Alpacapaca Dash from Publisher and Developer Synnergy Circle Games
Alpaca runner with freaking laser beams shooting out their mouths.
Alpacapaca Dash is a side scrolling endless runner.You play as an Alpaca sent to save the Alpaca World from Eternal Darkness by running around shooting a laser beam from your mouth to destroy the evil darkness and restore the world.
There are 2 modes in the game, Easy and Hard Mode. Easy has auto-aim enabled which turns the game into a 2 button game; one for jumping and one for shooting the laser. Hard is where the challenge ramps up as you now have to add aiming into the run. Just like most endless runners, the game has you running on a set track at a set speed. All you can do is jump and shoot while the character moves for you. We would have loved to have a little control over the character as some of the jumps felt impossible to do correctly. We did figure out that you can run off the edge of the platform and jump right as you start to fall to get a little extra distance on the jumps.
While running around you will find items that will benefit or hinder your run. Items can give you a save for missing a jump, power up the laser beam, or cause you to lose all of your upgrades. The items are easy to see but sometimes hard to pick up or avoid as it all depends on timing for your jump.
While running on the platforms, your Alpaca starts to bring color back to the dark world. Running past dead trees brings them back to life. You will also collect coins during the run which can be used to purchase different skins as well as a “coin power up” bonus. Once the power up has been purchased you will find sacks of coins as well as treasure chests to collect.
There are a total of 11 different Alpaca skins to purchase. Some are a simple color shift while others add a little extra by changing the color of the Alpaca, adding a hat, tail, and changing the laser beam color.
Overall we enjoyed the game. It was good for pick up and play once we got used to the timing on the jumps. It also has several easy achievements.
Alpacapaca Dash is available on Xbox and PC. A digital copy of this game was provided to SimpleGameReviews for the purposes of reviewing the game.
Bunny Factory from Publisher and Developer DillyFrameGames
More bunny puzzles, now with a mech suit. Play it for the achievements not the game play.
In the great tradition of the Bunny games this 3rd person puzzle game puts you in control of a Bunny as you work to solve the puzzles. This time you have a fancy mech suit and you’re working in a dead factory trying to bring it back to life. Each puzzle you solve provides a power core to restart part of the factory. Sounds pretty easy right? Well it starts out that way but it doesn’t last.
After you solve each puzzle located in the engineering room, you are presented with a power core, each of which needs to be taken to a different specific location in the factory. This process slows down the progression and pacing of the puzzle solving as you have to run around to plug in the core and run back to the main room before you can start the next puzzle. When you plug in the core there is a short cutscene animation of the machine being powered up and starting production.
There are a total of 100 levels to complete but only the first 50 have these different locations and animations. The remaining 50 are all located in a small room off to the side and there is no animation like the previous ones had. It almost seems like the developers ran out of time or just gave up on the concept they had introduced for the first 50 levels.
The puzzles are electrical schemes that require you to place colored blocks to power the floor and complete the circuit. The interesting part is that the blocks will only send power in certain directions. There are triangles located on the side of the blocks letting you know which directions it will let the power flow. There are also yellow arrows that appear on the floor when you’re holding a block and are standing on a square that it can be placed on. This helps you remember which directions that block will activate.
Like most puzzle games it starts out pretty easy with the blocks already being powered (colored in) and the puzzle sizes are small. Depending on placement some of the earlier puzzles can be completed without using all of the blocks. As you progress through the levels new challenges are added. Sometimes the blocks need to be powered/colored in the right charging station (Red, Blue, Yellow, Green). They also add more colours to the same puzzle, limit the effective range of the blocks, and the puzzles become increasingly larger both in size as well as the amount of blocks needed to complete the puzzle.
The game is lacking any real story at all. A few lines of text on screen telling us what happened to the factory and why we were there trying to reactivate it could have fixed that. The amount of time spent running around dropping off the power cores really hinders the pacing of the game and the enjoyment of solving the puzzles. This issue could’ve been improved if we could have picked up the core and dropped it off in the same room after solving the puzzle. The cutscene showing the machines powering up would still explain what the power core was used for but you would save a lot of time not having to run around and it would allow greater flow in the game play since the player would be able to start the next puzzle faster.
There are collectibles that you can find scattered around the factory. They are parts to a mech but they did not seem to do anything as the only customization option you have is to change the colour of your mech. We would have loved to have seen the collectables as equipable upgrades to the mech. They could’ve provided a performance boost like increasing your speed or jump height or they could’ve been some sort of cosmetic change. As is, they seem pointless.
There is online co-op which can help on the larger puzzles but it is invite only. There is also level select to allow you to replay previous puzzles. There is no challenge or leaderboard type thing so there’s not really any point in replaying the levels solo. However, we did find that a co-op partner can join you and the host can level select to just the levels with achievements attached and the co-op partner will get the achievements. The collectibles are also all present for the co-op partner so they can collect all of those as well.
