Quick Review: On Rusty Trails

The hate between the reds and the blues... it’s gotta stop, man. The skies are literally falling on our heads.

See Elvis? He's the triangle. Down there.
Wait, I'll get the magnifying glass...

Black Pants Studio presents On Rusty Trails, released on June 13th, 2016. It is the story of Elvis, a triangular little (and I do mean little) red robot whose home gets destroyed during a shower of deadly green meteorites. Thankfully, the house was still under warranty, so he hurries off to get a brand new one from the factory. There’s only one problem. Well… two. First, there’s an intense hatred between his kin and the blue tentacular blobs, who begrudgingly coexist in a world that tries to accommodate all but just ends up making it dangerous for both; and second, the meteorites haven’t stopped falling.

In this tough 2D puzzle platformer, Elvis has a lot of skills. The first: As far as platforming protagonists go, Elvis has incredible mobility. Maybe he’s a robot with magnetic feet, I dunno; but he can stick to all four sides of any surface. You thus control him on solid ground, up walls, even under the cubes. Takes some getting used to, but it's a major element.

At least the blue costume fools everyone.

The second skill is gained early on: A “blue creature” suit that he can put on or take off in an instant. This allows him to walk incognito among the blue creatures. However, it’s not used to get through racial conflicts between the red triangles and blue beasts; no, it’s more that this world is a deadly goddamn mess. Most platforming elements are made either for one or for the other. Elvis can swap between his red and blue forms at the press of the tab key, and radically changes the game each time.

Laser good? Only when I'm red.

Red platforms are only solid for his red form, and vice versa for the blue. While red, Elvis can walk through lava and even pass lasers without an issue, but waterfalls will instantly kill him. Meanwhile, the blue suit allows him to survive under the same waterfalls but makes him vulnerable to lava and lasers. Thus, to progress, you have to regularly swap between the two forms, which switches both the platforms available and the deadly hazards on the way. This even applies to the elevator at the end of every stage – you’re in the blue form, the elevator asks for red? You can’t come in.

Oh, and remember when I said that the green meteorites haven’t stopped falling? Yeah, doesn’t matter which form you’re in; you touch ‘em, you’re dead. Keep in mind that Elvis dies in one hit. Oh, and sometimes, those green things move, as well. Good luck. You’ll need it. Needless to say, things only get harder and harder from there.

I'm starting to feel a little more worried that, not only are
those green things still around, someone is turning them into
moving hazards in the neighborhood.

And the rain clouds move of their own free will?
Half the people in this world die from water!
I wanna speak to the manager of this universe!

On Rusty Trails is a game that’s highly stylized, looking great and having great music to accompany what we have on the screen. There’s a good amount of variety topping the basic concept here. One thing I do criticize about the look of the game is that, sometimes, we’re zoomed out from the game, and in those cases, Elvis is so small that we can barely see him on the screen. Makes it tricky to avoid hazards. The themes are pretty clear and the story goes to interesting places; after Elvis goes through a neighborhood that’s a failed attempt at having reds and blues living together (as evidenced by billboards encouraging it having been vandalized repeatedly), he enters the factory… and something even fishier is going on in there.

There's even the occasional puzzle-based boss
battle in there, as well!

There’s a fantastic complexity to the system here – even if it’s just about switching between two forms, this changes the world considerably every time you do. Very frequently, you face hazards that force you to switch literally for a split second, the time to get past it and return to the other form. Speed is encouraged, with each stage keeping track of your time and comparing it to literally everyone else who's ever played through it (thousands of players). The puzzle aspect is all about getting to the goal, which can be very tricky between all the red and blue platforms and the deadly green meteorites, and figuring out the right timing. The difficulty is high. It’s definitely a game for someone seeking a challenge. If that sounds like what you’d like, by all means, do check it out!

On Rusty Trails is available on Steam for 14.99$ USD.

Quick Review: Narcissu 1st and 2nd

No, I’m not crying, you’re crying.

A creation of stage-nana published by Sekai Project and released on May 15th, 2007, Narcissu 1st and 2nd is a visual novel that veers far more on the “novel” side. It’s hardly interactive; outside of selecting the new chapter when that screen comes up, there’s nothing here but the story and its progression, with some voice acting.

The size of the pictures, within that big void
of black... it feels a tad claustrophobic.

700km? A decent road trip challenge for
some people who've never seen the world.

