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Plattform: PC Veröffentlicht: 13.06.2021

-80%19.99€3,99€

Preis Update 03.04.24

Du bist Mo, eine begabte Mechanikerin, die mit ihrer Familie auf einer idyllischen Inselgruppe lebt, die früher von einer uralten, rätselhaften Art von Riesen bewohnt war. Ihre überirdischen, aber lebensnotwendigen Maschinen befinden sich immer noch versteckt unter den Inseln und müssen am Laufen gehalten werden, sonst wird eine allgegenwärtige Bedrohung alles verschlingen. Mo schwört, die versteckten Maschinen rechtzeitig zu reparieren, aber ist es das, was sie braucht?

Schwinge den mächtigen Omni-Stab in diesem storybasierten Platformer voller Rätsel und Puzzles, um die Kontrolle über die Maschinen der Riesen zurückzugewinnen.
Stelle dich der dunklen Wahrheit, die sich unter der Oberfläche der Inseln verbirgt und enthülle eine emotionale poetische Geschichte, die von der Schauspielerin Megan Gay erzählt wird.
Erkunde eine fantastische handgefertigte Welt, die sich über mehrere einzigartige Inseln erstreckt, triff sonderbare Charaktere und Kreaturen und decke die Geheimnisse der Inselgruppe auf.

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Setzt 64-Bit-Prozessor und -Betriebssystem voraus
CPU: 2,5 GHz Dual Core
GFX: Geforce GT540 (1024 MB) / Radeon HD 5570 (1024 MB)
RAM: 8 GB RAM
Software: Windows 7+ (64-bit OS required)
HD: 2 GB verfügbarer Speicherplatz
DX: Version 11
LANG: Englisch, Französisch, Italienisch, Deutsch, Spanisch , Japanisch, Koreanisch, Chinesisch (vereinfacht)

Setzt 64-Bit-Prozessor und -Betriebssystem voraus
CPU: 2,5 GHz Quad Core
GFX: Geforce GTX 970 (AMD R9290)
RAM: 16 GB RAM
Software: Windows 10
HD: 4 GB verfügbarer Speicherplatz
DX: Version 12
LANG: Englisch, Französisch, Italienisch, Deutsch, Spanisch , Japanisch, Koreanisch, Chinesisch (vereinfacht)

Deutsch (3)
Englisch (35)

2672 Produkte im Account

98 Reviews

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472 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 21.02.22 21:56

Die Lehren der Leere

Was für eine Reise voller Gegensätze – das 2021 vom deutschen Entwicklerstudio Fizbin (u. a. The Inner World) veröffentlichte Minute of Islands hat mich sehr überrascht. Von Melancholie zu Hoffnung, von Niedlichkeit zum Ekel, von farbenfroher Tristesse – ein Durcheinander an positiver Negativität.

Ich.allein.verantwortlich – Story des Spiels
Eine Inselgruppe mit den letzten verbliebenen Einwohnern, bedroht durch Pilzsporen, die alles und jeden langsam vergiften. Wir spielen die Einzelkämpferin Mo, die sich in der Verantwortung sieht, die einzige(?) Hoffnung am Leben zu erhalten: Altehrwürdige Riesen, die unterirdisch ein gewaltiges Lüftungssystem antreiben. Eines Tages fallen alle 4 Riesen aus und Mo muss der Sache auf den Grund gehen. Bei all der Klimakatastrophenthematik geht es aber überhaupt nicht um Belehrung oder Kritik an uns Menschen. Dankenswerterweise ist das Spiel vor allem eines: eine Charakterstudie der Hauptfigur, ihr Umgang mit den letzten Bewohnern, ihre Veränderung im Lauf des Spiels, aber auch die Sichtweise der Erzählerin, die erst einfühlsam, später anklagend Mo´s Taten kommentiert.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2711040589
Sprunghaftes – Gameplay
Wir klettern, springen und kriechen auf und unter den verschiedenen Inseln herum, lösen einfache Rätsel (meist Schalter) und führen wortkarge Gespräche mit den Bewohnern. Um die Sammellust zu stillen, sind Erinnerungen aufzufinden, die mehr über Mo’s Geschichte freigeben. Und dann gibt es noch die „Visionen“ bei Kontakt mit zu viel Pilzsporen, die rätsellastiger sind… Insgesamt würde ich das Ganze als gemächlichen Platformer-Puzzler bezeichnen mit wenig Action und langsamen Erkunden auf vorgegebenen Wegen. Mir sagt dies zu, kann aber verstehen, wenn es manchen zu wenig spielerischen Herausforderung darstellt. Gesteuert wird übrigens entweder mit Tastatur oder Controller.

