puzzle – Diabolical Plots

VIDEO GAME REVIEW: Untitled Goose Game

written by David Steffen

Untitled Goose Game is a 2019 puzzle stealth game developed by House House in which you are a goose generally making a nuisance of yourself in a small village.

“It’s a lovely morning in the village, and you are a terrible goose” is the line that starts the game. You are a goose with a purpose, and that purpose is a seemingly arbitrary handwritten list of objectives written on lined notebook paper wherein the only unifying seems to be “to be a nuisance”. As the villagers are trying to go about their daily business tending gardens, running pubs, and otherwise going on about their lives, you are the goose among them causing them endless inconveniences, stealing their things and move those things to other places, honking and scaring them at inconvenient times, and otherwise just generally making their days unpleasant.

Different villagers respond differently to seeing you–though generally most of them will chase you to retrieve their things if they see you stealing them, so much of the game is based on looking inconspicuous until their back is turned and then stealing and running off before they notice. There is also a puzzle element to the game, as many of the objectives give you a general idea what needs to be done but not HOW to do it. For instance, one of the objectives in the first area is to make a man wear a different hat… but how do you do that? Both the hat on his head and the other hat hanging on a hook are out of your reach.

This is a diverting and silly game, and it’s fun to have a game where your main objective is to be rather annoying, but the stakes are not earth-shaking by any stretch of the word.

Visuals
Cute cartoony style, even if it is a little creepy that none of the humans have eyes.

Audio
Very cute, the instrumental music cranks up in intensity when someone starts chasing you, and the HONK noise is amusing enough that I usually just walked around honking whenever I wasn’t trying to be stealthy.

Challenge
Some of the challenges are pretty straightforward, others take some experimentation, but generally it’s pretty low-stakes since the worst thing that generally happens is that a human takes back a thing you stole and puts it back where it was originally. Where the biggest challenge comes in the game is later advanced objectives when you have a time-limit for completing a series of tasks. You have to work quite hard (and also be pretty lucky) to streamline your nuisance-making to fit it in tight time-limits. (It’s also probably the silliest idea in a silly game, who is imposing these time limits on the goose?)

Story
Extremely light on story, which is fine, it’s not a story game. Other than the generally increasing dislike of the villagers toward the goose, there is not much progression. (But that’s okay, it’s not a game you play for story!)

Session Time
Except for the time-based goals later in the game, you can start and stop pretty much whenever, and it will save your progress (even the time-based ones, the time limits are only a few minutes, so it’s not a big time unit anyway).

Playability
Easy, there are only a few buttons–movement with the joystick, a general “manipulate” button, and a dedicated honk button (you can also flap your wings but that is almost never necessary, you can do it just for fun).

Replayability
Certainly some replay value, after you beat the basic objectives you get some extra timed objectives, and even after that you could go back and find new ways to annoy the villagers (such as stealing all of their belongings and hording them in your den).

Originality
Obviously stealth games are nothing new, but this one made quite a stir because the choice of the goose as protagonist and the goals as being just generally ways to be annoying to random villagers made this game a thing of its own.

Playtime
It took me a few hours to play through everything including the advanced objectives.

Overall

A silly and fun stealth puzzle game well worth the time and cost. Even after all of the memes it inspired, I still found it original and fun and did not wear out its welcome. I still go back and play it just for fun even though I have completed all of the objectives.

GAME REVIEW: Life Goes On: Done to Death

written by David Steffen

Life Goes On: Done to death is a platformer puzzle game with a dark sense of humor, published on Steam in April 2014 by Infinite Monkeys Entertainment Ltd.

A king with an obsession with immortality sends the brave knights of his kingdom on a quest to find the Cup of Life. There… is clearly a reason why this immortality-obsessed king didn’t go on the quest himself, since the path to the cup is so dangerous that it leaves a steady trail of dead knights, and each knight only makes their way through the obstacles by using the corpses of the knights that came before them as puzzle-solving tools. At the end of each level is a cup, but it never seems to the Cup..