This product is a double pack, hence the name. Narcissu 1st is about an unnamed 20yo boy with a disease that’s never stated clearly in the story, all but left to die at the “seventh floor” of the local hospital. The hopeless cases, who will go back and forth between that floor and home, just waiting for the inevitable. Which never takes too long to come. During one of those boring days, the boy gets acquainted with a girl staying there as well, Setsumi Sakura, also suffering from an unstated disease, who seems disinterested in everything and resigned to accept her fate and basically stop living. Dying here, or dying at home… Faced with those depressing clear-cut choices, the protagonist gets a crazy idea for a third option, which Setsumi ends up joining on. Impromptu road trip? Impromptu road trip.

Narcissu 2nd is actually a prequel to the first, and over double the length, for a total of about 6 hours for both. Its protagonist is Himeko, originally a volunteer at the seventh floor, who also winds up diagnosed with a deadly disease and transferred there. She meets Setsumi, making the girl the tying element between the two Sides, and a friendship develops there as well. Road trip? Road trip. (Yeah, don’t ask me to explain either of these.)

It's sad when a hospital room seems like the
preferable option.

Lots of "Un." "Not particularly." and other
repeated phrases here.

Both games are available in both voiced and unvoiced versions, and with two translations – those were done by separate translators, so there are small differences between them. The presentation is minimalist; we rarely get to see the characters on the theater-wide strip above the text, and we instead get a lot of visuals of places without characters in them. The intention was to let the players fill in with their imagination (though we do get a few glimpses of the protagonists from time to time). The voice acting is still in the original Japanese, and is a lot more present in the second story than in the first. Both pack a fair number of emotional punches; it is, after all, a story of dying people, many of whom have already learned to cope with their situation. That said, the story is not kind to the health system in Japan, though as you can imagine, in a story that’s tied this closely to it, commentary on the subject was inevitable. Long story short, if the story does hook you in, then it will tug at your heartstrings more than just a few times.

Narcissu 1st and 2nd is available for free on Steam. If you were touched by the story, you might also like the 10th anniversary anthology project that includes a number of extra stories as DLCs and a lot of bonuses.

Quick Review: Mushroom 11

An… anti-platformer? …What’s that? Sorry, I got kinda puzzled by that descriptor on the Steam page.

Weird to think that you're technically the
eraser, not the blob itself.

A product by Untame released on October 15th, 2015, Mushroom 11 is set in a post-apocalyptic future. Mankind is practically gone, only its ruins remain, as well as whatever has survived and mutated. The strangest mutation of all, though, is a bizarre green blob, an amorphous organism, suddenly born out of who knows what. A mushroom, maybe? This thing cannot further grow, and also it cannot quite move on its own. That’s where you come in.

Fire bad! Good thing Blobby feels no pain!

You are the eraser. Left-click to erase a big circle of bloblike material, right-click to erase a smaller portion. The main gameplay mechanic here is that, when you erase a part of the blob, it grows it back elsewhere. Even if you quickly erase the whole thing, there’ll be one particle of the blob left that it can grow back from. There is only one requirement: To grow back, the blob has to touch solid ground, stationary items or water. It can’t grow in midair. Also of note is how the blob’s regrowth seems completely randomized; you have no control on how its particles return, aside from keeping the eraser active so that particles won’t grow in its circle. Part of the challenge is thus that your control on the thing’s movements are very limited, meaning that you have few options when it comes to making it go where you want.

Blobby VS the Spider-Thing.
My money's on the amoeba.

The game is divided into chapters, with each one upping the ante on tricky and inventive puzzles. Shoving the blob through a maze of tight passages? Sure. Having it cross areas of open lava? Of course! Fight radiated monsters? That too! One quest added to the game involves gathering as many DNA strands as possible, which is done by picking up special insects and plants. Customary of a good puzzle game, most of those aren’t mandatory but may require some extra thinking in order to actually grab them. Those are tallied at the end of a chapter.

The DNA strands allow for a variation in gameplay, as they become weak points on bosses encountered at the end of a chapter – gather all of the strands, the boss is killed. On a similar note, there are enemies, but since the blob is mostly indestructible, pieces of it destroyed by an enemy or a hazard (if it’s not destroyed in its entirety, that is) will reappear elsewhere on it, similarly to the eraser circle. This thing just won’t die – but it wants to travel.

Science lesson of the day: Levers, pulleys and catapults!

The next scientific question: Can an amoeba rope-climb?
Answer: Yes, but it'll be hella tricky.