Tödliche Farben – Grafik, Audio, Technik
Einer der Stars des Spiels ist dagegen das Grafikdesign, das hervorragend detailreich die verschiedenen Inselwelten repräsentiert. Angelehnt an den Adventure Time-Stil werden Szenerien entworfen, die farbenfroh und kontrastreich Leben und Tod in all seinen Facetten wiedergeben. Zum zweiten die überaus einfühlsame Vertonung, die in der melancholischen Stimme der Erzählerin, der Schauspielerin Megan Gay, gipfelt. Das hatte Gänsehaut und Augenorgasmen zur Folge.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2718892879
Technisch lief alles bis auf einige wenige Ruckler einwandfrei. Trotz des deutschen Studios und wegen der tollen Erzählstimme gibt es nur eine englische Vertonung, dafür sind die deutschen Untertitel wirklich von bester Qualität. Die 17 Achievements erreicht man bei umsichtigen Spielen (7-8 Stunden) mühelos, Sammelkarten gibt es (noch) keine.

Wenn einbeinige Möwen einen verendeten Wal verspeisen – Sonstiges
Los werden will ich noch eines: Im Community-Hub sieht man einen Vater, der mit seiner höchstens 5-jährigen Tochter spielt und auch einer der Tags lautet „familienfreundlich“. Auf keinen Fall würde ich meinen Kindern so ein Spiel mit verstörenden Szenen und andauernder deprimierender Stimmung spielen lassen! Mag der Artstyle auch niedlich sein, die Themen und halb verendeten Tiere sind doch alles andere als kindergeeignet. Man sollte doch mindestens einen Teenager bei sich haben.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2712527298

Code Ein durchschnittlicher Plattformer, eine herausragend erzählte Charakterstudie in Endzeitstimmung und grandiosem Grafikdesign im Adventure Time-Stil. Emotional, melancholisch und beeindruckend!

Lust auf Reviews mit einmal mehr und einmal weniger archäologischen Anmerkungen? Probier doch meine Kuratoren-Gruppe The Archaeologist plays… aus.

38 Produkte im Account

1 Reviews

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492 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 08.08.21 20:06

I really enjoyed letting me lead through a dystopic and beautiful world. It vaguely reminds me of the awesome game Hellblade, although this is still something completly different. My only critque is that the puzzle in the crypt really made no sense.

This game is for people:
- Who like the unique and wonderful artstyle and sound design
- Who enjoy a slow paced and emotional story
- Who are not looking for complex puzzle

10 Produkte im Account

1 Reviews

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652 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 20.06.21 17:25

Unglaublich schöner Zeichenstil und Animationen, dazu eine Story die einen sofort mitreißt. Einfach unfassbar schön und auch tragisch zugleich. Man kann nicht anders als das Spiel durchsuchten mit der Packung Taschentücher daneben für all die Tränen.

Kann ich nur empfehlen! :)

(p.s. die Triggerwarnungen sind definitv berechtigt, sollte man vorher beachten bevor man sich in das Abenteuer reinstürzt :D)

332 Produkte im Account

297 Reviews

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687 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 10.05.22 14:05

I have very mixed feelings about Minute of Islands. It is an exquisitely crafted game that moves very S...L...O...W,,,L,,,Y...

You guide a girl named Mo. With blue hair and yellow boots, she lives underground and awakens to discover silence. This means that the machinery controlling her islands has come to a halt. Poisonous spores are no longer being filtered and her people are at risk. Mo's quest is to visit various islands to troubleshoot and fix the problem.

The art work is, in a word, stunning. It is all hand drawn with an incredible level of detail. The scenery is diverse and marvelous. The sound track is soothing with a story told by a very talented female narrator. Although the game is a platform side-scroller, you move in all 4 directions (right/left/up/down). Objectives are clearly noted and your progress with collectibles is easily accessed. You will find and use a handful of inventory items.

My problem with the game is that it is incredibly slow to play. Although Mo can run, you cannot move during narration or any slight animation in the environment. This means that you will be 'waiting to move' at regular intervals. I would not describe myself as impatient, by nature. But, the waiting for Mo became very annoying.

Mo travels through multiple islands, collecting memories, and restarting equipment. She also goes underground to restore power. There are interludes in between where she collects musical memories. The first iteration of these activities was delightful. However, gameplay soon becomes very repetitive, with the underground segments being almost identical to each other (including some tricky timed sequences which took me multiple attempts to master).

The game auto-saves at regular checkpoints and asks for confirmation before leaving an area. This allows you to complete collections or tasks before passing a point of no return. The game is very linear, with optional memories to collect and a couple of optional tasks related to achievements. Paths are clearly visible and it is almost impossible to get lost.

