Steam Pack 14

Might as well get that one out of the way, it’s been in my plans for a while. I swear, I don’t play games nearly as fast as I buy them. Is that addiction? Maybe. Probably. What I should try to do someday is a big month with nothing but Steam Packs, in order to get some clutter out of the collection. There are games that I don’t feel I’d play for more than an hour, while others I end up playing far longer than the average playtime (as recorded on websites such as HowLongToBeat). I tend to try and beat games before reporting on them, too. Today, as usual, four more games are being reviewed! Let’s start with…

Chronology

In a Steampunk world, an old man with a watch that lets him travel between two time periods goes on a quest to save his present by changing the past.

Chronology is a game released to Steam by Bedtime Digital Games on May 12^th, 2014. This absolutely gorgeous adventure is in the purest tradition of puzzle platformers, a genre that seems extremely popular among indie developers. How many of those have I reviewed so far? I’ve lost count.

"I'm a talking snail that can stop time!"
"Not the strangest thing I've seen today."

The man, known only as the Old Inventor, thus has to travel across the wilderness in order to prevent the world-changing event of the past that has led to the grim and desperate present. His quest begins in the forest, and continues into the busy areas of town. With his watch, he can see both the past and the present, and when the path is blocked in one period he can proceed in the other. He can even change elements of the past, such as replanting a young tree to a different spot, and see it grow to be used as a platform in the present. On his journey he soon meets a big snail that talks and has time-freezing abilities of its own, though both travel in time together and can still move while time is frozen. Those two abilities, as you can imagine, become necessary together in order to get through the various traps of the partly-destroyed town of the final levels. And hey, the snail can even move around some odd corners, serve as a steed or even a platform in some situations!

On our way to save... er... the past? The present? The future?

An old man and a snail? It’s like the synopsis to a Pixar movie.

And so this adventure takes them to the heart of the city, where the Old Inventor and his slightly less sane acolyte harnessed the energy of a new and magical power source, only for it to go horribly wrong… and perhaps he can undo the bad present…

Hop! I'm no fan of snails, but this one's very useful.

Setting aside any nitpicks I would have about the time-travel elements of the story (because I’m that kind of sci-fi nerd), I would say this is a very good game! The puzzles aren’t extremely difficult for the most part, though as you progress more and more of them use a combination of the time-based mechanics. The banter between the childlike snail and the old inventor is pretty fun, and the story remains simple. Most of the tale is told through the environment, in a way. Seeing the lush, green past and the broken, decrepit present says more than words would. To top it off, the game is drop-dead gorgeous. I am left in awe at the beauty and detail of the environments visited.

How to open a door, puzzle platform style:
-Find key.
-Blast door, set it on fire, douse it, travel time, walk through.

The controls are pretty simple, and there are features to prevent frustration, such as the snail which cannot cross certain types of areas - in which case the Old Inventor can call for it and it’ll teleport near the man. Don’t ask how that works, that one stays unexplained.

I haven’t run into a lot of roadblocks here, aside from a few tricky puzzles here or there, especially at the end - which is normal, the tougher puzzles at the end of the puzzle-platform game, duh. Though I also ran into a glitch once where the old inventor got stuck into a floating piece of land, but it’s the only case I encountered. Also, to reach his goals, the inventor often does morally-questionable things. Needs of the many yadda yadda, I guess.

"I'm stuck in the walls!" Ah, the hazards of time travel.

Overall, a very fun experience, perhaps on the short side (it can be beaten in about two hours), but enjoyable nonetheless. Get it for 4.99$ on the Steam Store.

Dyna Bomb

I think I both get this one and don’t get it. The concept is simple enough, though: You control a little jetpack-wearing hero and must find your way to the exit of each level, collecting as many jewels as possible on the way.

You gotta do this quick, or you're gonna lose!

Made and published by 7 Raven Studios, and released on May 13^th, 2016, Dyna Bomb is a free-to-play title with plenty of platforming levels, with puzzles sprinkled in. Finding keys to open doors, traveling around in portals, fairly common video game fixtures. More than 64 levels split across 8 worlds, that’s not half-bad.

You can just look for the end, or you can go around killing enemies using bombs found inside the level. Be careful, though. Dyna dies instantly from being touched by an enemy, a laser, a blast… Get ready to die and restart levels a lot in here. And I do mean a LOT, because even the lightest touch of something deadly will kill. Sometimes you won’t even notice something is deadly until the character hits it. And if the enemies and hazards don’t kill you, maybe the time limit will, so you should hurry! Can you get three stars on every level?

I swear that last sentence sounded like I was shilling Angry Birds… If Dyna Bomb so far sounds in this review like it’s a mobile game put up on Steam, don’t worry, you’ll get that exact feeling while playing it, too.

The controls are bothersome, with the playable character rising faster than they move whenever they’re flying left or right, meaning it’s easy to hit one of the electrified spheres of an intermittent electric zapper blocking your way. Or, well, literally anything deadly on the screen. It’s like some messed-up cheap Mega Man with the controls as fickle as Flappy Bird. Oh, but don’t worry, you can continue where you are if you pay diamonds, the in-game currency that you collect as you complete levels.

...Eh. My luck's terrible. I doubt I'll be
around this slot machine much.

You can also spend the diamonds gathered on a slot machine to get items at random, or purchase proper power-ups before a level in order to beat it more easily. The entire thing feels as though 7 Raven Studios wanted really really badly to add microtransactions to it (pay real cash for diamonds to spend!), but had to take those away.

This game is alright, but I’m not a fan. It plays well and has a wide range of options, including two playable characters (not that they make much of a difference), but I was eventually turned off by the great difficulty as well as the labyrinthine design and length of the levels. That game feels designed to nickel-and-dime you… or, well, make you buy more microtransactions. It’s not bad, and I guess it’s a nice challenge if you feel like having a free game to play once in a while… but it’s not for me.

