G.E.A.R: Great Engineers Are Rats

⠀

Well, it's free, so unless it's molesting your computer or it's some kind of Russian spyware nonsense, it's pretty much always a yes. This thing's rough around the edges. It's free, it's a student project, and I'm not writing out of malice. But for a game using the Unreal Engine, pushing relatively few objects with relatively few polygons at a time, the framerates are really rough. In the game's "overworld", there's no menu system. No escape option, only running. Alt-F4 is the only ticket to leave. Anyway, it's a puzzler, where you put down cogs to solve puzzles, and sometimes throw levers to start up the motors that will turn your gear series. Most of the puzzles are pretty forgiving, except the one that requires balancing precariously on an uneven item while being hoisted up to the heavens. But I like a puzzle from time to time, and I like an interesting idea. Give this game a good scrub up with some optimization, some more gadgetry to use, and most importantly, fewer fiddly balancing tests, and it'll be an agreeable time. As it stands, the game took me an hour, I was fairly amused, and I paid nothing, so you can't really beat that ratio.

I can not call this a fully functioning game... Gets 2/5 from me. There is some sort of attempt at a game in here somehow but the info and controls are among the worst ive experienced in quite a while. Had to hard close it cos i couldnt find a Exit/Close game button.

Great mechanics, love how much creative freedom you get on gear placement to create new ways to beat the same level. A few minor issues/bugs but nothing that wouldn't be an easy fix. Pros: - Creative theme, love the idea of rolling around as a repair rat. - Fluid Mechanics/Movement as you roll around in your hamster ball and when you have to walk around as a two legged menace. - Clever Level design that also enables the player to experiment and come up with creative solutions. Sometimes a gear is a gear, other times it is a convenient little platform :) Cons: - Minor issue where some levels does not have a cheese but will have the marker on the level creating an impossible achievement. - NO IN-GAME MENU - this is actually a big issue, I had to force close the game because i couldn't leave once in the game. You have to at least give me an exit or quit to desktop button! Also made it very inconvenient that there are no volume controls. - Pulse Grenades. I am not sure if I am just doing something wrong or what but the pulse grenades immediately trigger on level start...they are supposed to give you a "boost" which is true if i put it directly behind the start position. But the …

"G.E.A.R: Great Engineers Are Rats" comes across as more of a tech demo... an incomplete set of puzzles framed in a simple 3D (possibly asset flipped) first person environment. What do you do in the game? Not much, just a couple of puzzles. What's the point? This really doesn't come across as a complete game. The game graphics look better than you might expect, but that's just because it looks like some or all of them are "borrowed" from asset stores or wherever. Gamers can tell... and it comes across as insincere. There's also the old adage that those who lack the budget and talent to make their own game assets usually lack the budget and talent to do the rest of the job of game development properly, too. On the matter of pricing and value for gamers, most "free" games on Steam aren't really free. There's often nasty mobile app cash shops, or content locked behind DLC, or donations being requested, or any other number of shady pricing schemes that could mislead gamers, but in this case I'm glad to say this really does appear to be a fully free game. Nothing demonstrates a developers belief in themselves and their work than giving it away without any remuneration. This …

So much potential, but it's just too buggy to be fun right now.