TurnOn Reviews

This game isn't very engaging and many areas are downright frustrating. The foreground/background transitions alongside poor camera centering equate to a lot of blind jumps and difficulty telling where to go. In addition, the autorunner sequences don't really give you enough warning or time to react given the controls. Then there's that level with the rising current; the timing of the platforms was way off from a first cycle possibility and the rising shock doesn't stop during cutscenes. Then there's that weird glitch where you float on nothing... Turn away from this one, especially for a $15 price tag.

I really want to like this game. The exploring is really fun. But during the timed levels there just are not enough save points. I'm not good at precision platforming. I've been on this level for about an hour, and I can't take it any more. I want more save points and the ability to get more lives.

I am so much in love with this game. It has a calm and relax gameplay and a great soundtrack!! We have a cute alien who is called Turnon and he helps us to bring the electricity back. It is not challenging at all and has positive vibes. If you are looking for a light in your life then playing this game is a good choice.

Irritating little puzzle-platformer. Imagine if Limbo was obtuse, had escort missions and very, very poorly telegraphed geography. You're a little electric ball. You live on powerlines. OK, fine. DID YOU KNOW? You can effortlessly roll from one blue line to another, via the black telephone pole arms? But you can't move on other black objects. Traversal is effortless, except when the tools you are given to climb or descend are just out of reach, for no real reason - it's a casual game, not a precision platformer. The sound effects are unbelievably painful - not the music or the orb, they're fine. But the people - quivering scientists, shrieking babies (really) and other townsfolk all have exactly 1 sound each, play it constantly, and you can't turn it off or you miss important sound cues. I want to like this game - casual puzzle-platformers are extremely my jam - but it's just annoying enough in just enough ways to be a pass instead of a recommend from me. And I paid $1.50. At $15, I'd be incredibly salty.

A cute, rather unique puzzle platformer. The game would be absolutely great, if not for the occasional runner levels, which fall flat for several reasons. For one thing, the runner sections don't fit the pace of the rest of the game, which encourages exploration and moving back and forth. Add to this frustratingly placed and occasionally glitchy savepoints, the very precise movements and foresight required for good scores, and the occasional buggy invisible platform, and the runner levels bring a very annoying difficulty spike at the end of each section. In general, the game is good, just be prepared for the occasional period of frustration.

I bought this game at 70% off for $4.49 USD. At that price, it is perhaps barely worth it. This game tries to do too many things, and is consequently mediocre at everything it does. It's mostly a platformer with the twist that rather than a person jumping from platform to platform, you are a living electricity... thing... jumping from wire to wire. This is a good concept, poorly executed. Rather than provide the player with a consistent view of the world with which they interact, the game instead uses perspective to decide where you will land from any given jump. So you can jump from foreground to background, so long as the wires line up right from player perspective. Unfortunately, the player has no control over the camera, which is often oriented to funnel you through the path the designers laid out for you. What's more, the designers evidently aren't very experienced. Several times, the only way to proceed was to take a leap of faith, on the assumption that there would be a wire to catch me offscreen. Often, though, the game will switch over to a sort of rhythm game wannabe, where you are moving forward, only able to jump up or down between wires. These segments are possibly the worst part of the game. They seem placed at "climactic" moments in the story structure (in so far as this game has a story). Yet if you fall off the wires, you're placed back at the last checkpoint, which in these segments are unmarked and uncommon. The song also resets to match where in the level you were sent back to. It's not even a seamless transition. It's very abrupt, yet not fast. Oh, and the speed at which you're moving can change without warning. Most levels involve reaching the transformer at the end, with various collectibles and fuseboxes on the way. The fuseboxes, when touched, will activate something in the world, such as neon lights or a winch. Some levels require you to solve a "puzzle" in the world, such as guiding a couple in love to each other. In practice, this is just another collectible with cutscenes attached. Which wouldn't be a bad thing, but the art in the game is, again, mediocre. The "art" in the game consists of the 3D environments which contain the wires you move through, and 2D drawn comic-style "storytelling" cutscenes. You would think the art in the cutscenes would be of better quality, but it's awful. And the 3D art is merely passable. I haven't said all I can about this game. But by now I think you get the gist of it. My recommendation, if you're going to buy this game, is wait until it's on sale. like, 60% off at least. It's nowhere near worth $15.

