Recent reviews by ZandaBear

Ignore the reviews saying that it "forces" a 3rd party account. Those poor souls just lack basic reading comprehension. Creating an account is entirely optional and the skip button is in the top right when it asks.

I got it at a steep discount and thought it would be a fun "horror-lite" to play co-op runs with the family. Wrong. Sadly, it's just boring.

Despite looking promising, the gameplay loop is just fighting against a few timers (a hunger bar, a sleep bar, and a temperature bar) plus whatever temporary injury you acquire across 5 zones. Not horrible, but also not fun. The descent into madness is just a few effects akin to Fallout's Wasteland Weirdness (or whatever) perks and when it even happens it has no real effect on gameplay. The "aliens" are also just weird floating things that don't like a specific thing... that is light, heat, a ghostbusters knock off trap, or...well bullets. Each going down with one shot.

I've completed it twice in 4 hours on "challenge" mode, it's not, and got both the good ending and the "secret" ending (which is really the good ending). It's obvious that there are two-three more endings for reaching the end of the game and obviously a game over ending, but the loop just doesn't seem worth going through yet again for just a few second animation followed by some text.

TL;DR, if you just need something to kill time and can get it on steep discount, it's not a horrible time. Otherwise, skip.

This is a soft "not recommended," from me. The UI is horrible, but it can be a fun play and usable as a way to teach new players without getting too overwhelmed from the board setup IRL. However, as a game, it may not be abandoned but the devs have admitted that they will not be able to make the expansions as they claim to have messed up the original code so bad somehow that they cannot possibly further develop the game. So, better to spend your money on the physical board game or spend your time making your own version.

"Development of DLCs is impossible to take, and as we said above, we have to halt it." -
The Knights of Unity

Overall, Deceive Inc. is a game where the devs are taking a shotgun approach; instead of doing one or two things really well, the game simply does many things "just alright," and the player count shows how it's really struggling to grab and hold players. It would have a LOT more success I feel if it were to go F2P so the devs could receive WAY more feedback from a lot more players. These free weekends they seem to do just isn't long enough for most players to do more than decide "meh, not worth the $8-20 USD."

The main issue is that it advertises as a more serious spy game but is actually a more on the wacky ("legendary" skins are things like Boyscout, Fisherman, Boxer, jockey, etc) battle royal arena shooter with loot boxes, battlepass, and hamfisted "stealth" gameplay. Hands down, if you want to spend money on a dead game with disguise mechanics that ACTUALLY feels like a spy game, spend it on a game like The Ship (not the crappy Remastered). It may be old, it may be just as dead, but at least you'll be able to play solo, offline, or with bots and... actually have FUN! Not to mention if you run a Steam Café server like we do, tournaments are a blast to host! Or honestly, just go with any prop-hunt game (plenty have abilities to use).

If the class based arena shooter or battle royal aspects are more up your ally then you can choose from a seemingly endless list of games that better fit those genres. I'd say The Finals is probably the closest contender there. A MUCH higher player count, better gun play, more balanced abilities, and since that game is active its devs actually have a wide player-base to adjust to.

While I appreciate the old-school feel, this game could benefit greatly from a more "tutorial" experience instead of reading blocks of text and hovering over tool-tips that many times don't even appear. That said, the only reason I don't recommend this game is due to the 2nd game coming out and with everything shown so far it seems like the devs are fixing the issues going into the 2nd instead of patching this one. There are plenty of game breaking bugs present 8 or so years back that are still present and untouched.

It's a decent time-waster but nothing more. I wish there was more to it. It really feels like you don't have enough resources to really enjoy the game aspects until maybe the last expedition but by then you needs a mountain of resolve to make it. Like, I understand the appeal of "you can't max everything," but it feels like a struggle to just get on par with the appropriate encounters.

Combat encounters typically just turn into "find the bottleneck and sit there" to stand a chance as you're greatly outnumbered with no real way to counter. The aggro system and enemy ranges aren't very apparent either so that's frustrating. The most unique part of the game is a rock-paper scissors system (done right) but that barely comes up. A few encounters with have enemies switching between social and combat (devious/friendly and aggressive) and it feels like a huge opportunity was missed not having encounters do that through out the entire game.

It's an older game, a fun game, and if on sale for $5-10 then I say go for it. Otherwise, I can't recommend.

I picked it up for $9.99 and honestly feel if you can get it for around that price it's a good buy. Sadly, I can't truly recommend this game unless it is exactly your niche and/or on steep sale. Overall I think the game could have greatly benefited from being a more narrative "unlock these traits to progress to the next evolution" style instead of a weird and arbitrary arcade point driven, "Can you evolve faster than science estimates?!"

The gameplay loop is needlessly tedious with very little reward feeling past the first few "levels." The world feels empty with only 18 apes existing at anytime (minus glitching or tricking the system). No other tribes, very simple AI that can't function without you (even with communication unlocks), and key game play mechanics are not explained well at all (even in FULL tutorial modes).

There really isn't much to the "game." The RNG is just too much, even with good rolls, proper planning, and utilizing the rooms to their fullest, the events can cripple any play through. In addition, the actual game is extremely short with a nonsensical and inconsequential story. So with no real story, meh mechanics, and for me at least, very little reason to replay, I wouldn't recommend purchasing.

I can't really recommend this game unless you are looking specifically for more of a visual novel experience. There really isn't any challenge to managing and in fact it's quite challenging in and of itself to get a "failed" ending. None of the choices seem to matter and even the "good" endings for certain choices don't really seem well fleshed out. Overall, it was a fun little experience but it seems something that would fall into the $5-10 range and it needs to be better described on the storefront.

An okay game both visually and mechanically hidden behind an empty experience and dry lazy humor.