Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £11.99 (Soundtrack £6.99)
Where To Get It: Steam

Murder By Numbers is a great Picross Murder Mystery Visual Novel… In which, oddly enough, the Picross is the weakest part. Not terrible, by any means… But it is missing some quality of life stuff that somewhat baffles. But let’s talk about the good, first, since, as mentioned, the Picross part isn’t awful.

The good is… A lot of the rest. Let me start by saying that this is the first game in a long while I’ve encountered who actually understands what makes a good Saturday Morning style theme. And the rest of the music is great, slipping into its mood, and, just as importantly, humorously cutting off a triumphant theme when whoops… Moment ruined. It’s a little touch, but it’s a good one.

Then there’s the rest of the aesthetic. Big, clear icons, with the eye being led to the two less obtrusive ones. Large sans serif fonts. White borders around the characters, adding a note of differentation between the styles of the foreground and background, that helps cut down on any minor style dissonance… It’s good work, being both visually appealing and clear.

And the writing. For example, I hated Becky at first. She’s a diva with a temper, and she seems oblivious to the feelings of those around her as she storms and lashes about. But she gets nuance. I started to empathise. The characters each get their spotlight, potential motives for characters dying becomes clear, and the murderers… Well, I can perfectly understand why comparisons to Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney have been made. When the killer loses it… They lose it. And it’s your guide to when you’re on the right track, although the clues do connect the dots well, even toward the red herring paths you’re meant to go down, before the real culprit is found. Nice touch, that, and it shows the developers know their murder mysteries, because I couldn’t find wasted foreshadowing or hinting. What I’m getting at is, it’s well written, and I love that.

So… The Picross element. If this were great, it would be the cherry on the cake, considering it was a core advertising element. And it isn’t, to make this clear, bad, although snobs of this genre of the puzzle like myself may feel uncomfortable with it. And it is, apart from finished sprites that sometimes seem less than clear, mostly to do with little things we’ve come to expect. Like being held within a row or column if we’re moving down that column. Or a restart puzzle button in easy reach. Or maybes being turned into either crosses or pixels, instead of just being erased. Little things that merely make it… Alright, verging on good. Thankfully, they’re things that are fixable, for the most part. And they do, to be fair, ease you in. Although in the later cases, it can merely look like they’re easing you in, instead posing you a devious one in less space than you’d think you can be devious. Save before you investigate, and after each puzzle. You’ll thank yourself later.

It is a shame that a core element isn’t great, but, as noted, these are fixable problems, and the rest of the game is otherwise great. As such, it gets a recommendation, with the caveat that, until the aforementioned Picross Problems (heh) are sorted, folks like me who play a lot of such games are going to be grinding their teeth.

The Mad Welshman played the theme tune no less than thirty times in a row while writing this.

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Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £11.39
Where To Get It: Steam, Itch.IO

Content Warning: This game has body horror and mutilation imagery, mentions of suicide, self harm, and murder.

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Filed under: Early Access Releases, Game Reviews by admin

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Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £2.09
Where To Get It: Steam

Content tags: Lesbian sex, mild domination/submission. It’s pretty wholesome.

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Filed under: Adult Only Games, Game Reviews by admin

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Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £19.49
Where To Get It: Steam
Previous Reviews: Early Access 1

There is perhaps nothing more satisfying than riddling demons with holes with dual wielded SMGs. The kickback, the satisfying noise, the rapid thuds followed by the larger thud (or boom) as the monstrosity from another dimension finally keels over. In your imagination, of course, because while there’s bullet trails in Jupiter Hell (allowing you to see just how much ammo you wasted murdering them), death animations aren’t really that impressive, nor do they need to be.

Oh. Wait. There is perhaps nothing more satisfying than seeing the sizzling holes, melting a demon piece by piece, with dual wielded plasma SMGs. I stand corrected.

What I’m saying is, 0.8.8, the Dual Wield update for Jupiter Hell, has a feature that’s pretty damn satisfying, even if it has some qualifiers, like “You get this cool thing if you survive your first three level ups”, “It will still take up two weapon slots”, “Remember how you had that ammo problem? It will chew through ammo faster”, and “Only Marines and Scouts get this. Sorry Techies.”

Of course, it’s not the only change, although hacking turrets feels… A little underwhelming, as an example. Find the computer terminal on a level, spend 3 of the new combo armour replacement/hacking items, the multitool, and bam, turrets are… Deactivated, seemingly. Since I’ve never seen a turret shoot someone, and they have an ammo drop next to them, that’s basically what I assume, anyways. I mean, it makes levels slightly easier?

