Recent reviews by Graeldon

I'm playing Steam games in alphabetical order, and you can watch my review here:

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There are two versions of this game, and this is the free version that comes with only 2 maps, and a few unlockable weapons. Not that it'll do you much good, as there aren't any dedicated servers and no players online. This is a FPS that harkens back to the original COD: Modern Warfare days, but with none of the polish that made those games fun. It's also riddled with bugs such as being able to stand against a wall and be out of bounds because your gun is poking through. The gun mechanics are okay, but the bots are literal aimbots, so good luck getting any enjoyment out of them.
Unfortunately, this is basically just a dead, foundation level FPS. If you're curious about it, try a couple of rounds with friends - it is free after all - just don't expect much.

I'm playing Steam games in alphabetical order, and you can watch my review here:

Prefer to read?
There are two versions of this game, and this is the paid version that comes with more maps and unlockable weapons. Not that it'll do you much good, as there aren't any dedicated servers and no players online. This is a FPS that harkens back to the original COD: Modern Warfare days, but with none of the polish that made those games fun. It's also riddled with bugs such as being able to stand against a wall and be out of bounds because your gun is poking through. The gun mechanics are okay, but the bots are literal aimbots, so good luck getting any enjoyment out of them.
Unfortunately, this is basically just a dead, foundation level FPS. If you're curious about it, try the free version instead of this one.

I'm playing Steam games in alphabetical order and you can watch my review here:

Prefer to read?
100 Keys To Your Heart is a cute 2D puzzle platformer with great ideas, good implementation, thoughtful puzzles and an awful menu. The core gameplay revolves around the idea of opening locks with different length keys, and carrying multiple keys at once restricts your movement. As you progress you'll uncover keys with new abilities, and the level design is clever in the way that it loops back on itself, without the need for back-tracking. The OST is also really well done, with consistent themes throughout, and enough variation to avoid becoming repetitive even after being stuck on a level for a while.
If you can look past the janky main menu, there is a solid game to found here with some interesting mechanics - however at only a couple of hours playtime I feel it's a bit overpriced, and I'd recommend picking it up on sale.

I'm reviewing Steam games in alphabetical order, and you can watch my review here:

Prefer to read?
Another point and click escape room style puzzle game from Peaksel. This is their earliest one, and is a free to play port of a mobile game, complete with microtransactions that allow you to purchase coins that are spent on hints and level skips.
That said, you can play through this game completely for free, and it will take roughly 4-6 hours depending on your puzzle solving skills.
The art is a bit generic, but detailed, and I'm personally not a fan of the style for the main character - to me they look disproportionate and creepy. The puzzles are generally pretty good, without too many weird leaps of logic to solve them. In fact, they play into the school setting with many puzzles based on knowledge you may have from taking classes in different subjects.

It's a pretty average puzzle game overall, not really doing anything to stand out from the sea of similar games, but being free scores it a few extra points. Worth checking out if you enjoy the genre, otherwise, ignore.

I'm reviewing Steam games in alphabetical order, and you can watch my review here:

Prefer to read?
This is one of Peaksels older point and click escape room style puzzle games. Unfortunately it's also the most broken. Not only did one puzzle appear to be unsolvable without hints, but after completion is skipped me to the end of the game, completing every level at the same time. So the level progression simply doesn't work.
The art is also pretty forgettable, and considering that each room is meant to be based on the actual office of a real-world company, it's a shame that there is literally nothing to help the player figure out which companies were featured.

Even if you're a fan of the genre, I'd steer clear of this one.

I'm reviewing Steam games in alphabetical order, and you can watch my review here:

Prefer to read?
Yet another point and click, escape room style puzzle game by Peaksel. This one features more bright and colourful graphics than their previous games, but the core mechanics are more or less identical. This one suffers the least from being ported over from mobile, and played well from start to finish. As with the others, it suffers from encouraging the use of level skips, essentially giving the player the feel that even the devs don't care if you play the levels or not. Some of the puzzle solutions are pretty nonsensical, but if you enjoy these kinds of puzzle games you're probably used to that and will still have a good time here.

