SOOT Reviews

When I started playing this game, I was lost; not sure what I was doing. Worry I was not since that perfectly describes my life. I was ready to leave the game behind, just like everything I do; until I meet Ferdinand… He reminds me of my dad, with those same eyes, always talking to me without any eye contact. Same beard, same ponytail. I was stunned. From that point, I was completely identified, making methane generators from here to there. I was finishing all levels just to meet Ferdinand again and again. I was so happy with him, so that gave me enough courage to… call my dad. He’s old fashioned, the only way to contact him is to call to his work or send him a message to his pager/beeper. Since I have no idea how to send a beeper, I tried to call him to work; he works at a hardware store, the best in town. So, I called him, we answered. I was so nervous; I didn’t say a word… he recognized it was me. As the direct man he is, he just asked me a question. [i]“Are you married?”[/i] – he said in his deep cold voice. Of course, I’m not, I don’t even have a girlfriend. [i]“The best gift in life, is the life you give”[/i] he says... making me doubt that maybe I’m his best gift in life? Or maybe he was asking me to have a child? I don’t know, he hangs up after that. It was a hard message if you ask me. But it lighted up something I’ve always have think of: Elizabeth should be my wife. She was my best friend back in the days, but she moved to the south. I lost often contact with her since then. Still… I had her phone… For my surprise, I received a text from her!!Elizabeth was contacted by my dad, she was overwhelmed. It seems that my dad made her realize that I’m a very important part of her life. But she needed a sign that I’m that man… I immediately told her, that when I wake up, well, be I'm gonna be the man who wakes up next to her. And If I get drunk, well, I know I'm gonna be the man who gets drunk next to you. But I would walk five hundred miles And I would walk five hundred more. Just to be the man who walked a thousand miles to fall down at your door. She was crying and agreed to date me, not as a friend, but as something else… I’m not sure what will happen now, maybe we’ll get married, or have some kids, I dunno…. Thank you, the developer, for making me have the courage I needed in my life and for making this game.

All of this reminds me of my ex-girlfriend. A long time ago I played Outpost Kaloki with her, I loved that game and I liked to see how she managed to control and dominate each planet, but for some reason management and space games are not produced. I liked this video game a lot because it reminds me of those types of games, it's great. She left for another guy who plays COD, but this game reminds me of the good times. The textures look great and it tells a story. The chemistry of this game is as good as ours was.

After finishing the first chapter I have to say this is one of the games that have hooked me the most. The comic and steampunk style is lovely and the variety in gameplay avoids a boring repetitive game. Is pretty challenging on some scenarios but not every single level feels impossible. Regarding bugs and errors, most of what I've found are just grammar or wording mistakes, some repeated words but that's it. Some times, clicking a structure doesn't pop up anything until a second or third click but I think it's a "me" problem missing the pointer. Some recomendations: Explain in the first levels that right click will pop up a quick menu... Everything would have been so much easier! Some text or maybe a name for each action in the quick pop up would also help. Also, the letter z on the encrypted messages never decrypt, I would love to be able to read the full decrypted text but the character stays on screen covering half of the book and the rest is still full of Zs everywhere. The skybox looks weird, maybe a particle based solution instead of a rotating skybox would make the outer space look more realistic, there could be a toggeable option for that in case it drops player's FPS too much.

I'm really enjoying Soot! Interesting story, amazing illustrations and a great variety of stuff to build and manage.

Sadly, although I loved the premise and I think how the story is told is awesome, I could not really like the gameplay. Maybe it is because it is sold as a "Simulation and Strategy" game, when in reality is a puzzle game (well all games are puzzles in the bottom, but this one in particular xD) The base idea is to balance resource outputs/inputs according to specific requests or quests in the game. And thats all. I could get behind the idea, but I felt really forced to use certain strategies that were gimmicky only to succeed in missions, with no real purpose other than achieving X amount of Y resource as fast as possible. I saw myself speeding up the game as fast as possible to achieve the amounts of resources requested, and was just basically watching the numbers go up or down, with no need to improve or refine my design, as it would break the balance. But having big numbers for these requests, meant waiting long time for they to be fulfilled just because the numbers were big, not because there was an actual challenge to it. So yeah, I really like most of the game, but the thing that should make "click" with me isn't there and some UI and design choices don't make the experience easier either (like these big numbers in requests, and the overall clunkiness of the UI). If I had known to expect a puzzle game, maybe it would have been different? but well, it is what it is xD

Ngl, this is one of the most unique puzzle games i've played. The regular gameplay is pretty headscratching at times, which i appreciate. The intermissions between chapters are a bit simple but I appreciate how they link back to the game's story. Which btw, the story is very nice and I really liked the main cast and the little interactive comics they used. Overall, i think its a nice puzzle-strategy game. PD: I have encountered a few bugs and crashes here and there, but the devs were very quick to patch it up, and I really appreciate that!