Without venturing into spoiler territory, I will say that the story takes a turn at the end that I did not quite relate to. It moves from heroic quest to 'deep thoughts' which I found jarring rather than heart-warming.

I recommend this game to those who are more patient than I am and can slow down to appreciate the artwork and the charming narration. Be aware that you will not be able to move through Minute of Islands at your own pace.

An added note - Completionists should be aware that there is no going back for something missed. Your only option is to start a new game. Also, this game is not considered 'finished' until after the credits have rolled by, in full.

124 Produkte im Account

67 Reviews

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730 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 12.04.22 05:04

I loved this game.
The art is beyond beautiful.
I took my time taking every bit of it in & I still wanted to see more at the end.
I loved the built in content warning for the game & the soft voice of the narrator.
Hint: There is an after credit scene so be sure to not miss out!

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6 Reviews

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319 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 04.04.22 17:38

I really want to give this a good review but I can't. Really cool artstyle and character design and setting and the story is decent, but as a game it's kinda meh. Repetitive, hard to control, and stretched thin. I really hate how you can't move during the narration, which is like 80% of the game. No choices to make. It's like one long cutscene where you have to manually walk from one place to another. It would be a really cool shortfilm, doesn't work as a game.

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23 Reviews

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89 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 26.02.22 04:49

Art style is sick and the vibes are immaculate

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360 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 06.02.22 01:58

It's Almost Perfect.

After beating the game, I came to the reviews to see if other people felt the same way I did. From what I can tell the general consensus is more or less the same: atmospherically, visually, and narritively this game is outstanding, though the gameplay and actual story (particularly the ending) are lackluster.

I'll be describing many of the flaws this game has, but this is by no means an outright bad purchase.

Mechanically, the platforming can feel frustrating as there are times where you have to be very particular/precise with movements and jumping/dropping when it's truly unnecessary. More forgiveness in this area would make playing the game require less time and deliberate planning and effort to complete simple movements. Reducing the headache here will better showcase the definite strengths of the game. It certainly isn't outright unplayable, but it detracts from the experience.

The game does a good job of not explicitly giving the solutions to every puzzle, leaving the satisfaction of their completion for the player. That said, the puzzles in this game aren't terribly complex or thought-provoking. This isn't necessarily a good or bad thing, but I would by no means consider this a puzzle-focused game. There just isn't that great a sense of satisfaction upon completion of any of the puzzles. It's more of a narrative experience that has some simple puzzles present.

The story through most of the game is interesting, compelling, and complex with themes of anxiety, trauma, family/loss, and moving on. But this brings us to the biggest issue with the game: the ending.

The ending, in no uncertain terms, is bad. It's a real shame too, because it's the only part of this experience I would outright call poorly executed and the only thing keeping this from being truly great. Put simply, it feels terribly rushed. Until the very end, the game maintains a consistent, satisfying pace that maintains suspense, feels rewarding with each milestone, and feels like a well crafted buildup to something bigger. Then, once you reach the conclusion, it feels more like it was dropped in as an afterthought by someone who didn't realize their deadline was coming up. It's like they had to give up and figure out a way to shoe-horn in their first draft for an ending. I felt confused by the sudden shift in tone and quality, and unsatisfied with the ultimate outcome.

The game only takes about 5 or 6 hours to complete entirely, but had they made it closer to 9 or even 12 hours, I'm confident they could have more fully fleshed out elements they clearly wanted to and created a more satisfying and cohesive experience as a whole.

All that ragging aside, the elements like the art, concepts, lore, etc. in this game are second to none and a play-through of this game is a good way to spend a free afternoon or two.

TLDR: I'd give it a 7-ish out of 10. I'm happy having been able to experience this game, but it's disappointing knowing how much better it could have been and deserves to be.

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52 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 10.01.22 00:16

Lovely art, but the world didn't draw me in enough to compensate for the slow walking (auto-run would me great), fidgety jumping and general lack of get-on-with-it.

986 Produkte im Account

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320 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 01.01.22 16:19

A beautiful game about anxiety, trauma, family, loss, and moving on. The art has a lovely if occasionally grotesque style to it that was always exciting to see what the game would show me next. The writing was moving and struck a good balance of leaving things for you to fill in some blanks but also being blatant and telling you what you need to hear when you need to hear it. It never once felt like it was clumsy or being too mysterious and I really appreciate that.

The platforming is pretty simple but I think that serves the game's goals well. The puzzle solving is similarly simple but, once again, I think that's for the best. If either of those aspects were too difficult it would just make the game a slog to get through and no one would want that.

