Eine unvergleichliche Geschichte über einen kleinen Roboter auf einem großen Abenteuer!
Horace wurde 2 Personen erschaffen und bietet mehr als 15 Stunden spannendes Platforming-Gameplay. Mit der tiefgründigen Geschichte und nostalgischen Popculture-Bezügen verschiebt es die Grenzen des Genres! Von Videogame-Fans für Videogame-Fans!
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56 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 03.06.20 17:08
Das einzig Gute sind die ganz interessanten Neuvertonungen klassischer Musik.
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Verfasst: 17.05.20 13:06
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Verfasst: 03.12.19 10:58
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985 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 23.07.19 20:22
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1646 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 15.04.22 06:11
First, the good. Early on, the writing is engaging and clever: characters are portrayed with some nuance, and situations are unexpected and interesting. All throughout, the visuals are very good, from the high-effort and varied spritework to the various visual effects and manipulations that are applied both during gameplay and cutscene segments. Similarly, the audio features numerous chiptune-styled variations on classical musical pieces, generally deployed to positive effect. The platforming abilities and the challenges that require them are novel and interesting enough. Finally, there are many little high-effort details and bits of content in surprising places; for instance, the game contains several lightly-changed re-implementations of common arcade games, just because. As a mostly gameplay-oriented video game player, I was nevertheless interested enough in the storytelling to be curious where they would go with it.
Next, the mixed. The gameplay itself is mostly good, but has a few significant flaws. The controls are good and responsive enough for a standard platformer, but they are nowhere near polished enough for a precision platformer, and the farther one gets, the more that's what the game decides it wants to be (the sort of precision platformer that keeps a cheeky tally of your total death-count on its pause screen, no less). Questionable interpretations of inputs near platform corners, arbitrary retention or cancellation of momentum e.g. when moving between surfaces of different orientations, finnicky short-hop inputs, visually inconsistent hurtboxes, and admittedly rare actual buggy behavior all detract from the experience. Having any of the above repeatedly send you back to the beginning of a room that takes a minute to navigate is bad enough; this issue is compounded by the level design. Eventually, the game takes on a metroidvania-like quality, featuring a sprawling zone which includes both required objectives and many intersecting side-areas to explore. Unfortunately, going anywhere other than straight to the next objective typically punishes rather than rewards the player: only at the end of a path, after overcoming many platforming challenges, will the player be faced with an obstacle for which they do not yet possess the requisite traversal ability, making the whole path an attractive nuisance with no reachable reward. Then, to add insult to injury, the player must backtrack the whole way, repeating the tedious challenges they faced on the way there, without any sort of shortcut or fast-travel opened in light of their having completed those challenges already. Because there is so reliably no reward for exploring until the player possesses every traversal ability, and what rewards there are are quantitative rather than qualitative, the player is better off in every way just going straight to the primary objective every time, and only exploring at all after unlocking everything. This completely defeats the point of explorable nonlinear area design; at that point, just make it linear until all the abilities are available and save everyone the wasted time.
Finally, the real reason for the poor review: somewhere around two thirds or three quarters of the way through the game, the writing falls abruptly off a cliff and never returns. Characters start acting against any reasonable motivations, events become increasingly contrived in order to bring about what should be high-emotional-impact scenes that fall flat because of how implausible the circumstances behind them are, antagonists lurch wildly between competency and incompetency as plot-contrivance demands, and causes become unhitched from effects. After spending most of the early game foreshadowing and setting up to explore certain questions of personhood, the game sidesteps those questions entirely by making the relevant characters' behavior too incomprehensible and miserable to engage with at all, before quietly writing them out of the story altogether; similarly, where in the beginning of the game even the concept of death was a delicately-explored trauma, by the end of the game, characters just blithely move on no matter what happens to whom, removing the last scraps of relatability from the story. The beginning of the game had me interested and engaged with the narrative that was unfolding, but by the end of the game, watching cutscenes focused entirely on uninteresting but author-favored characters while the game refuses to grapple with or even acknowledge the absence of more-significant ones, there really is just nothing positive to say.
It is unpleasant to leave such a negative review just because there really are so many little meritorious and enjoyable and clearly high-effort pieces of work that went into this game, but when every individual aspect of the game culminated in a separate disappointment there's really no avoiding a negative conclusion. In the end there is nobody to whom I would recommend this game as a whole.
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60 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 09.04.22 02:28
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1163 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 07.04.22 09:56
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3001 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 07.01.22 16:27
Kritik lässt sich aus meiner Sicht nur an zwei Punkten anbringen:
Zum einen erscheint der Schwierigkeitsgrad an einigen Stellen etwas schwierig, so dass man eine gewisse Frustrationstoleranz zum Weiterkommen benötigt (kleine Anmerkung am Rande: es gibt ein Achievement für 1000 Tode, welches der Durchschnittsspieler wahrscheinlich automatisch beim Durchspielen erreichen wird). Ich selber war manchmal kurz davor in die Tischkante zu beißen, weil sich insbesondere einige Endbosse übermächtig anfühlten. Man sollte sich hiervon aber nicht abschrecken lassen, da sich mit Geduld und etwas Übung alle Passagen meistern lassen. Durch diverse Upgrades wie Extraleben wird es im Spielverlauf auch etwas leichter.