Using bodies as stepping stones to cross spike pits, to weight down switches, or to scale spike walls, new puzzle components are added every few levels to keep things fresh, though the game felt too drawn out at times so that the level felt somewhat repetitive.

The final boss fight of the game is probably one of the favorite I’ve played in a while, several stages in itself all using the puzzle components you’ve learned throughout the game and using them in a boss fight scenario. Especially fun.

Visuals
Fun and fine for what they are, perfect for a comedy puzzle platformer like this.

Audio
Played it muted most of the time–sound is at least not necessary to play.

Challenge
Decent puzzle challenge. I finished the game without having to look up any of the solutions–a few of the puzzles took me quite a few tries, many of them I got the gist of how to work through them in the first few minutes on the level. Not epicly challenging by any means, but also not trivial. The puzzles add new components as the game goes on which helps keep things fresh, though sometimes I felt like there were too many levels before adding new components, some of the levels started feeling a little repetitive.

Story
Very minor level of story, though it works for what it is–between the levels the level map there are little bits of extra text talking about the story, mostly for some extra pieces of comedy.

Session Time
Most levels, once you know how to solve them, should take only 2 or 3 minutes to finish. Add to that a few more minutes to figure out all the pieces of the puzzle, and most puzzles you can solve without too much agonizing. If you quit in the middle of the level you have to start the level over again, but since the levels are reasonably short that’s not a huge deal.

Playability
Easy controls, just movement and jumping. The challenge is more in figuring out the puzzles and then making sure you do all the steps in the right order and timing and etc.

Replayability
There is some replayability built in, mostly in having target stats for each level–minimizing finish time and body count, as well as whether Jeff was fed.

Originality
Felt quite original. In a familiar genre, but the dark-funny premise of having a steady stream of knights sent to their death and then using their corpses as puzzle components.

Playtime
Steam says it took me about 16 hours of playtime–I feel like that’s longer than it took, maybe I left the game on a few times. But the game did feel like it dragged on sometimes, more levels than were needed to get all the puzzle variants in.

Overall
This game was fun and funny with enough novel puzzle elements and interesting premise, well worth it for fans of puzzle platformers. I thought the number of levels did go on too long so that the puzzles felt repetitive at times. The final boss battle of the game was a major highlight, probably one of the most fun boss battles I have played. $12.99 on Steam.

VIDEO GAME REVIEW: Spoiler Alert

written by David Steffen

spoileralert

You are the Chili Pepper Knight, and you have already vanquished your foe and rescued the princess. But, now, time is rolling backwards and you have to replay the game in reverse, in this comedy platformer from Megafuzz in 2013.

This is harder than you might think, because if you take any actions that contradict original events, then there’s a time paradox that resets the level and you have to redo it. If you see a dead enemy, you have to make sure you unkill the enemy to revive it. If you see a live enemy, you have to AVOID unkilling it, since it never died in the first place. If you see a collected coin you have to uncollect. If you see an uncollected coin, you have to avoid touching it. And so on. The Chili Pepper Knight is constantly running so you’ve got to figure out when to jump to match all of these rules, and different rules apply when the Chili Pepper Knight has a power up like the dragon suit where you have to catch your own fireballs as they come flying back at you.
The concept is simple, the gameplay is simple, and the game’s not particularly long, but it’s an interesting puzzle to wrap your hand around and to get the hang of.

Visuals
Simple, cartoony, but fun.

Audio
Simple, but fun.

Challenge
Not too terribly challenging once you get the hang of it, but it’s a fun distraction while it lasts.

Story
The story is pretty slight, and even more so when it’s told in reverse–the conversations with the boss characters are more than a bit silly (nothing wrong with that, mind you). And there’s not really any explanation for why it’s all rewinding, not that it has to.

Session Time
Each level takes at most a minute or two, and it saves which levels you’ve completed and how well, so it’s pretty easy to shut it off when you need to, making it easy to digest in short spurts.

Playability
Easy. The character is always running (backward) at a constant rate, so most of the time your only choice is to jump. When you have special powerup suits you will also have extra powers that will be one extra button, but still quite simple.

