Recent reviews by PT_Pant

Pretty good surrealist exploration platformer set in a Soviet-era city. It has comedic elemends, but the vibes are grimier than what the trailer might suggest with it's music.

There is a main objective that, once completed, you finish the game.

The tools you can find have intuitive ways of utilization, but it's not uncommon for them to bug out and phase through the floor if dropped, or to be unable to be retreived if dropped near another stationary interactable object. Luckily, there's an abundance of them if you explore.

Final Score: 6.5/10

The game bugged 10 minutes before reaching the ending and didn't allow me to open a door in order to exit the room where you use the ouija board and watch the chanting circle with the baby doll in the middle, forcing me to quit to the main menu. When i continued from the last checkpoint, it started me off before entering the house, effectively losing around an hour of progress. If you're going to only use autosaves, do so frequently and allow us to select from which one we want to return back to.

Aside from that, i encountered another odd bug in the settings where, if you don't exit the Controls page from the arrow and you use Esc instead, when you press Resume it returns you to the Controls and you are unable to navigate the page with the mouse unless you reopen the settings and navigate to the Controls page. The Controls page is poor by itself too and it doesn't fully display all the available actions. I only realized i could open and close the flashlight by myself around the end of the game, which would have been useful to know because it's really, really dark.

That being said, speaking purely about the game itself, it's a good haunted house sim with jumpscares that vary from silly to effective for the most part, despite the overreliance on loud sounds. Cheap or not, it made me jump plenty of times. I would have recommended the game if it was in an acceptable state, but the developer needs to patch out the nastier bugs or at the very least provide proper failsafes to prevent people from losing hours of progress.

Psychological horror done right. It doesn't really innovate, nor does it tell the most emotionally gripping story, but it doesn't really need to in order to be tense and enjoyable throughout. It's a game that the developer could have easily charged 3-5$, but they offer it for free.

On the negatives, i experienced a visual bug where the word "and so i answered it" kept repeating during the final cutscene of the good ending instead of the proper text that provided the explanation for what's happening. Surprisingly enough, it still sort of worked.

Final Score: 7.5/10

I want to preface this by saying that the story itself was intriguing, the writing was good for the most part and it will be an enjoyable experience for some people, depending on their personalities and previous knowledge of Lovecraft's literature. The development team had a good idea for a game, but unfortunately a few, seemingly minor aspects negatively affected some of the most important story beats to the point that it made me regret spending the 9 hours it took me to complete it. I'll further explain them below. I wish the development team nothing but the best and i hope they stick with their next project while learning from the feedback they receive on this game.

• You'd expect greater freedom regarding personalization in character customization from a text adventure game, at least compared to what you see in most other videogame subgenres. And, to give credit where it's due, some decisions can be solved with different skill checks. However, this game also proves incredibly restricting in how you customize your character, especially early on. To give some context, it starts you off with a small "personality test" during a dynamic situation, where your stat attributes are allocated depending on how you approach it. However, if you don't build your character with some specific attributes, on speficic levels especially during the ambush in the last african village that you visit with your squadron , you get forced into failing some important story beats because the game doesn't really give you enough upgrade points by that time to make up for it. It basically punishes some players for none other reason than their personality and immersing themselves in the RPG aspects of the game.
  
• The game, like many others, intentionally or unintentionally indirectly communicates to the player some mechanics present throughout it's entirety: directly facing off foes usually involves either Fighting or Agility and sometimes Observation skill checks. Failing them often harshly punishes the player by removing items from their inventory, even important key ones. There are, understandably, a lot of skills you need to keep up to date and the points that the game offers you are limited. The way you allocate them is by leveling each one once every chapter and when a you're faced with a corresponding scenarion that requires that specific skill check. However, all of this is thrown out of the window, where the final encounter is decided by a single speech skill check , which you have to upgrade not once, but TWICE, despite that decision being irrational, leaving you with less that enough remaining points to allocate to much more important skils for the situation given. This lead me into an underwhelming ending and made me feel cheated of the hours i invested in this game. In my opinion, when the vast majority of your playerbase get bad endings, and they're not at least split between them and the normal ending, which provides a satisfying conclusion (not to be confused with true secret endings, which usually provide hidden insights and are supposed to be harder to unlock), it's a good indication that some changes are needed.
  
