Recent reviews by Turret

Wow, how did this get approved by Kindly Beast or any playtester? A horror puppet game with weak jumpscares, and constant backtracking through an unnecessarily overcomplicated map layout with clunky mouse controls. Originally written a longer review for this but it really doesn't deserve anything to that extent. Almost always I will finish games even if I dislike them, however Showdown Bandit has resulted in having boring and tedious gameplay filled with terrible design choices.

You can't buy this anymore, but for those that have it and are considering to play, take the advice of another reviewer and don't even bother. Personally, I will be watching someone else play through the game to get the full scope since I really liked the setting, aesthetic, and characters. Old Western dilapidated puppet show with a fixed camera is a very unique concept, heavily reminding me of the show Woody is revealed to have come from in Toy Story 2.

The Search is my first philosophical game, thus it hit me very hard emotionally listening to its many messages, and understanding how it intertwined with the point-and-click adventure gameplay and perspective. Many criticisms from other reviewers are that these same messages make no sense - but that's the point, you're meant to read the sub-text and find your own interpretation, whether that’s within yourself or for the character.

Alongside the point-and-click gameplay, progression is done through solving puzzles, which are a mix of knowledge the game gives you and common sense. Our protagonist takes note of how the puzzles are a major component to her own discovery, which automatically made me reflect upon myself as well. An unknown guide has written letters scattered throughout the game with their own philosophical advice, and you will question yourself once again, whilst the protagonist applying what she knows.

There's a niggling feeling I'll be coming back to this every so often, to see if my opinion on life and the game itself has changed at all. That's the impact I have felt.

I’m well aware this game isn’t for everyone – how wordy and confusing its content is will pass over some people’s heads, if they don’t already find it right down boring. This is definitely not a walking simulator.

However I still recommend this anyways, since it appeals to people like me. If stuff like the puzzles or the philosophical dialogue I mention sound cool, then give it a shot.

Is it worth the price?

The Search doesn't last long enough to justify it's full price, so if you are interested i'd say wait until a sale, which is at most 80% off.

Enjoyed this game for what it is – short and sweet, with a cyclical story structure and easy fetch quests that break up the dialogue and walking.

However, the English translation is absolutely atrocious – coherent enough that the story can be followed, but so terrible I wouldn’t subject anyone to play this. Originally the game was written in Russian and promptly translated afterwards, and unfortunately translating isn't always smooth between such different languages, so it's left a lot of holes everywhere.
Examples of these are: "You have a cancer...","I am on a outside now..." "I will knock your head by this coconut!" “Where’s no more coconut on this palm tree…” This broken English is repeated consistently throughout the game, and so makes it difficult for me to stand.

The developer noted at the beginning that this was their first game ever, and to be understanding of that. In the credits at the end, someone else is noted for having done the English translation. I don’t blame it fully on that person or the creator themselves, but the game could have certainly done with some proofreading before it was released.

I’ve read reviews on their other games, and it seems to be a similar situation, or worse unfortunately.

Is it worth the price?

No, there are better RPGmaker-esque games out there then this.

Attempting to run myself over by AI cars in this game never works!! My character just moves along with the car, and this makes me really sad. I really wanted the male German highway police officer character I was playing as to die and see his ragdoll tumble under car wheels, but I can't even get that satisfaction because it isn't even in the game :(

Really fun! Sure, it's basically a free advertisement for games wrapped up in a game, but...it's legitimately well-made at the same time. Enjoyed the boss fight a lot, and the Expo signs provided some comedic value between all the sneaking and shooting. All of the environments, especially the exhibitions for the games, are quite exceptional, I'm surprised how well they were able to capture the artistic style of each game.

The only negatives I'd list are purely visual - near the end of Expo, you can retrieve a special item, and instantly the graphics in that room degrade to blocks and muddy pixels. But moving into the next room, everything is fine again. Real weird stuff. Some of the textures also aren't as good as others, but they've put a ton of effort into this either way.

Many people have been saying this is a DOOM clone. It might be, but the real negative here is that the lolis you're meant to collect don't look like lolis at all! The inaccuracy is just so frustrating that I might just not play this again, ever.

Has some really awesome combat! There's potential to be great in the full version, and is sometimes quite deep mechanically-wise. Essentially, this is a turn-based card game, with the level selection being procedurally generated and random (basically making FiTS a rogue-lite). This makes it quite addicting for me, but it helps that I enjoy the genre.