It does drag a bit in the middle but for a game that's only five hours long what that amounts to is a 30-ish minute section in the middle somewhere that should've been 15 or 20 so overall that's a pretty minor complaint.

I love Mo and I want her to be happy.

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4 Reviews

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427 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 29.12.21 03:48

Amazing game, but holy cow, be prepared for it to take you to a dark dark place. Beautiful artwork, and while it is slow moving, its perfect if thats the kind of game you are looking for - which I was. You ambulate the charactor Mo to discover the story, lost memories, and progress the game. There is little skill required and no combat. The artwork is beautiful and absolutely horrifying at times. I cannot reccomend it enough - I pray that the developers make another game like this, because I straight up loved it.

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337 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 26.12.21 06:02

It's ok to let go of your burdens sometimes.

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428 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 29.11.21 19:09

This game has interesting well detailed art, I like it very much.
But the story… This is just awful. It is so stupid, that it’s even ridicules.
It is so not logical, the actions of Mo do not make any sense.
First of all, she does not wear a mask and all the time she suffers from the toxic and see hallucination. But the question is: why? Why does not she wear a mask to avoid the toxic affection?
If she is the only one who can help giants to fix the oxygen system for them each time it breaks, why does she all the time put herself into risk of dying from the toxic? She puts not only herself on risk but all the giants and other members of her family. It is not explained why she does not wear a mask, but she all the time complains how hard it is do all she does. But, actually, if she had worn a mask no problems would be encountered and there would not be any suffering at all. So, this means all her suffering were brought by her stupidity.
I do not see any logic in this story, and I do not like it, not clear the Mo’s motivation. Is she addicted to this toxic?
She does not appreciate all her family who stayed on the island for her sake and only have fights with them.
I also do not understand why Mo thinks that she is some kind of savior of this island, she does not do anything special, she just fixes the system for giants. When giants really are the saviors here. They made the system which helps to dispel the toxic and save people who live there. They bind themselves to this system, so they made a sacrifice.
The ending is even more stupid)))). Mo hits the woman with the Omni Switch and breaks it. I don’t even know what to say here. What is the most stupid thing that you would do with the only one powerful tool which can save all on the islands? Yeah, just breaking it down.

147 Produkte im Account

2 Reviews

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365 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 29.11.21 18:27

This game is really nice and beautiful. It was a pleasure to play it but I was puzzled by the ending.

15 Produkte im Account

4 Reviews

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397 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 16.11.21 03:02

Game has some elements that are emotionally moving, but on the whole the game design seems a bit haphazard. Most of the scenes have puzzles that don't require very much coordination -- a little bit of working out where to go to and what to push/press/move/etc., but mostly not tricky in terms of keypress coordination. So those sections are action interspersed fairly evenly with memory cutscenes or other emotional details. Whereas the vision sequences require quite a bit more coordination, as well as a lot more irritating backtracking if you get that coordination wrong repeatedly. So I HATED the vision sequences, which totally spoiled their impact for me. The physical coordination and timing required for those bits, let alone all the backtracking, added NOTHING AT ALL to the actual emotion/story of the scene, and just made it IRRITATING instead of moving.
In all the bits underground, I found it extremely tedious that every time Mo crawled through a tunnel she spent a few seconds at the far end cautiously stepping out and brushing her dress off etc. That was probably meant to be a cute mannerism, but unfortunately after the first time it just ends up interrupting the flow of the player-controlled movement, and so it took me out of my feeling of immersion every single time.
The bit on Graba I got quickly bored of and just looked up the walkthrough to find the solution to the puzzle, because there weren't any useful graphical clues to the solution without doing a hell of a lot of tedious running and jumping around and backtracking, so rather than completely give up out of BOREDOM I just used the walkthrough to skip through that bit.
Overall, I think the game designers should have thought a lot harder about what kind of game mechanics would actually serve the theme rather than being randomly tacked on because they felt like it. A lot of the time the game could have shortened a lot of the jumping and running around sequences without impacting the game story at all, and that would have made it a more fun game.

1242 Produkte im Account

44 Reviews

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140 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 09.11.21 18:51

Got it off humble bundle and would have bought and refunded the game if i could...
this game looks so nice and sounds meaningful but it is so slow that it almost mocks the player - it takes about 2 minutes to get off the boat, so many repeated parts of walking a long path to nowhere and sometimes you get stuck because the platforms are not readable enough.

It drove me crazy instead of making me have a meaningful experience...

P.S Wrote this thing in boat ride

187 Produkte im Account

3 Reviews

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390 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 03.11.21 20:08

Incredibly repetitive gameplay with only one tough puzzle. The cut scenes are super slow and drawn out with some things not even needing a cut scene. They'll show a cut scene to give you a hint on something you've done a 1000 times already. Lastly, The story is just not very fleshed out. It seemed to want to mimic Gris, which it didn't even come close to.