Although I didn’t finish it (yet), I can safely say Mushroom 11 represents exactly what I wished all puzzle platformers were: An incredibly unique concept and gameplay mechanic, put through puzzles that take full advantage of everything that can be done with the idea. Adding more mechanics on top and seeing how those mix up. The amoeba’s randomized regeneration makes it extremely unwieldy, and forces it to count on gravity to move around (erase the back side of it, the front becomes heavy, it tumbles forwards, rinse and repeat). Since your only controls involve erasing the amoeba, you can split it into pieces, often allowing it to fulfill more than one task at a time. For movement, the big eraser is very useful, but when finesse is required (example: When climbing a rope in the late stages of the third chapter), the small eraser is a godsend.

I wasn't expecting to fight a shrimp-powered robot
today, yet here we are. Weird days.

The music is perfect for the mood, and the world around our unlikely protagonist (if we can call it that) represents well the somber idea of a fresh post-humanity world. Not everything is dead, but whatever still lives is trapped in a mechanical nuclear wasteland. So many hints of what existed before the current situation. All those graffiti on the walls. The warning signs, deep into the deserted factories. Those monsters standing at the end of every chapter… Speaking of, the chapters are very long and can easily take from 20 to 40 minutes to finish, depending on how good you are at “controlling” the amoeba. That goes for all 7 chapters, so there’s quite a bit of game here.  Side-note, I think I would have liked if gathering the DNA strands made a difference, like if it added a single cell to the blob each time – making a difference in the end. If the concept sounds right up your alley, then by all means, check it out.

Mushroom 11 is available on Steam for 14.99$ USD.

Quick Review: The Murder of Sonic The Hedgehog

SEGA won this year’s April Fools, no contest.

Actually released on March 31st, 2023, this official SEGA game (yes, really) is a visual novel for the Sonic franchise (yes, really) that opens with the premise of Sonic the Hedgehog getting murdered. Yes, really. …Did I stutter? You’ve seen the title, haven’t you?

Meanwhile, Tails hopes he's not getting trolled again.

I'm so glad to be playing a Sonic game featuring so many
characters from the franchise. I wished that happened more
often. Also, is that a "printed comic book" effect?

Well, okay, some context. It’s Amy Rose’s birthday, and she always does something special to celebrate. So she has invited Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Blaze, Rouge, Shadow, Espio and Vector to a special murder mystery game on a high-tech speed train. Everybody’s playing a role. The train’s conductor is… well, busy conducting, leaving the new hire, an awkwardly average quokka, to tend to the guests’ needs. The game takes a strange turn when it’s Sonic who is found “dead” in the end wagon despite having been assigned the conductor’s cabin. At first, Tails and Amy think it’s him playing his part for Amy’s party. The quokka, however, notices that the famous hero is much more banged-up and feeble than he should be… especially for make-believe! He might even be dead, for real! They thus decide to become Tails’ sidekick, and lend a hand in solving the mystery.

(Side-note: The quokka, unofficially called Barry by promotional material [though you name them at the start of the story], is adorable and I want a plushie of them. Get them as an NPC in more games, dagnabbit!)

Apologies. It may seem I produced a sound that was a failed
attempt at a squee.

....Nothing! Please don't punch me or Tails. Nice hat BTW!

The visual novel half is incredibly well-made. Embodying all the humor we know from the Sonic series and made by the Sonic social media team, with one of the game’s lead artists, Min Ho Kim, having worked on a spin-off miniseries in Sonic’s IDW Comics run. Packed with in-jokes and references pertaining to the Sonic franchise’s 32 years of existence, the game actually has a really good story with twists and turns and genuinely great character interactions. This is one of the rare few pieces of official Sonic media where you could see some secondary characters interact with each other, like Rouge and Blaze. Or have so many secondary characters be relevant to the story at hand. There’s a  bit of Ace Attorney inspiration here as well, presenting evidence and coming to logical conclusions…

Rouge, can you stop treasure-hunting for two seconds?
Apparently not.

Oh hey, the console even has my name on top. Cute!

The other half is the DreamGear, known as the THINK! Levels, which represent the quokka’s thought process when they have to work their brain more than usual to reach conclusions. It’s done through a mini-game in which Sonic runs and jumps through an obstacle course and has to get a certain number of rings before the end goal, which is a lightbulb. Barry, or whatever your name is, buddy, if it takes you that long to go through a logical thinking process, you might be a little slow. But you’re adorable so I’ll let it slide. Those segments start out pretty simple but get progressively tougher as the story advances, with them being omnipresent, and very tough, in the final stretch. In an effort to make the game accessible to all, a set of options allows you to make Sonic invincible, remove all pitfalls, slow the game down or reduce the number of rings needed, making these sequences easier if you want. You can even make them impossible to lose, if you'd rather focus solely on the story.

