Recent reviews by BOLL

I've kind of wanted something like this for quite some time. I doodled with model trains as a kid, like Merklin model Z or whatever, and this is basically that but without the heavy investment! 😃

At launch the game felt like it ended when it got as most interesting, the 10 level campaign is basically a drawn out tutorial, and then the final level in the game feels like the real deal, a big level with challenging things to accomplish. 😗

LUCKILY, they pushed a free update that adds 12 more levels like the last one! Exactly what I wanted, and that more than doubles the content of the game as well, which is ridiculous for a free update! Much appreciated and certainly will extend my playtime by a multiple 😁 Good times!

Edit: Can report that the challenge levels extended the game by +200%, at least for me 🤣👍 And they get quite challenging indeed!

Feedback to devs:
1. The biggest wish I have right now, is if I could move the book by grasping it, the Grab input for Index controllers, instead of using the trigger. This as I keep picking pieces when I intend to move the book. Maybe I can rebind this on my own, not sure, will check later. Edit: Alternatively, allow me to attach the book to one of my hands.
2. I have missed which pieces were unlocked, as the book has everything in the same color scheme as the locked buttons. I believe having the icons filled in and/or with a faint background color depending on the category could be one option to make it more apparent, and help with distinction! This is just my unsolicited feedback though.
3. A train speedup, on the bigger levels it takes forever for it to traverse the whole thing so I barely ever let it actually run the whole track.

This will murder your legs, well it did mine, I hope for zombie legs in the morning. Good times!

At this point, I've gotten all upgrades. This game is a nice, satisfying and pretty brain dead pleasure. I can easily listen to an audio book while playing this, which is exactly what I wanted.

Mining and a lot of explosions and particles, my brain is happy. Lots of persistent upgrades to spend your gold on, plenty of biomes and enemy types, three character classes although I mostly used two, an actual story and bosses!

This game offered up way more than I expected, and I will definitely perfect it, only about 36 levels left to beat 😁👍

It is a unique experience, I wouldn't want to have missed it, but if you're playing it in VR like I did, know that it was _INTENSE_, like... the warping of the space breaks my mind a bit as soon as I move, even if I know what is going on, and there are some quite intense artificial motion in certain parts of the game.

The game itself is I guess... point and click adventure game in VR? Although with some actiony elements to it. Of course also taking place in a hyperbolic space or whatever. That last quirk is really the main USP, the world is folding in on itself and exploring that reveals huge spaces unfolding in front of you as you move. It becomes intuitive while also surprising.

I think the biggest negative for me is probably how much reading of dialogs the game contains, mostly as I played in VR while streaming, so this might be fine for people not doing VR. Not a biggy, just something to keep in mind.

I might just not be used to reading dialog I guess, I'm one of those schmucks that skips most dialog to regain agency.

I was sure I had reviewed this... in any case, best mini golf game in VR that I've played, and I've played a few, even if I don't like real mini golf.

Did I just say that? Yeah, but I still enjoy this, because you have fantastic environments, you can play as a big group and have a social experience, if things are slow while others are hitting look for the hidden balls on the courses, there's also the clubs to unlock through bespoke quests.

It's a solid game that performs super well, it does what it says on the box. I think one of the things that makes it very approachable is the dynamic club length, it's very straight forward to get into hitting balls.

As an old gamer that played the Diablo series from the very first game, but mostly the second game, I am very much enjoying this bleak, desaturated, dreadful version of Sanctuary. Diablo 3 in contrast felt more cartoony to me, I cleared it and then not much else.

I'll list what makes this game stand out to me, then mostly compared to Diablo 2, with me only having cleared the first act in this game.

1. Convenience, incredible amounts of convenience. No potion belt, you have charges, no mana potions, you have skills that generate or consume your resource, all crafting material goes into a separate inventory, you see elites on the minimap, quest tracking with path finding, no stat points to distribute but just levels. This might be almost too much convenience, but at this point in my life, I'm happy.
   
2. Quests, there is so much to do. I remember having at the most six quests per act in Diablo 2, and now only the first area has 38 side quests. There is a lot of things to do, which sure can be samey, go there kill that, but after all that is mostly what Diablo is about so I'm enjoying it. Supposedly there are six acts, and the amount of side quests increase, so this will keep me busy for quite some time.
   
3. Gamepad support. As it were, I played Diablo 3 for many hours straight when it came out, and that gave me basically a persistent RSI in both hands. So I have a rocky relationship with the third installment even if I love the series. I got to try the PS3 version of Diablo 3 at DreamHack, and I loved how that played, and asked if we would get that on PC but was told no, thus I did not play more Diablo 3. To my delight, the gamepad experience in this game is stellar. The auto-targetting might feel a bit like cheating, but at this point I see it as an accessibility feature for someone like me who is physically uncomfortable playing with a mouse.
   