Der zweite Kritikpunkt betrifft das Achievement-Design: Es gibt zwei Achievements gegen Ende des Spiels, die sich gegenseitig ausschließen. Ein Replay einzelner Kapitel ist meines Wissens nicht möglich, weshalb Achievement-Jäger das komplette Spiel ein weiteres Mal mit etlichen Stunden Spielzeit durchspielen müssen, um das fehlende Achievement zu ergattern.
Da ich beide Kritikpunkte nicht überbewerten möchte, gibt es für mich dennoch einen klaren Daumen nach oben. In Anbetracht der Tatsache, dass an der Entwicklung von Horace nur 2 Entwickler beteiligt waren, betrachte ich dieses Spiel in punkto Detail- und Einfallsreichtum und programmatischer Umsetzung als absolutes Meisterwerk.
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1405 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 26.12.21 22:41
The music is good, but sometimes annoying when you try to focus on the game.
The controles were weird it still worked out fine.
Even when I got the game for free, I still will buy it for €15,- or even less in a sale.
Overall this game was great and I had some very fun playtime in it, even when I got annoyed at the game, because I couldn't complete something.
If you get stressed really easy, I would not say you don't buy the game, but be warned that you'll get stressed, because something doesn't work out for you.
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1027 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 06.12.21 01:17
Pros
Wonderful Story
Charming Characters
Funny, but not forced interactions
Beautiful pixel art
Fun platforming
Good level design
Several fun mini-games
Cons
Not enough people played this gem of a game
FeelsGoodMan :point_right: <3 Devs
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1661 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 14.09.21 20:09
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2061 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 13.09.21 22:40
I love the setting of the game and all the references it manages to pump into it, though I will admit that they are pretty much laser targeted to the era of my upbringing. 8/16-bit games and pop culture references of that time and beyond are scattered everywhere, some of them fairly obvious and some of them rather niche (though I may just be reading too much into some things.) They are however added in a masterful way, if you don't get a reference it's not going to hamper your enjoyment of the game, but if you do recognise these little nods then it adds a lot to the experience.
Gameplay is great fun. It can be quite challenging at times in keeping with the games of the era it so often references, but checkpoints are plentiful and the shield design adds a buffer if you're really struggling with a specific part. It's also quite lengthy but manages to stay fresh throughout thanks to evolving mechanics, plenty of mini-games, a diverse spread of areas, and optional collectables to reward those going for an extra challenge.
Where I feel it shines is the story. Horace is a game which just like the title character has a lot of heart. It's clear that real passion went into the creation of this game and it was beautifully harnessed, it is genuinely funny and parts of the story are quite touching. There are a lot of cutscenes but I didn't feel like they overstayed their welcome in the way some story heavy games are prone to do (for me.) I enjoyed them and they managed to keep that 'reward for progress' factor throughout my playthrough, I found myself looking forward to them.
My only gripe was related to accessibility. Some of the ways the colours cycle in some of the rooms I found to be a little uncomfortable, even if they do faithfully emulate the same effect you'd see on the 8-bit computers, and an option to filter that or tone it down would have gone a long way. The gravity mechanic can also feel a bit disorienting at first and cause a little motion sickness, but I got used to it after a while. These things weren't a dealbreaker for me personally, but worth considering if you have issues with such things.
Still, it was my personal favourite game of the year I played it, and after giving it time to settle I can confidently say it easily rests among my all time favourite games. I feel like at some point a big retro streamer is going to stumble on it and be blown away, and the age of Horace will begin in earnest. In the mean time do yourself a favour and give it a shot now, then you can be one of the cool ones who played it before it was super mainstream.
(My short review turned into a novel, sorry about the length. tl;dr: I love this game.)
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32 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 10.09.21 20:30
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Verfasst: 05.09.21 01:44
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Verfasst: 28.08.21 15:55
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Verfasst: 24.08.21 09:35
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1564 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 19.08.21 20:03
Original review:
I don't fully dislike this game, but I don't like it enough to recommend. The boss fights tend to range from unsatisfying to infuriating to get through, and while the story is good, it takes its time getting to the more interesting beats. On top of that, the slower portions of the plot tend to be taken up by a comic relief character whose jokes are, almost without exception, completely outside what I find funny. It does still have decent platforming though, even if the way Horace handles doesn't quite gel with me, and the overall plot, narrated from the perspective of a childlike robot, is enough for me to not give up on it completely.
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1345 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 27.06.21 17:44
The art-style is wonderfully reminiscent of those old flash serials from Newgrounds like SMBZ or Megaman dies at the end, yet this feels like a grown-up version of those ideas. A fully realised, richly detailed story with many ups, downs, laughs and tears.
It's stuck with me since I beat it last year and will stick with me for a while yet. Special shout-out to this lovely piece of music.
Give HORACE a shot, the world needs to see it!
If I were to offer Herman one criticism it's to keep the next one smaller and tidier. For your own health :)
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8724 Produkte im Account
14 Reviews
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2364 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 26.05.21 20:27
Horace as a game actually is really difficult to describe, it’s a lot of things simultaneously, making it rather unique. At its core it’s a retro pixel platformer which also uses the classic puzzle mechanic of being able to stick to walls and ceilings with your gravitational boots, thus tilting the world while walking on them. It starts off as an adventure-like game with light platforming sections, then adds the puzzle elements, slowly turns up the platforming difficulty, later even features light stealth sections. And after several chapters and lots of hours, when you think you’re probably pretty far into the game .... it surprises you again and turns into a whole Metroidvania with complex huge map and new abilities. Add to that several city locations and a whole cast of arcade and minigames in-between. All the while no level really feels the same, there’s always something fresh to mix things up. Seriously, the pure amount of content is simply breathtaking, especially if you take into account that most of the game has been done by 1 single person. And let’s not forget the really great original retro soundtrack, with again lots of funny references. For an example an Egyptian robot boss features a theme that adapts The Offspring’s classic ‘Come Out and Play’ in a rather catchy retro tune, or in Dance Master you can play to a Scottish adaption of Metallica’s ‘Enter Sandman’.
