There’s a lot to like here. It’s charming, the visuals are great, someone clearly loves games and put a ton of thought into it. But... it’s tedious. It’s the things you like least from Samarost: the walking around, the lack of clear direction. You’re going to have to rely heavily on the hint system, which has a waiting period each time and the hints are obscure sometimes. I’m having trouble getting through it, and I’m a diehard point and click gamer who really wants to appreciate this project. It truly is clever, and a lot of effort went into it. There are no real puzzles, it’s all “try to use things on things and then check if the hint timer is done”. But that’s okay; Machinarium and Samarost both have a lot of this. But they also have better hint systems, or at least, clearer hints. I’m going to keep playing. I’m not sorry I bought it, and I promise I’ll revise this review when I get to the next chapter. I will add, I haven’t experienced any actual bugs, and I’m on an iPhone 6. None of the control issues or crashes anyone else has reported, it’s been absolutely fine technically. In retrospect, I’m moving it from three to four stars, because I can see what the developers were going for. They haven’t quite got there in the first chapter, but I have high hopes for the next. And I want to encourage that, I think we will see great things from them in the future.

This little game was so much fun! I admit, a few of the “puzzles” were kind of confusing but the hint system is great and I was able to finish the game. I loved the graphics and the sound effects. The cute characters were so neat and I loved the interaction between them. The pug dog caterpillar was my favorite part. He was adorable. I learned from the credits that the pug is part of the development team and is named Sherlock. If you are looking for something to do during this quarantine, definitely give this game a try. It’s worth every penny!!!!

When can we expect the next part? You said it will be exciting. Where can we donate? I know it takes money, but if you keep the next chapter nice and clean like the first, I am game. Will the next chapter find some characters maybe talking a little, maybe. Please, no demons and witches or warlocks and things like these. Please no back from the dead, or ghost, or things like these. I named my ant “Skip”. This is one of the best games of the century.

Game has well-made art, frustrating gameplay, and bad puzzles. Good puzzles in adventure games feel satisfying to solve because the player is being rewarded for picking up on some twisted logic that has been established within the world of the game. In this game, solving a puzzle is more like “huh, I guess I was supposed to put the chair under the heavy machine that the game tells me I can’t even lift” or “huh, I guess ants in this world are really turned on by human women — that sort of reminds me of old cartoons so I guess it’s technically joke-adjacent. Yay?” Three stars for (wasted) effort.(Edit: here’s a tiny violin for the devs on here trolling for sympathy points because they forgot to make their game fun 🎻)