Overall we feel like there were hints at a higher concept or story that just didn’t quite make it to execution. With a few tweaks this could’ve been a better game. But most of you are probably playing it for the achievements and not the game play and it does deliver on the relatively easy achievements.
Bunny Factory is available on Xbox, Playstation and Steam. A digital copy of this game was provided to SimpleGameReviews for the purposes of reviewing the game.
Sleepin’ Guy Deluxe Edition from Publisher Chubby Pixel and Developer Fabio Ferrara
Fun but occasionally frustrating first person platformer where you win by killing yourself.
Sleepin’ Guy Deluxe Edition is a first person action-puzzler platformer. You play as Sleepin’ Guy, who falls asleep, drops his beer, and needs to wake up before it hits the ground.
Waking up should be easy right? The trick is that the only way to wake up is to DIIIIE! Each of the 31 levels will have you trying to find different ways to kill yourself so you can wake up. Some of the levels have references to pop culture, classic movies, and games including Jurassic Park, Portal, and Super Mario Brothers. All of the levels have a little twist to fit the game’s atmosphere and art style. The levels are physics based which can be kind of a pain since the game is a first person platformer.
There is a collectible statue located somewhere on each of the main levels. Most of these can be found with a minimum of exploration. The statues are of Sleepin’ Guy in a variety of different poses, some a little more comedic than others. The game makes it easy to see which levels you have found or are missing the statue for, by placing all of the found statues on a plate on the table.
The main “hub” is a diner that you work at. The levels are located on top of the tables with a little numbered placard on them. We thought this was a perfect fit for the diner theme they were going with. Level select is available in case you need to go back and replay a level to obtain a missed collectible. However, the levels must first be completed before they can be selected and they must be played in order.
While some of the levels are pretty straight forward and can be completed in just a few minutes, others took us a while to figure out what needed to be done in order to gain access to the next part of the level so we could die.
The game’s tutorial leaves a little to be desired. It does cover the basic controls at the beginning but later when new level specific mechanics are introduced we were left hanging trying to figure out what to do or how to use them. This could make it a little more challenging than expected for people who are not already familiar with the mechanic from the game or movie being referenced on that level.
Overall it was an enjoyable but occasionally frustrating game. We enjoyed the pop culture/gaming references but found the first person platforming to occasionally be difficult and frustrating.
Sleepin’ Guy Deluxe Edition is available on Xbox One and Xbox Series Consoles. A digital copy of this game was provided to SimpleGameReviews for the purposes of reviewing the game.
Teacup from Publisher Whitethorn Digital LLC and Developer Smarto Club
Short but enjoyable side-scrolling adventure game. Geared toward a younger audience but relaxing even for older players.
Teacup is a side-scrolling adventure game that follows a shy young frog named Teacup as she tries to locate the ingredients needed so she can throw a tea party.
On your adventure you will meet and engage with the other towns folk, some nice and friendly while others not so much, all of whom are some form of animal. A few of the towns folk will give you tasks to complete. Finishing them will reward you with one of the ingredients you are looking for. Some of the tasks are mini games, like slide puzzles or acting in play. They are pretty easy and enjoyable. All of the mini games fit the story and the narrative of the tasks well. They are a little on the easy side depending on your skill level and it is impossible to fail the games as they can be tried over and over again. This makes the game more accessible and hopefully more enjoyable for younger or less skilled gamers.
The game is just under 2 hours, so it can easily be completed in a single sitting but it’s relaxing the whole time. The soundtrack and art style add to the relaxing gameplay. The game feels like it’s geared towards younger gamers which is not a bad thing if you want to relax and enjoy some tea.
We ran into an issue by the pond where we hit an invisible wall that stopped us from accessing the icon to travel to the next area. We were eventually able to move around and come at it a different way and travel. This was the only technical issue we encountered.
Overall the game was a relaxing experience with fun mini games.
Teacup is available on Xbox, Nintendo Swtich, Playstation and Steam. A digital copy of this game was provided to SimpleGameReviews for the purposes of reviewing the game.
Buildings Have Feelings Too! from Publisher Merge Games and Developer Blackstaff Games
A cute but complicated time based strategy/puzzle game. If you like complex variables this could be a great game for you.
Buildings Have Feelings Too! is marketed as a “city management” game. Watching the trailer it looked like it was going to be an intro to world building type of game play experience. However, this was not quite what was delivered.
You play as a cute building called the Halfway Hotel who is in charge of building and fixing up neighbourhoods. You will need to help rebuild the city to its glory days.
