Slyderule

One Night: Burlesque sounded interesting to me, but it fell short. It's not bad, but it isn't good, either. If I'd paid full price, I'd have been very disappointed. I'm not really sure what one would categorize this game as. The story line is a murder mystery, but much of the player's mystery-solving will be trying to figure out how to work the user interface, which varies from screen to screen. You're told which buttons, joysticks, or triggers to use, but not what you're supposed to do with them. It's an illustrated text game, and the graphics aren't particularly compelling. Neither is the sound track. But they're okay, and doubtless some people will really like them. Still, it'd be a reasonable diversion except for the price/value consideration. It takes right around one hour to play, and the $12.99 price point is really hard to justify. I picked it up on sale for $1.99, and it still felt short for me. There are multiple endings (I don't know how many), so you might choose to play it through a number of times, but only little bits of the content will change based on your choices, so it can feel repetitive. Another thing that grated on me was the poor text editing (game version 1.0.0). Names were spelled differently in different places. The English translation (I assume it's a translation) was uneven at best, particularly regarding conjugation of verbs. They used the term "psycho" to mean "psychic." There were a few spots where I couldn't make sense of what was being said. With the game relying entirely on text, that's a big problem.

Space Commander: War and Trade is a space combat and commerce RPG with excellent graphics, sound effects, and a well-imagined world, all at a budget price. But it operates quite differently from most space combat and trading games, and those differences have thrown many of the reviewers. Combat and trade are generally separate activities. Warships have no cargo holds, and cargo ships have only some weak defensive weapons. Straight cargo runs don't involve any combat unless you take too long in transit, which can allow pirates to catch up. Even then you can usually just run away. Combat missions other than campaign-related ones are obtained via contracts that you can pick up at various stations. Running around looking for someone to fight isn't going to be productive. Combat contracts often don't pay enough to cover your expenses (fuel, repairs, rearming), and campaign missions don't pay you anything at all. You need to do some serious trading to afford combat. The combat is arcade-style, not full 6-degree-of-freedom space combat. In fact, the flight controls operate the same in space as in atmosphere. There's an up and a down, with a ceiling and a floor. Combat against smaller ships is also arcade style, involving multiple waves of fairly easily destroyed enemies. Combat against bigger ships, and destroying structures, can require some tactical thought if you want to survive. In the bigger battles you encounter later in the game, the simplified flight system turns out to be very helpful in keeping from getting disoriented. Trade is mainly handled via contracts that you can pick up at various stations. You certainly can trade independently, but it's hard to make much money at it. The contracts are where the money is. The economic system is very unusual. The needs and products of each station depend almost entirely on the mining and industrial facilities at that station, and they don't vary much over time. Those, in turn, are influenced by the location within the solar system and the faction running the station. Mining products and industrial materials can't be sold except to stations advertising that they use them, and many of the higher-priced goods aren't in much demand except when a contract calls for them. Later in the game, you get the opportunity to start building up a manufacturing operation of your own. You can buy stations and build mining or industrial facilities as appropriate. Don't expect to be profitable right away, but in the long term a well-run operation can produce significant profits. Also later in the game, wormholes open up to other star systems. Unfortunately, that part of the game is very disappointing. There's little of value in the other star systems except that you can build up a separate manufacturing operation in each one. Considering them for that purpose, the star systems range from fairly easy (e.g. Alpha Centauri) to very challenging (e.g. Sirius). You're able to have as many as 54 separate manufacturing operations within your one game save: one in each star system. The main campaign story line ends with a surprise twist. That twist, however, doesn't actually affect the game play. After the main campaign story finishes, war regularly breaks out between the various factions. You'll have the opportunity to engage in large-scale battles, often involving maybe half a dozen enemy capital ships and dozens of enemy light craft already on the battlefield, with more light craft waiting. Many of the battles also feature a number of friendly forces, and the battle zone can get a bit crowded. It's nothing like the simple skirmishes of the early parts of the game. Two additional campaigns are focused entirely on arcade-style combat. The Tau Ceti campaign is set following the main campaign, while the other campaign is combat simulator training. Considering its budget price, Space Commander: War and Trade offers a lot of value for those who generally prefer the trading side over the combat side. Fans of arcade space combat would probably enjoy it, too.

A botched Switch port of the mobile game. Targeting is frustrating as the target point jumps hither and yon without discernible control, and there's no way to use the special missiles. No touchscreen interface, either. The music becomes intolerably annoying by level 3, but it doesn't have a separate volume control or a disable checkbox. If you want to turn off the music, you have to turn off all sound. Maybe they'll fix some of this in a later version. But version 1 isn't worth the $1 that they're charging.