Replayability
There is some replayability in terms of trying to go back and beat each level on your first try, as well as other achievements, and a time trial which strings all the levels back to back nonstop so that to get a perfect score you would have to make it all the way through the game without making any mistakes. So if you’re into that kind of challenge it’s there for you. There is also a level editor where you can set up your own challenges.

Originality
I have certainly never played another game based around trying to avoid time paradoxes in a reverse chronological gameplay, so certainly original!

Playtime
I played through the whole game in about 50 minutes, without any particular effort at playing back through to beat each level on the first try or to beat the time trial. I would’ve liked if the game had been longer.

Overall
Amusing game concept with came with some weird and fun game dynamics. The game is not very long and didn’t wear out its concept in that time–I would’ve liked for it to be a bit longer, but it was pretty fun while it lasted, if not particularly challenging. $3 on Steam.

GAME REVIEW: Teslagrad

written by David Steffen

teslagrad A man walks through the night, carrying a staff and a baby. He knocks on a door, gives the baby to a woman there, and then keeps walking. The baby becomes a man, and henchmen come pounding on the door. The boy flees the men through the night, eventually finding refuge in the mysterious and deadly Tesla Tower.

Teslagrad is a Metroid-style platformer action/adventure puzzle game published by Rain Games in 2013. As you might expect from the name, the obstacles and tools in Tesla Tower are based around electricity and magnetism–opening/closing electrical gates, changing the polarity of objects or of yourself to repel or attract in strategic ways to achieve your objectives.

20161227070934_1
Throughout the game you get tools to help you do these things (and these are shown in the trailer for the game, so it’s nothing you won’t see just checking out the ad material for the game). The first of this is polarity gloves–which you can punch certain objects to switch their polarity. My favorite item is the blink boots, which turn you into a zip of electricity that jumps to the side a short distance–good for bypassing deadly obstacles or for extending your jumping distance.

There are no words in the game apart from the menus. The back story is laid out for you with puppet plays you can discover in theater rooms. New items are not given a wordy tutorial, but rather you are presented with puzzles to figure them out for yourself, or perhaps you will have a drawing on the wall to give you some hints.

20161228154641_1 If you die you just restart in the room where you died, so there isn’t a big penalty for meeting your death–which is good because some of the puzzles are very challenging and it would be very frustrating if dying did have more of a penalty.

Visuals
Nice artwork in the game, some particularly striking areas of the game, and the little puppet plays are a fun way to get the backstory.

Audio
Nice instrumental work (admittedly I often played with no sound)

Challenge
A good level of challenge with puzzles of gradually increasing complexity even as more tools to solve those puzzles becomes available. There are some puzzles that took me quite a few tries to get through, and some of the boss fights are quite challenging (though I did get through them all).

Story
The story of the player character is a bit slight–you know that he is fleeing from violent men in the night, but I’m not exactly sure why they came for him specifically, though I could guess. What’s more fleshed out is the back story of the tower, which you get to watch through a series of puppet shows you can find in different theater rooms in the tower, telling of a prince whose wizard granted him the power of lightning.

Session Time
The game starts and stops quickly, and it saves your progress when you move from one area to another. If you happen to be in the middle of a longer or more complicated room, or happen to be in the middle of a boss fight, then shutting it off may lose some progress, but usually that’s not more than a few minute’s effort.

Playability
The controls are pretty straightforward, with WASD keys for movement and the four arrow keys for tool usage as well as a jump button. Which is good because some of the puzzles require you to use several tools in quick succession while moving through deadly obstacles, so if the control scheme were too complicated it would be hard to keep track. My only complaint is that there is one tool that you get late in the game which acts as a weapon–but nothing in the game tells you that the weapon can be directed upwards. The lack of this information makes the next boss fight not entirely impossible but probably ten times harder.

Replayability
There is some replayability in collectible batteries that require extra little puzzles to be solved to find them. To reach the final boss you have to collect a certain number of those (which I did). There are indications that if you collect them all you will unlock something else (which I didn’t).

Originality
The puzzles felt pretty new to me, I don’t think I’ve seen another game based mostly around polarity puzzles. The “Tesla” in the title served well to catch my eye and draw me into that aspect.