But all that great entertainment value aside, it’s definitely the story-telling where Horace shines the most. Can’t say I’ve ever played a similar well-written, thoughtful retro platformer before, and never would have thought that pixel art could actually get so emotional. To summarize the story and not to spoil too much, Horace is the coming-of-age/life-story of an intelligent/self-aware robot during post-war times and his relationships to the people he cares about, told through the eyes of Horace himself (as a narrator). The game features the massive amount of 150 cutscenes (that can even be re-watched later in the in-game cinema). And for anyone who cares, yes, they are even skippable (must be turned on in the options), but I definitely wouldn’t recommend it.
Finally, some words about all the difficulty discussions going around. Yeah, I can completely understand the points some people are making, under certain circumstances the game really throws some hardcore stuff at you, especially at the end. But what was nice in my opinion (yet the mechanisms were kind of obscure), you could always cheese your way through the game. Like, just die some times in a level and 2 shields spawn (one shield equals one additional hit, lost shields revive if you die in a room), and if you then exit through a door or just quit to the menu, you’ll keep those shields. Rinse and repeat until you’ve got those maximum 5 shields back, which actually lets you beat nearly any room or challenge. And in boss fights each checkpoint after a phase (yeah, you don’t have to start over from the beginning) starts with those 5 shields when you die. Seriously, this way you can even cheese the notorious moon levels that everybody is complaining about in the forum. To sum it up, I wouldn’t really call myself a hardcore platformer, I’m merely decent I guess (I’m generally not ultra motivated), but honestly, I actually never felt any kind of stress while playing Horace, even 100%ed it achievement-wise. And I really loved every minute of it and found it even relaxing. That saying, I admit that I was kind of irritated at first glance in those retro arcade games in the end-game tournament, too, but as soon as I understood the trick behind all those games, they were no problem at all, like try to reach a checkpoint to get more time, or try to really hit the bonus targets for the massive points needed. There’s always a way to beat those games that you didn’t think of at first. And in conclusion this really makes Horace ultra-fair.
Anyway, my final verdict, for me Horace is a highly underrated masterpiece and has a definite must-play quality, but only for people who have at least some basic platforming experience and don’t mind lots of pop culture references and silly jokes here and there (I found them very funny, but obviously there are enough people out there who hate them). Taking into account the huge content and how long this game is (the Steam store page says at least 15 hours, yet in my opinion you can easily spend over 30 hours in it) the 7,50 Euro it often costs on sales are definitely worth it, but I’d say Horace is one of the few titles out there that is even worth its full price.
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1257 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 08.05.21 12:04
Props to the developer, I really enjoyed it.
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307 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 06.04.21 00:35
The platforming is fun enough, introducing new mechanics as time goes on. You are expected to return to areas later on to collect things that you weren't previously. In between chapters, you are hit with rather lengthy cutscenes. The story is actually quite interesting, and surprisingly dark and REAL for it's art style.
Personally, I couldn't bring myself to finish it, but I think that's my fault, not the game's. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys challenging platformers, or platformers with exploration elements.
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545 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 26.03.21 21:39
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1351 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 21.03.21 00:41
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563 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 06.02.21 23:33
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893 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 03.02.21 10:31
Would I recommend this? No.
The game is, at its heart, a platformer, but it is a platformer with very terrible hitboxes, often not in the players favor. The camera, at times, is reminiscent of Super Mario 64 in that it can turn in wild and unpredictable ways that make platforming near impossible. There are also many times when the camera intentionally doesn't shift with the players orientation, meaning that the controls also don't adjust (meaning that left will be right sometimes); there are also times when the camera is zoomed so far out from the character that it's absurdly difficult to platform precisely.
Couple all that with the fact that the game includes hours of badly written, extremely slow, text-to-speech voice acted cutscenes that you really can't skip because you might miss out on how to use a skill or what your next objective is with no way in game to get that info other than cutscenes (there is even an in game warning telling you this if you attempt to skip a cutscene).
There is also a lot of backtracking if you want to even attempt to be a completionist, which is fine; but unlike any other metroidvania I have played, there is no easy way to get through most of the rooms even after gaining most of the powers the game has to offer. You just have to spend the time to clear the levels again and again and again, it's just far too gratuitous.
I've enjoyed this game, and I think that I am at least going to finish the story, but the lack of respect for the players time is just so outlandish and infuriating that I certainly wouldn't encourage anyone else to pick it up.
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211 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 01.02.21 09:10
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325 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 31.01.21 10:47
It actually spends a lot of time justifying gameplay through its narrative, meaning that you’re not going to get the easy-going trappings or quick pacing of a Mario game.
There’s this wonderful sense of creative energy going through it too. You can basically see Horace as a pure homage to the game industry, a passion project, as it churns through history and serves you new genres of gameplay at every turn. A prison escape turns into a car combat game. Cleaning dishes turns into a rhythm game. A lucid dream changes perspective completely and lets you soar through the clouds.
