Recent reviews by Robo

Awesome story integration and visuals! Truly a great addition to the Zachtronics lineup!

Programming model is similar in complexity to TIS-100, but with the new native form of concurrency, it's a great fresh experience!

Having no technical problems with the game whatsoever, and I've already unlocked the first minigame after ~2-3 hours! Spoiler: The first minigame is another card game similar to solitaire, but with a different setup and card types.

Has absolutely been worth the preorder, having the physical zines in-hand makes this experience so much more immersive!

There is a lot of potential here, and I feel that it's not far from being one of the best typing games available.

With just a few changes, I think I'd recommend this game:

• Allow custom dictionaries to be added by players via some method like the Steam Workshop (American English seems to contain words that aren't even in some dictionaries?)
  
• Add a 'debris' gamemode, where a large field of words is placed onto the screen (important: words NOT MOVING) and players get points for clearing the words off the screen.
  
• If I am in the middle of typing a word and the other player beats me, I don't want my momentum from continuing to type that word select a new one that I didn't intend to. Allow some kind of configurable timeout to occur, or just multi-match for the some 0.4 seconds after getting beaten to allow the player's hands to stop moving.
  
• Many of the gamemodes with moving words or random positioning are more disorienting than they should be, and are less about the typing as they are re-focusing on the newly spawned text in order to read it.

With those few changes, I feel my review will then be a positive one.

There are some additional features I would wish to see from a more completed game though:

• An accuracy/endurance mode: less about "quick draw" mechanics and more about finishing complete sentences or paragraphs. (With or without punctuation as an option.)
  
• More than two players in some gamemodes: there's a lot of potential for something like 8 player asteroids mode or similar ideas
  
• Multi-word and symbol options: allow custom dictionaries to include full lines of text, so that people could train on terminal commands, common sentences, or text involving numbers and symbols like LaTeX or mathematica languages.

The amount of content in this game already is amazing!

I'm also very impressed that this is running in an NWJS app! I wouldn't have thought such an awesome game could be so smooth in an HTML renderer - but **PLEASE** add support for higher refresh rates! A lot of the animations look a little choppy at 60hz on a 144hz monitor.

Overall - I'm very impressed and can't wait to see the completed storyline!

Never programmed assembly before.

Played this game.

Started programming in real assembly.

This feels strangely familiar...

(Still prefer TIS.)

It's difficult to describe as a 'game', as it does not fit most people's descriptions of such.

I prefer to call it interactive storytelling, While initially I was slightly set off, not being used to the cartesian-bound movement and strange collision boxes, the controls were not a hindrance for long at all. (Perhaps a tiny bit more effort could improve the terrain collision, but its not too important.)

I found the mix of puzzle and story elements to be very well balanced, and finishing the game was one of those 'human' emotion moments that really define a successful story.

With such an amazing soundtrack, I highly recommend buying the bundle. And to my audiophile delight, the soundtrack DLC came with FLAC format available!

I've had this on my wishlist for awhile, waiting for the Linux release, and now that it's here, I am *very* pleased.

Gameplay, mechanics, soundtrack, maps, all solid. Steam controller worked flawlessly without need for configuration, and controls are extremely well implemented.

It's great to see developers so involved in the community feedback discussion, and I really hope to see more from Studio Monolith!

Short, sweet, knows exactly what it wants to be and does exactly that.

The fluid movement mechanics are better than what I've seen in almost all other games I play. Even as I slide around effortlessly, I don't feel out of control either.

I hope to see more from this developer!

Update as of May 2018:

How to play this game on linux:

Fix the fullscreen bug: add `-screen-fullscreen 0` to your launch options.
Be sure to ONLY press "space" repeatedly upon beginning the game to ensure you skip the cutscene cinematic which doesn't actually show up.
Once you begin the game you will not be able to see your mouse cursor ever again. (You will have to restart the game to access settings menu, etc.)

Original Review:

If on Linux, don't bother yet. Spent more time debugging why it didn't work than playing.

Need to fix:
- fullscreen freezing bug
- skip intro bug
- intro cinematic not playing at all
- death screen requires a game restart... (you can't click on any buttons)

I don't think it should be too hard to fix, but once they do, it seems like everything else considered it would be a good game.

Game is good, just a few technical bugs to work out. (Linux/Ubuntu)

Very atmospheric and the puzzles and levels are well designed.
And although the levels are extremely monochrome, I didn't end up noticing it that much.

I love this game.

It's an outlet for my engineering-style creativity, it gives me the kind of enjoyment I originally only got from programming.

Obviously, this game isn't for everyone, it requires very good technical planning and design, but for engineers and programmers like me, this is potentially one of the best games to help tune your critical thinking, system design, and long-term planning skills.