Cupcake: an Apartment Adventure Reviews

[i] Not for everyone in terms of length and visuals, but I enjoyed some of the heartwarming moments when it comes to dialogue and making friends. The game is 1 to 5 minutes long with about 60 minutes of exploration in total, I ended up replaying it 10 times to find most of the endings. Essentially the goal is to dispose of 6 cupcakes any way you like, you can eat them yourself, give them to friends to improve your relationship, or put them in weird places (and you get some pictures at the end based on your choices). While some endings are pretty easy to get like flushing cupcakes down the toilet, other outcomes can be a lot more cryptic. For example, I run into a few hidden dialogue lines that are not accessible unless you do something specific. It would be nice to have achievements just so I can track all of the secrets. The closest game I can compare it to would be Dear Red that introduced me to this subgenre of choice-based exploration games, it's a fun way to navigate the story but I find that you need more than just a decent narrative to make it work. [h1] Pros: [/h1] + I enjoyed the writing and characters, many silly jokes if you into that + many obvious and not so obvious ways to end the game [h1] Feedback: [/h1] [u] Could use achievements for tracking progress [/u] - I don't think that achievements are needed for all games, however, specifically in this genre you have to hunt for those small secrets that deviate the story in different ways, and without achievements, I can't tell if I need to keep looking for more. If you had those, it would encourage me to do 100% completion. [u] Visuals [/u] - the art is not the most important thing for me if you can write enjoyable characters, but even if you are not good at drawing, I think you have to find a way to make your game presentable (or let someone else do the sprites). Luckily when it comes to top-down RPGM games you don't need complex animation, just need to find an art style that works for you and simple to do. [u] Entering the name [/u] - a small nitpick, but I found the name entry annoying because the run is only a few minutes long, so I ended up calling myself the default 'Press ESC' which is not immersive. It should either save my name between runs or not waste my time entering it every 2 minutes. [b] Overall Thoughts: 6/10 [/b] I get amused very easily when the choices in the game feel so random, like giving the player the ability to stay in the closet or throwing a cupcake from the roof, I do like that meta-humour or whatever you want to call it ;). Rachel, I think you doing a great job making a fun narrative experience, but it's not the only reason people buy narrative games, you should find a way to make the game presentable visually as well, you can have simple aesthetic and make it work too. [code]Review By: http://store.steampowered.com/curator/31294838-Hidden-Gem-Discovery/ [/code]