Greenhouse: Schism

I regret not coming across this game before it went free. From the beginning alone, I can see that the effort was put in that would have convinced me to pick it up back then. The start already has enough hooks to insure I'll want to dig into this more, both for the plot, finding other out-of-the-way spells, or trying new strategies against bosses. If I ever see that the soundtrack makes its way onto Steam (or Bandcamp) as a purchase to support the Dev, I'll plan to pick it up.

Well, I've never been one to write Steam reviews, but considering the developer's humbleness of wanting the game to be played even without buying it, I feel like at least giving them the thoughts of the game that they wanted is fair game. The game seemed charming, adventurous and chill with a nice little plot that seemed like it could easily trap me... But I can't say that I was as immersed as I hoped or as relaxed as I thought, the latter probably being my own fault for expecting something chill when the game never really promoted itself on being "chill". The premise of a magical world with a past that builds and is revealed throughout the game is certainly one that has been done before but with different worlds, and I was expecting this one to be engaging or even fascinating, and yet, I can't say I was ever hooked, perhaps I missed some secrets or I just didn't read carefully enough, because I found myself not really engaging with the story that was being told, neither the past or the present were set in a way that made me understand it well enough, and I wouldn't like to be too comparative to other indie games that clearly had a lot more time spent on them, but Celeste had a s…

Sorry, but this game is kind of tedious to play. The combat doesn't feel very good. Most enemies seem to just be really annoying to fight, and it's almost always better to just walk past them instead of trying to fight them. Platforming is alright, but it feels pretty basic, almost like the combat was meant to play a more important role (but again, it's usually less annoying to just ignore the combat). Save points take up far too much time to use, so it's just a big speed bump a lot of the time, and that hurts the game flow. There seems to be a story, but it just kind of drops you into a bunch of words that don't have enough context to mean anything. Another annoyance is something that's a little more specific to my setup, but the game is locked to 60 fps. This would normally be a good thing, but I have a 144hz display, so it has constant frame timing issues and makes the game feel really jerky. There's potential here, and for a free game, it feels kind of harsh to give it a thumbs down. It definitely needs polish, and it could be a more enjoyable game with more work. But as it is right now, I don't think it's really worth the time when there are so many other options out there (e…

This is good for a free game. Actually this would be a good game for $10. The game has a good amount of challenge to it due to good enemy placement. The bosses that I have come across don't feel cheap or frustrating. It reminds me of the old NES days where I have to learn patterns and then the battles build off those. It is a weird game in that it almost feels like a metroidvania....but it isn't. Sadly i think it would have worked better if it was.....and probably have more appeal that way. But for free....amazing! Get this because it will set you back $0.

This positive review is just to encourage the developer (the game is F2P anw). THE FACTS: - The keyboard or console selection interface upon opening the game was very unfriendly. I didn't even know what to press, thought the game had frozen, so I Alt-F4 to exit and reopen it... Then I just pressed the Z key about 2-3 times to get into the game's tutorial. - The feature buttons seem completely fixed, as I couldn't access Options/Settings or any similar interface using the ESC key. - Pressing X to fire feel like the character is farting from her navel. - The sound and visual effects are truly lackluster.

So first impressions for a FREE GAME and I have a few things to suggest. But first, the good: The movement, music, and artstyle are all very well done. Movement is tight and snappy, the music is chill without being boring, and the pixel art (especially enemy animations) is really well done. Enemy attacks and behaviors are easily readable and enemies are all unique in their own way. Also, while the game is simple, the tutorial does a great job of staying out of your way while explaining everything. I hate tutorials that stop gameplay outright, so this was great. The difficulty balance is good IMO. Saves are placed very fairly and THANK GOD they restore your health. Now the things I noticed: there are quite a few typos and some weird writing in the dialogue. In the first line of the game, "pendant" is misspelled ("pendent"). It would be worth to give the dialogue a once over for spelling and punctuation, and then a twice over for some weird phrasing from the characters. There's no sound effect for dashing, and the character's jump sound effect is SUPER quiet. Even a simple "shh" sound for the dash would be nice. Actually, the game could use a few more sound effects overall. Bounc…