• When you finally meet the "secret friend" , you're faced with a rather confusing dialogue option at the end of his speech because it's description involves far too many things that the player might have opposing views on. It felt unclear whether i was asked if i'm agreeing about the existence of an entity, about the world i was in being real, about him being truthful and wanting to help me or if i'm simply asked if i agree to help him or not . This lead me, again, to a very confused decision that i regretted later on.
  
  
  Conclusion
  
  It's very much a shame, because the story was enjoyable, the ideas behind it were good and there aren't too many flaws that drag the game down. However, the ones that are there affect such vital parts of the story that they can leave the player with a sour taste about the whole experience. Underneath this all, there's a fairly good game. I just didn't enjoy playing it by the end.
  Final Score: 6.5/10

My first real exposure to this game was through a YouTube video called “FLAKE The Legend of Snowblind – Adventure Game Geek – Episode 105” where the YouTuber, AdventureGameGeek, makes an excellent interview with the developer, Duje Segvic. I kind of hate even mentioning the video, since it often reduces reviews into feeling like indirect YouTube promotions, but I genuinely believe this one is worth a watch before or after finishing the game, as it helps with giving proper context to some potentially confusing design choices. All in all, I’m pleased to say that this game is a genuine labor of love, with a lot of passion and effort put into it and a considerate developer willing to hear out the fans. But that’s only half of what’s required for a game to be good. How well does the developer implement his ideas to bring out his vision? Let’s find out!

• A lovely point-and-click adventure that dates back to a 2005 prototype. Surprisingly enough, it’s retro approach, both in regards to gameplay and stylistically, is still present! If you were a fan of 2000’s point-and-clicks with vector graphics, you’re bound to be hit by a wave of nostalgia.
  
• The story is surprisingly complex and thoughtfully crafted, with darker themes and lessons that resonate with all ages. Even material that hasn’t been used in the game yet hint at the wonderful direction that the developer wants to take the story, and I really hope he will be able to do so.
  
• A very interesting morality system influenced by the actions of your character. Good actions cause warm feelings, slowly turning Flake, our character, into water. Bad deeds make him feel cold-hearted, transforming him into an ice monster. I also really liked how, sometimes, the actions were completely optional, and didn’t interfere with your given objectives: You could find an item meant to solve a main objective’s puzzle that the game indirectly guides you towards, but if you care enough about the in-game world, inspecting various points of interest, you learn about other characters’ struggles. With that knowledge, the game leaves room to the player to figure out for themselves potential optional uses of those items mentioned to solve the “side-quests” without resorting to hand-holding or tying them to an achievement. If you’re successful, you’re rewarded with morality points, which feel much more earned that way. I hope that the developer takes full advantage of this very promising system, even extending into the achievements’ implications that “no good deed goes unpunished”.
  
• Puzzles, for the most part, have logical solutions and aren’t too frustrating or time consuming to figure out. If they are tougher, the game often gives you optional hints if you look for them, and worst case scenario you can always resort to a walkthrough if you end up feeling stuck or you’re not having fun.
  
• The developer already addressed the issue regarding the lack of a pause function, adding one and proving willingness to listen to the community.
  
• Aside from the music composed for the game and some voice acting from friends and family, this game is almost entirely a one-person project. The effort needed to pull this through should be congratulated, and it should also be acknowledged that this allows the final product to be as close to the developer’s artistic vision as possible!
  
• Likeable characters and charming humor.
  
