Positive Aspects:
• Nice graphics and general atmosphere
  
• Surreal story based on Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
  
• Quality background music and sound design
  
• Original idea
  
  
  Negative Aspects:
• short playtime ~3 hours
  
• no side missions
  
• puzzles a little too easy

Release Date : 12/Aug/2020

Metamorphosis is an adventure-puzzle-platformer made by Ovid Works and published by All In! Games focused on the homonymous original story by writer Franz Kafka, “The Metamorphosis”.
You play as Gregor, a human turned into a bug, who embarks on a journey to find out how and why he was transformed while also trying to help get his friend Joseph out of a big problem.

The gameplay is very simple and straightforward. The first few minutes as a human you basically just walk until you get transformed into an insect. Then, in order to solve the various puzzles and advance through the story, you walk/run, jump and climb objects and walls using sticky substances strategically placed near the surfaces that you need to climb.

Basically, all your actions are being “hinted” throughout the game and the puzzles are very straightforward which makes this game quite easy to complete while there are really no side missions apart from the main story.
[8/10]

*May contain spoilers*
Anyone who has read the original story, *The Metamorphosis*, written by the famous author Franz Kafka will be familiar with the events that take place. This game is most certainly focusing entirely on this original story.

You firstly start out as a human in a room while you are over at your friend Joseph’s place. While wandering around looking for your friend you realize that you have been transformed in an ant-like insect. The “people” who transformed you, have also arrested your friend Joseph and demand that you go to *The Tower* where you will have the chance to become human again.

The path to *The Tower* is where most of the events of the story happen. At this point the game becomes a walking simulator where you are following sigils that reveal the path to *The Tower* while also meeting one insect after the other to unveil the next objectives and finally turn on *The Projections* which is the way to get to the tower.

After finding your way to the top of the tower, you finally meet with the chief of the insects who gives you a dilemma, you prosecute your friend Joseph as guilty, which basically means that he gets executed, or you can never become human again. After finding a workaround, which involves taking the whole tower down, you end up in the same room as the one you started out and you are no longer an insect. The story ends after opening the only door of the room and the same people that arrested your friend now come to probably arrest you this time. After this, your fate is probably getting arrested but this time no tiny insect will help you. This ultimately means that you will end up being executed for your past actions.
[9.5/10]

Metamorphosis has high quality textures and vivid colors where it is due. It isn’t what we call *the bleeding edge of graphics* but it still looks pretty nice. It has both well lit environments and dim/dark underground places. Using AMD FidelityFX technology, the game gets a better HDR look which emphasizes the transitions from well lit to dark places. Animations aren’t exactly top notch but are fairly consistent.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2259190446
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2259407516
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2259193396
Audio is high fidelity, sound effects are correctly matched to the actions on-screen and background music is matching the whole atmosphere of the game very nicely.

Voice acting is mostly good for human characters but when it comes to voice acting the insect characters, who play the biggest role of the two in the events, if it wasn’t for subtitles you wouldn’t be able to make out the sentences.
[9/10]

Tested on AMD Ryzen 5 2600, 16gb ddr4 and GeForce GTX 960 4gb
Developed with the Unreal Engine, this game manages to look good while also having very good performance too. I was getting ~70 fps consistently with all the graphical settings maxed out, except of course for motion blur which I don’t personally like in almost every game.
[9.5/10]

While I really liked this game, it being so short is definitely a factor to consider and I can’t really justify spending the full price of around 20 euros for just 3 hours of playtime for the main story and no extra content.
[6.5/10]

Metamorphosis started of as a thrilling and mysterious experience, especially for someone like me who hasn’t read the original story by Franz Kafka, but after *walking* for the most part of the short story and considering the steep price I can only recommend this game to those of you who don’t factor price as much, as it was still a nice experience at the end of the day.


Date of the Review:
16/October/2020

Positive Aspects:
• Very creative
  
• Community based content
  
• Frequent updates
  
  
  Negative Aspects:
• a little repetitive
  
• funky physics

Release Date : 16/Jul/2020

Game in Early Access at the time of review.

World of Contraptions is a physics-based building game made by JCP Games Studio. As a player you’ll come across many different levels each of which poses different challenges every time. Your job is to build a contraption to overcome those challenges and get the “companion block” from the start point to the finish line.

As a physics-game it certainly isn’t real life like, but it uses a more fun idea of physics close to what other similar games offer. During the tutorial you might feel a little overwhelmed as there is little time to acclimatize the information given to you, but you will get more comfortable during the first “easy levels” of the campaign. The menus are easy to understand and in comfortable positions on the screen that don’t obstruct your view when building a contraption, but always easily accessible.

The coolest thing is that you aren’t limited to the levels made by the devs as there are community made levels easily accessible through the Steam Workshop. If you feel like you can’t pass a level you can always check the Steam Workshop for contraptions made by the community and test them for yourself. If you want to test your building skills then you can be pretty creative as there are no hard limitations to what you can build, I’ve even seen flying machines in the Steam Workshop so if you can think of it you can probably build it too.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2244635525

The textures of the blocks and the various parts are of high quality with nice “industrial” colors. The levels though all have this white-grey tone which is a little repetitive and weary to the eye.
As for the audio, all sound effects correspond nicely to the actions happening in the screen and are of high quality too. The soundtrack although it’s nice, might get repetitive after many hours of trying to make a jump and land perfectly on the finish line.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2244635477

Tested on AMD Ryzen 5 2600, 16gb ddr4 and GeForce GTX 960 4gb

This game performs really well. You can easily get above 60 fps with almost any hardware. I was consistently getting 120+ fps while in game.

