Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP (2011)

The gameplay core concept of combining indie adventure with the accompaniment of a prog rock record got me to add Superbrothers to the bucket list. I step into the boot sandals of a Scythian warrior, who travels into a a small, mystical realm to fulfill a dangerous task. The story doesn't tell more than what is implied by the circumstances and with the help of a book that sums up thoughts of different characters. Logical thinking is required to make progress but the game's minimalistic direction function-wise helps narrow down the frame to work within.

The soundtrack made by Jim Guthrie, a well-known composer that I just caught awareness of, is eclectic and suits the strange yet welcoming atmosphere of the game. In the end, I'm left confounded by the sum of the game's peculiar storytelling and lore but the experience is worth to players who is looking for something fresh out of the indie niche.

Personal pick of the soundtrack: Lone Star

I played through about 30-40 minutes of this game so far. I'm ending my gameplay here because of a variety of problems.

• This is a game with unique mechanics, that fails to explain any of the said mechanics beyond some on-screen prompts.
• The controls are awkward. This was originally a mobile game and that shows, but the complexity involved in simple movement is crazy. You have to click and hold until the pointer changes shape, at which point the character will keep moving as long as you hold down the button. Single-clicks have no effect, while clicking and dragging will move the camera instead of the character. Double-clicks allow you to move in a waypoint-to-waypoint kind of way, but I'm personally not interested in that.
• A vague story about a 'woeful errand'. This would be fine if the gameplay was engaging, but it's not. So what's this errand about? Who is this central character? What are these magical objects? Why am I supposed to care about any of this?
• Terrible writing. In the first few minutes of the game, you meet a girl named 'Girl', a dog named 'Dogfella' and a woodcutter named 'Logfella'. I personally find this stupid rather than funny. There's also this weird mixing of the fantasy style of writing and casual talk: 'We spied a thingamajig upon the door'.

I can't comment about the soundtrack because I haven't listened to it much. I probably will listen to it, because it comes with the game and is pretty heavily advertised.

So this one's going on my 'Abandoned' pile. Moving on.

I was really confused when i started SSS. WASD didn't work. Arrow keys didn't work. Indeed, nothing on my keyboard seemed to have any effect. As it turns out, they were so incredibly lazy when they ported this that they kept the touch controls. You have to move left and right with the mouse (click or hold).

Once i had stopped laughing i decided to play the first chapter. You walk somewhere, fight a wolf and fight back. You fight the wolf by clicking on sword and shield icons on screen. Oh yes, they literally copied the touch controls straight to PC.

Also the game fucking sucks. It looks really cool but you literally just walk a bit and fight crappy fights. Apparently there are puzzles too but backtracking as well. All with the same hilariously bad controls. I figured i'd watch a playthrough because i enjoyed the visuals but i realised i had literally no interest in this at all after about 10 seconds.