Skip to main content

Posts

Poly Ego: Dual Minds, One Puzzle - Coordinate, gadget, and charm your way through whimsical VR rooms. (Game Review)

Poly Ego is a bright, cartoony VR puzzle adventure from Poly Tool Design, released September 13, 2023. You control two characters at once while partnering with a lovable robot sidekick, Bluepy, to tackle spatial puzzles that reward coordination, timing, and inventive gadget use; reflecting lasers, routing portals, stacking cubes, and manipulating pressure plates. The dual‑actor mechanic turns each room into a miniature choreography of roles and timing, and Bluepy’s playful animations and utility make it feel like a true teammate rather than a gimmick. With bold, whimsical visuals, clear level language, and steadily escalating challenges, Poly Ego favors clever design and charm over realism, delivering a brainy, joyful escape that’s especially satisfying for VR puzzle fans who enjoy multitasking and creative problem solving. Core loop Control two characters simultaneously while directing Bluepy to reflect lasers, hold pressure plates, and reshape the environment to your advantage. Leve...

S.E.M.I. - Side Effects May Include… - Cooperative Clinic Chaos (Early Access Preview)

S.E.M.I. - Side Effects May Include… (Early Access) expands the demo’s frantic cooperative clinic chaos into a fuller, more confident Early Access build. It preserves the pill‑powered mayhem that made the demo memorable while layering in structure, polish, and a transparent roadmap for future content. The core remains a physics‑driven, voice‑first party roguelike: short, explosive runs that hinge on improvisation, split‑second timing, and wildly volatile drug effects that can turn a plan into pandemonium. Early Access tightens the systems; clearer pill descriptions, improved HUD feedback, and more consistent physics, while addressing stability and control issues, and the team’s active, community‑led iteration means the game is evolving in direct response to player feedback. In short: it’s the same glorious chaos, but smarter, smoother, and better suited to groups who want to play loudly and help shape the game as it grows. What’s new in Early Access • Stability and polish : Significan...

SETH: Godspeed of the Sands - shield‑centric roguelite FPS with Egyptian myth and sci‑fi velocity (Beta Preview)

SETH is a blisteringly fast roguelite FPS that fuses Egyptian myth with sci‑fi momentum, delivering combat that feels equal parts ballet and brawl. The shield mechanic flips conventional survival on its head, finishing foes and harvesting their souls to refill your defenses forces you into close, calculated risk, turning every encounter into a tense trade‑off between aggression and survival. Weapon variety and modular god powers amplify that core loop: slowdown bows, grappling shotguns, and spell synergies let you craft wildly different run archetypes, while gods like Horus introduce whole new playstyles (reflective shields, dash reflections, and retaliatory wards) that reward experimentation. The recent open playtest also brings a substantive UI overhaul, crisper VFX, and performance gains,improvements that make runs read cleaner and feel snappier. If you crave twitchy, high‑tempo runs where build creativity and split‑second decisions matter, SETH is worth following closely; it alrea...

Magic Forge Tycoon: Smiths and Sovereigns - A systems‑forward management sim about craft, commerce, and consequence (Game Review)

Magic Forge Tycoon casts you as a mythic weaponsmith running an astral forge: craft enchanted arms, manipulate markets, and steer wars through the products you produce. It’s a deep, systems‑forward management sim with satisfying micro‑crafting (hammer timing, alchemical infusions) and macro strategy (market play, faction contracts). Expect a steep but rewarding learning curve, excellent for players who love optimization, emergent political consequences, and long‑term planning. What the game is You run an astral forge that produces enchanted weapons for nobles, generals, and clandestine clients. The loop blends tactile micro‑crafting; selecting patterns, timing hammer strikes, tuning forge heat, and applying alchemical infusions, with macro management: research, production lines, market speculation, and political contracts. Your choices affect regional power balances, opening emergent narrative outcomes where you can profit from conflict or steer kingdoms toward peace. Core gameplay lo...

Moonshine Inc. - A Gritty Crafting Sim with Real Potential and Rough Edges (Game Review)

Moonshine Inc. leans hard into Appalachian flavor and the mechanics of illicit distilling: fermentation, distillation, bottling, base management, and discreet deliveries. It’s a game built around systems and story; running crews, upgrading stills, buying ingredients, and choosing who to trust as you expand from mountain hideouts to city operations. The concept and crafting backbone are compelling, but launch‑era technical problems and a fiddly UI frequently interrupt the fun. Core gameplay loop • Objective : Build a profitable moonshine business; produce high‑quality liquor, manage staff and equipment, and deliver product while avoiding law enforcement and rival threats. • Systems : Learn fermentation and distillation recipes, upgrade stills and facilities, source ingredients (including wild yeast), and assign workers to tasks. • Economy : Price goods, plan deliveries, and balance discretion versus profit; decisions affect reputation, risk, and story outcomes. • Progression : Complete...

Pipe Dream Co. VR: Fast, Fizzy Spatial Puzzles in Mixed Reality (Game Review)

Pipe Dream Co. transforms frantic plumbing into a tactile, fast‑paced puzzle sport. At its core you’re snapping pipes together under a ticking clock, but the game elevates that simple loop with spatial challenges, clever modifiers, and a steady stream of new gimmicks that push you from relaxed warm‑ups to hair‑raising, brain‑burning jobs. The Mixed Reality update and visual overhaul make every action feel physical, hand tracking and refined pipe models give placement real weight, clearer endpoints and color‑coding remove guesswork, and polished water effects make successes and mistakes instantly readable. The result is a game that rewards both quick thinking and spatial finesse: satisfying to master, fun to speedrun, and surprisingly immersive whether you’re standing over a virtual sink or fixing leaks in your living room. What’s new in Mixed Reality The Mixed Reality update transforms pipe placement into a genuinely physical act: full hand tracking lets you reach, grip, twist, and sn...

Defend the Rook: Roguelike Tactics Meet Tower Defense (Game Review)

Defend the Rook fuses turn‑based tactics, tower defense, and roguelite progression into a smart, bite‑sized strategy experience where foresight matters as much as placement. Each run plays like a compact campaign of procedurally generated encounters: deploy heroes with distinct roles, erect and upgrade towers, lay traps and barricades, then weather five escalating waves that culminate in a tense boss showdown. The turn‑based tempo gives you room to plan funnels, chain spells, and coordinate tower‑hero synergies, while randomized upgrade trees and spell pools keep every run feeling fresh, rewarding clever positioning and strategic thinking rather than reflexes alone. How it plays Matches play out on a tidy grid where you command three heroes and place up to three towers, turning each map into a compact tactical puzzle. Turns alternate between your decisions and enemy movement, so the game rewards careful positioning, funneling through choke points, and deliberate synergy between towers...