  
  The Not-So-Good
  • Despite it’s pretty lengthy duration for a point-and-click adventure of a solo developer (who mentioned in the aforementioned interview that it should take around 4-5 hours to complete, but judging from the reviews it seems it’s closer to 10 on a leisure playthrough), it is the complete first chapter of a larger story. People who are going in expecting full closure might be disappointed.
    
  • While the concept of the morality system and some of its implementations are great, the game often forces the player into either positive or negative actions. You don’t get to choose between a positive or negative approach when problem-solving in these scenarios; instead, you are forced into an action to progress further into the game, which sometimes turns out to positively or negatively affect Flake. On one hand, this makes sense: it’s the first game in the series and the player needs to be introduced to the important mechanics going forward. However, it makes you feel that you’re passively witnessing Flake’s character growth instead of actively shaping it. I hope that this will be limited to the more important story beats in the following entries. Sometimes the game might offer the option to choose between a negative and a positive action, but the negative feels like it goes against the objective you’re trying to complete so you can’t really go in that route except if you’re actively trying to (for example, when you can insult the gate statue instead of choosing a name for him) . I would personally prefer if the choices were more ambiguous, leaving room to the player to think about the potential positive or negative impacts of their actions on Flake and the supporting characters: for example, a one-time-use item you’d need to solve a puzzle could fall off the pocket of a walking character. Flake could pick it up and use it on the puzzle, but it would make him feel bad. But the player could also choose to talk to the walking character instead and try to return the item, making Flake feel good when the character lets him keep it.
    
  • A few repeating animations and voice lines, with only two or three ever really being a minor issue because they add a few seconds of delay between dialogue skips (Flake making a snowball, one of Leonidis’ laugh tracks and scanning items).
    
  • More profanity than what I would expect from an all-ages game. Thankfully, the profanity used here is rather light (mostly utilizing non-particularly offensive words such as “shut up”), especially compared to what children are subjected to in most media nowadays. Still, parents who don’t want any profanity in their children’s games should be aware of this.
    
  • At least three puzzle solutions, while having logical thinking behind them, can go against the players’ logical thinking if it’s based on pre-established, real world rules, to the point that they might feel frustrated or almost cheated when they find them out (creating a huge snowball big enough to break a shed by rolling a small snowball from the top of a seemingly small slope, sticking a metallic seeming nail into a device with sparks of electricity jumping out of it, disguising a photograph as a pirate map) .
    
  • This one is both a positive and a negative, depending on the person. I chose to include it in the “negatives” list, as it could have more negative consequences to the game’s sales. The dialogue is delivered by the developer and his friends and family. While it’s both charming and faithful to the game genre and era it’s referencing and the budgetary constraints are understandable, some players, especially the younger ones, might expect professional voice acting.
    
    
    Conclusion
    FLAKE The Legend of Snowblind is a surprisingly good, nostalgic and lovingly crafted game with incredible potential going forward. However, as the first entry of a series and due to budgetary and human constraints, it also leaves a lot to be desired. For this game to come to full fruition and for the rest of the series to be made in the first place, it needs more exposure and support. Fortunately, this is a project that’s very much worth supporting.
    Final Score: 8.5/10

For starters, it's worth mentioning that you can't save and exit the game, so you'll have to set aside some time to complete it in one go (I took my time with my playthrough and finished it once i felt that i had seen everything that the game had to offer). This is an issue because the game is prone to crashing if you try to speedrun it in order to earn one of the achievements, but luckily the gameplay loop encourages throughout exploration so it shouldn't affect most people.

The game has a very interesting concept. Without getting into spoilers, was the idea done right? I'd say so. However, the player needs to have at least some basic knowledge of the myth of Sisyphus (the ancient greek myth, not Camus' novel) for the narrative to work and provide some sense of closure. Otherwise, it might end up making them feel confused and somewhat dissapointed by the lack of answers. They need to embrace the horror of the situation instead of being led by expectations set by most other modern videogames, which is a lot to ask from the average player that won't have the full context of what they're getting into, nor will they do the required research into those topics. That's where, in my opinion, the fundamental flaw of this idea lies.

