VERTIGROWL Reviews

One of the stranger games I've played. Not exactly "bad", but it's not totally clear on what you're doing at first. I think the idea of it is interesting, at least - you have to map out what you're doing in advance, occasionally having little to no time to think about your next move, so you kind of have to panic move and hope you're doing things right, only able to realize "oh I should do x differently" when you take damage for it. I'm gonna have to come back to play this, as it's apparently got a lot more going on, based on what the other reviews have indicated, but for the moment it's just kind of confusing and I'm not entirely sure how to recommend this. I'll give it a positive review, but this is one of those games where I kind of wish I could give this a "neutral" review - it's not something I necessarily recommend against, I just don't know how I feel about it.

Relatable is the word that comes to mind when playing this. It's not just another horror walking simulator. No, this is different. It looks weird, but the experience feels familiar because it's about long hours of work, something far creepier than being chased by a monster. The gameplay is somewhat slow-paced, tile-based bullet hell with some puzzle-like levels. Yeah, it's strange, but it doesn’t feel bad since it’s easy to understand. Extra points if you've played Pseudo Haunting before, but it's not necessary. On the negative side, some later levels can be a bit frustrating, but not enough to make you stop playing. Overall, the unique gameplay plus the work theme add a touch of humor that makes the game stand out.

No matter how many of your games I play Ape you never fail to confuse me with your ideas, I mean what is happening here, some kind of eldritch capitalism deconstruction? I thought the game had an interesting concept for the story, although I wasn't convinced by the actual writing, there are times where I feel like you personally took over the characters, and instead of hearing them, I felt like you were commenting on the situation yourself, even though I guess it's technically supported by your experience. You know, I don't think I liked this one all that much, kinda reminds me of Siphonopolis in a sense that I was doing more tedious gameplay than actually experiencing the world of your game, with the exception of a few individual scenes, I actually really liked the first person perspective cutscene where you could look around, I wish you did more of that. The main reason I liked 'Until It's Undone' is because I was always rewarded with some unique visuals, the gameplay was still tedious, but I had something to look forward to every 5 minutes, where here you play some questionable game for 30 minutes, get 30 seconds of dry dialogue, and do it 6 more times or so. There were a couple of issues with the gameplay, first of all the teleport mechanic can occasionally skip the edge of the room, and the camera will not move to the next scene, even though you still playing it, there is also at least one room where you can skip a block that needs a teleport trigger, and not have the ability to hit it again. Toward the end of the game it became more apparent that forcing the death cutscene and reload wasn't the best idea, considering how easily you can die in some places. The only interesting hook it had for me was the identity of the "Boss" but as far as I can tell the game explained it and there is no mystery left, I felt like you could have done something more interesting with it, as no feedback is given for completing the final task, or why it was all that relevant to do so. [h1] Pros: [/h1] (+) There were a few specific moments that I liked, like the first person segment, as well as a few strange gameplay ideas. However, overall I didn't feel like the game had that much going for it. The story had a cool idea, but I also feel like you left it on a surface level, and you didn't reward my curiosity with the identify of the few characters, sort if implying they were just m_____s. [h1] Feedback: [/h1] - sometimes teleport can skip the edge of the room, creating a softlock or just make it unplayable - it was very tedious to watch the death cutscene and load the game for every small mistake you made since you have limited resources during the last stretch, so you can literally die by pressing wrong button, once - you not doing my favorite thing about your games, I want to see more of that cutscene based characterization, combine gameplay with more scenes like those from Until or that first person segment, less tedious gameplay, more ApeHardware themes and character interactions. I think it would have helped if instead of pictures they had those moving graphics like in the music game. - something I noticed a few times in your games, you would write whatever dialogue or lore for the game, and sometimes it feels like you try to force a joke, but it does come across as something a character would say or emote based on what I saw earlier, it sounds like it comes directly from you, like the characters in this game got more playful all of a sudden at the end, even as if they get ideas directly from you, not sure if what I am saying makes sense, maybe you just going a bit too hard trying to be find something interesting to say, but it would be more immersive if you kept it subtle. I would even say, sometimes characters use words and expressions I didn't expect them to use [b] Overall Thoughts: 5/10 [/b] I think your artistry is a lot more compelling than the unique gameplay you always try to add to your games, I prefer games like the Until It’s Undone because there are more characters and always something that catches your eye, not replaying very basic puzzles with annoying respawns. Maybe if you rewarded me more often during the gameplay with those cutscenes like the first person climb, it would not feel as stale. Cute idea overall, but didn't make a big impression on me. [code]Niche, obscure and underrated games: http://store.steampowered.com/curator/31294838-Hidden-Gem-Discovery/ [/code]

Puzzle game heavily focused on organization, prediction and, in later levels, timing. Having to plan ahead the movement and actions works pretty well and the obstacles are bizarre and varied with okayish difficult, but it does require patience in most parts, given how slow and repetitive the screens are. The cool thing after completing certain amount are the cutscenes and especially the dialogue within characters, which are very engaging and gives you bits of them and the world. It's nice, definitely recommended for anyone interested on this kind of weird and intriguing puzzle games. Esp: Juego de puzzles muy centrado en la organización, la predicción y, en los niveles avanzados, la velocidad. Tener que planear con tiempo el movimiento y las acciones funciona bastante bien, y los obstáculos son bizarros y variados con una dificultad aceptable, lo que si requiere paciencia en la mayoría de las partes por lo lentas y repetitivas que son las pantallas. Lo mejor después de completar una cierta cantidad son las cinemáticas y, sobre todo, los diálogos entre los personajes, que son muy atrapantes y te dan información sobre ellos y el mundo. Es entretenido, definitivamente recomendado para cualquiera interesado en este tipo de juegos de puzzle raros y fascinantes.