As the hazards pile up, the THINK! levels get more and more
difficult. Crumbling ground, shuriken, spikes everywhere!

Nothing like finishing a THINK! stage and missing only one
or two rings from the required total.

Legit a great game, good in all the ways it could be. Crisp writing, superb art, excellent interactions between characters, a lot of comedy, a lot of heart, some fun twists, challenging running stages for those who like them, with accessibility options for those who’d rather have it easy. Perhaps the closest we’ll get to the feel of the comics and other continuities of the multimedia Sonic franchise that’s normally separated from the main continuity of the games. Really great. Worth your time (it’s short, can be beaten in two to three hours), and free, to top it off.

What are you waiting for? Go download it, right now!

Quick Review: Jotun: Valhalla Edition

There’s been no shortage of games inspired by Norse Mythology – and today's game is one of them!

See Thora? She's on the mountain, down there.
This is the first of loads of gorgeous sights.

A creation of Quebec indie studio Thunder Lotus Games released on September 29th, 2015 and the result of a successful Kickstarter, Jotun (:Valhalla Edition for the updated rerelease that came out in summer of 2016, and was free to download for whoever owned the base game) is the story of Thora. Named after the well-known God of thunder, Thora, despite a proud upbringing and a fierce spirit, ingloriously died on the battlefield. Therefore, to prove she deserves to enter Valhalla, she must impress the Gods by collecting the runes and defeating the titular elemental Jotun across the realms using Ginnungagap, the gateway between them.

That... is a lot less pretty. But just as impressive!

I have gained the spell of a very temporary speed boost.
Not faster enough nor long enough for it to be significant,
in my opinion.

Thora’s physical capabilities are surprisingly limited. She moves around with WASD, swings her axe with Left-Click, can do a charged axe attack with Right-click, and can dodge-roll with Space. As she progresses through her journey, she’ll find giant statues of Norse deities granting her abilities that can be activated by pressing F, and we swap between these abilities with Q and E. The first is a basic heal spell obtained from Frigg, and two I unlocked were a temporary shield granted by Heimdall, and an explosive decoy clone summon granted by Loki. The powers do fit the Gods we get them from, that's cool.

Be careful when using those, however – Thora only has a maximum of two charges of each spell. When she interacts with Mimir’s ponds, very few per area (I’ve seen two max), she’ll fully heal her HP and recharge her spells. These ponds also serve as checkpoints.

Hello. It's me. I'm smol. Big man, give me my HP back!

I mean... compare the scale of the thing back there with the
little human sliding down the roots at the forefront.

The gameplay isn’t all that peculiar, so the game instead aims to wow through its presentation. It’s entirely hand-drawn, and all of it looks absolutely great. Our heroine of course, but also the enemies and bosses. And the environments as well; frequently jaw-dropping, and such ginormous setpieces that the camera regularly has to pan back so that we can take in just how big everything is around Thora. The detail, the beauty, the sheer size… Shout-out to a moment where, while sliding down the roots of Yggdrasil, Thora can for a time see Nidhogg in the background, the dragon munching on the roots, as per the myth.

…Oh, yeah, in case the story and features didn’t make it clear, this title fully embraces its Norse mythology feel, from the Game Over screen saying “You failed to impress the Gods” to all of the narration and dialogue being spoken in Icelandic (….I mean, of course it’s not Old Norse, but we’ll gladly settle for something close enough).

Okay, who pissed off the dwarves? ...Looks like I did.

Okay, I'll fully admit, this battle was too tough for me.
I'm not against trying it again someday, though.
Either way, we yet again get a good feel of the difference in
size and sheer power between the two. Thora is barely visible!

The battles against the Jotun are incredibly tough and basically require your use of all the spells you’ve learned up to that point, while the realms themselves, while not devoid of combat, are a lot more puzzle- and exploration-focused. The pause menu, reached by hitting Esc, shows a handy map of the current realm, but not where Thora is standing or how to get everywhere, so a tricky part is to decode it while exploring. At least, the map shows checkpoints, the location of the deity statue, and other required elements for the current puzzle. The hazards in both realms you must complete before battling the boss tend to return during the fight, so you have some idea of what to do. (Just swinging endlessly at the Jotun won’t suffice, they’re smarter than that!)