All of these are absolutely amazing, and make up, in my opinion, the backbone of the experience. At least the fun and interesting parts of it.
Sadly, they’re way too hard to reach. In-between them, you’re forced through a lot of pedestrian platforming -- also known as the boring parts. And even though the story is pretty honest and heartfelt with its dialogue and characters, there’s a major pacing issue at play here for me. It’s actually my one, big gripe with this game -- ultimately the reason why I put it down. Everything is just so deeply buried in reused prefabs, puzzles, retries and repetition.
And even though it’s endearing and energetic, it’s also a little boring and lifeless at the same time. Especially once you condition yourself to see past the actual game and just expect the unexpected; playing for the sake of seeing the developer’s next crazy antic.
I would have loved this if it was focused a little -- more accessible.
Check it out if it sounds like your wheelhouse. But for me, it’s a matter of too little, too late, in a game with too much going on. If that makes any sense.
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1357 Produkte im Account
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1624 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 12.01.21 22:21
I like it so much, I'm leaving a review. That's how good it is.
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505 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 25.12.20 06:26
However, what drags the game down significantly is an absolutely punishing level of difficulty, which doesn't feel well-placed here and is especially frustrating when combined with the free-form exploration of some of the game's later chapters - it's simply not fun to navigate through difficult challenges repeatedly upon finding that a given direction isn't fruitful at the time. The game's story justifies its length, stretching across 22 chapters that will likely take somewhere in the region of 10-15 hours to play through, but in gameplay terms I'd gladly have seen it cut down to half that. Horace still gets my recommendation on the whole, but with significant qualification.
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1947 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 29.11.20 11:25
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326 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 11.11.20 21:32
Story
Experience the tale of Horace, a gentle robot built to serve humans. His master gives him the generic task to clean 1000 things, but he got Horace more as a companion. He gives him decent clothes, and treats him kind. The relatives of his master are very weary of the robot, but Horace finds ways to conquer their hearts.
When he speaks with his master philosophical about the meaning of life, his master defines life as having a purpose. For this reason Horace states that his purpose will be to clean a million things, and his master is humoured. When the time has come for the master to die, Horace deactivates in grief. When at some point he activates again, he clings onto his proposed purpose: cleaning a million things. While executing his mission, Horace experiences many adventures.
Likeable Legoman
He does look like LEGOS doesn't he? Well that's the only visual comparison with the toy. But his personality could be that aswell! Curious, kind, naive... Shapeable.
impressions
I am unable to play this myself, so curious as I was I invited a friend to try it out. This is a very nice platformer! There is a nice balance between story and gameplay. The musics are all wellknown classicals, molded in chiptune fashion, well executed.
As stated, this is only a first impression. People who have completed the game are in a better position to review this.
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957 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 26.10.20 08:26
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755 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 20.10.20 11:59
Horace tries to do a thing that I really love in indie games, and that is to mix different genres giving the game a feel of 'the developer was just trying to see how many different things they could program'. However, where most of them end up with a game lacking cohesion and with every idea underdeveloped (I still like them), Horace really commits to everything it makes. When it's a Metroidvania, it IS a Metroidvania, with its map, upgrades, interface,... When it's minigame turn, they have their own music, rules, aesthetics,... I really appreciate how much time and effort has gone into every aspect of the game.
I started the game feeling like it was fun but not much more, and by the end I was loving it. It might be a bit hard in some sections but I think this is a game anyone can enjoy.
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383 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 06.10.20 05:16
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Verfasst: 01.10.20 16:40
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1871 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 29.09.20 23:50
Then I started playing it a few days ago on a whim and I was so so wrong. It's so much more than a side-scroller. The amount of story and plot, the kind that just sucks you in immediately, I couldn't stop playing! I played for hours every day until I just now finished it. It's so satisfying to complete his optional mission, I highly recommend it!
I fell in love with the story, the characters and their relationships, the heart-wrenching pain, and the many many -many- jokes. There's a fair bit of adult humor so be aware, but that just adds to it in a way, especially with just how naive Horace is. It all goes over his head, and I love him for that, he's so endearing.
10/10
Plot - 5
Gameplay - 5
Difficulty - 5 (It gets frustrating, but it's worth it)
Graphics - 5 (Surprisingly detailed)
Replay Value - 4 (Once you get it 100% done you may not want to play it again. I'd watch my friends play and react to it though! Hell, maybe I'll play it again someday)
If you like the above, please get this game. You won't regret it!
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12 Reviews
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330 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 26.09.20 23:16
-Gameplay: The gameplay is pretty solid...when you actually get to it. Some of the platforming and physics had me smiling. There are wonderful small bits of implementation that feel really good. The game certainly has weight to it in how you move, jump, and pick up things. A lot of effort was certainly put into the android having a human sense of movement and having certain weaknesses in it. And it isn't an overburden either, just a tid bit here and there to make you empathize with it. Rather than a super robot that saves everyone easily, he actually challenges himself and works to help. Good stuff.
-Story: The story and dialog are enjoyable, there is a charm that is for sure. But at times it is somewhat overbearing. You can't skip a cutscene and nearly any button or movement pauses the video which makes it clear the developers really want you to take in the story. But the story is just ok, and the dialog is just ok. It is nice, better than many, but the amount of time you spend watching cutscenes gets pretty aggravating when I enjoy the gameplay so much. I just want to play the game. After over 5 hours I feel I still am in the intro chapters of the game, the tutorial, and haven't been given access to the majority of the game. For me the cutscenes become aggravating because of the voice, and the art. Low quality robot voice and extremely close pixels can be somewhat abrasive. At first it was a charming appeal, but 2 hours or more of cutscenes later THAT I CANT SKIP and I am getting a headache.