Love the simplistic artstyle - all characters are highlighted in different colours against the white background, making it distinct what enemies you're up against purely from colour recognition. It's almost tactical in a way as well.

However, there are some things holding it back, such as the numerous amount of (non-game breaking) bugs, which mostly consist of some of the cards not being entirely clear, and by extension those same mechanics not being clear either. E.g. Card called "Dodge" which states you can move left or right by 1 space, and cause any enemy that was targeting you to attack immediately. Used the card twice, the second effect never happened. d

Since there's no restart or back button to re-do your actions, it could really benefit from a "Training Room" - I can drop down a couple of the enemy types I don't fully understand, and mess about with them. I say this because I was scared to experiment while playing in fear of getting punished severely, or even dying. The more advanced enemies can only be found later in the levels, and that can take 10, 20, 30 minutes depending upon which type. Not being able to experiment without punishment is linked to the previous paragraph as well.

Turning your character around to fight an enemy behind or beside you can sometimes be a bit awkward, but I noticed some combat moves had alternatives that would perform the action while still looking in the same direction, so this might be expanded upon in the full release.

At the end of each level is a replay feature, which plays back the whole level in real-time. It's mostly pretty great to watch, except for a few small things, such as when movement cards are used, characters basically teleport around, and it will only be focused on you (e.g. two enemies shot each other, and I couldn't see that from the camera being solely on me).

Again, I love this for a free trial version of the game and what they're going for. I'll likely be editing this review for anything else I notice.

Edit 1: I've noticed several negative things in my recent playthroughs:

- In the game there are events, which are randomised and have choices you can pick from. This one was basically "get new card/upgrade card, lose money". So I upgraded an old card, and I notice NONE of my cards/moves are upgraded. Lost $100 just for nothing, which is pretty bullsh*t.

- During combat, you can look at your draw and discard piles of cards. From what I could find, there is no way out of either of these screens, I had to go to the main menu and then load my save again.
(Just tried it now, and it's right click, of all things. There's no visual indication to get out of it though which makes it very confusing.)

- In this review on the 17th of December, Wafflehat mentions a weird audio bug where the sound levels are not consistent between each session. I tried this myself, and it's true - turned background sound all the way to zero and it plays as if it's at 100 the next time I play. Also, take note that a developer responded to this review I mentioned, and the bug has not been fixed after two and a half weeks. Maybe it's been fixed for the full release version only or something.

- Occasionally I found myself being boxed in by four enemies, there being no way to get out or take the brunt of the damage from the cards available. This was frustrating as it was no fault of my own, only the randomised nature of the levels.

I've mentioned a lot of niggling little problems with what is essentially a demo, but it seems the devs are reading the reviews, so this is my very in-depth feedback.

Got this for free back in March, and I finally got around to playing it. God, there's a reason I only have an hour in this...

Other reviewers have complained about the wonky controls and I'll jump on that bandwagon too - they suck. You have two options - keyboard or controller. The control scheme on the keys attempts to replicate that of a joystick - four main directions (north, west, etc) and four directions in between that (south-east, north-west, etc), with the middle key being the 'Select' button (comparable to clicking the joystick in).

This is weird during most mini-games as obviously I cannot have a finger on each key, and attempting to switch between keys that are so close together can create accidental moves and frustrating problems.

Lets use a controller instead - after all, the game description does recommend it, and a joystick only needs one finger. Each mini-game has a simple explanation on its controls and what to do. These control instructions are universal for keyboard and controller as well. The real problem lies with how some of the mini-games make you use the joystick for eight directions, and others use the face buttons for four directions, and it's not explained which games use which configuration.

To fix that, all that had to be done was all the mini-games use the joystick. It's so much easier than using buttons, and it actually makes complete logical sense! It's unnecessary complications like this that really drag everything down. Sometimes the joystick and a single button will be used, typically the lowest one (e.g. A button on an Xbox controller), which is actually a normal set-up and appreciated.

All games are intended to have two players, and therefore I can't imagine how crowded it would be for two people on a single keyboard attempting to use nine keys each. Use a controller for at least one person if possible, and that seems to be the developer's bias either way - which really goes to show how much effort was put into this.

