier than the Souls games I've played, but it's still quite hard (boss fights in particular). The choice of Mantras and Familiars roughly mirrors the experience you'd have fiddling with gear in a typical RPG, where changes can be either subtle or dramatic and depend a lot on your play style. The punishment for dying is different than Souls games, and possibly more severe. I didn't let it accumulate that far, but I think there's even a bad ending if you die too many times.

Really, the game overall is challenging, and not always in the gameplay. The devs are not messing around when listing out the trigger warnings related to the story; stuff gets _dark_, and the frantic sketchy animation style that runs through the game accentuates all of it much more than a realistic style would. I rarely need content warnings and I was disturbed at points.

There are a lot of small thematic and textual nods to music throughout the game, but the game isn't about its audio design. The music is good, but none of it has stuck in my head. Most of the time is spent with more ambient sound anyway. If I'm going to pick a weak point, that would be it, but the game is impressive overall. The demo is a good reflection of the full game, so if you're curious, that's worth a try.

The short of it: A polished Oregon Trail-style adventure with a story about parenthood and survival that will tug at your heart if you're willing to read all the text.

Cloud Chasers follows Francisco and Amelia as they leave home, crossing the desert to reach The Spire, which will send them to some unseen sky city. Along the way they harvest clouds, eat cacti, and scavenge what they can.

The game is visually solid; nothing fancy, but it's the right detail to get its point across and keep things clear. I did have a bit of "what's that do?" with the UI here and there, mostly in the cities. Easy to figure out, but symbols aren't all immediately obvious. Sound and music are good but don't seriously stand out, and if there are multiple harvesters on the screen the game gets LOUD.

The cloud harvesting is the only "action" bit to the whole game, flying around as you dodge machines and bullets, and once you get the hang of the controls it plays well. Upgrading your glider has a very clear effect, to where a fully upgraded one is a bit tough to handle.

Everything else is done through text and simple taps. The design is basically mobile-first, which leads to a slight recommendation of "buy it there, not here". The PC platform doesn't seem to add too much, and with runs topping out around the 45-60 minute range, it's a mobile-sized session as well.

The story is really what the game's about. It's told through little interactions between Francisco and Amelia as they cross the desert, as well as their interactions with others. When you finish a run, either by death or success, you get a considerable text dump. It's a little overwhelming. The setting is clearly an analog/metaphor/whatever you'd call it for immigrants crossing into the US, and the storytelling makes for probably the most sympathetic look at that struggle I've seen in games.

You'll quickly encounter repeat events, and a lot of your success is a bit arbitrary in an annoying roguelike way. But it's clear there are several endings, plus a lot of small story-building interactions to be found. Come into it for clever action or a wide breadth of content and you may be disappointed; come in for a strong story and you'll be pleased.

(Copy received via keymailer for streaming purposes. More indie game impressions on Twitch at /radiohupfen.)

(Free copy received for streaming/review purposes.)

This is a tricky review to write.

On the one hand, the game is functionally solid, well-drawn and well-animated, and is just chock full of lovey charm. The battle mechanics are novel and do introduce a level of strategy. It's not a "bad" game, by any stretch.

But it's also really easy and short - my third run was a win, which took 1.5-2 hours to get through, and I'm not great at strategy games. The combat mechanics don't have much depth, with any adaptation coming from different enemies. And then the enemies don't have a great amount of depth. Progression throughout the game doesn't offer much depth either; a win doesn't seem to get you anything. Even the relationship system didn't feel interesting enough; the game became much easier when you have just one partner and do everything with them. (A statement on monogamy vs. polyamory? Probably not.) It came up short on what I think is important in roguelikes: an impulse and reason to play it again.

If you're looking for a small, simple roguelite, then this might be fine for you. It's extremely charming, but it lacks the depth that fans of roguelites and roguelikes probably expect. Worthwhile for a sale—it's not drastically overpriced—just be aware of depth issues.

Full playthrough: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/229082461

(Disclaimer: I have not played co-op yet.)

Playing this game does not ruin friendships.

Picking Dance Party ruins friendships.

Randomly got the game free with my new computer. So.... okay. I like roguelikes. I'll play it.

Overall, pretty good. Generally positive. Did have a few complaints: normal difficulty is rather hard (particularly on your resources), runs go on a little long, and robo-AI-buddy-guy started getting on my nerves. But that's just to my taste, if you're fine with a more brutal game (or you're just really good at space shooters) then you'll probably find it better than I did.

Admittedly, I never had a problem with the release version of the game. Not the best FPS or roguelike I've played, but enjoyable enough to be my longest-running Let's Play game.

The Millennium Edition, though, is a definite improvement. Weapons feel more balanced, modifiers range from fun to frustrating (as they should), game feels easier in some ways and harder in others. Turns it from "yeah, it's nice" to "actually, it's good". Plenty of ways it still could improve (more shop items, more set pieces, more progression mechanisms) but at this stage it's solid enough for a thumbs up.