Playtime
It took me about 7 hours to play through the main course of the game, and collecting enough batteries to reach the final area and face the final boss (but without going back through to collect all of the batteries).

Overall
Excellent Metroid-style adventure/puzzle game, cool visuals, challenging puzzles and even more challenging boss fights all based around electricity/magnetism based puzzles. Well worth the play time! $10 on Steam

VIDEO GAME REVIEW: Human Resources Machine

written by David Steffen

You’re a new employee at the company, and it’s time for you to start making your way up the career ladder. They say it’s hard to find good help, but with clear enough instructions, you’ll do exactly what you’re told.

Human Resource Machine is a computer programming logic game that requires no prior programming experience, released in 2015 by Tomorrow Corporation.

20161216231846_1 As you work your way up the career ladder you are given tasks by the company dictating how you need to process the input values that come in on one conveyor belt and produce output values to send on the next conveyor belt. When the game starts you have only a couple simple instructions, Input (which grabs a value off the input belt), and Output (which puts whatever value is in your hands onto the output belt). But soon those instructions expand to include add/subtract operators, conditional branches, unconditional branches, storing values in memory, to retrieving values from variables by reference. The challenges get more complex as you work your way up the career path, and there are extra difficult side-branches you can take if you’re up for a challenge.

20161216231953_1 On each level you can move on if you solve the problem, but you can reach extra achievements if you try to finish optimization challenges. If you can complete the goal under a target amount of instructions in your program, then you will get one achievement. If you can complete the goal with a runtime under a target amount, then you’ll get another. In many cases you will not be able to get both achievements with the same program because in many cases the goals are somewhat counter to each other–reducing the number of instructions means you reuse lines of code as much as possible, but that requires extra jump commands that add to your runtime. The optimization programs will probably be easier if you have a programming background and have covered some material about optimizing code (even though these days most compilers will handle most speed optimizations for you it’s still not a bad idea to understand the concepts). If you want a major hint at optimizing for speed though, search for the term “loop unrolling”–that is the single biggest concept that I used to optimize the first half of the challenges (after that it got harder and I ended up focusing more on just passing the main objective).

Visuals
Simple, but fun.

Audio
Fine, I usually played with the sound off while doing other things, so I didn’t use it too much.

Challenge
Decently escalating challenges, with some optional tracks off the main career tracks that are more challenging. You can also take on some extra challenge by trying to optimize each solution for the number of commands, and optimize for the runtime length.

Story
The story was pretty slight, but that’s fine. With each level you get an explanation for why the company needs you to do this particular thing–such as removing all vowels for budget cuts, etc. As you get further and further in your career you get some glimpses of major things happening in the outside world, but I wouldn’t say they really affect the game, so they’re really only for your amusement.

Session Time
The game is easy to pick and put down. The game boots up and shuts down quite quickly, and it retains whatever work you had put into any job, so if you leave in the middle of finishing a program you can finish where you left off. Makes it very easy to tackle the game in short intervals.

Playability
Straightforward to pick up–click and drag commands from the dictionary, click on variables to finish populating the commands, click and drag commands around inside the program, etc. Then when you run you can adjust between automatically running at different speeds or stepping through or backward for debug purposes. Only thing that would be nice is if there were an option to type commands instead of clicking-and-dragging, simply because my laptop touchpad is kind of annoying and it would’ve been faster to type, but that’s a minor quibble.

Replayability
There is some replayability in that there are some optional branches of jobs to do that are meant to be harder than the main career path, so if you didn’t do those the first time through, you can go back and do them. You can also try to get the optimization achievements on each level by optimizing for speed and optimizing for number of commands (but usually not with the same solution).

Originality
The structure of the puzzles themselves are based on general programming principles common to different languages, but I haven’t seen a lot of games based around it at least.

Playtime
I think that I spent about 8 hours playing the game. That included finishing all the main career path levels as well as all of the optional career path levels, and also getting the optimization achievements for about the first half of those levels.

