THE ENIGMA MACHINE Reviews

One of the best games i have encountered in my life! much like an amazing book you just want to delve so much deeper into!!

A mixed experience! Be warned that one puzzle requires you to hear sound, it does not have captions for said sound. I was able to hear it, but did not understand what was said... The game requires some patience on the player's side but also makes use of you staying longer in a place and getting to know it. Even running is not fast, and some areas are deliberately frustrating to navigate (I'm looking at you, pitch black staircase). I really liked a lot of the visual presentation, though it can also get a bit exhausting after a while. I didn't like the inconsistency of the lights in the levels and found many areas to be too dark (which prevented me from finding one code fragment, the rest was mainly just inconvenient to frustrating). A later stage can even be a bit nauseating. I think gamedesign-wise it could have been a bit better in many areas but it does clever things as well, so I don't regret playing it.

Fantastic short psychological puzzler.

The sound of the enemy dying was so nasty that it soured my otherwise (somewhat) positive experience. Do you want me to email you a screamer so that you can experience that "authentic indie slop horror experience" too? If you want to be experimental and cute with your sounds, go ahead, but if so, you need to make absolutely sure that your mastering is on point. These games make me paranoid that I've lost hearing every time. I can accept hearing loss if I get something sufficiently valuable in return. Either remove these annoying sounds, or make your game so good that I'll gladly tank screamer-tier earrape face first. Overall, the ideas are not that interesting, to be honest. "Rogue AI" has always been a trope, even before 2023. What's the special spin on the trope here? Nothing. It's just lazy. You have to work on your ideas too, not just the game. "AI in a loop", "Suffering AI", "Evil corporation😈", you can probably already fill in the rest. It's really sickening to see this stuff every time when there's clear potential here in other respects. The presentation is pretty good. The effects for the screen are nice. Missing a lot though. Big promises, small delivery. "THE ENIGMA MACHINE" is too grand of a name for something like this. Feels very much like a demo (which it very well might be, since apparently it's a trilogy). Looking forward to see the other parts of the series. Clear (unrealized) artistic vision here.

It's an ok story. After finishing, I have to side with the AI. Maybe I didn't get it or maybe that is the point. Either way it was a nice experience and I look forward to playing the next 2 (plus the demo that ties together the 2nd and 3rd.)

Fantastic visual and audio design unfortunately hampered by underdeveloped puzzles with obtuse and frustrating solutions. The titular Enigma machine that speaks to you could use some work, I did not enjoy the writing enough to justify its impact on the pacing. There are some redeeming qualities here, but at $5 you can find other short experiences that manage to accomplish far more for free.

I really enjoyed the atmosphere, puzzles, and overall experience with this game. I think it was really well done and worth the couple of hours it took to beat it. I'm really looking forward to playing Mothered and Echostasis afterwards.