by Simple GameReviews | Oct 11, 2019 | Indie, Steam, Xbox
We Were Here from Total Mayhem Games
An Online only Co-op Puzzle Game
You are one of a pair of explorers who got lost in a blizzard. You found and entered a castle to escape the storm only to wake up separated from your partner.
One of the players will be the Explorer and the other player will be the Librarian. Communication is key in this game. The Explorer is presented with several puzzles that must be solved but they only have access to part of the information necessary. The Librarian will have the other parts needed to find the answers. Without good communication about what you’re each seeing and able to do, you won’t be able to make it through. Each of the roles provides a different perspective of the levels and a unique game experience.
The game has an interesting mechanic surrounding communication. When you first wake up, each of you will have a walkie talkie nearby that you have to pick up and use to communicate with each other. You’ll need to press a button to pull up the walkie talkie and speak to the other player. This can become a little frustrating at times if/when you forget to push the button and wonder why your co-op partner isn’t responding to what you say or ask.
There are a total of seven puzzles in the game. The early puzzles are relatively easy and fun with good communication between partners but the later ones start to become more challenging as they have more steps involved to locate the answers to solve the puzzles. They also introduce the possibility of death from obstacles or timed events that happen if you don’t finish the level quickly enough.
The game does a good job creating a haunted castle look and feel. There are torches for light, stone walls and floors, and things disappearing just out of sight around corners and on the edge of your field of view. The music and audio effects are also very effective at setting the mood. Each level has different music and the sounds experienced by each player are different from each other.
It also has 2 different endings depending on what choice you make at the very end of the game.
Like most puzzle games, once you know the puzzles you are able to run through them pretty quickly. But be careful, just because you already know the answer doesn’t mean you can do it without your partner still doing their part. We suggest playing the game twice so you can play each of the roles to get the full experience of the game.
An enjoyable puzzle game that is HEAVILY dependent on clear and precise communication between teammates. Online only co-op.
We Were Here is available on Xbox One and Steam
by Simple GameReviews | Sep 24, 2019 | Indie, Nintendo Switch, Windows, Xbox
Super Jumpy Ball from CasualGames.nu
A Simple 2D Platform Game
You play as a Ball and have to make it from one end of the level to a flag at the other end. The entire level fits on your screen at one time making it pretty easy to plan your routes. Each level has a single star that you can opt to collect on your way to the flag. In the early levels collecting them doesn’t present much of a challenge. This changes as you progress through the game and getting the star becomes the primary source of difficulty as simply getting to the flag without taking damage isn’t that hard on most of the levels.
There are a few different types of obstacles used on the levels; spikes, spike balls that get shot at you, and saw blades. The saw blades are either on a track that move up and down, left and right, or are on arms that rotate around a platform you need to use. They’re very reminiscent of a certain old platformer with a plumber, except the graphics here aren’t as good. You’ll need to avoid these obstacles as you make your way around the screen to collect the star and then get to the flag. A single hit from one of the obstacles will kill you.
There are 40 Levels and 5 Game modes to pick from.
Basketball – Where you jump off walls to rebound into the hoop.
Endless Survivor – You need to climb the platforms to escape the rising spike floor.
Spike Battle – A local Multiplayer game where you have to jump on top of the other players and pop their ball with the spike attached to your bottom.
Endless Running – A standard endless running mode where you avoid obstacles and can collect flags to extend your time.
And the normal “campaign” levels
The graphics are very Flash circa 1995 and the audio is repetitive as there are only a total of 2 songs in the game; one for the menu and another one for the levels.
The game describes itself as a puzzle platformer but sadly we couldn’t find any puzzles in it. We would say it’s more of a platformer/obstacle course.
It is rather short as you could playthru all 40 levels in about 15-20 minutes. It has local multiplayer modes only but does have global leaderboards which is nice. However, for some reason, only a few of the game types have leaderboards.
A puzzle-less puzzle platformer. Good for young gamers or when you want to just play something a little mindless.
Super Jumpy Ball is available on Xbox,Nintendo Switch and Windows. A digital copy of this game was provided to SimpleGameReviews for the purposes of reviewing the game.
by Simple GameReviews | Sep 20, 2019 | Android, Indie, IOS, Windows, Xbox
Restless Hero from Restless Corp
A 2d pixel art Dungeon Adventure
It has a retro 16 bit art style reminiscent of Super Nintendo and a simple soundtrack. Sadly the soundtrack is the same for all of the levels which starts to become repetitive.
The movement in the game is simple but effective. You move around the level jumping over enemies and obstacles, and scaling walls to get to higher areas. Water is also an obstacle since your character can’t swim and you will be insta-dead if you land in any.
The controls are very basic. One button for jumping and another one to use your super power. Combat is almost non-existent given that your only options are to jump over them and run away or use a super power to blow them up.