Overall
If you’re interested in programming or want to at least get a feel for what it’s about, or if you just really like problem solving logic games, then this is probably a good game for you. If you haven’t done any programming before it’s a good way to ease your way in because the way it’s set up is more forgiving then a freeform programming environment where you’re going to spend your early days wrestling with syntax errors. If you have done programming before you will have a major leg up figuring out how to do everything but there is still plenty of challenge there, especially in that the set of commands you have available is fairly simple, meaning that anything complicated you have to handle yourself. Well worth some time and money to play through the game. I thought it was good puzzly fun. $10 on Steam

GAME REVIEW: The Talos Principle

written by David Steffen

The Talos Principle is an FPS-style puzzle game with a philosophical science fictional storyline, developed by Croteam in December 2014.

The game begins as you, a new being, wake up into existence with the disembodied voice of a god-like being that known as Elohim. Elohim sets you on a series of puzzles in different segments of Elohim’s temples to prove your devotion, to earn yourself eternal life. As you go, you find messages left by previous pilgrims who have gone on the same quest before.

20160921223229_1 There are signs that this world is artificial (such as segments of wall fuzzing out, and that the messages from other pilgrims are in the form of QR codes). From time to time you find consoles that are supposed to be connected to the internet, but the net connection is down–you can still see fragments of locally stored files. You try to restore your internet access by working through the Milton Library Assistant which seems to be a little odd.

The puzzles in the game are focused on finding puzzle pieces that are locked behind barriers so that you have to make it past closed gates or hostile security elements (like mines or gatling guns).

An example of a couple of the items used in puzzle elements throughout the game that I thought were particularly interesting:

Disruptor: A tripod-based device that can be pointed at some other kind of device to disable it. This includes electronic gates, so that you can pass through, mines or guns so that you can pass by them without harm. It has its limitations, such as only being able to disrupt one device at a time, and can only actively disrupt something while the tripod is planted (so, for instance, you can’t carry a disruptor through a gate that is being held open by the disruptor, because picking up the disruptor turns it off). And you have to have a line of sight.
Connector: A tripod-based device that can transmit an energy beam from a source to an arbitrary number of receivers. These can be used to open certain kinds of gates or power other devices. And you have to have a line of sight.

As the game goes on, the main obstacle is the puzzles themselves, but a large part of the game is also the theological/philosophical side of the story. Elohim’s instructions discourage exploration, claiming he knows what’s best for you (he is your god after all, or claims to be). But does he know what’s best for you? What is going on in the outside world? When the Milton Library assistant tries to determine if you are human… are you human? Should you pass the test at all?

Visuals
Nothing particularly flashy by today’s standards. The look is relatively simple, but functional.

Audio
Quite liked the voice-acting, which mostly was two voices–the voice of Elohim speaking to you directly, and stored recordings from one of the researchers.

Challenge
It had what I would consider a reasonable level of challenge. Many of the puzzles I could solve with just a bit of experimentation. There were some major head-scratchers that took me quite a bit of time to work through, but I did solve every one without using a walkthrough, so that to me was a very satisfying level. Only a small portion of the game had a time limit, so you generally will have all the time you need to fiddle with all the elements of a puzzle to figure out how you want to approach it and to do some trial-and-error.

Story
Good story. Had a sort of golden age SF feel to it, while also having an interesting puzzle element that was sortof unrelated, and also having the conversational puzzles of dealing with the Milton Library Program.

Session Time
Mostly pretty short. The game auto-saves whenever you enter a puzzle area, solve a puzzle, or when you pass from certain areas, so you can shut the game off at any time without worrying about losing progress. The only exception is that some puzzles are complicated enough that it takes some time to set them up to be solved, and if you shut off in the midst of that you’ll lose your progress–and there’s a segment near the end of the game that you have to complete all at once, but that’s unusual.

Replayability
There’s certainly some replayability. There are collectible stars that you can find in certain puzzles if you explore beyond the strictly necessary areas. These stars can then be used to access locked areas of the game (I don’t actually know what’s in them, as I haven’t taken the time to go try to track all of them down, I tried for a bit but found it tedious since there’s no way to tell exactly where to look I spent a lot of time wandering and not accomplishing anything, which when you’ve only got small windows of playtime gets old fast.