Rabbit Hole 3D

Reading has never been more dangerous!

How to go through an R.

Developed by Somi, published by Zero Rock Entertainment and released on April 25^th, 2014, Rabbit Hole 3D: Steam Edition is equal parts an arcade game and a short audiobook. Words will fly towards you very fast and you must pass through the holes between letters. That already sounds tricky. The levels are created from excerpts of the book Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, in particular the moment where Alice sees the white rabbit and follow him down, well… you can figure that one out.

The game features eight levels, which you can play one after the other in Ranked Mode, with no pauses between levels. Survive as long as possible and your final time will be recorded. Then there’s a solo mode in which you can play every level, one at a time, as preparation for the full game. Your puny little cube has only two Hit Points (or, rather, "lives") total, so it can hit a letter's solid blocks once and the next time it’s Game Over.

Gotta catch 'em all - the letters, I mean!

But don’t worry! Each letter forms a 5X5 square, and obviously your cube will have to pass through the word in an open hole among the letters. Some letters are red, others are blue: You’ll notice that all the blue letters are part of the word “RABBIT HOLE”. Pass through the word, close to a blue letter, and the corresponding letter will be darkened at the bottom of the screen in the expression "RABBIT HOLE". Collect all the letters of the words “RABBIT HOLE”, and you get an extra life! Not that collecting those letters will be easy, mind you.

BuT THEn AgAIn, cOLLEcTIng LETTERs Of THAT wORd Is AcTuALLy nOT sO dIffIcuLT, cOnsIdERIng HOw fREquEnT THEy TEnd TO BE In THE EngLIsH lAnguAgE. THE HARdEsT TO cOLLECT mAy BE THE LETTER B, sIncE yOu nEEd TwO Of THOsE, sO LOOk OuT fOR THAT OnE. ALsO THE wORds mOvE By cRAzy fAsT…

Almost there, my Dictionary Dex is almost complete! 

I can excuse the game’s difficulty since it’s meant to be played as a challenge, an arcade of sorts and the best times are recorded in the game’s high scores. I never made it past Level 4. It’s truly difficult and you need to learn the text in order to know what’s coming and plan your letter quest accordingly. Since the words move so fast, you will need to collect as many lives as possible in the early portions, so that you can face the later ones. It does reward your memory and reaction speed. It helps that the excerpt is read in portions as the level progresses, so you know what to expect soon.

But hey, I’ll always appreciate a game that is challenging, has an interesting concept, and promotes literature. That’s a plus in my book. Cool stuff, if you’ve got three dollars on the side.

Viridi

Let’s end this on a relaxing title. Calming, soothing… It’s just about taking care of plants.

Plant pot. Snail is mandatory. You must have one.

This simple game was made by Zoe Vartanian, Badru, Isa Hutchinson and Michael Bell, published by Ice Water Games and released on August 20^th, 2015. You get a pot for your plants, then a couple starting plants. You even get your own mandatory pet snail! Geez, start this review with a snail, end it with a snail. That’s funny. You can spray water on the plants whenever they need it, but remember that plants take time to grow. Not exactly real-time, mind you, but a couple weeks here at least. Keep your little world alive, spray only when necessary, don’t kill any plants, and you’re good to go! Plants can live a couple days without you watering them, so this really is a game you’ll play only for a few minutes at a time, since any action you can do will take, at best, a couple seconds.

There are achievements for this game, encouraging you to grow to full maturity at least one of every single plant in the game, and then keep on raising more and more. Eventually you can free up space by uprooting mature plants and getting them in the garden, a mystical place I’ve never witnessed. In the game, I mean, in real life I have seen the outside world… yeah… we do have a garden… I mean, right now it’s covered in snow. This is Canada in November after all…

5$ upfront, no rent, make sure to keep it tidy.
Curfew at 5 PM.

But that’s not all. There’s a shop in this game, and as you can guess there’s no in-game currency. Bring in your real money, and buy a map to a grove, or 5$ for a key to an apartment - wow, rent is cheap in that world. Maybe a decoration for cats? That’s 3$. Yeah, I had two of those at home, I just pawned them off to buy myself a key to a nice and cozy apartment. Then you can buy seedlings of any plant in the game, each with their scientific name (from Cheiridopsis Denticulata to Senecio Rowleyanus, passing by Kalanchoe Thrysiflora and Fenestraria Aurantiaca, and yes I repeatedly made sure that I spelled all of those correctly), and prices ranging from 9 to 39 cents. You do get one random seedling per week for free, though - among all the plants in the game, even the ones you already have. Want that completion? Be super-lucky for a minimum of 23 weeks, or pay about… hm. My calculations get to 4.07$ USD. For one seed of every plant? Not that bad, actually.

Still not a fan of snails... but it's a good tie-in to close the review.

Though it’s mostly a free game meant to be enjoyed at your own pace, so it’s not like you need to rush to get everything done in here. Play it for a few minutes at a time, or leave it running with its soothing music and calming visuals while you do anything else. There’s no hurry, right?

Stick around for Watching Paint Dry: The Game... What do you mean, someone actually tried to make that a real game on Steam? 

..............................................Urgh.

And that covers today’s four games. Maybe something in there interests you, maybe nothing does. It’s alright. Part of my goal with these Steam Packs is to play through my backlog and talk about all those games for this blog, yes. However, I would be very happy to hear that any of my articles and quick reviews have directed someone towards any of these games. Made you discover something. Made you play and enjoy a game you may have never heard of before. That makes what I do actually worth it.

I think I’ll work on a few more Steam Packs. I might try to review a Nintendo 3DS game before the end of the year…