Final Score: 7/10

I should start off by saying that i was very pleasantly surprised with Last Resort, so much so that it has earned a spot among my favorite VN experiences of all time (with emphasis on “experiences”, I’ll go into more detail about this later on) and exceeded my expectations that were set from other reviews.


The biggest praise i could give to this game would have to go towards it's excellent writing, that, despite it's short length, managed to convey the exact emotions it aimed for with such accuracy that it made me sob a few times, and even made me take a break to recollect my thoughts, despite not being the kind of person that’s usually affected by games to such a degree. It’s a shame too, because I feel that a lot of people might’ve misunderstood the developer’s intentions and attributed that to the writing being “bad”. It’s kind of hard to explain stuff like that without making them feel like a “to be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Rick and Morty” type of situation, but bear with me. At the end of the game, you receive a note by the developer stating, among other things, that “ Every one of us wants to run away from our problems from time to time . That’s the feeling I’ve tried to put into the “Last Resort”.” And, knowing the vast thematic scope that the game went for and it’s incredibly limited runtime, it couldn’t really be any different. The point wasn’t for the player to emotionally connect with the characters themselves per se, but for the characters to act as a reflection of the player’s own life struggles. The emotional resonation is meant to happen through the incredibly accurate representation of the thoughts and feelings that the protagonist goes through during the events of the game. Or at least that was my personal interpretation that allowed me to enjoy the game as much as I did. Aside from the writing, the artwork is also very pretty, the animations were better than I expected them to be and the soundtrack was nice too.


Considering the game’s main theme is escapism due to disappointment in our everyday lives, it’d be nice to see a bit more of the protagonist’s everyday routine and actively experience his thoughts during it instead of being quickly filled in on his background before going straight to the main plotline. However, that doesn’t mean it went on for too long. On the contrary, the main issue lies in the game’s incredibly limited length which didn’t allow it to deviate from the main plot. In that sense, the execution couldn’t have been much better, but at it’s current state it almost feels more like a proof of concept and the developer’s talent in writing rather that the full-fledged visual novel it could have been. It’s not an incomplete visual novel by all means, but based on it’s scope it doesn’t feel fully realized. However, it still does offer a worthwhile experience at a fair price. Aside from that, there’s a violin track that plays around the beginning and the end of the game that has a weird 360 effect where you hear the violin constantly rotating around your head if you wear headphones. I don’t know if it’s intentional or not, but I found it incredibly distracting. I’ll also agree with other reviews that the bouncing in the eyes’ irises was a bit excessive, and in my opinion so were the bouncing question/exclamation marks and multiple hearts. It would maybe make sense in an H game to signify progression, but in a normal vn they were a bit too much, and a simple face expression or at least fewer popup symbols could’ve done the job. Lastly, while I wouldn’t outright categorize it as a negative, the voice acting unfortunately ended up breaking my immersion more than anything so I opted to disable it. I personally didn’t find the deeper voices and the Russian language to fit the characters that, unless I’m missing out something, weren’t supposed to be Russian. But again, it’s not really a negative. The voice acting is more of an added bonus from the developer, and the lack of voice acting is just as serviceable.


Hidden Resort is an emotionally engaging, worthwhile experience that unfortunately doesn’t deliver as much as it could due to it’s short length. Despite it’s shortcomings, it delivers what it promises at a fair price.
Final Score: 8/10

I should start off by saying that it's important to keep in mind that this game is as much of a platformer as it is a puzzle adventure. In fact, the platforming gets so demanding at times (especially in the early stages of the second world) that it made me consider dropping it altogether in fear of the difficulty ramping up. Luckily, it was only occasional. The game actually got easier in the third world and the developers were kind enough to offer the option to skip 2 levels of your liking (you get your skip back if you complete the level afterwards so don't be afraid to use it if you're struggling too much). People who are not into challenging platformers or that aren't fully adept in keyboard control schemes as of yet (since the controller support didn't function properly, for my Dualshock 4 at least) should consider the purchase more carefully if they're not willing to struggle in some areas, though you can't really go wrong when the game goes for as low as a dollar on sale. Still, i'd advice the developers to state it's challenging platforming elements more clearly in the top description or the trailer.

