Motte Island

I am a big fan

Motte Island is a game I wish I could recommend without reservations, but unfortunately there are many aspects that end up bringing down what could have been a much more enjoyable experience. Hence this review should be understood as a very guarded recommendation (and yet another borderline case that highlights the need for a "neutral" button for these reviews). An indie game through and through, the light shining through the cracks in Motte Island's surface reveals a bigger ambition that felt short of realization. The gameplay could be described as a crossbreed of Resident Evil with the top-down perspective and the combat sytem of a simplified Hotline Miami, while the familiar plot rehashes basically every Lovecraftian-esque horror adventure ever made. The story is paper-thin and predictable, stretching itself to allow for a number of fetch quests typical of the genre. Apart from some nice lighting effects, the graphics and animation are crude, and the sight of the main character just sliding through the screen makes for a jarring initial impression. So far it all sounds pretty dire. Why the positive rating then? What did I find enjoyable about the game? Well, quite a few thing…

Motte Island is a 2D top down retro pixel stealth/horror/shooting game where you control some guy going to spooky horror island and finding monsters. The graphics are terrible, the camera panning is really bad, which is in line with the low quality and lack of polish in the game. The bad camera panning also makes the game difficult, once more this is a game where the difficulty comes as much from bad game implementation as it does from actual gameplay. This is just another indy shovelware dump'n'run infesting Steam, can't recommend it.

I'm somewhat of a horror game coneseour. This game ranks up there with Darkwoods. The story, although somewhat of a trope with the same twist, I should have expected, caught me dilightfully off guard. The controls are slick especially the stealth aspects of the game, comming from someone who usually hates stealth games, that says a lot. The graphics, especially the lighting is great. I just love how the developer made the flashlight flicker, and they even added in my old trusty friend the radio. This game needs to be ported to other platforms. The sound design is great, while nothing spectacular, the soundtrack, although sort of what you'd expect is done really well, I love the rain effect, now just add in a bit of thunder and you've naild it. If you're a fan of horror, this game is ha hidden gem. What I would like to se more of: First off can we get a map please? Even if it's just a jpg you can print out and use. the feet should be animated. Even more story more dialogue. more environmentale effects such as rain and thunder, maybe animate some wind going trough the foliage. all in all great game, for a rediculously low price.

It's really hard to move around outside (and when it's dark) without flashlight, which I suppose you find later in game. I was bumping into stuff all the time and either could find any way in, or any way out. Other than that, it just feels like any other 2D horror. You can play it but it's nothing special.

Tags: Adventure - RPGMaker & Topdown Additional Tags: Delete Local Content & Remove from Library TLDR: Think RPGMaker topdown shooter action adventure. Limited interactivity, itemfetch leverpull puzzles. No Xbox360pad support. Restricted Field of Vision. Pass. The field of vision is very close to the character sprite. It constantly feels like playing the world by looking at it through a straw. Disorientation comes in easily. There is no map. The game takes away items in between sections such as my club. It is narrative oriented, with a focus on world building, so a lot of map real estate that is rather pointless to navigate in. The sprites are barely animated at all, the game feels very flat and 2D and the suble use of lighting did little really improve on that aspect. The AI follows simple pathfinding scripts, vision cones are shown, and the difficulty seemed trivial to easy. The game most likely mixes things up by using odd character design and stranger creatures later. Conclusion: Honestly I would rather stick to a proper topdown shooter with all the bells and whistles, or go play a proper narrative game. This does not really quite cut it in terms of entertainment value a…