I want to start off by saying that I think using assets is okay as long as your game is original. I feel similarly about AI depending on what kind of AI was used (using AI to check your grammar, for example, is fine. If a significant amount of AI was used, then I think you should consider making the game free to play). A lot of reviews I've seen online seem to wrongfully assume that this game is made by one person. Just because one person alone worked on the levels doesn't mean it's the work of one single developer. There's a music composer involved in this project, multiple voice actors, AI-generated images (whatever that means) and even ChatGPT is in the credits. How many people and AI programs have to be involved in a project before it's no longer the work of one sole developer?


The game has a great atmosphere a lot of the time. Good music, visually pleasing environments and world building kept me curious to see what the game had to offer. The story isn't super unique, but it was fine enough. On top of that, it runs fantastic. Never had any stuttering issues, lag or crashes. If the entire game was like this, it would've been an easy recommendation. But unfortunately, there are big problems to contend with.


The puzzle design is horrendous. Possibly the worst I have seen in a game, ever. It got so frustratingly bad that I ended up looking through guides for each chapter before I played through them myself in order to not have to deal with puzzles anymore. Game gives you no markers at all, and the objectives are usually very vague. It often boils down to "what did the developer think?" which is a rookie mistake in game development.

Like, getting chased by a robot on a rooftop, entering a building with a broken staircase. You can jump down to a floor below you. What would be the most logical thought here? That perhaps you have to keep jumping further down? How about: Find a bicycle handle, a radio for some reason, jump back up to the floor you came from (which requires near pixel perfect timing), go out to the roof you nearly died on a minute ago, pick up a megaphone, find a zipline, lure robots on the ground to the building using the radio and then get down by using the bicycle handle as an improvised zipline tool. Oh, silly me for not figuring that out!

Another example: I found a junkyard with radioactivity. I took damage quickly and my companion said "Careful, this area is contaminated". I thought "Oh, I have to find a protective suit or something first" and went to my quest objective. There, I had to break a padlock to open a gate by going back to the junkyard, ignoring the radioactive area and just running through it, getting a chain there and then getting back to the locked gate. This backtracking could've been avoided if my companion had said something like "Don't stay here too long, better run through this section" or something along those lines, rather than being vague and telling me the area is contaminated.

Back at the gate, I attached the chain to the padlock and could not find where to attach the other end to my car. Turns out you have to attach it to the front of the car rather than the back, so I turned the car around, accidentally drove over the chain lying on the ground which made it glitch out and I had to load a checkpoint and go to the junkyard all over again.

Those examples are two of many I could share.

Apart from the puzzles, the game is also filled with easter eggs and references to other games. If hidden well and making sense in the game world, easter eggs can be very fun to find. Overdo them, or add a bunch of references that make no sense, and you can ruin whatever atmosphere you are trying to build. Like, why was I suddenly in the backrooms during a dream sequence? And why did I hear the valve logo theme when I picked up a crowbar? It just made me roll my eyes, because it's not at all relevant to this game, yet you included many of these references as part of the game itself rather than hidden secrets.


The crafting system felt like a last minute feature. You almost never have to use it since you find medical syringes and ammo lying around quite a lot. Not a bad feature per say, just very underutilized.

The so called "boss fights" were little more than your average robot but with higher HP more or less. Like the Ama 01 robot featured in the trailer. Hyped up to be some badass robot turned out to just be a normal robot but it took a while to kill it. That's it. It was very underwhelming for a robot so heavily featured in the promotional material. There was also some ghost robot I saw once. I ran back, it despawned and then I never saw it again. I had a tougher time fighting the bombing drones than any of the "bosses".


I thought it was very enjoyable half the time. Very frustrating the other half. I would've preferred to give this a neutral rating I think, because some sloppy AI voices and horrendous puzzle design aside, this game visually looks good, runs without issues and has a genuinely interesting world. But it's also very difficult to let the issues slide and give it a perfect score as well.

I will give it a thumbs up, but if you give this game a try, be warned. The puzzles in this game do not operate on logic a lot of the time and it does not hold your hand at all. Play the game, enjoy it, but keep a walkthrough guide open just in case.