In short: Gameplay is nothing we haven’t seen before (and Thora being so slow makes things a lot harder). That said, it’s a treat for the eyes, puzzles are clever, challenge is definitely present, and there are tons of little touches for aficionados of Norse mythology. Worth owning and trying, at least.

Jotun: Valhalla Edition is available on Steam for 14.99$.

Quick Review: Jones on Fire

Must save all the kittens!

A creation of Glass Bottom Games released on March 14th, 2013, Jones on Fire tells the tale of Jones, volunteer firefighter. As the world inexplicably burns outside, she has one goal in mind: The sentence that opened this article. Why? Because kittens are cute, is all! We don’t need anything else, do we?

Kittens everywhere!

Already getting a fair bit trickier...

Light on plot? Perhaps. Then again, an endless runner doesn’t need much story. Gameplay is basic, too; Jones runs, and you can either press Up to make her jump, or Down to make her do a sliding dash. Levels are short, and at the end of each, you’re back at the station. Obstacles hurt, fire hurts, getting hurt too often means the end of a run and you must start over all the way at Level 1. The further into the levels you go, the more cats there are, but the more hazards there are as well, and the faster the game gets.

"The kitties will cry"? Do I look like I care? My ass has
met fire a hundred times to save you, little ingrates!"

You transfer the cats into currency used to upgrade Jones’ abilities. The higher the hazard level of the stage you finished, the more its cats are worth. The elusive and rare golden kitties instead give a higher form of money known as GK, which becomes the main currency for later upgrades, sometimes requiring hundreds of it. You can also earn cash by completing quick missions, which really helps. Upgrades purchased stick even after a Game Over, so there’s that. Among them, new abilities (being able to jump in the middle of a sliding dash, or dashing in the middle of a jump), power-ups (cat-magnet catnip, temporary invincibility or first-aid kits to restore Jones’ HP), quick boosters (effects that last for only one level), and cosmetic upgrades for the kitties. They’ll be wearing tiny hats!

As usual for an endless runner, as you progress through the levels, they get quicker – and harder, to the point where obstacles become rather tricky to avoid. A time comes where the better upgrades are necessary to progress. A point also comes where getting golden kitties is easier through missions, though the further you get the longer the missions take to complete.

Outrunning a literal wall of fire? For Jones,
that's just another Friday.

Fun game. I can imagine it being addictive to some, by its combination of a cute low-poly 3D style and simple yet effective gameplay. The latter doesn’t actually change much outside of difficulty, speed and upgrades affecting the various hazard levels. It's an infinite runner, but the maximum Hazard Level is 10, and I friggin' swear that thing is unbeatable and the random hazards are set in place specifically to not let you finish it. At some point, the upgrades’ increasing request of the hard-to-earn Golden Kitties turn the game into a grind for cash more than a challenge. The camera also seems to struggle to follow Jones, showing some obstacles too late to avoid them. Perfectly fine, but not the type of game I could see myself spending dozens of hours on – three hours in, and I already feel like I’ve seen all it had to offer. On the plus side, it means I’m all set for the sequel game Hot Tin Roof, which I also have.

Jones on Fire is available for 2.99$ USD.

Quick Review: Hexoscope

Sorting out chaotic messes? For some it’s an occupation, for some it’s fun.

Looks simple enough for a starter.

Developed by Studio Binokle, published by Sometimes You and released on August 10th, 2016, Hexoscope is a puzzle game with a deceptively simple base concept that leads to interesting challenges. The starting idea involves connecting a Source to a Receiver, in a similar manner to an electrical circuit. You are given a board of hexagonal pieces (“Chips”) containing parts of paths, and must swap them around to create a complete path.

Okay yeah, now that's getting tricky.

The chips that make up the path from the Source light up pink, while any available around them light up blue. You can use the blue chips to add to the path, or change the path by swapping a pink with a blue, or maybe even with another pink. However, the blue chips do not “unlock” permanently when they’re made available; they’re still tied to the pink ones, so cutting off the path will turn those chips black again. Therefore, the challenge here is all about figuring out which path to use, which hexagons will be needed, and how to get to those.

There is thus an element of resource management on top of the whole “creating order out of chaos” statement from the game. Things only get trickier over time as we get levels with multiple chains to create (though, on the plus side, both can help each other grow), and new “chaos” requirements through which you now need more than one pink chip around a dimmed one to light it blue and make it usable. The third set further complicates matters with fixed hexagons that you cannot move at all, and must therefore work around.

