Exographer Review (Hippiecab)
It's a completely fine puzzle-metroidvania game.
From it's description I was expecting a more open world with multiple paths to explore with lots of hidden secrets all over the place and more intricate puzzles. But that was really not what I got.
There is an intended path through the game, and if you stray from that path even slightly you will encounter a wall and need to go back to try a different path to find the tools you need to go further.
There are a few hidden alcoves to find with a bit of story in them, and one big secondary puzzle which requires you to explore the world more thoroughly to complete (if the game had more of these that you could figure out as you see fit, I would have enjoyed the game a lot more!).
There are a lot of platforming puzzles throughout the game which are fun and well designed. You will need to use some controller-fu at some places to chain together tools to progress. I got stumped a few times as the platforming can be pretty hard to figure out.
Every area has a one deduction puzzle to figure out which requires you to analyze some data with different tools to fit the right objects in the right boxes. These puzzles are the least fun (for me), as they are too easy once you get the hang of them, even as they get more complex. These deduction puzzles have a theme that is based on real life particle physics and it has some real life facts to read as you do the puzzles. Many of the scientific words have been changed out to keep you from being pulled out of the games story, but it kind of had the opposite effect on me, and it gets in the way of actually teaching some real life science.
The story is not really anything special. The world and it's inhabitants are in danger due to their own hubris, you need to step in to fix it.
The music is nice, but also nothing special.
The pixel art is very good and varied throughout the game. It feels like a lived in world that has been hit by catastrophe. The character portrait art is a bit weird and does not really fit in with the rest of the game, I would have liked the portraits to also be pixel art.
So all in all, it's a completely fine game. I had fun, and I finished it. The price tag might be slightly too high for the length of the game, but the devs have put a lot of work into the art and I think they deserve it.