Recent reviews by Ashby

Умиротворяющий и медитативный аркадный симулятор птичьего полёта под приятную музыку, посвящённый повествованию о семье воронов-психопомпов в сеттинге скандинавской мифологии.

Сюжет незамысловат, однако от души передаёт чувства эмоциональной близости и нежной семейной заботы, — ценности столь же редкие и ускользающие среди импульсов поверхностного информационного мира, как и в символизме самих воронов, которым образно приписывается чуткая родственная привязанность друг к другу, но в то же время столь редко ассоциирующаяся с ними в популярной культуре по сравнению с другими их аспектами.

Говоря о других аспектах, не забыта и мифологическая роль воронов как хранителей слов: история мира в игре подаётся преимущественно через расставленные повсюду таблички, где отдельные слова написаны на неизвестном языке. Для нахождения их значений требуются другие таблички, поиск которых мотивирует исследовать локации.
К сожалению, тут нет полноценной неографии с лингвистической дешифровкой, как, например, в Chants of Sennaar, но для проекта, сделанного по большому счёту одним человеком, упрощённый подход является хорошим компромиссом, поскольку не обременяет казуальный геймплей.

По итогу, это уникальная в своей нише маленькая игра для любителей пернатых и отдельно корвидов, а также просто для тех, кто, устав от постмодернистского цинизма, ищет островок тёплой искренности.

😎
My state?
SUCCESSOR
My sphere?
INNER
My house?
GREAT
My crab?
KING
My projector cannon?
PARTICLE
My cat?
MAD
My nominal?
ALL SYSTEMS

There is a moment in time when you discover that the world is larger than you were conditioned to believe by previous experiences. A paradigm shift that will break the cycle of your former life… or at least your sleep cycle. That is The Watcher — truly, a journey like no other.

GAMEPLAY
Here in Rain World, we don’t call it gameplay. We call it experience. The one delivered by gut punches. And The Watcher is a surprise kidney punch from your favorite old uncle: travel, eat, and hibernate in an ecosystem simulator where you are not the main actor. Everything will either try to eat you or stare judgmentally until you are wiped out by some biblical cataclysm, like a great flood, locust plague, or a slightly colder winter with a Texas energy grid. You will die a lot, often in literally unfair scenarios. It’s not for casual players. Imagine being born in a so-called first-world country, but finding yourself among 80% of the population constantly feuding over 20% of middle-class positions. As you become more enlightened about your tricky situation, a question arises: What should I do? Nobody knows. So you might guess that you’ll just throw yourself into an underground lake of super-solvent and swim to the bottom. Not in The Watcher, because here you’ll do something completely different. In fact, there are four endings, and reaching them will depend on rather different pathways which can even dynamically transform the worlds you travel through.
Talking about worlds, there are twice as many regions as in the vanilla game. Most are adaptations of those created by community modders. However, the very fact that they have been implemented in the official game is something noteworthy. All of it comes with a huge number of new creatures, items, and their interactions.
Also, for the first time in the series, our slugcat will be able to acquire new game-changing abilities, making the expansion closer to the concept of classic metroidvanias.

STORY
The story of the Watcher is so naturally resonant and mysterious yet unobtrusive that it is both very simple and, at the same time, open to deeply ontological and highly personal interpretations.
But even setting the story aside, the true plot of The Watcher, just like in the original Rain World, is a journey whose meaning does not lie in reaching the end. The environment and the player's interaction with it, are an inexhaustible source of storytelling. There are no cutscenes here, because the game itself is an absolute cinema of natural selection, while The Watcher's campaign is advancing this foundation both in quantity and in quality.
You are still the same little creature, trying to survive and journeying by following your beliefs and meanings, or searching for them, or, most often, simply driven by your desires and impulses. If curiosity is your main motivator, you certainly won't be disappointed. Especially if you enjoy piecing together lore, because the hunt for colored pearls is still a thing, and it's a monumental task in itself, given their number.

GRAPHICS
The new regions are visually very diverse and charming in their own ways, constantly surprising with both breathtaking landscapes and sophisticated taste of post-apocalyptic technogenic aesthetics. Compared to them, the original game’s regions at times feel like tests from a previous generation.
The new artworks are also beautiful.