4. Graphics. That said, I have been playing mostly scrappy indie titles for the last decade and more, due to feeling AAA was mostly samey rehashes and endless sequels, so I'm awfully out of date and not acclimatized to current AAA graphics. I am very happy looking at this game, and the gritty, grimy, earthy, feel of it.

All in all, I'd say this feels like a mix between classic Diablo and World of Warcraft. The questing very much feels like WoW, although not as tedious, and some events will have other players randomly pop in, to my surprise and initial annoyance, but I've gotten used to it and now like seeing what other classes can do. I am so far very happy with the game.

The only real issue I've had is that the game will sporadically not list any audio devices for playback, and thus not output any audio. Disabling and enabling my default device and then entering the audio options has been a fix so far.

If I could wish for something, it would be stereo 3D output in some shape or form, so I can play this on a virtual desktop in VR with perfect separation. That is basically what I now dream about while playing this game, me having been a VR fanatic for more than a decade, getting depth and scale in almost everything I play that has 3D graphics. I'll still play this as is though, evidently.

It's almost 10 years old when I write this review, but it still works well and it is a joy to play with friends. I wish I could also buy the soundtrack, but the game itself is a good time. 2½ hours to get through the campaign with friends visiting 😁 worth it.

This is a high quality dopamine trap, it will take a lot of time to fill the persistent upgrade tree, but that tree is also what made this interesting.

Basically, a lot of the abilities you put points in become essential in helping you progress further, so it almost turns into an Armored Core situation, with having to spec out a combatant to be able to beat a mission.

Add to this the exploration of all the character skill charts that you use in a session, finding out which skills are good to start with on specific levels, like if it targets random or nearest enemy, and which are for massive damage to thin out the horde.

I enjoyed it enough to go for all achievements, that is how I deem rogue-lites beat nowadays apparently. Good times were had! Oh yeah and there's bosses, a whole lot of bosses, and everything is quite pretty indeed.

I bought this game as I collect game soundtracks, and it had a nice one at a discount, then the name and graphical design pulled me in so I got the very affordable bundle with both the game and soundtrack.

First off I was not a fan of roguelites, as it felt like I kept losing my progress, but the lite part insinuates that there is some persistence between rounds. In some cases, the only thing you unlock are things that can spawn in the world in future runs, there are no stat boosts or changing starting conditions. These are the games I cannot muster playing. On the other hand, there are roguelites that DO give you all kinds of upgrades between runs, like this game.

And by now I've spent 25 hours playing this, in the last three days, and I just now managed to reach the end. Yes I got mega hooked, because it's a roguelite in the format I enjoy, but let me explain why.

1. Persistent upgrades that affect the game A LOT, they are not tiny boosts that you will not notice, the upgrades in this game are some of the more rewarding ones I've experienced in a long time. That was the main thing that hooked me. If you like upgrade systems, just play this.
2. A lot of mysteries, exploration, things to figure out, things to discover. I'm also an exploration junkie, and this game, while restricted to a wall, delivers on that front.
3. It's an interesting mix of exploring a plethora of mines in a number of biomes with waves of enemies appearing that you also need to survive. There are tactics to discover and exploit for both the mining and combat, it is very satisfying to figure things out.
4. What attracted me from the start, the music and then aesthetic. The pixel art is fantastic, lots of animations, a slew of different enemies, different types of materials and elements in mines. Stunning vistas to discover, they cause magical moments, I'll just say that.

I played this both on the Steam Deck and on PC, and on the PC both with gamepad and mouse+keyboard. I'd say mouse+keyboard is the most viable alternative, mostly due to the combat which is easier with a mouse. Otherwise I prefer mining with a gamepad, so the optimal would be one input per mode, but that's a bit ambitious. The game supports it though, you can swap between input methods on the fly!

One gotcha for the Steam Deck is that there are quite small things in this game, the combat mode zooms out and the enemies are tiny. Some text is also tiny, like your resource panel. That said, I still spent many of my hours playing this on the Deck because convenience, so it's still possibly, with these caveats.

All in all, this was a very good time, highly recommended if you like: roguelites with impactful persistent upgrades, exploration mixed with combat, gorgeous pixel graphics and a high quality soundtrack.

This starts out hard, then becomes kind of easy going, then it's hard again! It has an absolute metric ton of things to upgrade and unlock, it's mildly insane. So far I've only beaten the final boss on the first level, but I'm making my way to maxing out the meta upgrades.

It has been good times, but it feels nicer to play on the Steam Deck than my PC monitor due to it being so pixelated, so I'd recommend playing it on a smaller screen due to that 🤣

Oh, and I really appreciate the many options for how ti show enemies, projectiles, friendlies and the player character, you can pick colorized outlines, very helpful indeed. I've enjoyed it so far and will keep playing it 👍