The Moonstone Equation

As someone who's a fan of information-based games, especially ones where there are hidden languages to discover, this game sounded perfect for me. Unfortunately, not only did the game not live up to those expectations, but it's also a completely unplayable, bug-ridden mess. In terms of the core mechanics, you're exploring the world and solving puzzles. The exploration is fine, but while the world is fairly small, it eventually becomes annoying to traverse due to the lack of fast travel and shortcuts. Some of the puzzles are pretty good, though they can feel a bit repetetive or trial and error-y sometimes. Unfortunately, while I expected from the game's pitch which mentioned the scientific method to have to do a lot of experimentation to figure out the game's rules, they were simpler than I expected, and so there was not as much discovery as I hoped for. The game sort of has a story, which you mostly just figure out by reading character's various notes in computer terminals (well, at least if they're not entirely broken). But unfortunately from what I've gathered at least, the story isn't all too interesting, and the writing is TERRIBLE. Lots of grammatical errors, things that…

This game looks like it has a lot going for it and a lot of potential. But the developer has basically abandoned it even though there are game-breaking bugs stopping people making any progress. He has admitted on Twitter that he is done with it and it sounds like he has no plans to fix anything. Such a shame.

I am very glad that I picked up this game and played through most of it. However, It has some major game design flaws and oversights that results in very unfortunate outcomes. [h1]The Good[/h1] [h3]Exploration[/h3] The game has nice pixel art landscapes and vistas. Environmental storytelling is great. Locations are interesting and puzzles and points of interest are adequately hidden. The ancient language present on walls is a great curiosity driver. [h3]Music[/h3] Great tunes that create great atmosphere, and each location has its own fitting vibe. [h3]Puzzles[/h3] Enjoyable mechanics that are satisfying to complete [b]for the first time[/b]. [h3]Ancient Language[/h3] There is an ancient language throughout the game that is very well thought out. [h1]The Bad[/h1] [h3]Backtracking and Repetition[/h3] The game requires you to walk a lot through already explored locations. In addition, you will have to solve the same puzzle multiple times (more that 2), as a result of oversight in progression system. Progression - [spoiler]You have to collect 12 trigger stones, combine 12 data cubes and place them both in 12 locations accordingly. [/spoiler] The problem is that alm…

I haven't completed the game, and have mixed feelings about the game so far. * I like the puzzles which is the main focus of the game, and from what Ive seen so far very Sokoban like with other mechanics keep it fresh and exciting to solve. Love it! * The real time correlation to night / day in game is very interesting! * Navigating the labs / town - it's fun to explore the unknown, but not having a built in map in this metroidvania style game makes it unnecessarily difficult. And making my own map as I go makes it mildly easier, and have found certain areas are not so easy to map out manually. * The terminals - both cool and annoying - everything in the game has a purpose right? the journal entries while short I don't see the purpose that they serve so far. * Game Progression - this is a player comfort more than anything; I have multiple objectives that I have found and written down on a notepad, but not seeing a tracker in game which would be nice to have. * Collectibles - The game does track quantity of collectibles and items that you need, but doesn't track what specific combination that you have acquired so far which I understand to be relevant for parts of the late game. O…

It's a bare bones block pusher..? The block puzzles aren't very good, and they reset themselves regularly. There's no undo either? Lots of wasted time. You're 'rewarded' for solving them thoroughly, but you can't check which ones you've solved (or if they are solvable at all). The environment itself... exists. You simply run around expansive areas wondering what you're supposed to be doing. The characters also exist, they say words... Everything looks nice, though! The music is... drone? I think that's the genre. It's very loud and clips like crazy. That might be part of the aesthetic, but it feels really out of place. It's buggy, too. Some areas have really messed up collision, especially the boxes, which the entire game is made of. I got soft-locked once when interacting with a door. The arcade games don't obey in-game volume settings. Dunno, there's clearly a lot of effort put into it, but it comes up short pretty much everywhere besides the art.

good game