Originality
Reasonably original. The set of items used to solve puzzles was an interesting set, especially the focusing crystals. What really made the game interesting though was as a whole, with the god-like figure of Elohim constantly pushing and prodding, and the Milton Library Assistant acting as a counterpoint to Elohim’s supposed wisdom.

Playtime
It took me about 20 hours according to Steam? I spent a disproportionate amount of time on a few puzzles, determined to solve them without help. And I spent some time looking for stars before giving up.

Overall
Enjoyable puzzle game which also has a branching conversation element in the talks with the Milton Library Assistant. Golden age SF feel to the main plot as you try to figure out what’s going on, how much you can trust various players in the system, and so on. For me it was the perfect level of challenge, enough so that it took some effort, but not so hard to be unsolvable.$40 on Steam.

GAME REVIEW: Minit

written by David Steffen

Minit is a puzzle adventure game with a very short time limit published by Devolver Digital in April 2018.

The story begins as the duckbilled protagonist finds a sword lying on a beach. But it turns out to be a cursed sword that will kill the holder one minute after finding it, only to be spawned back at his house only to repeat again and again and again! Apparently these cursed swords are being produced at a local factory, so you need to go find the factory and complain. Which wouldn’t be so hard, if you didn’t respawn every minute. Minit is an incremental problem solver, where for each incarnation you have a minute to try to make some kind of progress, find a new item, find a new friend who might give you a clue, open a new shortcut to save you time next time. Where the trend is always bigger bigger bigger, bigger world to explore, larger and larger map, it’s an interesting take to head in the other direction. The game is fun, has a good sense of humor and the minute limit keeps everything pretty fast-paced.

Visuals
Very minimalist, down to being strictly black and white (not even gray). Cute graphics, but not complex at all.

Audio
Likewise, extremely simple.

Challenge
Low to medium level of challenge. Persistent players should be able to make their way through just by relentless exploring. There are a couple parts where you have to fight against multiple enemies–you can make it easier if you can find some heart containers first, but it shouldn’t be too hard for most gamers.

Story
Quite light on story, just enough to justify the scenario (with the cursed sword) and the quest (to resolve the issue at the sword factory).

Session Time
Very short! A maximum of a minute, in fact, as you will die at a minute anyway and restart from a house. This does make it a very easy game to pick up even if your time is scattered.

Playability
Very simple controls, generally just arrow keys and attack, so very easy to pick up, and to understand the scenario.

Replayability
There are various collectibles, like coins and hearts and other items. I finished the game only finding about half of them, so you could keep playing if you wanted to find them all.

Originality
The overall story and style is similar to other games, but the interesting tweak here of the 1 minute time limit is an interesting twist on the concept, and was the main thing that made me pick it up.

Playtime
I finished the main quest of the game in about three hours. I haven’t tried to find all the collectibles, so I don’t know how long that would take.

Overall
It’s a fun and simple idea for a game that doesn’t take a lot of skill or attention, and has wonderfully short play sessions to make it easy for people who game in scattered spare time. Worth the time to play through it, but don’t expect it to last you a long time. $10 on Steam.

GAME REVIEW: Hacknet

written by David Steffen

hacknet >I need your help

>I have everything you’ll need

>I will teach you how to use it

>In exchange, I want you to find me

> My name is Bit

> And if you’re reading this

> I’m already dead.

This message, received out of the blue, marks the inciting action for the (mostly)-console-based white-hat hacking game Hacknet, published on Steam in August 2015 by Team Fractal Alligator.

The entire game interface takes place on a combination text console that’s made somewhat easier by the graphical interface. The text commands are Linux-based, so if you are familiar with Linux console commands then you’ve got a headstart on navigating the game world, but you do not have to be a computer expert to be able to pick up the game.

The automated message from Bit sets you on a mission to find out what happened to Bit. This is a rather roundabout mission, as it starts with you learning the console commands, working on simple hack missions, building the trust of hacking organizations, and gaining wider access and more powerful hacking tools.