Wouldn't recommend it to non-puzzle/escape room enjoyers, and even then I'd only recommend it on sale to those that do. Decent enough, but don't go out of your way to get it.

I'm reviewing Steam games in alphabetical order, and you can watch my review here:

Prefer to read?
This is a point&click hidden object style game about escaping from a mysterious prison. Each room is a self-contained puzzle that requires you to use items in the room by interacting with them or combining them in order to escape. The main character is modelled after Beren Guney, an instagram model and influencer, but a large percentage of the art appears to be AI generated, or at least AI was used during the creation process. Puzzles range in difficulty between extremely easy, and frustratingly obtuse - not necessarily intentionally by the devs, but because some of the puzzle solutions are frankly ridiculous. There are also many issues that appear to be a direct result of the port from mobile, such as menus with touch screen style controls, and a "mission" system that doesn't provide any rewards. The game also encourages the use of hints or skips to bypass levels, while also having a point system that rewards fast (non-skip) completion of levels, showing that the design is at odds with itself.

That said, the game plays just fine, and if you happen to enjoy these kinds of games you'll probably have a good time, as there is nothing the game does that is outrageously wrong, it's just a lot of small things. Maybe pick it up on sale, or grab the free version from your mobile app store.

I'm playing games in alphabetical order and you can watch my review here:

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There are much better match 3 games out there. This one tries to tell a story about rebuilding an airport in 100 days, while also telling a who-dunnit style murder mystery when your boss dies after the first day.
None of the story makes any coherent sense, sentences contradict each other, thoughts trail off, and questions go unanswered. The plot is also never properly resolved, the killer isn't revealed or apprehended, and it's unclear if it was just an accident.
The plot also ends on level 88, with the remainder of the levels being playable and earning you stars that cannot be spent on anything. There are only two music tracks, which get grating very quickly. There are also a handful of bugs with vanishing tiles, duplicating tiles, or visual effects that fail to play. For example, there is a mexican-wave style pattern that begins when you finish a level. It gets halfway across before freezing. Much like my enthusiasm for the game.

tl;dr not worth your time or money unless you really, really love match 3 games.

I played through this game live, feel free to check out the VOD here if want to see it in action: https://youtube.com/live/dDq5Cv22nEM

KOUR 64 is the result of combining the collect-a-thon aspects of Banjo-Kazooie with the movement of Mirror's Edge and then cramming it into a Nintendo 64.
It's a blocky, chunky, graphical mess that nails the fever-dream like aesthetic, with excellent level design and player movement that makes exploring each level a joy. There are multiple paths for each stage, and great variety between the open, explorable maps, the frantic slide levels, sky-diving, and time trial races. This game has amazing speed running potential, if it's able to get in front of the right people, but is also accessible enough for the average player.

It has some rough edges: The music is sometimes a bit soft, dialogue boxes can't be progressed without moving away from the NPC and back again, and the movement physics sometimes mess up slightly, but it's rare when that happens. Personally I'd like to see a few more powerups (maybe I just missed them) like a grapple/hookshot, or a double-jump, even if there are restricted to a specific level, simply because they'd lend themselves well to the already great movement.

This game is simply fun to mess around in, and I had a great time playing through it!

I'm playing games in alphabetical order, and you can watch my review here:

Prefer to read?
This is a first person survival crafting that is currently, and like forever will be, in alpha. As far as I can tell this project is completely abandoned.
It had some interesting ideas, such as having a defined end goal instead of being a simple sandbox, and having an in-world crafting system instead of using menus,
However, the game is barely functional, as you will often and seemingly at random, fall through the world and be forced to restart. The crafting system is barely present, rocks give planks when mined instead of stone, most NPC's have no animations, stairs are too steep to walk up easily, you can't drop items, the day counter skips day 2 completely, and the hunger meter doesn't work correctly.
You could survive 100 days easily by climbing a mountain and then standing perfectly still, because walking is somehow more dangerous than anything else in this game.