Recent reviews by ZPE

Wordle is a very simplistic word game that has you chaining letters in a cross-search fashion to find words based around various themes. There's not much to it other than doing said puzzles, there's no sound or BGM to help break the tedium so your own is advisable.

Giving it a thumbs up as I got it in a 5-pack Wordle dollar bundle from Fanatical and that's just about how much it's worth (it's nowhere near worth it's base price of £16.75). Playtime is roughly about 1-2 hours for anyone used to word games. It has trading cards and achievements to add a perfect game +1 so at least it's got that going for it.

Oh and be careful of accidentally clicking on the clear data button, which asks for no confirmation and deletes your entire save.

As the name implies, I Am Future is a very relaxing game if you set the slider all the way to relaxing (minimal survival mechanics). You might want to try the middle path on first playthrough so cooking isn't made redundant.

The main crux of the game devolves into progressively repairing/crafting and upgrading structures scrapped from old parts and resources - to complete objectives.

There are some performance issues with FPS drops the longer you play (maybe something to do with the constant weeds popping up), the story is nothing memorable but it has its charms with some of the characters. No controller support as of writing.

It's still in early access but I think I got most of what I wanted out of the game despite some high level upgrades being unavailable. One playthrough should take about 10-12 hours with some additional hours to do a second run if you ate some grass because there's an achievement for not eating that for some reason.

Anuchard wasn't a game I heard of until it featured in Fanatical's Killer 24 Bundle, the gameplay looked very much like CrossCode (and Steam store reinforced that with on the sidebar) so I just kept a tab on this game for a future opportunity to buy it however a kind soul gifted me the game anyway.

The store page does well to explain what the game is about so I'll just mention the things that I liked (and disliked) in the ten or so hours it took to complete it - it's probabably less than that as I restarted early on when a side-quest expired when I cleared the first dungeon. Those are meant to be cleared before you enter the dungeon and you can check the town bulletin to see if it has been cleared for that chapter.

The gameplay loop involves solving puzzles to activate locks on doors to progress to the next area. The puzzles themselves, usually in the form of deflecting bubbles off walls towards switches were very straight-forward especially compared to the likes of CrossCode. I didn't mind but those looking for a real challenge probably will be disappointed. Some rooms have monsters in them, combat is nothing amazing with a light and heavy attack (combined with dodge) - the latter reserved for armoured varieties.

At the end there's a boss fight, all of them had easy-to-read patterns making them somewhat trivial. I died a few times but that was mostly because I was too impatient. You can put down a sphire which can heal and later through upgrades shoot projectiles that make these fights much easier. There's also an accessibility option to reduce damage if things get too much.

Upgrades are all handled in the workshop you unlock early on and you can spend the collectibles you pick up from the dungeons to gradually unlock more as you go. Some ways in, you can revisit dungeons to get missed collectables but unfortunately, you can't exit the dungeon after picking them up so you have to finish the entire dungeon again (dying will not let you keep them). For this reason, it's best to collect all of them before you finish the dungeon, saves a lot of trouble for later if you are going for 100% - this took me about 10 hours.

The few frustrations I had was mainly to do with the combat mechanics which were a bit unpolished and on rare occasions bugged out requiring taking damage. Auto-saves would have been nice instead of running back to one location though fast travel points are unlocked as you progress so it doesn't matter too much. Dialogue can also be excessive at times and you might find yourself spamming confirm to get through some of the heavier segments.

Overall, I enjoyed Anuchard a lot and would definitely recommend getting it on sale or in a bundle.

Holy Potatoes! A Spy Story?! is one of those games that are very grindy and repetitive frequently found on the mobile store (Dungeon Village comes to mind) but if it hooks you in, you can be spending a lot of time on it.

A few reviews mention you lose your spies because they get unhappy eventually but you can splice two existing spies and get a better, improved spy and down the line, the older spies you retired can show up again. I don't think this is a bad thing and keeps thing fresh. The game can be chaotic with quest timers and RNG-based scenarios and using the three save slots to reload on mistakes and bad outcomes is a must.

What is disappointing is, 2-3 years on, the achievements are still broken and can't recommend it as it is frustrating to find this out later on if you want to get 100%. If you can ignore that, it's worth trying out but I would only get it for dirt cheap like it is right now on GMG for under £1 per game or in a bundle.

Outward was on my backlog for a long time, I didn't particularly like the survival mechanics and fiendishly difficult enemies everywhere but gave another chance this year and managed to actually complete one play through of it under the Blue Chamber quest line (there are at least three factions in the base game).