Anyway, yes, I forgot, all this time, to say what Jupiter Hell is, for the folks in the back. Jupiter Hell is a turn-based roguelike, heavily inspired by Doom (Its spiritual predecessor actually was Doom: The Roguelike, and it was only Bethesda’s litigiousness, in spite of Id Software being cool with it, even flattered, that it is not called DoomRL2 today.) Actions like moving, reloading, firing… All take a certain amount of time, and the enemies, similarly, work on a timer. Diagonal movement costs two squares of movement, but moving doubles your chance of evading shots, so it’s valid to, when seeing a big old bundle of enemies, to book it to a safer position. Indeed, considering enemies will now hit cover when they see you most times, and only get out if you destroy it (sometimes possible) or lure them out (a risky move in some cases, but risk management is the name of the game.)

And how does all this feel? Well, easy mode feels pretty do-able, although you definitely have hairy moments. Normal is a roguelike experience, something that takes a fair amount of tactical thought to defeat… And, of course, there’s challenge modes. I don’t recommend challenge modes for the casual player, or the higher difficulties. But it is casual playthrough accessible, with relatively minimal unlocks for getting certain achievements.

It helps that it also looks and sounds pretty good. Shots sound satisfying, the clank of one of the chonky security robots is a sound that, once you know the enemy itself, makes you break into a cold sweat and hunt cautiously for both the robot and the best cover, the maps look pretty good for being tile based, quite atmospheric, and the music… Well, as with its inspiration, it veers between heavy, driving metal, and ominous, low tunes, setting the mood for each area. Oh, and then there’s the Marine/Scout/Techie, whose angry growls evoke that 90s protag feel, but in a way that’s not, like quite a few of the 90s FPS protags, a dickwad. Just a dude very, very angry that shit’s gone to hell.

So yeah, Jupiter Hell is getting closeish to release now, the devs have been very good about trying to balance it while maintaining interesting mechanics, and, while I don’t think they’re quite there yet, it’s a pretty good roguelike to start your entrance into the genre.

The Mad Welshman has nothing against demonic denizens. He just wished they’d stop trying to kill him.

Filed under: Early Access Releases, Game Reviews, Uncategorized by admin

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Source: Review Copy
Price: £3.99
Where To Get It: Steam

Two Picross games on my docket, and this one has one of my favourite creatures in fantasy, the humble goblin? Well, sign me u- Steampunk lick of paint you say? Jigsaws with somewhat finicky “You’ve placed this!” detection, you say? Character designs that are expressive, but not used outside the cutscenes and that expressiveness isn’t… Really used?

Eh, honestly, most of those are just gripes, to be honest. It is Picross, the puzzles remain cool, the timers for the puzzles are alright, and not exactly a worry unless you’re into challenging yourself to gold every level. Hell, it even has the nice feature of locking you into a row or column when you’re placing tiles or crosses, showing you a count of your tiles from the ones you’ve selected, and pretty easy cancellation if you’ve suddenly realised “Damn, if I let go of the left/right mouse button now, I’m going to make a fuckup.” Just click the opposite mouse button while you’re still holding, and then you can let go. Nice!

There’s also voice acting in the game, and it’s okay, although I’m sure it’ll grate to some. And then… Story. Well, it’s there, alright. A NASA ship or satellite of some description crashes onto the world, three goblins come across it, and they decide not to tell anyone they’re trying to decipher the messages and what it is. That’s your basics.

Now, since it is basically Picross, and Picross is, generally speaking, Good, any gripes? Well, yes. Whether the starting tile you want is highlighted or not is a bit of a coin toss, leading to either clicking the tile in mild annoyance, or trying again, wasting a little time either way. And I’m not really sold on the cutscene paintings. Other than that, though, the jigsaws don’t really detract from the experience, and can be skipped, so in the end, it comes up as an alright Picross game, and that’s… Alright! I do kind of wish the goblin designs were better, and they’d have a bit of screentime beyond cutscenes and the occasional voice clip congratulating you for finishing a row (yes, they autocomplete the crossed-out tiles once you’ve correctly solved, saving you a little time), but… Yeah, it’s a decent game.

The Mad Welshman didn’t screenshot the jigsaws, because… Well, most people know what a jigsaw is, and a picture wouldn’t show the common problem of finicky placement hitboxes.

Filed under: Game Reviews by admin

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