Scrap Garden

Nice game

99% of the time felt like the game had no direction, like it was made just to tell the most basic story possible and that's it. There are no stakes, no morals, no interesting character or world design, no actually comprehensible storyline and this is all without accounting for the god-awful gameplay. Now for the actual game, it feels like they just copy-pasted enemies and areas chapter after chapter. The world is empty and boring, the only possible progress you can make is through getting all the gems and even then, there's no satisfaction in getting them all because you instantly get stripped of them when you get to a door requiring any number of collectables... Like, why would you ask me for 60 gems and then remove 100% of them from my inventory despite me having way more than that? Just put 60 on the map then. No enemy is interesting, hitboxes are broken and confusing, especially the bushes that go from being ethereal to solid in between chapters without changing texture in any way to indicate that. Achievements are bugged, bosses are awful, levels are just not fun and the QTE and cart ride are some of the most awful I've ever had the unlucky of playing through. I just don't un…

While it's a cute and poignant story, the controls are far too unforgiving and the camera far too disorienting for how precise you have to be on many of the enemies. The Toad and the Dragon were, ironically, the easiest of all the bosses. The game gives very little feedback on what you are supposed to do at various points. The absolute longest I spent on one thing was figuring out that I was supposed to topple the scaffolding to get the explosives down, because the first two times I threw something at it, nothing happened. I kept trying to build up a stack of boxes to give me a way to jump up to them until one time I missed my pile and hit the legs for a third time. I gave up on the Red Eye robot boss (I won't name them, to prevent spoilers) because I was getting nauseous with all the camera movement in and out and frustrated at the very narrow window I had to stomp on the bots at his feet, grab their core without him hitting me, turn around, line up a shot with the slow camera from just far enough away as he walks toward me, jump, throw it at the right height, all before the core explodes in my hands, and hope that he's not close enough to hit me or has bots below me again when …

Short and fun

I have no idea where this game came from in my Steam library, and I still don't understand how I managed to finish it — let alone get all the achievements, which include the tedious task of killing 300 spiders and breaking 100 boxes. Maybe — actually, most likely — the whole world reminded me of the WALL·E movie, which is why I didn't drop it 10 minutes after launching. Not sure if I'd recommend it or not, but I enjoyed it.

A nice and short game!