A great unexpected ending, and cool art as what this game has going for it. I found myself just wanting to rush to the end even though it's a very short game so I just can't recommend.

38 Produkte im Account

12 Reviews

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436 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 21.10.21 03:58

Somewhat shallow gameplay but atmosphere, visuals, and story are impeccable.

32 Produkte im Account

2 Reviews

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411 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 15.10.21 08:56

If you enjoy games that take patience to play this is your guy. You have to wait for everything and everything is slow. You'll solve puzzles before you're finished moving through them, you'll have control constantly taken away for boring screen scrolling, you'll wait for unnecessary pauses over and over, and god help you if you wanna backtrack for missed memories or achievements. If you missed anything you'll just have to repeat the entire game. The message is great and the art is beautiful but it genuinely is not worth the slog. I often had a major sense of anxiety that I would be wasting my time given how slow everything was and unfortunately I have to say I am not better off having gone through the effort to 100% this game. Easy game with the biggest challenge being of your patience.

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429 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 19.09.21 20:15

Beautiful game. I enjoyed the story quite a bit and the art style is absolutely inspirational.

682 Produkte im Account

62 Reviews

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15 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 12.09.21 16:31

It's beautiful designed. But the constant interruption of the game flow by unbreakable cutscenes is just exhausting. Every piece of information is presented by taking control away from the player, painfully slowly panning over to something and expaining narration by a nice lady. This happens like 30x already in the intro. That's just not how you do narration in 2021, even as an indie.

If you want to see how this is done without annoying the player, check out Bastion.

13 Produkte im Account

3 Reviews

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189 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 11.09.21 10:13

Bottom line: This is not a game. it's a simple story with nice drawings that progresses too slowly while forcing you to go through the motions.

I'll start with the good: the drawings & animations are amazing! Together with the sound, it sets an interesting atmosphere.

However, other than that there's not much of a game. There's a story, but it's pretty flat, and it's told on a level that resembles a children's book - although this game is certainly not intended for children. The story is extremely linear. It might look like a point-and-click adventure, but you can't interact with basically anything (which is a real shame with all of the intricate artwork) and the forced linearity ruins any feeling of adventure. Even when given 2 tasks that in theory can be done in any order, the game mechanics still force you to do them in a very particular order. The tasks themselves are very basic, it would be a stretch to call them puzzles. Meanwhile, the game also tries to be some kind of simple platformer, but it's a very janky one with weird controls.

13 Produkte im Account

2 Reviews

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468 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 01.09.21 03:26

What a beautiful but sadly empty game. I found the characters sadly flat and impersonal. The story is the driving engine but the story just seems like a cultural apocolypse reboot. Trendy but not strong enough emotionally to recommend

70 Produkte im Account

26 Reviews

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330 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 30.08.21 18:29

wow. this game blew my mind like wowowowoowoow. so incredibly beautiful and heartwrenching and haunting ohmygod just amazing. the story is so interesting and i immediately fell in love with mo. in a world devoid of hope, she tries to save the people around her, yet herself struggles to find hope and meaning in her quest. gosh i just wow. get it, play it, you wont regret it

255 Produkte im Account

54 Reviews

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140 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 28.08.21 20:17

Disappointed with lack of save points ensuring one has to play large tracts of the game again if you quit. Also puzzles seem too easy (if you don't have to go over them again).

272 Produkte im Account

5 Reviews

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489 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 18.08.21 02:11

A beautiful game, in both visuals and narrative. Mo's struggles with herself and her family are relate-able in some parts, as I'm not particularly close with my family either.

34 Produkte im Account

1 Reviews

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664 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 12.08.21 16:50

it's like a travel at your subconsciousness, with fantastic and surreal illustrations and sountrack. it felt like a dream, sometimes like a nightmare but at the end it kind a healed something. But it was too short for this kind of experience. i would expect a longer and more detailed story/adventure.

29 Produkte im Account

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362 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 08.08.21 04:24

A great game. Visually stunning. Lots of emotions.

43 Produkte im Account

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245 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 04.08.21 21:35

This game is pretty. The animation is gorgeous, the characters are interesting to look at and the world design is very intriguing.
However, the gameplay itself brings down the experience by a lot. It's brain-numbingly repetetive to the point where I saw the platforming and rare puzzles only as a necessity to advance the story. It's not challenging, it's not fun, nothing new is introduced to the mechanics ever. I get that this might be intended to make the player experience a similar hardship to the main character and to provide enough time to think about her situation. But my god, is it awfully boring to play.

