A short enjoyable puzzle game with a couple of cool mechanics and a very bright background.
A minimalist puzzle game
You need to move your square to the yellow square somewhere on the screen. Its start is pretty simple and can be completed without thinking. After a few levels they start to add new game mechanics and the difficulty starts to ramp up.
Eventually you are introduced to the clone mechanic. Presumably this is the mechanic that inspired the title. It allows you to record your movements and clone your square. After making your clone it will play your recorded movements. This was a big surprise when we figured out that if you keep moving in one direction and clone yourself the recording will keep moving in that direction. This was one of the coolest mechanics introduced in the game. Overall, the controls and game mechanics are simple and work nicely as intended.
There is a narrative thread in the game. It is told through text on screen after completing every few levels. We didn’t feel this “story” element really added to the game in any appreciable way.
The game has a very relaxing soundtrack which helps soothe the frustration when getting stuck on a level. Some of the later levels you will probably end up restarting over and over trying to figure out the solution. Luckily, you can reset the level with the press of a button and get back to trying a different method within a second or two.
There is the option to enable a Colorblind mode. We love to see developers putting in the effort to make their games more accessible for all gamers. The one thing we do wish is that there was an option to lower the brightness of the background or play the game in “dark mode” as most of the screen is white which can be painful for those with photosensitivity.
As for replayability options, they added a “Best Time” under each level which gives you the option to replay each level trying to beat your best time. We would have loved to see an online leaderboard to compare your times against friends and strangers. There is also a Player Statistics area that you can see at the end of the level selection area which shows your Total Time and Total Deaths. The total time does not calculate the total amount of time played it just adds the total best time for each of the levels. The game is fairly short and can be completed within an hour depending on player skill.
Déjà Vu is available on Xbox One and Windows. A digital copy of this game was provided to SimpleGameReviews for the purposes of reviewing the game.
Destroy All Humans! from Publisher THQ Nordic and Developer Black Forest Games
Remake of the first game with some additional gameplay features. Some of the dialog is a little dated.
A remaster of the Original Destroy All Humans.
The game takes place in the United States of America in an alternate history circa 1959. An alien named Cryptosporidium-136 was sent to earth to prepare for the invasion and disappeared. You play as Crypto-137 sent to earth to figure out what happened to Crypto-136. Crypto’s mission is to infiltrate and sabotage secret government facilities and defeat Majestic (the secret shadow government organization in charge of everything), find out what happened to Crypto-136, and finish his mission.
While invading earth you will travel to different locales around the USA, and have to deal with townsfolk, police, the military (tanks, trucks, soldiers and robots), and Majestic. Everyone is scared of you. If they spot you, they’ll try to stop and kill you before you can take over the world.
Luckily you have a lot of alien tech at your disposal to aid you on your mission; like various weapons, a jetpack, a flying saucer, and several awesome abilities. Your abilities are Holoclone, which lets you disguise yourself as a holographic clone of anyone, Cortex Scan, which lets you read people’s minds to get intel and provides a little back story, Psychokinesis, lets you pick up and throw things or even people, and Brain Extraction, to pull the brains out of humans.
The Voice Over work for the main characters is great but the townsfolk are a little off and tend to be repetitive. We noticed that the repetition in the NPC dialog isn’t limited to their conversations. There’s also a limited amount of variety in what you hear when scanning their brains. The thoughts start to repeat after just a few minutes of scanning people. Some of the thoughts also just seemed dated and kinda wrong by today’s standards. While playing you will occasionally hear Crypto cracking jokes about the human race. Some of them are kinda funny.
The little things that have been added to the remake makes the game very enjoyable to play for fans of the series or for those who are new to it. They added a new system to this game that was not present in the previous iterations of Destroy all Humans. There are optional bonus objectives to complete for each mission. You can still complete the missions without completing the bonus objectives. Mission replay is available at any time to give you the chance to go back and try them again. Completing all of the bonus objectives in select missions will unlock skins for Crypto. We liked the replayability this adds to the game.
Once you finish the mission for each town, you’ll unlock a free roam option for the location. This lets you access all areas of the town so you can find the collectibles and easily access the 4 challenge areas for each location. The challenges are Armageddon, Abduction, Race, and Rampage. You will receive a star rating for the challenges. They can be a bit of a struggle at first since Crypto only has stock weapons and not all of his powers are unlocked. They become a lot easier and more fun if you go back with a maxed out Crypto with all of his powers and weapons unlocked and upgraded.