-Music: Just not very good. Music is usually the crux of enjoyment in games for me. I do quite enjoy the classical music included, though most of the songs I have heard so much that hearing them repeat multiple times in a game can make it stale. As for the original tracks they are not good at all. This wouldn't be a huge deal except that the music is quite emphasized in different mini games. You HAVE to earn money to progress the game and to do that you HAVE to do these mini games. All of which have really mediocre tracks that again repeat many times.
-Summery: It is a game with good gameplay and a charm, but that is hidden away between frustrating decisions to force the player to the worst aspects of the game. Here's original art, now look at it with 100x magnification for hours on end. Here are some side mini games, now do them over and over to progress the game and upgrade your character. Etc etc, and the trash, how poorly implemented is that. Again it is a very quaint charm that his meaning in life is to pick up 1 million trash. But having you go out of your way to get it that disrupts the flow of the core gameplay. Platformers have coins and such which is fine, you run and jump through it and you get it. That would be fine if the paths were outlined in trash and doing the ideal movement netted you the end goal. BUT NO! The trash has you doing stupid stuff to get it, doing un-ideal movements to collect, and waiting around for it to be picked up which messes up timings of the floor and such. Don't collect the trash you say? Well OF COURSE the true ending/best ending is locked behind getting that trash. And I want to, I want that ending, I want Horace to collect that trash. It sets it up quite well in the story and gives the player desire to complete the goal. But the absolute worst decision in the game is the trash TAKES TIME TO PICK UP! When speed is essential, when movement is satisfying, Horace FORCES you to stand still for I don't know how many minutes I spent just standing still just to collect the trash. Again there is some very good elements in here, but from the music, the forced endless cutscenes, and the trash pickup all taking you away from the gameplay it became less enjoyable the more I played.
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2367 Produkte im Account
211 Reviews
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2222 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 20.09.20 02:29
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1232 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 16.09.20 03:47
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1693 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 01.09.20 08:45
If so this game might be for you.
A very odd and bizzare story line that is quite touching in places.
Tricky platforming with a spacial/orientation twist. A large number of retro call outs and inspired gameplay
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514 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 28.08.20 21:52
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1078 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 23.08.20 05:41
I love platformers, I love stories that are GOOD, and mostly, I love games that put a smile on my face or give me chills when playing it. I played a lot of great games, like really good games, you can check my steam profile, and this game can easily be compared to one of these platformers games and and story games. Story is top notch, you got everything in there, comedy, drama, action etc. This is a must play if you like games like me, platformer, story or even a casual gamer that wants a good game.
In the end, just play the game. It's underrated and deserves way more recognition that it got. Play it and give the guy some love for making this game, it took him years.
PLAY. HORACE. GOD. DAMNIT.
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1097 Produkte im Account
26 Reviews
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1603 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 16.08.20 17:31
As it turns out, Horace is a whole lot more than the simple platformer with a few funny references that I initially thought it would be. It’s an impressive, heartfelt story, with lovable characters, constant challenges, pure hilarity, and more references than you could imagine! I’d be amazed if somebody actually noticed or knew every reference! What was more surprising is that there were many particularly British references, so I got to enjoy certain moments that little bit more! I don’t think a game has made me laugh as much as Horace did, and then tear that joy away, turning it to sorrow, anger, or frustration. It was quite the roller-coaster ride.
I played the entire game with a controller, although I’m not sure what prompted me to do so. Usually I would try with a mouse and keyboard before anything else, but this time I immediately went with the controller. Whatever the reason, it definitely played well with a controller, and I can’t imagine using a mouse and keyboard for it now. The controls were simple, and the introduction goes through the basic movements and actions well, while tying it into the start of the story very nicely.
There are many cut-scenes, and I highly recommend not skipping them! These really make the game! The story, characters and their conversations are simply awesome! You’d be doing yourself a great disservice by skipping anything in Horace. If you’re not in a cut-scene, then chances are you’re exploring, and getting involved with the platformer elements of the game, something you’ll see plenty of! The progression of difficulty seemed pretty much perfect though! Initially it’s pretty simple, but later on, areas required much more thought to get to through. Chances are you will die a lot! I definitely did! Thankfully it’s not much of a problem for Horace though, and you can jump back into the fray nice and quickly. If you happen to die several times in the same area, you’ll likely be blessed with an extra shield or two to help you get through it.
There are plenty of boss battles to test yourself on, each one being unique and requiring a very different approach to beat! You generally get some kind of insight into how to defeat them at the start of the battle, so you’re not going in completely blind, but you’ll likely still die plenty of times! Personally, I found some of the non-boss areas more challenging and frustrating than the bosses. I did encounter one bug which stopped me from respawning properly if I died while replaying bosses, forcing me to quit and reload the game. I wasn’t too bothered about it though as it only happened a couple of times. Replaying the bosses isn’t something you have to do either, and it was easy to work around.
