My Week Unwrapped: December 25, 2017 – INSIDE, Bridge Constructor Portal, Hidden Folks, Cat Quest, To the Moon, Vignettes, Lintrix and More

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Hi everyone and welcome to the last installment of My Week Unwrapped for 2017! I hope you’re all enjoying the holidays, whichever ones you celebrate, and hopefully you’re making time for games! There are tons of sales going on at the moment, so take a look at my list and grab some to play on any days off you might have. It’s been a pretty crazy week for me and this coming week is not going to be any quieter. So I’ll just jump right into it.

INSIDE

I finally finished Playdead’s INSIDE! Well, the main story, at least. There’s some achievements to go back for that I think unlock more content. But it was quite the wild ride and a rollercoaster of emotions. It’s one of the best games I’ve played this year, and I’m especially impressed by how well they ported it to touchscreens. I plan to write a review this week, so I’ll leave all the details for that. But wow, what a game. Just nonstop surprises and excitement. If you have a device that can play it, I highly recommend at least playing through the free demo to see if you like it. And you can see my entire playthrough here.

Bridge Constructor Portal

Headup Game’s Bridge Constructor Portal is more Bridge Constructor than Portal, but if you like these kinds of bridge games, the portals are a logical evolution of the mechanics. I’m pretty terrible at building bridges, it turns out, so I’m still fairly early on in the game. Plus, other games have been occupying my time. But I love the humor and voice acting done by the same actress who voices GLaDOS in the original Portal games. I haven’t gotten far enough to review the game, but check out my video below to see if it looks like something you’d enjoy.

Vignettes

Skeleton Business’s toy/puzzle game, Vignettes, got a wonderfully spooky content update this past week that includes a whole new area full of witch’s brews, skulls, eyeballs and voodoo dolls. There’s also new secrets to find and it’s all very satisfying to uncover. It’s also on sale for only $0.99 right now, so it’s a perfect time to grab it if you don’t have it yet. And I have a complete walkthrough guide here for the new content if you get stuck.

Hidden Folks

I’ve officially run out of Hidden Folks content again! As can be expected, the new snow content was just as delightful as ever. There were some tricky items to find, clever clues, and I loved popping heads off snowfolk. If you haven’t picked this game up yet, you’re missing out on one of the best games of the year. And if you are playing it, here’s the rest of my walkthrough if you get stuck.

Cat Quest

I love cats, so I’ve been keeping an eye on Cat Quest since it released. I’ve heard it compared to Battleheart Legacy, so I was somewhat curious about it, but these days I’m just not all that into RPGs that are mostly about running around and killing things without any puzzles to solve. But it was on sale this week, so I finally picked it up. The art is nice and it seems well put together, but I just didn’t really get much out of it. The dialogue is very kiddy-like, reminding me of Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, which I couldn’t stand for more than a few minutes. On top of that, the time I spent with it was primarily running around chasing an arrow and tapping on monsters to attack them, then running back to a town to sleep and replenish my health. It’s tap-to-move, which is normally like, but the game doesn’t have a pathfinder, so I kept getting stuck on things like small walls. It’s no fun to have to keep tapping to move around little obstacles, and I finally lost patience with it. There just wasn’t enough holding my attention. But if you want to see it in action, you can watch my video below.

To the Moon

I also picked up To the Moon during the holiday sale, as the story intrigued me. It’s about two scientists who are giving an old man on his deathbed his last wish. He wants to visit the moon, and they can make that happen — sort of. They can replace his memories so he thinks he went to the moon. It’s an interesting concept, but I think I’d like it better in another form. Perhaps more text and less walking around. It feels a bit tedious to me to have to move around the world and interact just to move on with the story, when there doesn’t seem to be much action or puzzle solving. I still may stick with it, but it’s hard to carve out time for something like that if it doesn’t truly hook me. Again, you can watch some of my gameplay video below.

Lintrix

Lintrix isn’t a new game either, but the developer reached out and sent me a code, so I gave it a try. I like the idea of it a lot. It’s a tower defense game, but you basically form lines between crystals that act as shields. It’s all happening in real time as enemies fly towards your fortresses and you need to block them with these lines. The puzzle aspect comes in when you realize that each crystal can only be connected to one other crystal at a time. And each level can be completed with a minimum number of connections, so finding that solution can be tricky. I was enjoying the first few levels, but it got hectic pretty fast. I’m not sure how far I’ll get with it, but I do think it’s a clever idea and worth checking out if you don’t mind more fast-paced games.

Adventure Escape: Allied Spies

Haiku Games seems to be on fire lately, as they recently released Starstruck, and now, not long after, they’re back with not just one game, but two! Allied Spies is the more engrossing of the two, as it has you playing as a husband-and-wife team of American spies fighting Nazis! As usual with Haiku games, it’s overall satisfying but there are a few missteps with the puzzles. But they’re free with no ads or timers, so can’t really complain, right? I’m also working on a walkthrough here if you get stuck.

Adventure Escape: Murder Inn

And last, the second Adventure Escape game is a sequel to Haiku’s first game, Murder Manor. It’s called Murder Inn, or Murder Manor 2, and feels a bit deja vu. But you can see the quality has really improved between their first game and this one. They’ve also added mid-level saves to both Allied Spies and Murder Inn, which is a welcome change. Instead of having to start a level from scratch if you take a break, you’ll usually only get set back a couple of puzzles. Again, I’m working on a walkthrough for it, but please bear with me, as that’s two walkthroughs I’m working on while also trying to get my Game of the Year list ready. I’m also a bit of a perfectionist with my walkthroughs, so it may take me a while but it will be the best walkthrough it can be when it’s done.

And that’s everything for this week! Make sure to check out the sales, as there’s some fantastic games you can grab for just a buck right now. And stay tuned for my GOTY list, which should be ready either by the end of this year or early next year, depending on how things go. And I wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! Until next time, that’s My Week Unwrapped!

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