MUSIC
Music has always been the soul of Rain World and an inseparable part of its alchemy that makes the game so great.
Region themes have a unique system of dynamic layering that depends on the level of threat: calm atmospheric backdrops are always audible, but as predator density increases, tense dissonances, sharp rhythms, and aggressive synthesizer accents gradually emerge and overlap.
The Watcher OST continues that, adding a completely different whole big album of masterpieces ranging from chill and reflective to adrenaline-pumping, with the same unique amalgamation of electronic melodies and ambients blending with vibes of biology and oriental mysticism.

PROBLEMS
There might be a few bugs and roughness here and there, but a lot has already been well polished since the release. Some players are also complaining that the rhizomic topography of portal connections isn’t entirely ADHD-friendly.
Personally, none of that bothered me, because the whole time I was infuriated by something else — fake platforming. Is the pole, platform, or obstacle real, or is it just part of the background? You could open the map and compare its layout, but guess what teaches you to do this systematically. This has been a minor issue in some places of the original game, while here it has become a whole new headache. Though almost exclusively in regions originating from the Aether Ridge mod. And let me tell you: they make up around half of the new regions. It brings so much salt that one of them is literally called Salination. Don't worry. Think of it as a slot machine, and you have no cognitive awareness of your ludomania relapse. Every time you jump onto a platform or try to grab a pole, you might get very lucky!

VERDICT
Still, The Watcher is truly a labor of love, into which a huge amount of work and soul has been poured.
But is it fun?
It’s as fun as transcendental meditation on a glitchy housecat on catnip, phasing through a non-Euclidean nightmare of wormholes. Disguised as a platformer. A metaphor for sentient existence, if you will. A colored pearl which you can hang on your totem or try to find out what secrets it's hiding. Just as we live our lives by following our beliefs and meanings, or in search of them, perhaps The Watcher could become a portal to a place where you might discover a new continuation of yourself. New laugh, new tears, new memories.

A game about my typical daily routines.

I have always been intrigued by neography in games, such as the dragon language in Skyrim or glyphs in Rain World. Often it is used only for worldbuilding, and while there are some interesting games centered around translating fictional languages (Heaven's Vault, to name one), I would say Chants of Sennaar is the first time when philological decipherment lies at the core of gameplay in the form of an engaging, polished, and easy-to-approach adventure game.
Visuals are vivid and artistic, presenting diverse eye-catching scenery, yet free of unnecessary distracting details. Music is appealing, fitting and unobtrusive.
System of languages and word acquisition maintains a good balance of simplicity and captivation, allowing you to make your own guesses and discoveries without drowning in false assumptions, making the whole process feel rewarding.
Exploration is surprisingly interspersed with small stealth, action, and puzzle sequences that are not punishing, but help to diversify wandering between locations.
So, I would recommend give Chants a go not only to some average semiotics enthusiasts or lexical semantics enjoyers, and not only to fans of adventures and puzzles in general, but to anyone looking for a new entertaining experience in games.

1. Play Rain World because of cute/funny main character.
   
2. Study ecosystems, master your survival skills.
   
3. Discover lore, delve deeply into it.
   
4. Accept teachings of ancients as your real beliefs, achieve enlightenment.

Приятный и достойный FTL 3D от российских разработчиков.

... Спасите воду и используйте.
... Пожалуйста, не шумите.
... Разделение мусора.
... Экономьте электричество.
Выйдите.

Easily one of the best CRPGs ever made.
Features I would highlight:
— Based on Pathfinder tabletop system with deep and well-developed gameplay mechanics that reward careful thinking and exploration of builds and approaches.
— Lots of classes and races allow to recreate more or less any fantasy character.
— Can be either turn-based or real-time, both modes are well implemented.
— Highly customizable game difficulty.
— Include turn-based strategy minigame similar to Heroes of Might and Magic V.
— High reactivity to player's choices and multiple significantly different narrative paths to choose allow plenty of replayability.
— Companions with distinctive personalities and congruent behavior.
— Great writing with all kinds of speech styles.
— Beautiful music and visuals.
— Strong support from developers with quick bug fixes and constant quality updates.

They won't remember that I'm gone.