[h1]TurnOn: A Charmingly Electric Journey[/h1] TurnOn is a charming platformer/runner where you play an alien ball of electricity who has crash landed in a city causing a blackout, and must then restore both the power and help the citizens out in the process. This was a mostly enjoyable experience that took me 4.8 hours to complete. There were a few parts of the game where I got stuck for a little while, which extended my time a bit. A player with solid platformer and runner skills could probably play through this in about 3 hours if they wanted. [h1]Story[/h1] The story in TurnOn is presented without any captions or voice work. It is a strictly visual experience from this standpoint. That said, it does in fact carry itself reasonably well in the story department. Basically, this is the tale of an alien who crash lands in a city (and fortunately in a scientists laboratory) causing a city wide blackout. The alien, who is represented as a ball of electricity, and who can only travel via electrical currents (such as power lines and such), and the scientist together attempt to restore power to the city before the people in the city destroy it via looting and other crime, accidents, and what have you. You, the alien, will also try to help people along the way, from helping out a couple on a romantic date to making it possible for a kid to finish his round of mini golf (and other stuff as well). Certainly the story in TurnOn is no magnum opus, but it serves well within the context of this platformer. I give the story a 7 out of 10 [h1]Gameplay[/h1] The gameplay in both a platformer and a runner is of paramount importance. Brainy Studios did a very nice job of creating a seamless experience in this regard. The controls in TurnOn were tight using a gamepad (I didnt try keyboard and mouse, so I have no opinion ion that manner of play for this game). I experienced zero crashes or stuttering. There is one amusing bug that will show up however. You can sometimes end up travelling along invisible power lines. This happened probably 8-10 times in my playthrough. Each time, this bug worked to my advantage as it made jumps between power lines a bit easier. So, the actual gameplay itself: The platforming was fairly basic overall. As mentioned before, in TurnOn, you travel via power lines and electrical currents. These are presented in a number of ways, from straight lines to mazing paths, with shifts in elevation, and moving platforms (such as window washing lifts, the scientists vehicle, forklifts, etc…). There will also be bridges that you need to power up to unlock, doorways that need to be unlocked, street lights that need to be turned on, and so on. Along the way, you collect currents of electricity (which basically take the place of the more familiar coins in platformers) which impact your ranking on each level and are attached to certain achievements. There are also red charges of electricity which damage you and green charges which heal that damage and basically give you up to 3 health points. If you run out of green energy, you will have to completely restart the level you are on. The running sections I personally found to be a bit frustrating. Not because they werent done well. They were. I simply am not so good at that style of gameplay. However, despite my deficiency in this regard, I was still able to complete each level with some trial and error. You are still traveling across electrical lines, and so the presentation for the runner levels is basically like sheet music, with a few different levels and breaks on various ones causing you to have to stay on top of your game and change lines frequently. The pacing is tied to the music in the game, so the faster the tempo, the faster you are running. You will also encounter enemies on a few levels in TurnOn, which are variations on red energy. They are fairly easy to avoid overall, but you will still die plenty of times on a few of those levels. There is also what is essentially a timed level towards the end. This was the level I had the most problems with overall. Again, it was done well, but I still died a lot trying to figure out and remember the patterns as I ascended a building trying to stay ahead of a line of red energy that inexorably advanced upon my little electrical alien. The gameplay in TurnOn deserves an 8 out of 10. [h1]Graphics[/h1] The graphics in TurnOn were are presented in comic book fashion. The intros for each section are actual comic book frames which let you know what challenges you will face in the level to a certain extent and what your overall goals are. The actual game graphics are an extension of this comic book approach. They were especially well done in my opinion and the highlight of TurnOn for me. This was simply put a beautiful and lovingly crafted game from a graphics standpoint. I think this game deserves a 9 out of 10 for this category. The graphics in TurnOn were almost done to perfection [h1]Sound[/h1] I have mixed feelings towards the audio in TurnOn. The music was the sort of stuff you would expect to hear in inspirational videos and commercials. Sort of uplifting, but also a bit sterile. The rest of the audio was simply sounds of electrical discharge, muttering speech done intentionally to further the voiceless story telling, and other ambient noises appropriate to the various backdrops. This was the low point of the game from my perspective 6 out of 10 [h1]Verdict[/h1] Taken as a whole, TurnOn was a pleasant gaming experience. The setting and main character were charming. I was also impressed by the fact that this game was crafted by a four person team. [h1]7.5 aliens traversing the electrical wire ways of our neon world charming the socks off of those they encounter within. Out of 10.[/h1] [code]If you found this review helpful and would be interested in supporting my Curator group, it would be appreciated. Cheers. https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32549618/[/code]

