100 Word Review - #54 - 10,000,000

10,000,000

Genre - Action, RPG, Indie

Metascore - 65%

Developer - EightyEightGames

Other Games by Developer - N/A

My Playtime - 10.7 hours

10,000,000 is a game that caught my eye the first time I saw it. It contains an interesting mix of dungeon crawler, RPG and match-3 puzzler. You saunter through a dungeon, facing enemies, doors and chests and you need to match the symbols to traverse these obstacles. 10,000,000 tends to be quite unforgiving – you don’t have much time to think about your moves and this can lead to quite a bit of random scrabbling to try and keep going. The upgrade system works well and is not too easy – there are times when you will have to grind for resources.

My Score - 8/10



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100 Word Review - #53 - Auditorium

Sometimes I feel like I am cheating the level

Auditorium

Genre - Indie, Casual

Metascore - N/A

Developer - Cipher Prime Studios

Other Games by Developer - Fractal: Make Blooms Not War, Splice

My Playtime - 2.5 hours

I love simple, good looking games; Auditorium is one of these. The premise is straightforward - guide a stream of light to light catchers around the screen using control orbs such as attraction, repulsion and directional. Every light catcher you fill adds to the music, and by the end of each level (of 5 stages) you have a nice track. Auditorium starts out slow but it does ramp up the difficulty quite quickly and you end up just making slight adjustments for 5 minutes. It is a very clean looking game with the vivid colours jumping out against the black background.

My Score - 7/10

100 Word Review - #E7 - Braid

Why would someone bring a red tie to this?

Braid

Genre - Strategy, Indie, Casual

Metascore - 90%

Developer - Number None

Other Games by Developer - N/A

Edgar's Playtime - 4.1 hours

Braid is a rather unique game. Behind an apparently simplistic platformer is a thoughtful adventure with an adult theme (not erotic, you perverts) and full of never before tried game mechanics. Each of the six levels has several sublevels with puzzle pieces to fetch, a piece of history to tell and a new perk to learn (like rewinding and stopping time) that must be used to successfully complete each level. Some see this as a masterpiece, and I can see why, but by the time you get to the final puzzles, they start to get a bit too challenging.

Edgar's Score - 7/10

100 Word Review - #T26 - Dear Esther

As a book, it probably would've been pretty decent.

Dear Esther

Genre - Adventure, Indie, Casual

Metascore - 77%

Developer - thechineseroom, Robert Briscoe

Other Games by Developer - N/A

Tom's Playtime -  1.3 hours

I'm receptive to the idea of games as art, however Dear Esther seems to forget about the idea of games as games. The modus operandi here is simply on-foot navigation around an island while the protagonist narrates to you. Very little happens in Dear Esther and it was tedious to reach completion, but along the way I found merits in the eloquent writing style and a few environments which would give Skyrim competition. These merits do not detract from the non-existent “gameplay” that Dear Esther attempts to provide and, while better than Dinner Date, it too is ultimately forgettable.

Tom's Score - 3/10

100 Word Review - #52 - Sanctum

Everyone loves a good pile of bodies.

Sanctum

Genre - Action, Strategy, Indie, Casual

Metascore - 70%

Developer - Coffee Stain Studios

Other Games by Developer - N/A

My Playtime - 3.9 hours

Sanctum is another game with an interesting mix of genres – tower defence and FPS. This blend works very well and means you can get your strategy and action fixes in the same place. Before each wave, you can set up and upgrade your towers and also upgrade your weapons. I’ve found the game to be relatively easy, especially when you’ve fully upgraded your first few towers and main weapon. As soon as you do that, enemies rarely get past you. Apart from the genre mix, nothing about Sanctum really stands out, with the graphics and music feeling a bit bland.

My Score - 6/10

100 Word Review - #T25 - Stacking

In the land of the tall, the tiny little child is king, apparently.

Stacking

Genre - Adventure, Indie

Metascore - 80%

Developer - Double Fine Productions

Other Games by Developer - Psychonauts, Costume Quest

Tom's Playtime -  7.0 hours

After the first 15 minutes or so, I was unimpressed by Stacking but it didn't take much longer to win me over. Beyond the adventure game overlay lies an intricate puzzle game in which you take control of various dolls, each with their own unique abilities, and attempt to find a solution to the numerous objectives in each level. Every objective has multiple solutions and while only one is strictly necessary, finding them all is where the game finds its challenge. While not especially long, Stacking is a fun game with a charming sense of humour and comes highly recommended.

Tom's Score - 9/10

Stat Attack 2 & Logo Results

Hello! I've just published our 100th review. This post will talk about some of the stats about the blog so far - that means the return of my lovely pie charts. After that, I will announce the winner of our logo competition. (You may be able to tell from the new logo on the site...)

Average Scores

Reviewer	Reviews	Avg. Score
Matt	51	6.8
Tom	24	6.7
Mat	3	5.0
Kris	9	6.1
Stef	5	6.8
Edgar	6	7.8
James	2	8.5
Total	100	6.8

This means the average review is 0.4 marks lower than it was last time I checked, and is heading in the right direction.

Oh my, I do love a good pie chart.



Logo Competition Results


As we haven't had another vote for a couple of days, I'm calling this vote complete and the logo for MattDoesWords with 50% of the votes is Mat, with his lovely panda design. Congratulations, Mat!

Oh my, I do love a good panda.

Here's to another 100 reviews!