Beacon Pines 3/4 or
A charming little point-n-click narrative with an artstyle reminiscent of Bastion, a soothing/jazzy soundtrack, cute animation, and character/story work that reminded me of Night in the Woods. It is completely linear and the game's main gimmick is that you get to rewind to the moment before a branching choice is made to see how a specific narrative branch would have ended. Some nice feels toward the end and Rolo was wonderfully written/presented as the bestie.
Grounded
There aren't enough traversal/transportation tools for my liking. Aside from that, exploration is pretty excellent, as is the world design. The progression curve reminded me of the harsher moments from Gothic or STALKER. Combat isn't fun in and of itself, made more so by mixing in projectiles to stun fools. Would have like to have seen more puzzles, most of this is just navigational exploration/puzzling.
This is pretty damn fine soil for a potentially great sequel.
Prodeus
Excellent FPS featuring a great loop bolstered by great art, audio, and music. It takes a good while until it gives you all movement abilities, so I was satisfied with the game partway through, then I was having
Doom Eternal flashbacks once the dash is introduced. Great level design, mostly great arsenal, pretty standard bestiary with not much character behind it.
Oh yeah, it doesn't have a death penalty. It's like Bioshock, you die and you respawn at a checkpoint OR you could CHOOSE to restart the whole level. Weak, they should have retained player choice but instilled a penalty, perhaps a lives system, or have the player "earn" the checkpoints w/a collectible.
)