The game gives the impression that it is written with real security principles in mind, and has some interesting points to make about bad security practices–i.e. choosing insecure passwords, reusing passwords, etc. But it’s certainly not a real-life hacking tutorial by any means. Most of the hacking procedures involve running executable programs that you have acquired either from the automated sending programs Bit left behind or from other sources–one program to break an FTP port, one program to break a web port, etc.

The game has some story, all centered around the central premise of hacking, as well as a fair amount of unrelated missions that you work through just to gain credibility with the hacking community. Since the player character has no backstory there is no story reveal there, you are who you are.

The game was generally pretty fun, though occasionally got a little repetitive. There were some particularly interesting missions, including one where you are forced to operate without the graphical interface, using the console only.

What really failed for the game is that there is a major unresolved bug that left me stuck in what would be an unwinnable state if not for walkthroughs. There are several stages of the game where you have to work on a list of missions given by hacker organizations to increase your credibility to a point where the next story mission can occur. These lists do not specify what order you must do the missions in the list, and when you pass the credibility threshold then the next story mission occurs immediately. Once that story mission starts, you can’t take any of the missions from the previous list, and you can’t cancel this mission to go back. So the issue happened when the story mission assumes you have a hacking utility program that you gained by doing one of the missions on the list. BUT THE GAME DOES NOT ENFORCE THAT YOU COMPLETE THE LISTED MISSION BEFORE THE STORY MISSION. So you end up on a long goose chase of a mission and have to hack into a computer, but you don’t have the right utility program to finish the job. It’s set up in such a way that it’s not super obvious that you are high and dry but I guessed that the programmers screwed up and found a walkthrough to confirm and to find a way around it. Without the walkthrough I would’ve had to restart the game and try not to repeat the mistake–with the walkthrough I could go to a particular IP address (which is only normally available as part of that mission) and could hack into it to get the hacking utility function.

That bug should’ve been found by the programming team, and should’ve been corrected by now. It should be a simple matter to correct–just don’t launch that story mission until the correct prerequisite mission is complete. Any competent tester would’ve found that dependency on their first try considering I wasn’t seeking bugs, I was just playing. This is embarrassing for the company and it makes me wary of getting other games from the company, even though I enjoyed playing this one overall.

Visuals
Almost nonexistent. The game allows different skins to be applied mid-game, but it’s mostly just color schemes and rearrangement of text information windows.

Audio
I don’t entirely know, I played it mostly without audio and didn’t experience a detriment from it.

Challenge
I think the game should be possible for someone with no programming or console experience, but I think it’s easier if you have some experience with that. The biggest challenge is trying to recognize when you’ve reached that unwinnable state and it’s time to find a walkthrough

Story
The story was okay. Nothing that I’d call exceptional, but it served the purpose of giving an excuse to do a bunch of hacking missions. The biggest sticking point is why Bit would, instead of reaching out to a friend, would send messages to a complete stranger who is completely unexperienced at hacking.

Session Time
Nice and short, just the way I like it. You can save and quit at almost any time.

Playability
Takes some learning to get all the console commands, and the few times that you have to use them at urgent speed might be very challenging for some. But I thought the game did a reasonable enough job teaching the navigation.

Replayability
If you don’t look up the walkthrough you’ll probably HAVE to replay to finish the game. And, completionists will probably have to replay multiple times because it doesn’t let you finish all the missions on a list before the story hijacks the mission list and then you can’t go back–the completionist in me found that kind of annoying as well.

Originality
I haven’t played another game based around hacking, nor working entirely through console commands (well, apart from old text-based adventures I suppose, but I mean where the console is actually an in-game console rather than just being the interface to a different kind of game).

Playtime
About 7 hours to finish according to Steam? That includes a fair amount of time trying to work around the game-halting bug..

Overall
Fun game, novel setup and interface, based around real Linux commands. The massive game-halting bug keeps me from really recommending it to anyone, unfortunately, and such lax game testing as that bug implies makes me wary of buying more games from this company again. $10 on Steam.