Everdeep Aurora Review (Raui)
An adorable platformer. Using a drill to carve out your own path is pretty satisfying and since there's no combat whatsoever, exploration has a nice leisurely pace to it. If you're not careful you can make backtracking more difficult by over-doing it. But there's an easy way to get back to a check-point and you can even reset the tiles if need be. It's a very accessible game; none of the platforming is too difficult. Figuring out how to progress is a little trickier sometimes but that's on the pretty light side of things too.
The visual are definitely worthy of praise. But beyond the sprite work, what I also like is the way color palette changes with each location. When combined with the change in music, it makes for a simple but effective tool for setting the mood. And that soundtrack is great. Really surprised it wasn't made available with the games' launch.
I do have some criticisms though they're more like nitpicks. The main one I have is how the fuel for your drill in the top-left is displayed. The jars are either full or empty with no in-between. So having 3/5 of your jars full might actually be closer to 2/5. It's not a problem later on, but in the beginning it can sneak up on you. Oddly, refilling your drill will show exactly how much fuel you had left. The other criticism I have is the inventory, which to me, has two issues; the first is that you can't have the cursor wrap around to the last item of the list from the top left or vice versa with last item to the first. Second, you can't hold down left or right to have the cursor continuously move. Having to instead tap left or right each time can be a little tiresome, and you do get quite a lot of collectibles.
Still, Everdeep Aurora is a great game. The world has some interesting lore for you to find and piece together and secrets are sprinkled around. It's still a short game even for thorough players so waiting for a bigger discount might be best for anyone strapped for cash and willing to wait.