The game has a good check point system that makes saves pretty often. This comes in handy at times but can be your bane at other times. We ran into an issue on a mission where we needed to protect a truck from taking too much damage. The truck had 1 hit left when we hit a checkpoint triggering a save and had to finish the rest of the mission making sure it did not get hit at all. We ended up having to restart the mission and protect it better at the beginning as it was easier and less frustrating than the alternative.
There are a good variety of mission types. Some will have you destroying or sabotaging things (buildings, Tesla coils, military equipment), others require stealth. Some are follow or escort missions for both people and vehicles. The stealth missions can be a challenge if you are not patient as you will spend a good amount of time in Holobob form. While in Holobob form you are unable to use your powers as this would compromise the illusion and get you spotted.
Destroy All Humans! is available on Xbox One, PS4 and Windows. A digital copy of this game was provided to SimpleGameReviews for the purposes of reviewing the game.
Mr. Massagy: Mayo Edition from Publisher and Developer Green Lava Studios
Humorous “Mature” dating sim.
Mr. Massagy: A dating Sim
You play as Johnny. Your “wingman” recommends a new dating app, Linger, to find girls that are up for giving massages.
Like most dating sims you have different conversational responses to choose from when you’re on your dates. Some are innuendos, puns, and even cartoon references while others are kinda douche-y or “normal”. Some of the responses were not what we would’ve expected to say the least.
Each character in your Linger app requires a certain player level to potentially match up with them. They also have specific preferences so you’ll need to match your profile description to what they’re looking for in order to be successfully matched up. You’ll earn stars for successful dates which let you progress onto the higher level character dates.
The star rating challenge for each of the dates adds some replayability for the people who want that while others will replay the dates just to see what happens with the other dialog options.
You have a total of 10 characters to choose from for dates. Some of them are the craziest cast of characters you might ever see in a videogame let alone the scariest dates you might ever go on. A couple of them are a little bit psycho and can lead to the opposite of a “happy ending”.
The gimmick in the game is that the controller vibrates a LOT. Like, you’re gonna wanna have fresh batteries or a wired controller when you play this game. Depending on how much your date likes your responses the controller will vibrate a little or a lot. And if your date is successful enough to get you a massage it’ll vibrate more. Successful dates with each person will lead to a different massage experience, both in terms of the pace and intensity of the vibrations. You are able to replay the date over and over again trying to get a better rating by picking different responses. You can also replay just the massage portion of any date you successfully completed.
You’ll want a turbo controller for this.
My Name is Mayo: A clicking game “with an emotional story”
This might be the strangest game ever. You literally just press a button to tap on a jar of mayo thousands of times. As each achievement unlocks the in-game achievement list will reveal the next lines in the short stories. There are multiple different “story lines” in the achievements/trophies as well as some random facts which are tied to specific milestone numbers of clicks.
In order to progress each storyline you’ll need to click on the achievement picture in-game. Some of these will equip a new outfit on your jar of mayonnaise. You’ll then need to keep tapping to unlock the next achievement/outfit in that story line and repeat the process of equipping the new achievement and clicking some more until the whole storyline is unlocked.
This part could’ve been organized or laid out in a much clearer and more obvious way. The current setup has the storylines all mixed together so it’s harder to see the connections between the achievements. They help themselves a little by color coding the text for each storyline and the locked achievement titles are a reference to the preceding achievement that needs to be equipped to unlock them. At first we weren’t able to follow that there were actual story lines at all due to the jumbled nature of the list.
Mr. Massagy: Mayo Edition is available on Xbox One. A digital copy of this game was provided to SimpleGameReviews for the purposes of reviewing the game.
Aircraft Evolution from Publisher Sometimes You and Developer Satur Entertainment
Overall a pretty enjoyable game, decent graphics but a little short as it can be completed in about 3 hours.
A shoot ‘em up like, action, side scroller with a hint of RPG elements.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to fight your way through 4 time periods, starting from early WWI all the way to a futuristic war. You’ll be attacking the enemy and reducing their bases to smoldering ruins. You need to utilize all of the weapons in your arsenal to accomplish this objective.
There are a total of 40 levels to play through. As you move through the levels and through time from WWI and into the future, both your available aircraft and the enemy equipment will evolve. The enemies start out as simple tanks and soldiers before evolving into plasma cannons on tanks, airships, and turrets.