Okay, yeah. This one is besting me.

Decent concept, executed well and looking pretty nice, with a chill ambiance aided by music. There’s a fair bit of content here for someone interested: Six packs of twelve levels, for a total of 72. All six have their first stage available from the start, so you can have a taste of the later difficulty. The one odd thing with this one is that when you start a level, the position of the chips is randomized. And shuffled again if you choose to start the level over. This can make the actual difficulty vary wildly at times. I don’t know if it makes levels outright unbeatable per se – I doubt it, personally – but it might influence the challenge. And offers an easy way out if you’ve gotten yourself stuck in the current puzzle. You can also choose to undo any number of previous turns, or see the objective again.

For this one I can't even use the middle lane?
Damn, okay... gonna need workarounds, then.

It’s unique, clever, challenging and rewarding, only requires the mouse for controls, and it gets pretty tough as more requirements get piled on. It’s a plus that you actually have all of the packs open from the get-go, so you can try out later parts if you so wish. That said, it’s pretty much the same throughout, from #1 to #72, so repetitiveness is its greatest issue. Since it’s randomized, there’s also no hint system to help you out of a pickle. You’ll either grow addicted to it or let go of it relatively fast. I’m in the latter category; not a bad game, but it didn’t keep my interest.

Hexoscope is available on Steam for 2.99$ USD.

Quick Review: The Hex

Somewhere between the groundbreaking Pony Island and the still massively popular Inscryption, there was…

Someone among all of these shady characters
 is planning murder? No way!

The Hex, a creation of Daniel Mullins Games (quickly becoming a big name in inventive, subversive and genre-busting indie gaming) released on October 16th, 2018, tells the tale of a murder mystery. In a world of video games, six characters from different genres have met up at the Six Pint tavern, and become suspects when an upcoming murder is announced to the bartender. It is only by unraveling each one’s mysterious past that we get answers to these questions – and that involves playing each one’s home game.

A far cry from the grassy lands and happy clouds of the
first. Super Weasel Kid has hit his edgy phase.

Or, rather, the circumstances of each one’s own rise and fall. Starting with the platforming Super Weasel Kid, moving on with Bryce the cooking fighting game character, continuing with Chandrelle the RPG witch… And yes, this actually means going through the game they starred in, meaning we jump from a genre to the next. Meanwhile, scenes at the Six Pint Inn have more of a point-and-click feel to them. Not so much of a puzzle feel there, as it serves mostly as a way to connect the stories of these six characters together, but at least we get to see these six interact. Turns out, some of them already do know each other, in spite of the very different worlds they’re from…

Now if Bryce's opponents stopped falling asleep
mid-fight, maybe this would be a fair competition.

Honestly, there’s so much more that could be said about this game, but much like the other titles by Daniel Mullins Games, it’s an experience that’s better saying the least about. The studio is known for its subversive horror-themed games laden with metacommentary, and this one is no exception. Hell, just saying that, I’ve probably said too much. Best I can say is, if you’re familiar with the studio’s other titles, you know what to expect. The six games we go through are not particularly deep, nor are they meant to be, but they work as intended for the story we’re shown… if that makes any sense.

....what? "Hell Storm" and "Blood Pact" are perfectly valid
attacks for an RPG protagonist! What are you talking about?

Let's crush some raiders! ...Er, I think. Sorry, thirty
minutes earlier we were playing a whole other genre.

That said, if you’re hoping for a story where you can change things, well… since we play the games in flashback form, the end results are unchangeable. You’re in for the ride, trying out each segment, but don’t go hoping there’s any way to make things “right”. The game employs some pretty basic techniques to force the results on you, whether you’d like it or not, and there’s very little leeway in your actions. It’s kind of annoying in that way. Especially as the game tricks you with alternate options, only to snatch them away last second. It’s a very manipulative form of video game story-writing, but one that’s à propos with the themes at play here. On the plus side, it’s actually pretty cool that all six games use the exact same controls, namely WASD for movement and Left-click for interaction.

And things are only going to get weirder and weirder.
Each character's got hella baggage, too.

Good game? Yes. Dammit, do I hate having to be so vague when describing a game in a Quick Review, but really, it’s the best I could do. If you already liked the other works by that studio but haven’t checked this one out yet, then, by all means, do! And if it would be your first Daniel Mullins Games… er… game, then it’s gonna be a good introduction to their peculiar way of making games and telling stories.

The Hex is available on Steam for 9.99$ USD.