There are a total of 9 neighbourhoods to unlock and rebuild. Each neighborhood has a main building/quest-giver. You will need to complete the full quest line from this building before being able to access the next neighbourhood. Most of the requirements are simple; get a specific building type to a certain level or get the neighbourhood’s total appeal to a set number. So far so good. Seems fairly straightforward, doesn’t it? Oh but, wait!
The buildings all have their own feelings, personality, likes, and dislikes. There are several different types to make and place and each type has a different set of businesses that can be put in them. Each of these businesses will have specific “appeal” requirements that must be met by having the right surrounding buildings/businesses in order to level them up. If/when a building really dislikes the others around it a Red “X” will appear over it letting you know that if you don’t move the building or change its surroundings it will be closed down when the circle around the X is full. There were times where we couldn’t figure out what was causing this or how to stop it and had no choice but to let the building close down.
After a building type has been upgraded a few times you will gain access to new businesses that can be placed in it. This introduces new challenges for getting the right buildings/businesses in proximity to each other. It took us a bunch of time to learn what all of the building’s resources did and how to correctly fill the requirements.
There is a lot of hand holding in the game which isn’t a bad thing at first as the game is very complicated with many mechanics that take a long time to understand and learn. They introduced multiple mechanics at the same time which made it difficult to grasp them properly. This made the hand holding a lot more necessary than it might’ve otherwise been. Unfortunately, this led to it feeling like we were still in the tutorial after more than an hour of playing.
There is a relaxing soundtrack that is mixed with different sound effects making each neighborhood sound a little different while still maintaining a sense of continuity throughout the levels. The building animation was good and seeing your character running around was cute.
Overall the game was far more complicated than it needed to be. It seems to us to be more of a time based strategy/puzzle game than the world building type game we thought we were going to be playing. If we could make any recommendations for improvement, it would be to K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Sweetie).
Buildings Have Feelings Too! is available on Xbox, Playstation, Nintendo Switch, and Steam. A digital copy of this game was provided to SimpleGameReviews for the purposes of reviewing the game.
Risk System from Publisher and Developer Newt Industries
Photosensitivity warning. Challenging but enjoyable retro style shmup with a couple of interesting mechanics.
In the distant future of A.D. 2149, a race of energy parasites have taken over mankind’s technology and are using it against them. The main character is Alys. She is piloting an experimental ship, the RSK9, and is on her way to prevent the extinction of mankind.
This is a challenging, side scrolling, shoot ’em up (shmup) with a twist. Like most shmups you need to kill the enemies, build up your meter for a special attack, and avoid enemy fire. The twist is the risk reward system they’ve introduced. Narrowly avoiding enemy fire allows you to absorb energy from their attacks. This supercharges your normal weapon and will fill your special attack meter much faster. There is an autofire option that is turned on by default. It will only fire when an enemy is in front of you which lets you focus on controlling the ship and avoiding attacks. We recommend leaving this turned on though there is an option to turn it off if you really want to.
Your special attack, “Barrier Breaker,” does a lot of damage to all of the enemies on screen and gives you temporary invulnerability. Powering it up as fast as you can will help a lot, especially on the more challenging levels.
The ship’s movement feels sluggish compared to some other shmup’s. Fortunately, they have a Barrel Roll maneuver for quick vertical movements. This helps to compensate for the otherwise reduced mobility. One button will have you barrel roll up and another to barrel roll down. It takes a little bit of time to get used to it, but once you do you’ll use it all the time.
Each of the levels ends with a boss fight that is very challenging as each attack from the boss does a lot of damage. These attacks are difficult to avoid but not impossible. You can also time your special just right to be invulnerable and avoid damage that way. Each boss has a different pattern that you will need to learn if you want to defeat them. Luckily, there is a good checkpoint system. When you die you are seamlessly respawned at the boss so you don’t have to replay any of the level. This rapid restart helps you learn their patterns.
After completing a level you are given a letter rank and the choice to retry for a higher rank or to continue to the next mission. To get maximum rank you essentially need to complete the level without taking any damage. It looks like there is an alternate ending if you achieve S rank on every level but we were unable to achieve this during our time playing the game.
The game has a retro pixel art style. The sound effects and music help capture that old school feel of playing hard shoot-em ups in the arcade or on the original consoles. We also really enjoyed the nod to the Metal Gear series that happens pre and post boss fight.
The game has a photosensitivity and seizure warning that is well deserved. It does have an option to turn off screen shake which helps a little. While our reviewer doesn’t have issues with photosensitivity they did find that there were a few times that it was hard to stare at the screen.
Overall it’s an enjoyable but challenging shoot em up.
Risk System is available on Xbox and Steam. A digital copy of this game was provided to SimpleGameReviews for the purposes of reviewing the game.