You unlock a variety of different equipment along your travels, and there are shops in the different towns to purchase further upgrades. These upgrades make a world of difference too! To get the cash for these upgrades you can trade in your special items and trash at the scrap yard, or you can help out around town with certain jobs in the form of rhythm based mini games. You’ll also find arcades in towns, where you can play a variety of extremely familiar looking games! You’ll likely hear a lot of familiar tunes throughout the game too, and you may want to keep an eye out for characters that bear a striking resemblance to certain characters or celebrities. Seriously, everywhere you turn, there’ll be a reference to something! The most impressive thing is many of these aren’t just there for the sake of it. They’re worked into the dialogue and story in a clever, and often hilarious manner!
I honestly didn’t expect much from Horace, and I didn’t play it for a long time simply based on its looks. A grave mistake on my part! This is a clear example of why you “shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover”. The graphics were perfect for the game, as was the soundtrack and sound effects in general, and basically everything else about Horace! Horace turned out to be one of my new favourite games! If you have a good sense of humour, I highly recommend playing this game!
Zitat:
For more reviews follow Gawain Games Curator Page and check out the Gawain Games Website. You can also find my review on We The Players.
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1568 Produkte im Account
9 Reviews
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16 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 14.08.20 07:21
Never, ever, ever! spam the player with cutscenes before giving him a chance at some actual gameplay. I don't have enough patience for this, uninstall.
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213 Produkte im Account
5 Reviews
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641 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 31.07.20 16:08
If you're from the UK and are of a certain age and remember a lot of 80's and 90's UK TV then keep an eye out. Most characters in the game seem to be references to TV shows or films and I've had a blast bumping into Pat Butcher, the guys from Auf Wiedersehen Pet and Mrs Slocombe (from Are You Being Served).
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854 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 17.07.20 20:47
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101 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 15.07.20 09:45
So no, this is it for me, such a pity. Would recommend it though, can see a lot of people will love it, especially the platforming part and the art style. Gorgeous, just not for me I guess.
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76 Reviews
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305 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 11.07.20 16:07
But I'll concede that some people like reference humour, and are tickled by the idea of a town called Sitcombe where you too can walk by a sprite that kinda looks like David Schwimmer. Even then, I don't think you'll like Horace very much, because it's not very good in a number of other ways.
Chief among this is the storytelling, which is cutscenes overlaid with very very very long monologues spoken by a Microsoft Sam voice rehashing Paddington Bear—there are maybe eight minutes of gameplay in the first hour, and it doesn't get that much better afterwards. What makes things worse is the way the game quick cuts and snap zooms between its sprites, which is the absolute wrong way to do 16 bit cutscenes. In early games with dynamic cutscenes like Ninja Gaiden, developers would redraw the characters in more detail because when you zoom in on a low res sprite it becomes garbled and hard to distinguish features—think about how a picross puzzle often looks like nothing until you zoom out and see the finished image. The sprites actually look really nice and well done from a distance! But quick cutting like an Edgar Wright movie between character's low bit faces and trying to convey emotions with three pixels of movement is difficult, and the way Horace does it constantly just gives me a headache.
But the storytelling is flawed in a number of other ways too. Who is this game for? It has the cadence of a children's book, but then you have a scene where our hero flays the skin off of a living man and watches him disintegrate into a mist of blood while screaming, followed by a fun jam sesh on the drums. Excuse me??? Sorry??? When you veer from mowing down cops with machine guns one second to helping the Golden Girls do dishes in the next, you might have a problem with tonal consistency.
And at the end of the day, the gimmick in Horace is that you can walk up walls and on ceilings. Every game I've seen with this trick often has issues with control snafus and physics hiccups, and Horace is no exception. The difficulty veers all over the place and the game is remarkably inconsistent with what damages your health and what's an instant kill. Throw in some pretty loose hitboxes, and you have a lot of frustrating platforming to overcome. Plus, you need to collect garbage, but for some awful reason you don't collect garbage by touching it—you have to stand on it for a beat. When you see a long line of coins in Mario you run through and it feels great. When you see a long line of trash in Horace, you walk, stop, wait, move forward, pause, move forward, go back you missed something, move again, etc. It feels real bad.
Honestly I only played as much as I did because I needed to see what insanity awaited me next (the same reason I hateread RPO cover to cover). Murdering a cat? OutRun but you play as Ferris Bueller? War crimes? The dog from Fraiser? I only stopped because the simple task of entering a cottage had turned into a thirty screen Mario/Sonic flavoured drug trip and my girlfriend pointed out that I had literally a thousand games I could be playing instead.
I will give credit, Horace is the product of a very specific vision from the small dev team behind it. I hope they realized that vision the way they wanted. But it absolutely does not work for me, producing one of the most inexplicable games I've ever played.
(Also 15 gigabytes is ludicrous for a game like this. Three quarters of the install is cutscenes. What are we, Final Fantasy XIII over here?)
(Also there's no in game way to quit. Ok, I swear I'm done now)
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1462 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 03.07.20 04:40
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Verfasst: 22.06.20 02:27
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1410 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 04.06.20 06:33
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607 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 03.06.20 23:31
Good lord was this a fever dream and a half. It felt like somebody gave me acid, and threw me in a blender with a metallic paint as the base. This game (which I haven't even finished yet) is a brilliant platformer, which makes you question trust, morality, ideology, and even yourself (especially your sanity, at times). I had a blast with it, but trust me, don't try to do it all in one sitting, like I did. I just kept expecting it to be ALMOST over, but the game isn't 10 gig for nothing.
A must-try if it's in your library, and a must have if it's on sale. I don't even know how much it was, but I love it regardless.
