Recent reviews by Dr. Kalahari

Damn. This game is soooooooooooooooooo good.

It's filled to the brim with love and care. Every character is so unique and interesting to interact with, the dialogue is real and natural, and its themes and messaging are subtle enough to not overwhelm, but easy enough to pick up to not miss.

It's use of the dice was super super interesting as well. Not getting the outcome never felt like failure. It never felt like a cheap loss, and which made getting the outcome I did want so much sweeter! Honestly, I hadn't seen decision-making and dice-rolling implemented in a game as well as it is here since Disco Elysium.

My favorite part of the game (as well as one of my biggest "issues" with it) is how dynamic the forest feels. Going back and talking to each character after every event, after every dialogue made it worth just kind of walking around every day. Each interactable item had new info every day. It was super fun just strolling around, looking for funny or interesting new dialogue, a very VERY hard thing to motivate players to do!

Which brings me to my wishes for this studio's next game. I really really wish the forest had more animations to go along with the dialogue, I wished it had different states and looked different. I remember on one of the days, I interacted with Ms. Capybara's firefly jars and it said "There were no more fireflies in the jar" (or something to that effect), when there were very clearly still fireflies in the jar, I could see them! It never took away from my experience, but it was something I noted during gameplay.

As for minor stuff, I think adding a text log and cleaning up the dice rolling animations and physics (is that the right word? I don't know) would've made the game feel even better than it already does.

Overall, a really incredible experience. If you're on the fence, its free! Play it! It can easily be finished in under an hour, and every second is worth it. I can't wait to see what Slandercast Studio and Weston Game Labs have up next for us. This is a studio to watch out for, for certain.

I know I'm not the first to say this, but holy crap this game has come far since launch. I've completed 2 (and a half, working on the third now) playthroughs of this game, one being at launch and the others being post-bug fixes and revamps. Cyberpunk 2077 has (in my mind) finally grown into the game CDPR wanted to release, rather than the one it had to. It's fun, it feels great to play, and it really respects its world. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time with Cyberpunk, and I can't wait for all the new overhauls Phantom Liberty will bring.

Hylics is something else man. Take the most surreal moments from LISA, Earthbound, and Undertale, add some Play-Doh and stippling, a few stickers of LSD, your weirdest dreams, a random word generator, and a light JRPG combat system and you have yourself a Hylics.

Feel free to crash on the couch.