Pix Arts has a reputation for republishing low-quality games they've picked up off the Unity Store, but this time they've outdone themselves. Pro Flight Simulator (version 1.0.0) is unplayable. The stick and throttle controls don't operate properly, and the rudder controls don't operate at all. Getting airborne is difficult, and it involves running off the side of the runway because the plane is positioned crooked initially and there's no way to steer until you're airborne. The pitch is trimmed heavily nose-down, so you need to keep pulling back on the stick, but that mainly triggers stall warnings. The throttle is stuck at "83%," with the throttle control only providing a momentary blip of increased or decreased power. Getting above a few hundred feet of altitude is a challenge. If you do manage to gain some altitude, the graphics begin to break up. Not there was much to see: the ground is very basic terrain of hills, roads, rivers, etc. with no detail to it. There's nothing in the sky. There's nothing to see, and nothing to do. Just fight to keep the airplane flying, which you shouldn't have to do.

After 45 days of play, I've given up. I no longer believe the continual promises that it'll get better later in the game. The reality is that it keeps getting a tiny bit worse with each "advance," and the game wasn't exciting to begin with. There's not much to love about being a gofer for an ever-increasing number of spirits. These spirits have personal issues that are serious enough to keep them stuck in the material world. They're not lovable spirits, nor even likeable. And they just keep getting increasingly demanding every day. There's not really much more to Cozy Grove than finding hidden objects for the spirits, or buying things from the store for them (with your own funds). You can't chat with the spirits, except that a few will deliver up to two canned thoughts per day. You can't build anything. You can't change the island (it changes on its own). Probably the most disappointing aspect is that you have no choices to make; just do as you're told. You're a kid doing chores for the grown-ups. Maybe they should've called it Chore Simulator.

I suppose the game's title sets up some incorrect expectations. This is fundamentally a resource-management game where aerial battle is how you acquire your basic resources. The only progression is in your squadron equipment and people, airbase facilities, and reserve basic resources. The combat sequences aren't connected to each other. You have four basic resources. Gold is mainly used to acquire aircraft, recruit crewmembers, and build aircraft-support facilities like hangars and fuel tanks. Silver is used for routine airfield maintenance costs and for airfield defense equipment, for upgrading aircraft, and for training crewmembers. Either gold or silver can be used for buying gasoline, which is of course used by your aircraft. Prestige points can be used for management training, reducing costs and increasing income. Gold and prestige points can be converted to silver if you need more of that; especially after you've finished all of your management training, it gives you something to do with your prestige points. Occasionally you'll be give the option to convert some of your fuel into a small amount of gold. Each combat mission will provide you with some of all four basic resources. There are four types of missions, and each will provide extra of one kind of resource. Attack missions involve air-to-air combat and/or ground attack (basically bombing), and provide extra gasoline. Defense missions are air-to-air combat, defending friendlies against bombers, and provide extra silver (there are some forced missions defending your own airfield). Naval missions involve air-to-air combat and/or attacks against ships (bombing or torpedoes or both, your choice), and provide extra prestige points. Special missions are generally harder versions of attack missions, and provide extra gold. And yeah, there's not all that much variation in missions. You've got air-to-air and air-to-ground (or air-to-ship), and what else is there? Some missions are easy, some are hard. Some of the tougher air-to-ground (or ship) missions require that you keep sending your bombers back to reload because there are too many hardened targets to take out with one run... unless you've built up a fleet of impressive bombers. The aerial combat is 3D third-person arcade combat. Nobody's going to confuse it with a flight simulator. In "normal" usage, you can use the ZL key to lock on a target, continually track it, and even automatically lead it for your shots. ZL doesn't work on ground targets, and you're not forced to use it on airborne targets. If you want, you can disable the ZL in the Settings menu and get some extra points on the mission. Combat management starts with selecting a mission. Then you select which aircraft will go on the mission. If there are air-to-ground or air-to-ship aspects, you'll need to select appropriate bomb loads. Once the mission starts, if you've got more than one plane, you have some more management to do. You can select which plane you're controlling at the moment, and tell the other planes what they should do: attack aircraft, attack ground vehicles and installations, or bomb structures or ships. You can give them multiple options, or if you don't assign them anything, they'll just loiter outside of the combat zone. As the mission progresses, you may need to send bombers back for reloading, or send damaged aircraft back to base. All the while dealing with your own plane. With Version 2 just released on Switch, there are now five countries you can fly for: America, England, Germany, Russia, and Japan. Each offers a large variety of planes. Each country is like its own game-save slot: you build up your squadron and your management skills separately in each country. Although the countries are basically separate, there is an ability to transfer gold from one country to another. Considering the low cost, Warplanes: WW2 Dogfight provides a lot of value. That is, IF you're interested in a resource management game where your "bread-winning" is arcade aerial combat. If you're looking for a strong combat game, this might not be it.

