izigame.me

As much as I really want to I don't think I can recommend this game which is a shame because I love the idea, and I admire the work that was put into this game, it seems like a labor of love and I do appreciate that aspect of it quite a bit. That all said I do not regret my purchase and I'm glad that it's gone to support the developer who made this. While I think my critiques of this game ultimately outweigh my praises of it, it would also be unfair to say that I did not enjoy the game to some extent. With that all said here is the problem I have with this game...
This primarily is presented as a puzzle game, and unfortunately it very rarely is aloud to be that, in which I mean there are very few times that the game allows you the creativity of thought to really feel as though you solved the puzzle. The root cause of this I would say likely stems from the fact that the vast majority of these puzzles do not give you access to very many options in which to solve the puzzle. As such often times not only is there only a single answer but the answer is so obvious that it barely constitutes being a puzzle. This happens so often in fact that I don't think it would be unfair to say it feels more like the game is playing you then you are playing the game. That said it would be unfair not to mention that very occasionally that is not the case. Sometimes it even tells you to find an alternate way to end the story but these times are to occasional to outweigh my critique.
Mechanically the game is broken up into several different scenes which make up a group of puzzles. Each scene typically has it's own locations, and characters that for the most part don't cross into each others scenes. Each Scene typically gets about 4 puzzles each where the first couple act as a tutorial for you to see how certain characters interact with the scene and each other, which typically leaves you with about 1 and very rarely 2 puzzles in each group of puzzles that feel like they require any real thought at all. When those puzzles do come around the game is rather enjoyable but a 1 in 4 ratio for that in an already small game is not a good ratio and fun to tedious.
Once you reach the end of the game there are some extra puzzles added through out the game you just played that you can revisit with a new character that's designed to corrupt the initial purpose that you first solved the scene with. This is rather entertaining however not only do these suffer from the same problem I listed above but there isn't even 1 for every puzzle grouping, which I have to say came as quite a disappointment when ever I flipped the page and found there wasn't one for that grouping.
Once you've finished that there is one last thing for you to do in this game and that is the secret stamp collection which is unlocked upon reaching the end of the normal story. These are essentially mini puzzles for you to find across the book by enacting certain sometimes humorous conditions within certain puzzles. Conceptually I love that, in practice this is easily the most boring part of the game. First of all the fact that they're not unlocked until you reach the end of the story means that alot of these I actually discovered on my first playthrough and that made alot of them feel very tedious to have to go back and put in again. Speaking of tedious that brings me to my second point about the stamp collection that I think is far worse. It doesn't actually tell you which chapter each of these story conditions are meant to be played in which wouldn't be that bad if it were set up in such a way that there were multiple scenes that you could do so in, no instead you have to go and find the exact scene it wants you to set up a specific set of events in. Which means the hardest part about these puzzles is flipping through the book and trying to figure out where the puzzle even starts, this fact is exasperated by how poorly the UI is designed to do this. The UI is fine for you first playthrough but it's not designed very well to be flipping back and forth through out the book. The pages turn slowly, and there isn't much information on each page which means alot of going in and out of scenes just to see what you're working with... which all feels just as excruciatingly slow when all you want to do is get to the next puzzle. I finished the base game in 2 hours which means half of my playtime was spent doing this and every bit of it felt tedious. I would highly recommend the developer just make it so you click on the stamp and it takes you to the intended scene. I promise nothing is lost is not having to find the puzzle location except for frustration and boredom.
I do think this game could really benefit from a DLC where it focuses on the shortcomings of the base game. Give us a big quest pack and don't be afraid to really let loose with it. Give us longer framed stories with all the options unlocked, and don't be afraid to let there be multiple ways for a story to end. Let the game excel in allowing the players to tell wacky and zany stories and wind up with a solution that is unique, that alone would add some replay-ability to the game. All the most fun puzzles in this game were the ones with 8 frames and all the options unlocked, so give us more of that. I don't even think new scenes are all that needed for a new quest pack. Most of these Scenes were underutilized in my opinion. I think there is alot more you could dig out of them and if you wanted to you could even mix and match the scene elements from different puzzle groupings for a bit of fun to see how they interact with each other. Ultimately my problem with the content wasn't the number of puzzles overall but the number of puzzles that felt like I truly had a say in how they went or just straight up challenged me. So either give us more puzzles that make us think or puzzles that let us get creative in how we want to tell the story... or both. It's a game about story telling so thematically I think it would excel if players were given the chance to tell the stories in different ways.
Conceptually this game is great, in practice however it just falls short of living up to the potential that it promises. Maybe this game is intended for a much younger audience, in which case that's fair I guess. It would certainly speak to a 10 year old and cultivated the start of thinking critically but I think it's really close to being something that could be enjoyed by all age groups too. Obviously it's to late to go back and change what's already there but I think with a bit of work this game could have some meaningful additions given to it that help it to be a more fulfilling experience. Again there's alot here that I like but I also believe in honest feedback, and I hope my negative review on this can at least be seen as constructive because that's how it's intended. It wouldn't take much to grow this game into something I could recommend, it's just not there yet. I wouldn't take the time to write out a review like this for a game I didn't want to do well or try to improve either with additions or even a sequel title...If I didn't carte, I'd just move on and not think twice about it.