The super powers are pretty straight forward. The first one restores your health, the second one lets you destroy enemies and traps when you come into contact with them, and the third gives you a shield that lasts for a few seconds and lets you come into contact with the enemies without taking damage. This gives you three strategies for getting through the levels.
While moving around the levels you will find a variety of pickups to assist you. There are green potions which are the in-game currency, hearts to refill your health, lightning bolts to refill your super powers, and two chests per level that give you a gold bar when opened. The gold bars are almost equivalent to player levels. When making purchases there is a minimum gold bar requirement along with a price in potions but the gold bars are not spent; you retain them. They’re just there to make it harder to grind out a bunch of stuff early on since you have to play further and find more chests to collect more gold bars.
There is a shop located on most every level. They are where you can purchase items or change which super power you have equipped and make a one time purchase of an additional gold bar. Shops are the only way you can swap out your powers after your initial selection.
Every few levels you’ll meet up with a witch. She’ll ask you a question and you’ll have two options to choose from for response. The final choice is the only one that makes a difference in which ending you see.
The 22nd level (out of 30) was different as it was a kind of a race level. You are being chased by the smoke monster that you see on the title screen when loading the game. The smoke monster will one hit kill you and you are unable to kill it.
The later levels become harder by adding more enemy types as well as removing mid-level checkpoints. Choosing the correct super power becomes much more important at this point.
While playing on Xbox we noticed an interesting twist for the achievements. They do not auto pop like most other games. They need to be “claimed” from the main menu in the store before they will unlock.
The game is fun and enjoyable for a pick up and play game if you have 15-20 minutes here or there to play through a few levels. Completing a level and collecting both of the gold bars hidden on it will award you with a medal for the level. After earning medals for every level the game loses replayability. The only reason to keep playing it after that would be to collect more potions to spend in the shop and finish upgrading your super powers.
TLDR:
Fun retro platformer. Basic controls and repetitive soundtrack.
Restless Hero is available on Xbox Play Anywhere, IOS and Android. A digital copy of this game was provided to SimpleGameReviews for the purposes of reviewing the game.
by Simple GameReviews | Sep 9, 2019 | Indie, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, Windows, Xbox
The Church In The Darkness from Fellow Traveller
A top down stealth game about infiltrating a cult’s compound to rescue someone.
In the late 1970’s your nephew has joined a religious cult and moved with them to the South American jungle to become a part of Freedom Town. Your sister, Stella, asks you to infiltrate the cult’s compound to find, convince, and escape with your nephew Alex.
While walking around the compound you meet both friendly and hostile NPC’s. The hostile NPC’s will chase after you and shoot at you, while the friendly NPC’s will provide you with objectives or challenges as well as information on where your nephew Alex is through conversations. The friendly NPC’s can be identified by the green circle around them and the speech button prompt when you approach them.
You can fight the NPC’s by shooting them at a distance if you prefer lethal ranged combat or you can sneak up behind them and choose a lethal (kill) or non-lethal (subdue) takedown. When choosing the non-lethal takedown the NPC will wake up about 10 seconds later and start trying to hunt you down. If you choose this option, make sure you clear the area quickly or find a hiding spot. If you are able to locate Chloroform it can be used with the non-lethal takedown to extend the amount of time the NPC will stay unconscious.
You can search desks, closets, cupboards, and dead or knocked out bodies for weapons, ammo, food, and medical supplies. While searching the desks around the town you find letters to and from the NPC’s.
Limited customization’s allow you to choose your character’s sex and race as well as the difficulty level.
The graphics are basic but the top down angle that puts you above the tallest trees can still be a little vertigo inducing for anyone with issues with heights. The sound is ok. There are some sound effects related to your movement and in world actions and dialog options with NPCs but the majority of what you hear is either preaching or singing over the loudspeakers.
The game has a Permadeath system. Once you die, your only option is to start the game over again. When you start a new game, your spawn location is randomized as is the locations for some story objectives. The game also has different endings based on the choices you make and the difficulty chosen which all adds to the replayability of the game. Depending on where you spawn in and where your nephew is located, a playthrough takes about 20 minutes to 1 hour; less if you get killed.
You are able to see the NPC’s field of view by holding a button, though doing so makes you crouch and move slowly. This makes it easier to avoid detection and know where to hide or disappear when/if you get spotted. You can also find Townsperson Clothing to disguise your character and reduce the detection radius.You can still get spotted though and once you are, you lose the disguise and it disappears from your inventory so you can’t even reequip it after escaping.
The game provides you with a few options to try to distract the NPC’s and make them change the route they are traveling or move from the location they are guarding. You can throw stones or turn on a radio, both of these options will send NPC’s to investigate what is going on. This becomes very helpful on the harder difficulties since being as stealthy as possible will help keep you alive.