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1401 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 03.06.20 17:28
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1213 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 02.06.20 23:43
What I didn't like: Difficulty spikes at random times through the game, some annoying minigames require playing very well to progress, sometimes uneven tone in the story (Is the part supposed to be silly or sad?), some gameplay elements can be frustrating. Also, I'm personally not a fan of backtracking with new abilities to gather stuff that I wanted to get on the first time (but that's hardly a big deal).
Overall: I enjoyed this game a lot and was bummed when it was over. It wasn't as difficult as many other reviews led me to believe - I am no lover of extreme platforming difficulty, and some parts were a bit on the unpleasant side. The story and gameplay kept me going through that difficulty. But, I could understand that, if you find nearly all platforming games to be overly difficult, then you probably won't enjoy this.
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1833 Produkte im Account
412 Reviews
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71 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 11.05.20 07:50
Horace is a story based platformer with some puzzles. It is unique for several reasons, the big one being that it tries to tell a rather good story at least in the first hour with interesting characters and reasons for the player to be doing some actions.
I played about 70 minutes and around the 70-minute mark, there was an odd beat. “Why is the world destroyed.” “There was a war.” That’s it… That is all they say. However, I am enjoying myself and Horace feels like there’s a bit of Metroidvania. The goal of the game so far is for Horace to clean a million things, and yes that sounds very vague but there are story reasons for it. At the same time, there’s a lot of references to different things in the game but while that’s usually annoying, here it’s rather well done.
At the same time, I’m not a fan of a couple of things. The main character’s voice is the only one you hear, he reads other characters’ dialogue in narration. The voice is a text to speech type sound. It doesn’t work. Also, I’ll try to show here, but the game zooms in on a lot of this pixel art and it looks great at the right distance but looks bad close up and that’s where the game goes often. Also when the game flips as the character walks on walls, it’s very jarring, the transition from ground to ceiling made me look away a couple of times.
Still, I might return to play more, this is a rather good platformer, and is supposed to be about 15 hours long.
Relevant Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SERtz_Ts1f8&t=993s
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1184 Produkte im Account
36 Reviews
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986 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 10.05.20 15:14
The story is also very good. It walks a fine line between silly and serious but in my opinion it manages to succeed. Horace has a lot of heart.
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472 Produkte im Account
12 Reviews
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1085 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 08.05.20 16:56
The problems begin when you start playing the game -- hit boxes vary wildly, and lots of aspects of this game were clearly not played by an experienced platform player. The controls feel sharp but the level design is so frustrating, nauseating and confusing at times that the joy this game is to look at can be lost in a sea of pointless effects. If you get this game on the cheap and you like platformers, you will find something to like here, the game is truly charming and rewards close reading. But there are more than a few game-breaking bugs (I couldn't even finish the game myself because of one of them) and these detract from the overall experience in such a significant way that I can't recommend it to other players.
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573 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 06.05.20 03:38
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Verfasst: 05.05.20 02:48
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43 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 04.05.20 13:48
Some funny background humour, nice pixel art and sound but the monotone narration and simplistic and virtually non-existent game-play has rendered this as a no from me.
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1158 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 26.04.20 07:57
The story is both surprising and wholesome, there are a lot of mini games and the music fits the mood in each stage.
It is easy in some parts and annoyingly difficult in some others . I even rage quitted two or three times.
Overall it was a great game and living proof that you can make something amazing in 2019 without using high graphics.
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1126 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 21.03.20 20:30
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522 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 21.03.20 14:37
Horace is primarily a platformer, and once it stops holding back it's quite a good one. Sometimes there are puzzles or unique setpieces, and they're good, but the focus is on platforming. Bosses are all one-offs and are not bad. Horace is also chock full of minigames that imitate other videogames. These range in quality a great deal, and also range a great deal in how necessary vs tacked-on they feel. Overall the constant shifting of gameplay does give the game a cohesive tone.
There's a heavy focus on telling a story, but honestly the story isn't very good. You can skip the cutscenes if you don't care though. Backtracking is allowed but it is mostly linear; there are some parts where you can choose which area you'll tackle first, but won't progress until you've done all of them. There's tons of junk to collect (literally), but most of it is just collecting for collecting's sake.
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387 Produkte im Account
13 Reviews
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6 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 06.03.20 17:35
TL;DR: A challenging, rewarding platformer with smooth controls, a great story and wonderful music, that's full of humor and nostalgic references.
Especially appealing to anyone who was around in the 90's on account of the references, but anyone who likes platformers is highly likely to love this one.
Horace is hands down *the* best platformer I have played in many years.
The game is centered around a lovable robot that has a childlike innocence despite the world around him - a little like Commander Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation, if you know him.
The beginning is a bit slow as it's more about the story, so you always have a specific thing you need to do, but the tutorial is built into that, which fits very nicely.
Once you get to a certain point you get a lot more freedom and that's when the game really begins.
This game is an indie but it doesn't feel like one.
All the animations are really well-made and you can see the developers truly went the extra mile to make it look natural (I especially like how he holds his hat when he's running ^_^).
I was surprised to discover that the voiceover was done using a text-to-speech engine with editing.
I genuinely thought they had hired an actor and added an effect to his recordings to make it sound robotic.
So yeah, very impressive editing to be sure.
Regarding the gameplay itself:
The game has very precise controls. It acts exactly the way you expect it to and the controls respond perfectly, which I'm afraid to say is far from how it is in every platformer, especially indie ones.