My first impression of this game was good. It has a nice art style and the idea of repowering the city by jumping from electrical platform to electrical platform and reaching collectibles and different goals seemed cool to me. Especially the way the story is told appeals to me. In one level you're powering homes to get the lights on in order to scare away burglars attempting to get inside. In another level, you're bringing a man and a woman together for their date by turning on traffic lights to make it safe to cross streets, getting a water pump running to spray malicious thugs, and so on. In this way, the game is great. The leisurely way you roam the levels and interact with things to see the effect you have on them and watch a small story unfold - it's relaxing and fun. And then there's the reason I give this game a thumbs down. There are about 6 levels that are "runner" levels. You are automatically moving forward along power lines and all you can do is jump up or down them. These levels can be immensely frustrating depending on how you play them. I, for instance, really want to get everything and achieve a high score. To do that, you need to get almost every collectible in the stage. Make mistakes, and you get to start the level over - the checkpoints are few and far between. Imagine playing DDR and you make three mistakes and it automatically starts you off at the beginning of the song again. The music in this game is nice, but you start to hate it when you hear it over and over again fifty times. Of course, you don't have to try to collect everything and get a high score. You can just run through these levels casually. However, if you're doing that, they're too easy and there's not much to do. You press W a few times, you press S a few times and you're done. Unlike the normal levels, there's no story, no exploration in these levels. If you're not trying to collect everything, these levels serve no purpose. And if you are collecting everything, they're pure frustration. The camera is way too zoomed in, you can't see far enough ahead of you and often cannot react to things immediately enough to accomplish anything. I don't feel the controls are as responsive as I'd like, either, though this may just be my perception - I press W at times and it doesn't jump. The level design of these runner levels have caused the community as a whole to just exploit them. If you've reached a checkpoint, your collectibles are saved if you die from falling, so you keep dying on purpose over and over again to collect as many as you can manage before completing the level. This just proves bad level design. I feel they were only added to give the game a false sense of challenge. They don't seem to fit the overall mood of the rest of the game - one of exploration and interaction within a beautiful world. With the runner levels, I must give this game a thumbs down. They are either too hard or too easy, depending on your playstyle, and simply don't fit with the rest of the narrative or gameplay. Otherwise, this game would get a thumbs up. Regardless, it's a worthy game to play casually if you can get it really cheap on sale. The game takes less than 5 hours to complete.

I wanted to like this game. A lot. I loved the art style a lot. The animations had a little bit of jank to them, but that just added to the charm for me. The gameplay held me back though. Making a fun platformer is about good level design, good camera control and the controls feeling right. TurnOn doesn't exceed at any of these and it ends up making the entire experience worse off for it. TurnOn has mostly okay level design except for a few areas where you have to do blind faith jumps because the only way to progress is to jump to an offscreen rope. The game often has no indicator of these so enjoy sometimes blindly jumping to your death. The camera control is bad... or rather there is no camera control. The camera is hard locked to your character so you can't just test to see if it's a blind faith jump and airstrafe back. Despite there being no punishment for jumping to your death, this does make this part of the game incredibly tedious, especially for the 4-5 second respawn animation and it teleporting you back to the last checkpoint. The gameplay works on a 2d plane, however there can be multiple 2d planes for you to jump between in a single level. This can work in the game and sometimes it's pretty novel, but for the most part you'll probably find it incredibly annoying. The camera will flick up and the scenery will move in an attempt to get you to hook onto the scene behind -- even if it isn't possible for you to successfully make the jump. This will make jumping for the collectibles annoying, but it will also make you try and jump up to an area that may not be accessible at all. As a causal platformer, these issues would be annoying, but just an annoyance on an otherwise enjoyable game, right? Well that's until you play the annoying auto run levels. These appear to be synced up to the music, but it's done very poorly. Instead enjoy a lot of trial and error and hearing the same part of the song as you unsuccessfully try and make your way through. At first it's a neat gimmick, but the game continues to throw them at you. Ugh. I really don't want to rate this game down. I don't feel good about it, but I cannot recommend this in good earnest. What a shame.

nice casual game to play if you dont want something too challenging and just want to relax. I like the art style and the music is nice. My only real complaint about the game, even though its a pretty small one more of a pet peeve really. The world is rendered as a sidescroller where you move between the foreground and background to give you a sense of 3d depth. My only issue with that is your character does not change size to keep that illusion going, I.E. shrinking to portray moving further away or getting larger to move closer.