Never encountered abhorrent menu controls in a game before like this though. It uses the same control scheme as the mini-games for both available options (keyboard/controller) and is therefore very confusing on keyboard. You're telling me I have to use a control scheme meant to replicate a joystick to navigate a menu that's seemingly built for mouse input? Seriously? I'd almost call it lazy, since the developers couldn't even make a menu to fit their own wonky control set-up!

If you don't fix anything else, dear Game Museum, at least fix this. On controller it actually works as intended, with the joystick and a singular button used. And add in a control configuration option menu, if you can't make proper controls at least let the player do it for themselves.

In regards to controls, the physics of vehicles is really "slippery" and needs reworking. Or maybe it was the lack of functions, like a brake. Probably both.

The mini-games range from entertaining to fun for about five minutes. Keep in mind that I was playing the game alone, since I value the time of my friends. Everything about the mini-games is incredibly child-friendly as well, from the bright artstyle to simple controls (if they were theoretically fixed, that is). So I can see parents enjoying this somewhat with their kids. That is, till they realise this is just hot garbage called a game.

Another reviewer also recommended it as a drinking game, which I admit would be quite interesting and fun, and the only actual use I'd find with this.

Out of the forty mini-games there's a wide array, including racing, platforming, timing and puzzle games. Unfortunately many of them are underdeveloped, and I reckon they could be expanded upon if they were made properly. There's no AI for the other player if you wish to play alone, so good luck with that. There's almost no positives, since they're mixed with some sort of drawback.

Just...steer clear of this, even if it was still free. There are more quality mini-game compilations out there worth your time and money, because damn this is the bottom of the barrel. Only got it because I didn't have enough co-op games, and now I regret it (but for some reason I still wrote this review, so that really says something about how much I value my time).

Is it worth the price?

No, not even when it's on sale at 80% off.

There's a pastor coincidentally with a tiny moustache and is quite massive, AKA Daddy Hitler

I received this for free back in March, and I STILL feel ripped off. There is not much skill to the game in itself - drive, and try not to crash or fall off. So I thought I'd try adding a bit of excitement for myself whilst driving mindlessly and ram the AI cars off roads or hit their wheels behind them.

Personally I don't have much experience with racing games, but I can spot terrible physics when it's slapped in my face. Doing either of these things comes out as one of two options on an extreme scale - my car slightly bounces off the other, or my car is sent to the other side of the road to fall to last place and the AI car keeps going. To also test the physics, I tried ramming the car into the barriers a few times. Same spectrum for result, though more often then not I was bounced to the other barrier and then back again like a damn car pinball, trying to regain control again. So the physics are terrible, probably because the cars are made of bricks on wheels.

The steering controls themselves were fine. Just...fine.

The surroundings seen while driving look like blocks of cheese that have become a little warm in the sun, which have a radiant glow and putrid sunshine bloom on them. Get used to orange cheese! It's the only environment for every single track in the game. And the DLCs. And the other two games.
There are four different car types, but as far as I could tell, they don't really drive or handle any differently from each other. If they are meant to be different, that would be nice to know. I can appreciate a cosmetic change though, even if it feels lackluster to not be able to change the colours on the car. Yep, the same two-colour paint job is used for all the car types for the one slot you can play as, which is the van used in all of the promotional material on this very page.

Take note, there's a co-op mode too, which only one player can join in (local co-op, of course. no online). I should be able to, at the very least, be able to use the colours on Player 2's cars on my own. But nope, not even that.

The last cardinal sin I'd like to note is when first booting the game up, I'm asked whether I want to "activate achievements". I clicked yes, obviously, and was bombarded instantly with 93 of the 109 achievements available for this. You can check out yourself how all of the achievements I got are just letters, numbers, and symbols on your keyboard. So I suspect Barro is intended to be an achievement farmer.

It may seem like I'm complaining about incredibly menial things here. And I am, 100%. But I'm doing that because I can notice the small amount of effort that has been put into this. Obviously I cannot comment on the more "up-to-date" versions of the game, such as the DLCs or the newer iterations such as Barro 2020 and 2021, as I don't have them (and never will with my own money). Maybe those are more worth the time getting, I don't know, but I kind of doubt it since they look so incredibly similar.

In regards to positives, I appreciate the graphics, reminds me of a playset-type aesthetic. The car designs are unique as well I guess, until you get bored seeing them. Ramps and speed boosts are neat, but I don't count that as a positive since those are the only sort of variation that exists other then drive and turn.

Oh yeah, did I mention it's really really cheap(ly made)?