The sense of exploration running from one city to another and side-tracking into dungeons and camps is exactly why I enjoy RPGs and Outward offers a lot of that. Not on the same scope as a big budget title like Skyrim but it has enough to offer.

The main problems I had with the game was having to remember to eat, drink and sleep as well as trying to fight out random diseases that are easily caught and a pain to remove without knowing the right tea recipe.

Early on, it was brutal and sometimes it just made me stop playing altogether. There are timers on some quests and no fast travel makes it a big issue alongside food that spoils far too easily. A lot of time was spent sleep trying to repair my equipment while trying to keep the sleep stat in the green.

Not even death means an escape. I ended up back in the same place with low health or in some bandit camp having to break out. There's also good areas to respawn such as a nearby town or in an old hermit's cabin. It can get frustrating but it makes you more careful when engaging enemies.

Survival is a core part of the game and if you want to play through Outward, you just have to learn to cope with it. There are ways to minimise this such as learning a metabolism perk some ways into the game, cooking the right meals and backpacks that preserve food better. I didn't use Quality of Life mods but that's an option too.

There weren't any bugs that I came across apart from a quest that didn't activate in a fort.

Outward was a pretty memorable experience alongside a complementary soundtrack. I'm hoping the Definitive Edition released today will fix a lot of the QoL issues in the base game. Perhaps another journey into Aurai is due sometime in the future.

Sydney Hunter and the Curse of the Mayan is a very enjoyable. fluid 2D platformer, with light Metroidvania elements where you return to previous areas with new abilities. Finding secrets is easy enough not to get in the way of progression without having to use a guide. Checkpoints that heal you are plentiful to make dying less frustrating too. Boss fights are pretty straight forward and not too difficult with a good stock of potions.

Only negative I could find was that I didn't like the obligatory arcade side scrolling mini game that was wedged in (made little sense with the story too to have an arcade machine in a Mayan temple). The timing of the jumps needed as you scrolled left to right felt off. Thankfully you don't need to beat that entire game to finish the main story (needed for 100% though).

Overall, a well-made platformer that took me back to simpler times.

I took a few false starts to finally get in the zone for The Surge as I don't particularly like Souls-like games but this game had a pretty well made limb-targeting gear system to it as well as a multiplier on dropped tech scrap (currency) making a lot of the combat manageable. The story is pretty generic and the world lore is learnt through audio logs and the odd NPC. There are no living hubs so it can feel pretty desolate.

The area levels which can get confusing with no in-game map, some areas can get really frustrating. The similar colour palettes don't help. Shortcuts back to base are plentiful enough to counter-balance this but enemies also respawn on previously paths prolonging the pain.

I enjoyed most of the game though but the occasional crashes and most disappointingly, at the start of the ending cinematic which lead to not getting one of the ending achievements and forcing a restart (NG+) without any prompt. The game only has one autosave file, no manual/back-up saves - I found this out too late.

On that note, unless this game is in some killer bundle (like my copy was), I can't really recommend it.

Hidden Folks just past the five year mark since its release, I played it a lot on Android OS and later on Itch.io. Recently picked it up in a Fanatical bundle so I thought might as well play it again on Steam. Very polished and at times, a relaxing hidden object game. It can get a bit frustrating with some of the vague clues but one of those staple games that you don't mind replaying now and again.

Timelie is a short stealth puzzle with a rewind function used as a trial-and-error tool to navigate to each level's exit. This felt like a mobile game from start to finish but the ginger cat carried the game to the end.

The game is rather short, the story very vague and even when I found out I hadn't got the secret ending, that itself didn't really reveal anything.

I'm not a big puzzle fan but it was pretty straight forward for the most part. Collecting some of the time relics proved a bit tough though especially the ones that rely on previous levels and how the player clears them but eventually it all clicked in the end.

It's not a masterpiece but it's not bad either.

Marooners is a pretty enjoyable game, especially if you're stuck on babysitting duties. I just zoned out as I played this and of course let them win (most of the time).

I didn't try online but I imagine it's a ghost town by now, the achievements let you mix online/offline so it shouldn't be a problem getting 100%.

Collectively, we managed to get all achievements so it must have done something right however the content within the game leaves a lot to be desired as the small pool of mini games limits the time you want to spend on it. Especially if you have superior games within this genre such as Mario Party, Gang Beasts etc. Sadly, a lack of content updates put an end to this game's lifespan very quickly.

The game is currently 90% (71p) off in the Remote Play sale so if you have the numbers locally to give it a go, I would recommend it. You'll probably see everything the game has to offer in two hours anyway so you can decide if it's worth keeping in that time.