While your enemies evolve automatically you do not. You will unlock different aircraft after collecting experience and leveling up. You can upgrade your aircraft using the in game currency. The upgrade system is done very well as it is easy and clear what your upgrade will do for your aircraft.
There are random resource drops in the form of crates floating down with a parachute. These contain fuel, repair kits, and different types of bombs (which are your primary weapon) all of which you can use as soon as you pick them up. The repair kits and cluster bombs come in very handy.
You are also able to purchase these same items from the store between levels. We found that each of the bombs are useful for different strategies or play styles. We ended up finding our favorite and sticking with it most of the time as it seemed to work better for our play style.
At the end of each of the era’s you will come across a boss type battle which helps break up the repetitiveness of the levels as it adds a bit of a challenge and serves as a landmark and transition to the next time period.
Aircraft Evolution is available on Xbox One, PS4, and Nintendo Switch. A digital copy of this game was provided to SimpleGameReviews for the purposes of reviewing the game.
Liquid Sunshine from Publisher and Developer God As A Cucumber
Fun puzzles. Great story and soundtrack. You might want to wear sunglasses because it’s really bright.
A Graphic Novel and Puzzle game in 1 package
It is a side scroller puzzle with 3 characters that you control; a Monkey, a Horse, and a Rhino. Each character has its own mechanics, strengths, and weaknesses that you will discover throughout the game. Some of the puzzles you will come across require the use of 1, 2, or all 3 of the characters to find the solution. All 3 of the characters need to make it to the right side of the screen before proceeding to the next puzzle or chapter.
Like most puzzle games, it starts out pretty easy with basic puzzles teaching you the mechanics which it does nicely. The real challenge comes in the later puzzles, which require more and more steps to complete, making you move characters back and forth over the screen and replacing one character location for another when finding out that you need that for a later part of the puzzle.
The story is told to you in the form of a graphic novel between levels. You start to learn and understand the relationship between the characters all while enjoying the Graphic Novel. This was an interesting choice and done very well. The Graphic Novel really earns the graphic part of its name as it has mature themes including violence, drug use, and crime. The visuals are great and are done in a black and white minimalistic design. They are able to get a surprising amount of detail only using black and white images both in the novel and with the level design. We experienced some eye fatigue caused by staring at the screen with the bright white areas contrasting with the black areas. There’s just so much stark white on the screen it’s like staring at a very bright bulb.
There are hidden diamonds on each of the levels for you to locate. Sadly there’s not much to do after completing the rather short game which can be completed in 1-2 hours depending on skill. Locating missed diamonds or rereading the graphic novel between the levels are the only reasons to replay the levels. We would have loved to see an option to read the graphic novel on its own without having to recomplete the levels.
There is no voice over work in the game at all, just a really good soundtrack (almost retro feel) and sound effects. The game does a really good job between the soundtrack and effects you almost forget and don’t notice that there was not a single word spoken.
Overall its an enjoyable puzzler, with a good soundtrack and interesting choice of artstyle.
Liquid Sunshine is available on Xbox One and Steam. A digital copy of this game was provided to SimpleGameReviews for the purposes of reviewing the game.
The Great Perhaps from Publisher Drageus Games and Developer Caligari Games
Unexpectedly good story for a cool puzzles game.
2D Side Scroller Time Travel Puzzler
You play as an astronaut named Kosmos. While working on a space station something happens; the Earth as you know it is destroyed by natural cataclysms. You choose to go into cryo sleep hoping to be woken up once it is safe to return home. After 36,524 days (otherwise known as 100 years), you are finally woken up to find out there is no communication with Earth and you have no idea what happened. You decide to make your way back to earth to discover what happened and what is left.
You travel back to earth with L9, an AI that accompanies you on your journey trying to discover what happened to the earth. While back on earth L9 is able to find one human signature left on the planet. While trying to locate the one human left on the planet you find an old lantern that allows you to travel between the current timeline and the past from before the cataclysms. This is the main mechanic for the game.
You will come across puzzles and mini-games that will require you to get items that are only accessible in one or the other timelines. Your AI companion will give you hints if you get lost or are having issues finding the solution to the puzzles. It’s easy to spot the items you can interact with as they have an effect that makes them glimmer. At first you might be a little unsure what to do with the item but after a few minutes of doing the wrong thing with it L9 will step in with a hint. Each of the timelines has enemies and objects you will need to avoid. This is often accomplished by switching between them.
