GearHead Caramel

So, Gearhead is one of those classic hyper specific old school passion projects that scratches an itch that no other game does. But the problem was that, well, it was old school. The balance was questionable, the mechanics unfinished, the UI horrible, the graphics terrible, etc etc- but that was never really what it was about, so it was fine. Caramel is an attempt to bring a more unified feel to the game. To update it for the modern day. However, in doing so, the developer has transitioned from making it a freely available passion project into a product. A very cheap product, but a product nonetheless. And it's a ♥♥♥♥ product. Because the thing is, in an attempt to fix everything wrong with Gearhead 1 and 2, the dev kind of destroyed everything that made the series unique without fixing any of the issues. The graphics still look ugly as sin- in fact they're kind of worse actually. The only benefit to them is at least they're consistently ugly instead of the literally random stylings of the previous games. There's more story, but in doing so the sandboxy feel of the old game is gone. Yet somehow I'm even *more* lost than when I started the first two games, because now everything …

Super great game for a single Indy developer and at a low, extremely reasonable price. I did hit some frustrating points, but I feel that the rhythm of the missions is very fun/satisfying.

A fun open-source roguelike with a wealth of choice in gameplay and a lot of complexity and depth, the majority of which is not forced on you if you don't want it. It's presented in a very digestible, scenario-based format rather than being truly open-world; that being said, the scenarios are still capable of being very large and open and you can even create your own. The only thing that I find lacking in this game is cohesion in conversation; dialogue can be very awkward and stilted owing to how it's generated. The generated character art can also be a bit weird.

goated

I like this game a lot. The crude 2d pixel graphics grow on you. The procedural worlds, randomized npc's, branching storylines and the quirkly AI dialogue makes new playthroughs feel fresh-adjacent. The ability to customize your character and your mecha is really sexy. I feel like there is a lot of potential here as a storytelling vehicle. This game crashes my system a lot and I lose my progress and the characters I create so it's not all sunshine and rainbows but I don't care because it's all about the journey. It's like reverse End of Evangelion where things start grim and then actually get better and better.

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