At 6.59€ this game is definitely worth it.

World of Contraptions is a fun game that makes time pass faster than you might think. It is well worth the money even in its early access stage as there were no game breaking bugs but only a few glitches that really were my bad contraption designs. It gets frequently updated and the Steam Workshop gets richer everyday!


Date of the Review:
2/October/2020

Positive Aspects:
• Atmosphere
  
• Original idea
  
• Story
  
  
  Negative Aspects:
• short playtime ~ 5hrs

Release Date : 28/May/2014

A Story About My Uncle is a first person platformer taking place in atmospheric caves and floating rocks high in the sky. The main character makes his way through the various puzzles mainly using his grappling device trying to find his missing uncle Fred.

The main feature of the gameplay is the grappling device that is used to get through the various obstacles. It is a non-violent first person shooter that focuses on jumping, and a lot of grappling. Sounds like it's repetitive but it really is not as it is a lot of fun jumping high and far in first person.
[8.5/10]

While telling a bedtime story to his daughter about the Adventures of uncle Fred, the narrator finally tells Fred's last story in which he never comes back, so the narrator takes control from this point onwards becoming the main character of the game, while you take control of his actions trying to guide him through the various trails in your path to finding uncle Fred.
[9/10]

This is a low budget indie game released back in 2014 but it really doesn't show. While it might not be a jaw dropper it definitely looks nice with good quality textures and lighting in a very atmospheric scenery.

[8.5/10]

Not demanding at all. Most computers can run this with no problem at all. Doesn't need a lot of ram or a very good graphics card. No need to get technical here, I'm confident that it runs on every pc that can install steam :P
[10/10]

Very cheap. It is the price of a carton of milk! You can find it for about 3-4 euros during most times of the year and not limited just to sales.
[10/10]

A Story About My Uncle is an atmospheric, narrative, non-violent first person platformer. But most of all it's very fun and very cheap. Recommended for sure!


Date of the Review:
29/September/2020

Release Date : 8/Aug/2017

Hellblade: Senua's sacrifice is an adventure game made by Ninja Theory. The plot is really about Senua's internal battles, fighting with dark thoughts and depression. Senua also has some kind of mental illness. The developing team consisted of psychiatrists and psychologists that helped build the character and personality of Senua who constantly hears voices trying to discourage her from continuing on her journey of finding the soul of her lover.

The gameplay is definitely simplistic. Fighting might seem repetitive although satisfying but I think that is the beauty in it. People fighting mental illnesses don't really need a lot of 'tools'. They need to be persistent and focused on the goal and that is exactly the story of Senua! She keeps on going no matter what!
[8.5/10]

This is definitely a story focused game. Ninja Theory was very creative with the story of this game. They've mixed Celtic culture and mythology with a character fighting schizophrenia, trying to win her inner battles and find her lover's soul.
[10/10]

Considering the nature of the game and its story darkness is portrayed in a very realistic way. Fov and view distance depending on the feelings of the character change at various times during the game, letting her see mostly darkness but also some lights lighting her path here and there getting her a step closer to her goal. Textures, rain drops, reflections, shaders and characters quality is top notch. This is truly a good looking game.
[10/10]

Considering how good it looks the optimization of this game proves to be excellent. On medium tier hardware and dated considering todays standards (gtx 960 4gb) I was consistently getting 55+ fps running high settings with no hiccups even in battles.
[9.5/10]

This game isn't expensive at all. You can easily find it during sales for less than 8 euros or maybe even less!
[9/10]

This game is really a unique experience. It is an original idea taking place at a setting (Celtic mythology) we rarely see, with a character who is fighting mental illnesses which is also rare. Bold decisions by Ninja Theory who knew exactly what the were doing when they were making this game. This is a future classic when it comes to unique experience single player games.


Date of the Review:
29/September/2020

Positive Aspects:
• Atmosphere
  
• Story
  
• Original idea
  
  
  Negative Aspects:
• can't think of anything
  
• might be biased
  
• I love this series of games <3

Release Date : 16/Sep/2016

BioShock Remastered is a first person shooter developed and published by 2K Games. It sets place at an underwater city called Rapture where you end up after a plane crash. Your friend Atlas guides you through the city's ruins as you fight the remains of life left behind in the city. As you progress through the story you uncover the truth about the mysteries revolving around this city and yourself included.

The gameplay is definitely unique for a game that originally launched back in 2007 (remastered version was released in 2016). Apart from the various guns that you can use, your character has abilities called plasmids which modify the character's dna and give you "superpowers" like setting opponents on fire or electrocuting them. These abilities in normal difficulty are nicely balanced and they don't make you as overpowered as it sounds, that's cause you have to use them mindfully since they cost you "EVE" which drains out every time you use your Plasmid powers.
[9/10]