You get various abilities throughout the game, and the levels range from simple ones to ones that will test exactly how good you are at using those abilities and at platforming in general.
That said, while the levels are challenging, they are actually not frustrating.
You can usually tell what it is you need to do, it's just not always so easy to do it.
In addition to the main style of gameplay there are also minigames, most of which are styled after old arcade games and optional, though there are some that are part of the main game.
Personally I enjoyed them very much, but if you don't like them you can mostly skip them; they're not what the game is about.
I got the game from the Epic Store for free but I loved it so much that I bought it here on Steam too in order to support the developers (and write this review).
Seriously, if you like platformers, get this.
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197 Produkte im Account
22 Reviews
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109 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 06.03.20 16:02
BUY THIS GAME.
If you can't afford it, wishlist and wait for a Steam sale.
Video games shouldn't make you laugh or cry like Horace did for me. It is hands down the best game I've played since NES: Super Mario 3.
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8 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 11.02.20 19:03
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Verfasst: 30.01.20 01:07
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Verfasst: 27.01.20 19:55
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1478 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 02.01.20 17:48
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1253 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 29.12.19 22:43
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1313 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 11.12.19 21:28
Joy/Humor
At the start of the game, you have it fairly easy and it's just a simple platformer with some gimmicks (like walking on the ceiling). It was a lot of fun just running around, jumping and having a good old time. The plot moved along nicely, there were so, so many jokes and homages that I can't even list them. If you have a bit of familiarity with 80s/90s pop culture from the US and UK, you'll see them and get a good chuckle. Some are in your face, but most are just hanging out in the background or hiding in someone's name/dialogue. None of the plot rested on knowing these, but suddenly hearing the theme to Monty Python, or seeing a goofy caricature of the cast of Friends walking by in the background was a lot of fun, and brightened my mood every time.Caring
The plot exists in a series of cutscenes, probably an hour or so all told, over the course of the entire game. Some are fun and joyous, as your main character learns about themselves and the world...but some are sad. The music grabbed my heartstrings, and some scenes made sure that all the dust in the room gathered in my eyes without fail. It amazes me how connected I felt after only a few hours to these characters, and each wears their pixellated hearts on their sleeves. Hatred, anger, love, forgiveness, and more...all represented beautifully despite the limitations of pixels. Despite being physically two-dimensional, each of them had many layers, and as I got to know them better I pushed to make it through each new challenge to see the next part of their story. People died, fought, sacrificed, argued, and acted...all for a purpose that felt real.Challenge
There are so many puzzles and challenges! Literally every room in the massive mansion, every new map or area, all have at least one puzzle to them with a reward or collectible of some kind in it...if you can survive and get there. I spent at least an hour total just running around old areas after new powers, to find new ways to get around or rewards. I even screwed up at one point and broke sequence a bit, but it just made the next part tougher [IMPORTANT: When you hit Chapter 11, don't go after the boss to the far left first]...but still entirely possible with a bit of trial & error. I never experienced anything that was impossible, and no matter how hard each part was, I kept playing because there was always a light at the end of each dangerous tunnel.Gratification
No challenge lacked a purpose, no boss lacked a reward, and no secret was pointless. Everything I did, no matter how silly it may have seemed, was without a reason. Money is plentiful, and even as someone who usually hates minigames I still played more than my fair share since they were short, mostly fun, and came with useful rewards. Collecting upgrades was similarly solid, because each of them had a point. The binoculars let me explore a room, extra lives gave me extra chances when I messed up, and every time I got a new power I'd rush to the shops to see how I could improve them.Frustration
There are some puzzles that maddened the heck out of me. Horace would introduce a new mechanic or ability, and then slowly ramp up the difficulty of puzzles and enemies that used it. This staved off a lot of the annoyance that comes with many of these games, but even then there were a handful that were just plain too tough for me (a certain minigame competition, and a the first of three low-gravity Trials near the end). Despite what my steam library may tell you, I'm actually not that good at most platformers and puzzle games. I've had to switch to Easy on some of them, cheat on others, and in extreme cases even just watch the cutscenes on Youtube and call it a day. But after all the time I had spent with the characters in this game, and because the game would reset to a pre-death checkpoint almost instantly, I kept going. The game's extra-lives, checkpoints, and other features kept frustration to a minimum...and if someone as terrible as I tend to be could beat the game, almost anyone could.Purpose
I bought this game to have fun, find a challenge, and see what this game had to offer me. I found a character who, like me, sought a purpose in his pixelated world. Despite all his challenges and confusion, by the end of the game I managed to get him what I think was a happy ending. I had a lot of fun, learned to care for the characters (good and bad), made it past the challenges despite some frustration, and spent 20 hours that were worth every moment.I recommend Horace, thank the developers for all their work, and hope that you, too, enjoy it as much as I did.
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250 Produkte im Account
23 Reviews
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1590 Std. insgesamt
Verfasst: 21.07.19 14:11
So it seems achievements are not bugged.
However, my game didn't save my progress and I am in chapter two again. (now achievements work though)
If achievements are not popping up, I suggest you stop playing immediately or your progress might magically disappear.
I bought this because of Forsen ZULUL
This is one of the best indie games I have played and it desperately needs more advertising.
(and please fix achievements!
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Release:18.07.2019
Genre:
Action-Adventure
Entwickler:keine Infos
Vertrieb:
505 Games
Engine:keine Infos
Kopierschutz:keine Infos
Franchise:keine Infos
Einzelspieler
Mehrspieler
Koop