I wanted to like this game. I really tried to like this game. But... The truly unique game concept, combined with a slower pace, attracted me. This sounded like it was just the sort of game I could lose myself in. And I have to admit there are parts that still keep pulling at me to come back and play some more, but they're just not enough to get me there. The problem is that, at least on the Switch (version 1.0.0.3), the game mechanics are broken. It's frustrating and infuriating. Someone asks you for a scary story, you tell them one, and they reply something like, "I don't see how you found that story to be funny." And variations on that. It's impossible to tell what the person really wants to hear. The traveling -- which pretty much all of the reviews will tell you is terribly boring -- is made even worse because the hitch-hiking mechanic is broken. When a car stops and offers you a ride, there's no way to accept the ride. I've tried all of the buttons, and nothing works. The car eventually quits waiting and drives off. Grrr. Speaking of travel, the Controls screen says that pressing the D-pad UP will bring up the map. Nope. To get the map, you have to press + and then use L/R to select Map. In keeping with the rest of the game, navigating the map is quite slow. Also speaking of travel, you can only cross major rivers at specific points, which may be many states apart. You can't cross at a road bridge or a railroad bridge, unless you've found a way to hitchhike or are riding the train. I found this to add to my frustration. If you're a fan of Americana music, you'll probably love the soundtrack. I'm a weirdo who always turns the music down in the games I play, so that's not a big draw for me. If you're using whistling to speed up your travel, the whistling drowns out the music. The stories you collect are, by and large, short and pointless. I imagine they're not supposed to be fully-fleshed out, because a big part of the game is that when you tell a story, it gets embellished by others. Being set in the Depression and Dust Bowl era, almost all of the stories are downers, which is a problem when you want to find a funny one to tell. I didn't find the stories themselves to be a compelling reason to play, but some people might. Or maybe it's because I gave up before the stories started really filling out. Keythe Farley's narration of the stories is great. That's a definite high point for the game. One thing I haven't seen mentioned in any of the reviews I've read: the stories trend strongly toward the paranormal, supernatural, and downright fantastic. They're full of talking animals, ghosts, the undead, witches, and demons. Your avatar in the game is a skeleton, and the narrative sequence that launches you into collecting stories is pure dreamscape. This is definitely not the real world you're playing in. I did find one anachronism: one of the stories involves a VW bus, but those first appeared in 1950. Perhaps time-travel is another fantasy aspect of the game? So... big props to the creators for coming up with a unique concept. But the broken gameplay on the Switch port made it all seem pointless, and the paranormal fantasy world caught me off-guard. Others might find the stories and especially the music to be sufficient reason to play.

Path of Sin: Greed is basically a point-and-click game with puzzles. Hidden-object puzzles are particularly common, and a variety of other puzzle types round it out. What I really liked is that where most point-and-click games try to extend your play-time by making you run around all over the map, back and forth many times, you don't have to do that here. You can, if you want. But if you play in the easy mode, you can jump directly to any room on the map, and -- even better -- the map shows which rooms have something that you can accomplish at the moment. So when you collect a new object, you can check the map and jump directly to the room where it's useful. I found the hint mechanism to be excellent, too, the few times I needed it. I didn't have any need to find a walk-through on the web, which for me is extremely unusual. I'm afraid I don't have the patience to spend hours trying to get past a certain sticking point. So, okay. What I liked most is it wasn't too hard. The game didn't leave me hung out to dry for hours at a time, with only my own limited wits to figure out how to make progress. And it didn't make me jump through hoops just to slow me down. If you like your games hard, there is a harder difficulty setting that makes the map much less helpful. The game mechanics tripped me up a few times until I finally caught on. During the investigation, you're gathering clues (of course). So here's the thing: at any given time, you're mainly trying to answer one question, shown in the "unfiled" category. In the beginning, for example, it's "what happened to the dead guy." You need to sort the clues into ones that help answer that question and ones that help answer different questions like "who" and "why." Once you have all the clues for one question, that answer gets "filed" and you can move on to the next question. When you've gathered all of the clues for the current question, but haven't yet sorted them, there's an indication in the bottom left corner of the screen. But here's a quirky thing... until you get the clues sorted and filed, the map will show there's something to be done in whatever room you're currently in. But it's not the room that needs attention, it's your clue collection. A similar thing happens when you can combine two objects in your possession. A green plus sign appears in the lower-right corner of the screen, and with the object in your inventory. And the map will show there's something to be done in whatever room you're in. The Switch version includes a follow-on investigation, which isn't as long as the primary one but still is substantial.

An interesting concept with a generally high-quality implementation, but the lack of any kind of satisfying ending is very disappointing. After you've pulled enough videos you'll have a fair idea of what happened, but that doesn't get you anything. There's no payoff. The "Karen" character who's doing this research is likely going to prison for it, and her accomplice who got her the illegal database copy will probably be arrested, too. So there must be some deeply important motivation at work, but there doesn't actually seem to be any. The stories you uncover aren't compelling enough in themselves to make the effort worthwhile. You're done playing whenever you're no longer finding any new videos that are interesting. There's also an apparent time limit for the research, but that's more of a mechanism for triggering the credits than it is for marking the end of the game. You can keep playing after that. Here are two hints on the user interface (Switch) that will make it easier to play. 1. If you hold the ZL trigger down while launching a video, and keep it held until it quits buzzing, the video will be positioned at the start and can be played simply by pressing A. 2. You can easily view your bookmarked videos in chronological order in the Bookmarks tab, so it's worthwhile bookmarking every video.