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22 Reviews

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459 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 04.08.21 08:31

Beautiful, boring, bugged and repetitive.

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402 Reviews

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722 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 19.07.21 08:25

Review by Gaming Masterpieces - The greatest games of all time on Steam.

Is this game a masterpiece? Yes, as long as you look for an easy, slow going platformer where the main challenge is to find your way (and some secrets). Yes, if you enjoy narrative games in an interesting, dystopian setting. Otherwise, no. No challenging action sequences, no convoluted puzzles. You don't even have a real inventory. Minute plays a bit like... Loom.

You play a girl with blue hair and yellow shoes, tasked with keeping vital biological-mechanical machines running in a devasted - and mostly deserted - world. Four giants power the machines, and when the game begins they have stopped working. So you grab your Omni Switch and look for the reason, which starts a long, linear journey during which you have to travel between the islands to get everything in working order again. The world is mostly deserted, covered by poisonous spores that kill unprotected humans (and animals). You'll encounter withering plants, animal carcasses and the the story is told by the calming voice of the narrator, while the few humans you meet don't talk that much.

You can run, jump, crouch and climb, but the game is designed to be playable by everyone. Even if you miss a platform, there is no fall damage when you glide down with your dress that works as a parachute. The spores might eat humans and animals alive, but you are quite resistant and are only in danger in areas with a high concentration of spores. In such areas the spores might poison your mind and induce a little delirium - but you know how to escape back to reality.

The game autosaves every now and then, savefiles are stored in the cloud. Playing with a controller works fine.

Conclusion:
Narrative game with easy puzzles and simple platforming. The story in a polluted, abandoned world is quite interesting - like a good book, even though there are not many texts to read. It is mostly told by visuals, and memories you find, and the narrator who explains this or that.

61 Produkte im Account

2 Reviews

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367 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 05.07.21 22:48

Está bonito pero es bastante básico, como un cuentito para niños bastante lento.
Por cuestiones artísticas le doy un 8 pues vale la pena escuchar la música y ver los bellos escenarios.

8656 Produkte im Account

203 Reviews

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484 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 24.06.21 22:25

Minute of Islands

Atmospheric and original. Narratively superb but a little repetitive in gameplay

Minute of Islands is a hand drawn narrative puzzle platform game set on a collection of islands once inhabited by giants.

The lands have been ravaged by The Blight, a poisonous gas filled with toxic fungal spores. Inhabitants scurried to safety but the giants used their ingenuity and saved the world. Four giants were relegated to underground caverns where they power machines that purify the air and keep it fresh and breathable.

Mo befriends the giants and they make her their apprentice, rewarding her with the Omni switch, a powerful device that can control the giants and the machinery that drives the purifiers.

One day the machines stop working. All the inhabitants’ lives are at risk if Mo cannot get the engines turning and the purifiers working again.

????Gameplay Video????

https://youtu.be/g8SAqKg9hcw

????Overall Impressions????

Minute of Islands excels in the looks and sound department but it’s sadly lacking a little in gameplay.

The gameplay on offer is very repetitive. You will perform the same actions, in the same way on each of the four islands. You will need to find the purifiers and find the blood vessels of the giants, and although there are a couple of other distractions, that is about all you can expect from gameplay. The challenge, however, is in finding them.

Environments can be quite tricky to navigate. I did get lost quite a lot. There is no map, but the omni-switch will point you in the right direction. I quite enjoyed navigating the mazes of ladders and ledges to begin with but it does become a little tiresome later in the game. There are some small puzzle elements but mainly it’s about finding the correct path to your destination.

This can become unnecessarily awkward sometimes. It’s not always obvious what you can and can’t jump on. The hand drawn art looks incredible but it doesn’t always translate successfully into a decent platform experience.

The story develops as we progress through the different islands and this is the part that is done very well. The atmosphere is so unique; The wonderfully hand drawn art and the the eerie music play an important part in creating an unusual experience. It reminded me of Norse mythology, especially as the narrator has a Scandinavian twang to her voice.

What will keep your interested throughout the eight hours of gameplay is the story. The narrator does a wonderful job of describing things. It is almost poetic in nature but never sounds pretentious. It just oozes class and sophistication. The narration is extremely clever. Not only does she act as story teller and relay different character’s thoughts and words, but she also acts as Mo’s consciousness. Whenever Mo is experiencing hardship, the narrator becomes the voice of doubt telling her she’s not good enough. It is scathing and critical, painting a disturbing and depressive picture of how Mo is feeling. The weight of expectation on Mo’s shoulders is tangible and that comes across so clearly in the story. I found the whole premise very interesting. I’m starting to wonder if the repetitive nature of the gameplay reinforces the notions of duty and sacrifice emphasized in the story.

