Recent reviews by BOXman

Due to me being one of the testers for The Drifter, this review may seem bias. But, if you put this aside. this is truly a gem of a game.

I have been a follower of powerhoof games for years, starting from their free itch.io games that instantly captivated me in their style of story telling. To their later much grander projects like Crawl and The Telwynium series. I saw how with each new project they hone in on their skills, improve, and delicately craft their very own style.

The Drifter is the latest project from the team and the bar has been raised -- The game even manages to slightly push the point-n-click adventure game genre to modern times. For example, the way dialogue plays out is so much smoother than other P.A.C. games where previously there would be awkward silence between conversations and topics (between different characters). Here each topic flows smoothly via a topic selection menu that corresponds with a picked-up item or a dialogue or a story event. Sure, this may seem like a very minute thing, but, the genre itself rarely had a game push the envelope, many of them can be seen as copies of each other (mechanically speaking of course). The Drifter managed to take an approach to a very common mechanic and improve on it, to smoother the experience. Anything that even slightly changes the formula should be praised!

Putting aside that little tangent let's talk about the actual game.
The Drifter offers a very linear experience that is paced so tightly it almost has no 'dead moments' (where the player is stuck due to a puzzle or a missed a key item needed to be used in order to continue). The puzzles don't use 'moon logic', where a sheep can eat a lockpad or a firehose pretends to be a cobra-snake, in order to seduce a real one, to allow the player to pass. (These are all real btw). The puzzles in the game are more aligned with reality and understanding of how tools work. Almost in a educational way.
In need of fuel but have only a hose next to you? Use the hose to extract the fuel via air pressure.

Not all puzzles are like this but I found many of them to act this way and I love it. It's a style of puzzles I grew to love and seeing it makes me happy every time.

When it comes to the story it is a fun sci-fi thriller. I don't want to spoil it just go in blind and enjoy it :D
I will say that it's not the most fleshed out story nor is it perfectly written, it's one of those adventures you'd experience and have a positive reaction from. Not something that would make youtubers create entire video essays on.

To conclude this, The Drifter is a wonderful new exciting entry in the P.A.C genre. I highly recommend it if you are looking for a nice story to play through.
I'm honored that I was apart of the testing phase and seeing at first hand how far the team came. Can't wait to see their next project and I wish the best.

A game I have completed thrice, a playthrough that was taken years apart from each other managed to create a game that changed my views on characters, places, factions, and entire plot lines. Each time I played Planescape: torment I was older, more mature, and more knowledgeable. While I admire the story, the combat was mainly the biggest roadblock for me. Many fights felt frustrating and extremely clunky, I mostly cheated by giving my companions health boosts mid fight so I wouldn't have to track all the way back from the mortuary and revive them.

The more blind you come into this game the better. Honestly, it is an experience that can give you a way to shape yourself and view yourself through the story. You may be a nameless one, but your actions, your thoughts have weight. Not on everything obviously. But so much is affected by. Though the story isn't perfect and some quest-lines really fall unto obscurity unless you pay close attention to every detail that is presented to you. It is never the less a one of a kind tale.

My hope in this review is to convince you to give it a try, yes the graphics are outdated, the combat is utter garbo, but the experiences still there. Even when the story forces you down a very linear path it gives the ability to paint and shape those linear paths with your own style.

This is a one in a decade type of game. If a much deeper view on the game I highly recommend Noah Caldwell-Gervais video, where he compares both Planescape: Torment and Torment: Tides of numenera
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_rHuBwaFdw

5/5

The gameplay is just boring...
I'm not having fun and the game is more cringe than scary.
It honestly feels like the devs had multiple ideas and decided to just throw them all in without expanding on them or making them fun to play. The demo isn't scary and the whole "ohhhhh evil internet ghost with a dark past that is connected to reality but not really" theme, was already done before and in a better way. Here it feels like the fans of horror ARG decided to attempt their own take on the thing and sucked at it...

The gameplay loop is simply not fun.
I don't understand why only throwing peper would stun and not other items.
I don't like the fact that every fusebox is related to a different aspect of the ship THAT IS JUST TEDIOUS.
I don't like how limited I am in interaction unless I have items with me.

There's something here but it isn't immersive sim; the game better fits as a puzzle adventure game where you have to remember and memorize all steps in order to effectively beat it. The story seems interesting and I want to see it through but the tedium of the gameplay ruins the experience for me. It really bothers me that my character is helpless unless it scavenges around items... every time... every level.

The lack of "combat" is really annoying. being spotted and having only to rely on attempting to hide or throw something at enemies really bores me and annoys me.

Short, sweet and HYPER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

An awesome short horror game with an interesting folklore story.
Would love to see a bigger version of this idea.

I thank god that I didn't play this when it first released, that cliffhanger would have ruin me!

My feelings on the base game are positive and I do highly recommend the game.
However, this game still feels like early access, it still feels unfinished.
The latest DLC even intensifies that feeling. While the maps are truly stunning and are fun to play, they are empty.
Simply as. You don't get a narrative nor characters or any story beats aside from the mission briefing and some minor (Easily-Missable) Banter with your squad, and this hurts the game and ruins any replayability. Void Interactive are incredibly talented development team especially due to its small size. These DLCs felt like they needed a narrative, an actual narrative one with dialogue and villains and a continuing storyline that isn't hiding in the background. Yet there is nothing of such here. You can do plenty with environmental storytelling, but you can also think you're doing something with it only to realise that you have told a nothing burger for your customers (Scorn).
We need characters on every mission that would explain to us what is happening what are they feeling and what they think about the faction we are fighting.

Right now we just have maps that represent a WHAT IF scenario for us to play around with. I have almost 69 (nice) hours on this game. Most of it is from redoing the mission in an attempt to S-rank it. But after I do I have nothing to fall on.
While you may argue that "you played for 69 hours, I think you can say that this game is highly playable". Well, to that I say that those hours were accumulated during the start of the early access launch Which launched 3 years ago. Aside from the bare-bones multiplayer side and the singleplayer "commander" mode side. There isn't anything of massive substance yet. I truly believe that if this game would have a visible narrative one that isn't strictly environmental it would raise the bar and would truly solidify the game into being worthy of 1.0.

TLDR: The base game is amazing. The game still feels unfinished and early access.

Crashing old people simulator.

Honestly, for a short and entertaining horror game, this is great.
If the game were any longer I would have lost my interest. This is mainly due to how easy and highly linear the puzzles and the chasing scenes are.
The story is bizarre, if not insanely underplayed, I won't spoil it but the reactions you get from it are small. Neither Amy nor Vivian ever express genuine horror at what they see. I didn't want them screaming but I did want them to acknowledge the "♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥" moments better.

I did absolutely love the weight to every interaction, the animation in this game is fantastic.
All in all this is a solid game to burn a weekend over. Don't overhype it, but this team has a unique style and I cannot wait for more from them!
4/5