Aside from that, i was pleasantly surprised with the game, especially considering it's a student project, and the developers should feel proud for what they have created. Most puzzles were clever and fun, the humor was charming and the artstyle and soundtrack made the experience even more pleasant. I was mostly surprised with how well the developers managed to implement the ghost mechanic. I was skeptical of it as a concept, considering that a form that allows much more freedom than your base one could potentially bypass a lot of struggles that could've existed if this weren't a thing instead of challenging your problem solving in creative ways. Instead, they made it feel more like a supporting tool for your base form, allowing you to spectate areas, quickly move to areas you don't currently need to complete without the need to deal again with obstacles and utilization during puzzle solving. I also really liked how open ended the puzzles often were, allowing you to complete them in ways other than the intended ones, rewarding you for making use of the game's mechanics.

However, i have some critisisms, and they mostly regard the second world. Unfortunately, it was the result of the devs trying to up their game from the already perfectly crafted first world. The problem was how they went on about it, since they did so by introducing additional timed trials that required surprisingly tight and demanding platforming. Imo, this was a wrong call, since it actively discouraged experimentation with the already complicated puzzles, considering you often had to redo the entire thing from the start if you messed up one step along the way. Truth be told, things like that should be expected from student projects, and the devs did an amazing work regardless. Thankfully, the third world was much easier since the timed trials weren't as demanding and they mixed things up by introducing new types of puzzles. That being said, i'd use a level skip on the 26th level of the third world, since there's a time consuming puzzle with two boxes that can easily get messed up and, yet again, it requires the player to do the entire thing from the start if it happens. The other skip could be used for a level of the second world that you have trouble with.

A pleasantly fun and charming puzzle platformer that can sometimes be surprisingly demanding on it's latter part. I'd safely recommend it to anyone, except from people who don't want to deal with challenging platforming trials. Still, for the price, you can't really go wrong with the purchase.

Nowadays, with one big release coming after the other, and critically acclaimed titles regularly going on deep sales, the biggest issue becomes your incredibly limited available time. In order to make that time worth investing, games need to stand out in one way or another, whether it's the highly cinematic experience offered, the deeply emotional storytelling, or the well thought out gameplay mechanics. You need to leave feeling that you've gotten something out of them. But truth is, the overabundance of newly released games aiming to immerse you in in their worlds can only result in an increasing difficulty for them to offer something new on the table. Code Rivals took the bold leap and chose to offer a real word practical experience first and foremost instead.

In this game, you'll be learning the basics of programming, by setting chains of commands for your robot in order to defeat enemies in various combat scenarios, with varied levels of difficulty. The programming used is similar to Lego Mindstorm's aprroach, if you have any familiarity with it. It's super fun watching a chain of commands you've been thinking through working out in the end, frustrating when it breaks for some reason, and even more rewarding when you find the issue and fix it. It's a game that makes learning fun by actively rewarding you during gameplay and serves as a neat introduction of the mindset you need to approach while programming by guiding you through it.

Code Rivals is a very interesting case of a game. It doesn't have the flashier visuals, or the fame of AAA games, or some other indies, so it's not hard for it to go under your radar at first glance. But truth is, it doesn't need to, since it sets a league of it's own, one the developer aimed for from the start. If it's concept sounds interesting, or if you're looking for a truly fresh experience, or even to learn something new, i'd suggest trying it out.

I bought the game for 3.49$ during sale, pretty much the price of a videogame soundtrack dlc, so considering that you can't go wrong really. I should also state that i did the true pacifist run, so some story pieces and the overall experience may be different for other people who chose different routes.