Zitat:

Minute of Islands is a very unique experience in terms of atmosphere but it does feel a little repetitive in gameplay.
If you are a narrative fan and place story ahead of gameplay then I would highly recommend, but if gameplay is important then I think you might get a little bored later on in the game.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2523048830

????️Gameplay????️

Mo can run, jump, crawl and traverse ledges in the underground caverns or the surface of the four islands.

A biomechanical boat takes Mo to each island. As custodian of the islands, she is familiar with each of the characters. Her sister and grandmother live on neighboring islands as well a handful of other characters we meet during her quest. Mo is able to talk to these characters briefly. Very occasionally, they will ask her to perform tasks for them or they will have objects needed to access areas.

Scattered throughout the islands are a number of purifiers which she needs to find and engage using her Omni-switch device. Once these have all been activated on the island, she must travel underground and reawaken the giants who have collapsed under the strain of arduously turning the mammoth cranks providing power. Mo must perform a recovery operation by finding and stimulating their hearts and getting the blood flowing again.

The Omni-Switch can act as directional guide and it points towards any open objectives. Mo must find her way through the maze of ledges and ladders and find each purifier on the island. Often your way is blocked by locked gates and broken pathways. Pressing switches can bring down bridges and call for lifts. Sometimes, you may need to talk to a character to get a key to open a lock. Mostly, you will be jumping around and climbing ladders trying to find the path to your destination. There are a few logical puzzles to complete, mainly from tasks initiated from other characters.

We share the journey with the narrator. She comments on things we examine, indicated by an eye symbol, and narrates all of the character’s voices when conversation is initiated. A text box is also present during these events.

The narrator also acts as our conscience. Although this voice is brief initially, as the quest becomes more strenuous, we hear the dark and scathing voice of Mo’s mind, questioning aspects of her work and relationships.

Dispersed throughout each island are memories which can be caught, showing scenes of past events. Often, her conscience will remark on these too. Each island has a set number of memories to collect indicated by a counter.

Mo is able to breathe in the toxic gas but occasionally she gets overwhelmed by the poisonous spores in the air and enters a delusional state. In this state Mo must wake herself up by remembering the order of musical notes and then find them and play them in the correct order.

The game took me eight hours to complete.

Even though there are counters for the memories collected, and your memories are carried over, you will need to restart the game from the beginning to pick up any missed ones.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2521478113

????Graphics????

The visuals are stunning and original. Hand drawn art and imaginatively drawn locales provide plenty of special moments and impressive vistas.

????Sound????

The sound is amazing too, with excellent voice acting by the narrator and a wonderfully atmospheric soundtrack and special effect noises.
It really sounds unique and creates an eerie but suspenseful atmosphere which is memorable.

????Conclusion ⚖

Zitat:

Minute of Islands is visually stunning with a wonderful soundtrack creating a unique atmosphere. The story is equally bizarre but incredibly original and I really enjoyed the interaction between Mo and the narrator.

The gameplay is very repetitive. The tasks are always the same and only moderately challenging.

Personally, I can forgive the dull gameplay as the visuals, sound and story were the highlights for me. I think this would suit narrative fans rather than puzzle or platform lovers.

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326 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 23.06.21 04:15

Truly incredible and one of the great games of this year. Its worth it for the art style alone

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3 Reviews

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900 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 21.06.21 05:54

To be informed as humanly possible, I completed this game. In fact, I got 100% completion just to ensure I was as informed on this review as humanly possible. I would like to break it up into two parts, as my opinions on them clash wildly.

The visuals and audio in this game are simply stunning, and my main draw to the game when I first saw the E3 trailer for it. The world seemed very unique and reminded me of a children's book, and I quite enjoy this aesthetic. And once I started playing, I found that the music and sound design was simply stunning. It's clear that a ton of work went into making this facet work (See the headphone recommendation every time the game is booted), but sadly some more time should have been spent on other parts of the game.

The gameplay of Minute of Islands is some of the slowest and most tedious I have encountered in quite a while, on top of the game being quite buggy. I had it hard crash and boot me out of the game during one of the early cutscenes, and was softlocked out several times requiring me to return to the main menu and reload a save. For a game I spent roughly 6 hours on (15 total from my partner playing it as well and an error forcing me to restart halfway through since the game only has 1 save slot), I should not have had the game effectively be unplayable for me at a rate of about once per hour. Whether clipping through floors or objects getting frozen in places that block progress, this game definitely needs some cleaning up around the edges. Besides the glitches, the minute-to-minute gameplay left much to be desired. For a puzzle platformer, this game only really had two puzzles that each take about thirty seconds to solve. I ended up holding shift and sprinting everywhere to just move along the story rather than appreciate the gorgeous artwork every island had.