The alternate timelines game mechanic is done very well and is enjoyable. This is used throughout the game for everything including solving puzzles, bypassing obstacles, storytelling, and progression.
The artstyle is hand drawn which is great to see and is done nicely. It reminded us of Valiant Hearts. The soundtrack is great and is a little different depending on which timeline you are in. They did a good job making the music fit the state of the world in the different timelines.
The story is good and takes you to several places in Russia. You get to interact with a few other characters in the past and have real conversations with them. You start to see the relationship develop between Kosmos and L9 throughout the later parts of the story. L9 becomes more than just an AI, she starts to become a real character.
The game does a good job at making you empathetic toward the characters. Both the writing and voice acting are great and make the conversations and people feel real.
Sadly it is rather short and can be completed in around 2 hours. After completing the story there is very little reason to replay the game.
The Great Perhaps is available on Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and Steam. A digital copy of this game was provided to SimpleGameReviews for the purposes of reviewing the game.
Superliminal from Publisher and Developer Pillow Castle Games
Overall an enjoyable 3D puzzle experience. Fun narration and mechanics. Reminiscent of portal but definitely a different take on the 3D puzzle genre.
A puzzle game that uses perception to find the solution.
Superliminal is a first person puzzler. You’ll be interacting with and manipulating objects using perspective to solve puzzles, overcome obstacles, and work your way through the stages to get to the exit. The game has a few similarities to the first portal game and likely drew some inspiration from there.
The game does a good job teaching you the basics and giving you ideas of what is possible to do during the introductory stages. The key mechanic centers around relative perspective with objects. There are a lot of optical illusions throughout the stages. Some of these are related to how to solve the puzzles and some are just there to add to the perception bending experience. This mechanic is used very well and can be fun to play around with seeing what you can interact with and how changing the perception or viewing angle alters reality.
There are a number of hidden collectibles across the 9 levels. Fortunately, the level select menu tells you which types you’re missing some of. Unfortunately, it doesn’t tell you how many of each are on each level or how many you’re still missing. Finding all of the collectibles and secret areas are the only thing that really provides much in the way of replayability since the puzzles and solutions are always the same.
The game has a really great lofi soundtrack which helps keep you relaxed when you get stuck on the more complicated puzzles. They’ve also done a great job with the sound effects produced by the different items. Smaller versions of items make quieter higher pitched sounds while larger versions of items make louder lower pitched sounds.
Most of the puzzles can be figured out within a few minutes depending on player skill though executing the solution can be a little tougher at times. There are a few puzzles that ramp up the challenge/difficulty and can take a long time to figure out the solution. There are also secret areas and what seem to be red herrings to distract you from the finish line.
We did run into a few small issues with items glitching or clipping through other objects. We also saw some of these items disappear and then respawn in their original locations. The perspective in the hallways and some of the rooms can also feel a little trippy. One of our reviewers found that their eyes tired quickly playing the game and they needed to take breaks to rest their eyes.
Superliminal is available on Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch and Steam. A digital copy of this game was provided to SimpleGameReviews for the purposes of reviewing the game.
Clash Force from Publisher Ratalaika Games and Developer Spicy Gyro Games
Feels like a mix of Megaman and Contra on the NES.
A side scroller platformer
Clash force is a fairly standard side scrolling platform. There are 3 different members of the Clash Force that you can play as, the only difference between them is cosmetic. The game has 3 difficulty levels; Normal, Hard and Expert. Hard appears to have more enemies while Expert has the same amount of enemies as Hard but you have 1 less health bar and the option to recover health has been removed.
As in any standard platformer you’ll progress to the right and shoot the enemies that appear on screen, most enemies only take 1 or 2 shots. While playing you will come across items to change your weapon, find hearts to heal your health, and a shield item that looks like a crest with an S in the middle that protects you from one hit before breaking. Fortunately, you have unlimited lives which can be helpful during the difficult areas of the levels or for less skilled gamers.
Your life bar has 3 hearts. Unlike most games, getting hit doesn’t just take away some health. You’ll lose any upgraded weapon you picked up as well as 1 heart. Luckily hearts and weapons upgrade items spawn a few times per level so you can restore what you lost. To avoid taking damage when the enemies shoot at you you will need to time your jumps since there is no way to duck or block the attacks.