Let me start off by saying that i think the game is VERY overrated. It's pretty good, but not as good as some people want you to believe.
The story is good, but not really noteworthy. There weren't really any new ideas i haven't seen in other games, BUT it actually gets really interesting during the last area you get to explore. Thats the only part of the game that i actually went WTF and was super eager to explore and find out what really happened. I was a bit dissapointed, since due to the clues you receive (spoilers:) the empty coffin with the red heart, the mentions of the human in the labs, flowey's boss machine being some kind of hibernation chamber i was led to believe that your character (spoilers, again) was dead and experiencing some kind of purgatory, though it was revealed that the developer actually settled for a more "safe" option, which was a bit of a let down, but it still was good, so props to that.
The characters, which were supposed to be on of the main draws of the game, were pretty average. Some of them were sort of likable (Toriel was a weird mother type figure, Sans was pretty ok, though he felt like a 14 year old's self insert, Metatton was a pretty funny and a charming character overall, but i found his first, more likable form to be really reminiscent of Mike Myers' The Cat in the Hat) some others kinda unlikable (Udyne was behaving like an edgy manchild rather than a respected and hardened warrior, that dinosaur scientist who i don't even remember her name was pretty annoying especially after metatton revealed her true motifs), and then there is Papyrus, who was the only character who i found genuienly likable and charming.
The humor was mixed. It all comes down to personal taste, but even though i found some jokes to be funny (Papyrus' famous, special attack, how to end the buff unicorn/cat encounter as a pacifist), most of them were pretty averange and a lot of them were straight up frustrating (the pet the doggo/pupper jokes made me want to gouge my eyes out).
The gameplay. During your defending state, you have to avoid objects thrown by the enemy, like bullet hell games, but with variations between each enemy. The hitboxes are pretty generous, so you don't have to worry about the difficulty. During you attacking phase, you can ether attack or convince your enemy to stop fighting you by pressing the correct order of dialogue prompts each turn. You can also play some dating minigames depending on your choices during the playthough, which are pretty much interactive jokes, with humor as the main focus (which is much better than actually taking them seriously).

Having said that, there are also things i REALLY enjoyed while playing the game
The soundtrack. Oh boy, the soundtrack. It's actually one of the best videogame soundtracks i have heard! from the calming tone of "undertale", which game me such a comfy and nostalgic feeling, to "death by glamour" and "Hopes and Dreams" which made me so hyped that only a few other games managed to succeed, it made me believe that the game was made purely to showcase this soundtrack. Though some tracks aren't as good as some others, the ones that are good will undoubtedly stick with you for a loooong time.
The final bosses Although i found the boss fights to be average, The last few boss fights with Omega Flowey and Asriel were actually some of the best boss fights i have played period. The idea of being weaker than the boss in the beginning of the fight, and actually building up your strenght during it even though the boss starts doing faster attacks is an AMAZING idea that is mostly overlooked by other games, or implemented poorly. The fact that at the end of the fight you end up being equally strong to the boss by the help of everyone that you have helped during your playthrough, which is super satisfying on it's own, and start doing crazy attacks at each other, while having an amazing soundtrack blasting on the backround makes you experience pretty much the hype that anime battles capture, but in the form of a videogame. I also have to give props to the developer, since even though the bosses attacks are insane, he managed to make them not as punishing as they seem to be, while the player is still tricked to think otherwise. It's hard to describe really, but these are some fights that you have to experience for yourself to see how well thought out and brilliant they are.

tl;drAnyways, after all that i believe that undertale isn't incredible. It's pretty average during the whole way through, and only gets good towards the end. However, it does some things so incredibly right (soundtrack and true final bosses) that you have to experience them for yourself, and it's worth the purchase during a sale. Hope you found this review helpful, cause otherwise i wasted my day for nothing.