The story was entirely fine. Nothing too crazy happened, following the Hero's Journey fairly closely is almost always a good bet.

My biggest comment I feel should be made about Minute of Islands is that it's a good cartoon but a bad game. I mean this in a way similar to Danganronpa, which has the same issue of having decent story and art but horrendous gameplay. The beauty of video games is they let you interact with the world, and it never felt like I was really interacting. My choices as a player never mattered because I was never given the opportunity to make a choice. Every NPC seemed to have a moment where it would have been cool to make the choice of stopping to smell the roses or continuing with your duty, but that never happened and it was really unfortunate. This game had stunning visuals and music, but so does a game with oddly similar overarching stories and themes: Hyper Light Drifter. The main difference between these two games, however, is HLD is actually fun to play.

I don't regret my time with Minute of Islands, but I'd only really recommend it if it's on sale or the aesthetic is *that* important to you. To add insult to injury, the final achievement for 100% completion of the game is bugged and the only one I do not have.

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26 Reviews

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291 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 21.06.21 04:07

tldr, i'm so close to giving it a yes, but the gameplay is incredibly dull

Loved:
world is unique and fun to be in.
-Visually interesting its like walking through a storybook
-nice music,
-great narration

Problems:

-uninteresting gameplay: while there are some briefly interesting interludes with a puzzle or two, overall it feels like I would love this game more as a detailed picture book.
-no agency. You're following a story
-movement never feels fun, and in a game that's pretty much driven by walking, that's rough

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7 Reviews

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212 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 20.06.21 02:33

Great vibes, incredibly boring gameplay. Sadly repetitive and slow.

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30 Reviews

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151 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 17.06.21 08:56

Minute of islands has a bunch of minor flaws that unfortunately make the experience unbearable.

The good stuff is obviously the art of weird biomechanical underground and partially destroyed overworld. But at times it feels empty. Not because it lacks detail, on the contrary, the game is bustling with small objects scattered around larger scenes. The problem is that these details don’t really add anything most of the time, they’re just visual noise. But overall the art is amazing, although art alone isn’t enough to warrant the given price.

The gameplay wouldn’t need much explanation if it was a simple walking sim. Unfortunately, there is some ‘gameplay’.
First off, the game has some puzzles, but they aren’t anything great, just some basic iteration of, I’d say, sokoban.
You can interact with background objects to get some info about them. Does it provide some interesting insights into their history or how the character feels about them? No, it just tells you exactly what they are.
Some things you intereact with will spawn little memento-creatures you have to catch to remember something from the past. Now this sounds interesting, if not for a few details. Basically the game is still a walking sim, and the islands you travel to are fairly big. But the game locks you in place after you catch the memento to tell you the memory. The catching game itself is also just a pointless time waster with no real reason to do that. It’s not hard, it’s not a puzzle, you just have to jump at a certain moment.
The walking itself is filled with some rudimentary platforming, it's not really a problem in the overworld as it has some things to look at and collect(although the game does it’s best to discourage you from exploration). One thing I don’t get is that every time you encounter an elevator, you have to first call it to you. Every single time. Maybe it would be a good time to tell us some more of the story, but the game does nothing, you just have to wait.
The so-called ‘powerful omni-switch’ includes one type of action. It’s cumbersome and repetitive and is needed with every mechanism you come across. You plug it in and mash a button. Then you plug it into a different spot nearby and mash the button again. EVERY TIME.
The underground has more of the ‘move object’ type puzzles, but is for some reason filled with unnecessarily long hallways and ladders. And again, we travel them mostly in complete silence.

But the game calls itself a narrative experience after all, so maybe the story can save it.
Well, this is all subjective, but I don’t get the story at all. The girl’s behaviour and character doesn’t evolve much, at least on the two islands I’ve been to. She’s this extreme introvert with some self-harm issues, as I understand it. I’ve completed two islands as I cannot bear it any longer. Nothing’s changed. We are just shown how she dislikes everyone.
I was hoping for some worldbuilding and lore, but it does not exist, at least not at this point of the story. Everything just is as it is, the narrator says this is post-apocalypse or something and that's it.
The narrator. I personally hate this narrator. She does a good job, but the script is kinda bad. It’s really condescending, explaining the most obvious things.

Ironic, seeing as this game was published by people behind FAR, it just makes me want to play that game instead with actually clever and wordless environmental storytelling.
Overall, you can give this a shot, but don’t hesitate to refund if the beginning feels kinda eh. It's like that all the way I can imagine. I’d buy the artbook, if they had it, instead.