The religious cult has two leaders; Isaac Walker who is the Preacher and his wife Rebecca. You will hear their voices over the loudspeakers around the town as they preach propaganda and “brainwash” the NPC’s. After about 4-5 times it starts to become repetitive and makes you wish there was an option to lower the loudspeaker volume.
As mentioned, the game has different endings depending on the choices you make and the difficulty you selected but there’s also a seemingly random component to the different endings centered around Issac’s actions. The permadeath mechanic does you no favors if you want to see all of the possible endings.
Short campaign, Permadeath, top down, stealth game with multiple possible endings that have a random component to them.
The Church in the Darkness is available on Xbox, PS4,Nintendo Switch, Windows and Mac. A digital copy of this game was provided to SimpleGameReviews for the purposes of reviewing the game.
by Simple GameReviews | Aug 24, 2019 | Indie, PS4, Steam, Xbox
Riverbond from Cococucumber
A simple hack and slash dungeon crawler.
The game has a system called “Rally Points” that will save you time when you respawn as you will respawn at the rally point instead of at the beginning of the level. They are respawn points only and not checkpoints.The game does not save your progress until you fully complete all of the levels in a world. The final level is always a boss fight. The good news is, when you die and respawn the enemies health does not reset and any enemies you already eliminated do not respawn. This is helpful for younger players or people who don’t want to grind kills.
The controls are pretty simple as you only need a few buttons; press 1 button to attack, hold the same button for a stronger attack, another button to do a special attack, a third button to interact with items, and the fourth to jump, and one more to roll around the levels.
The soundtrack is clean and simple which fits the colorful voxel based art style.
It has 8 different worlds that you play through, each with its own look and feel, challenges, and enemies. Each of the worlds has 4 or 5 levels.
You can recover health by picking up red potions that are dropped by killing enemies, destroying the environment (boxes, trees, and so on), or unwrapping presents.
While playing you will find chests that give you weapons and skins for your character. The weapons are an interesting variety from swords to lollipop’s to bear claws and rainbow umbrellas. The weapon classes are swords, spears, clubs, slap weapons, dual wield, and guns.
When starting a new world you start with a sword and a gun. The weapons you unlocked from the previous worlds do not carry over. Every new world resets you to basic equipment.
There are a lot of character skins in the game in the shape of food or animals. They even have some skins from other games like Bastion, Guacamelee, Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime, and Enter the Gungeon just to name a few.
The little amount of story is uncovered by speaking with characters around the levels.
Sadly, the game is pretty short and can be completed in under 5 hours. It is couch only co-op and has little to no replayability.
A 3D voxel hack and slash dungeon crawler. Has convenient respawn system, simple controls, tons of skins, lots of crazy weapons, couch only co-op, and very little “story”.
Riverbond is available on Xbox, PS4 and Steam
by Simple GameReviews | Aug 15, 2019 | Indie, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, Xbox
The Tower Of Beatrice from Sometimes You
A single screen point and click puzzle game
The game starts out with a few pretty simple puzzles that are easy to figure out but becomes more complicated and difficult with each proceeding level as expected. After a few levels the puzzles start to require you to complete a puzzle to get an item that you will need to complete another puzzle.
You will need to locate ingredients while searching around the levels for a Potion. Each of the levels requires a different potion to solve one of the puzzles before being able to complete the level.
The controls are simple as you move your cursor around the screen clicking on items to interact with them. You can zoom in on items, interact with an item by using or moving it, or pick up an item to add it to your inventory. Even though the controls are simple, they are a little finicky as they don’t always respond in the way you intended.
Most of the puzzles are pretty easy to figure out and you can get hints by pressing the appropriate button on your controller. When you do, a “?” pops up on screen next to the items that have hints available. When you click on the “?” it will give you a hint with how you should interact with it. As you progress through the puzzle new hints become available. All that said some of the puzzles just seem to be a lucky guess. We ran into issues with one puzzle in particular that once entered could not be exited without successfully solving it but no clue was ever given for what the solution was.
Like most point and click games you are able to solve some of the puzzles simply by trying every item in your inventory on another item until it is solved.
There doesn’t really seem to be much of a story. You go into a tower to recover a book and becoming trapped, then solve puzzles to make your way back out of the tower.
The art style and audio are both simple and clean. It’s reminiscent of the old flash games with objects on a background that move in specific, limited ways.
The game is a little short as there are only 6 rooms. Depending on how quickly you are able to figure out the puzzles you could complete the game in under 4 hours.
A short Single Screen point and click puzzle game with simple controls and weird puzzles.
The Tower Of Beatrice is available on Xbox, PS4, PS Vita and Nintendo Switch. A digital copy of this game was provided to SimpleGameReviews for the purposes of reviewing the game.