The game and levels are pretty short as the levels can be completed within 2-3 minutes or less and the game can be completed in under 1 hour. There are 3 levels in each area before a boss fight. There are a total of 21 levels in the game. The boss fights remind us a lot of Megaman vs Dr. Wily fighting someone in a robot. Each of the bosses have a pattern of attacks that are easy to figure out and which is good since you’ll have to figure out the pattern in order to beat the boss.
After completing each level you are rewarded with a bonus area and a chance to pick your weapon upgrade or get a shield. If you are happy with what you have you can run through without picking up anything. This was nice to see as it gave us the option to leave without having to risk losing our weapon of choice.
The levels start becoming a little more challenging with new types of enemies. The platforming becomes harder too with the addition of moving platforms.
There are 5 different weapon items that you come across and you will be able to find your favorite after a few minutes. One weapon in particular really reminded us of the Spread shot from Contra which was our favorite weapon.
The game has the same background music on each level as well as the same sound effect for shooting no matter which weapon you are using. Since you will spend most of your time holding the shoot button you will get tired of the sound effect.
Clash Force is available on Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch and Steam. A digital copy of this game was provided to SimpleGameReviews for the purposes of reviewing the game.
Bunny Memory from Publisher and Developer DillyFrame
A bunny-fied digital version of the classic memory card game. Couch co-op and single player options.
A card matching memory game
A bunny twist on the classic memory card game. Instead of being limited to images like the card game used you’ll also have the option of numbers or letters. The game board can be between 2×2 to 10×10. The number and letter options are very easy to read and see the differences between them but the bunny images game type option is a little harder to see the difference. They do show a larger version of the image in the bottom left corner of the screen when you flip over the cards which makes it easier to see what they are but it’s still more difficult than the numbers and letters.
The game is pretty simple. The concept is basic and it has very simple controls. This makes it easy to pick up and play for gamers of all ages. The smaller sized boards would be especially good for younger gamers. When you successfully match a pair of cards you earn a MP credit. These are used to unlock Memories which are screenshots from previous DillyFrame games.
Once you find all of the pairs the game ends and you are provided with a choice to start a new game or go back to the main menu. Starting a new game means you have to pick the size of your game board and what’s on the cards again. We wish there was a way to play again without having to pick the game options all over again.
The game uses the same characters and artstyle that are present in the other DillyFrame games. They do have a split screen couch co-op option which is a nice addition.
Bunny Memory is available on Xbox One and Windows. A digital copy of this game was provided to SimpleGameReviews for the purposes of reviewing the game.
A Summer With The Shiba Inu from Publisher Ratalaika Games and Developer Quill Studios
A long story with a nice soundtrack. Convenient mechanics for scrolling back to reread passages. Lots of Dog puns.
A Visual Novel with Puns
This is a visual novel set in a world of dogs. It is riddled with canine puns which are amusing at first but some of them seem to be trying a little too hard at times. They used a lot of flashbacks to tell the story which made it a little confusing at some points and hard to follow. It would have been better with less re-reading needed if there was a clearer indication of what is a flashback and what is present day. We actually restarted the game at one point to try and see what we had missed because we got lost about what was happening. There is a button on the bottom of the screen that will show you to see all of the conversation logs as well as the choices you made. We used this several times later in the game when we got confused and needed to go back and reread what happened. This became almost overwhelming toward the end as the story is over 70,000 words long.
The game has several endings for the story. The choices you make while playing through the story will determine the ending you receive. This adds a level of replayability to the game.
They have an auto-play mechanic that allows you to be hands free and just read along with the story. The dialog is purely text based. There is no voice acting. The only sound you’ll hear is the soundtrack and an occasional “dog sound”. We found the soundtrack to be pleasant and varied. It added to the relaxed feeling of sitting back and reading a novel.
The art work for the backgrounds looks a lot like photographs that have had an effect applied to them to make them look painted. The characters also looked a lot like photos with painted effects added just not to the same degree. Oddly, the clothes that the dogs are wearing looked like they’d been photoshopped onto the animals without having the blurring painted effect applied to them.
A Summer with the Shiba Inu is available on Xbox One, PS4, and Nintendo Switch. A digital copy of this game was provided to SimpleGameReviews for the purposes of reviewing the game.
