NOTE FROM THE EDITOR: We here at GameTyrant have been absolutely bombarded with so many products and games this year already. We will be rolling out select quick reviews to let our audience know about products, games, and DLC that may have slipped under their radar. We appreciate the amazing support from all publishers and developers out there!
Clockfall (Early Access)
With only a few seconds into Clockfall, I thought what many others might feel: this is Hades, man. And while the aesthetics and feel might be similar, Clockfall differentiates itself in something essential: this is not a roguelike, but rather a dungeon crawler.
Your mission is simple: save your village from the most certain doom through time travel. Throughout several locations, you will need to collect specific artifacts that will allow you to do just that. Each location features rooms, but they are not randomly generated. Instead, you’ll experience the same location each time with more expertise, and hopefully with newly acquired skills.
All the while, you’ll have to race against the clock, as your time traveling is limited at first. Once time runs out, you’ll be sent to relive the Nightmare, which is the exact moment of your childhood village’s destruction. Fight off the enemies as much as possible to gain resources, which you’ll then be able to spend to unlock new weapons, skills, and improve your stats.
Overall, a very entertaining game that isn’t overly reliant on RNG but rather memory, skill, and strategy. I’m excited to see what Rever Games pulls off once the game releases fully later in the year.
Dreamcore
Liminal horror creeps me out, all thanks to the Backrooms. But hey, at least I’m not on the verge of my seat and my face half covered, expecting the next jump scare. Dreamcore is exactly that: a game that tenses you up with analog aesthetics and has you pretty much on edge, waiting for a random happy face yellow ball to ruin your day.
And yes, the game is not new by any measure, as Montraluz has worked on this game since 2022. However, the final Dreamcore chapter is finally out: Dead Mall, and man, oh man, what a thrilling experience. I’ll be focusing on this final map for this quick review.
As Dreamcore veterans know, playing the game is not an action-heavy experience. In fact, there is no action at all. You are left to wander through various maze-like maps, such as the Dreampools and Eternal Suburbia, with no map, no UI, pure walking, and no entities.
To that end, Dead Mall captivated me from the get-go. I found myself completely lost in the main corridors, observing each of the closed stores, which appeared to be infinite. And yet, once I came across the door, I knew something crazy was going to happen. And that’s because such a tranquil ambiance can be completely disrupted by the smallest of things. And that’s what happened to me once I heard music starting to play in the speakers, or I came across a whole arcade, or even a cinema.
Overall, I found myself submerged in the liminal horror of Dreamcore through Dead Mall. It is a very misunderstood game by some, perhaps expecting something more engaging than a walking simulator. And while Dead Mall can feel repetitive and borderline frustrating, I think that is entirely the point.
Battlestar Galactica: Scattered Hopes
I’m a complete noob to the Battlestar Galactica franchise, so I stumbled across this game pretty much with no expectations and an open mind. I’m glad I did, and while Scattered Hopes is not a game I would regularly play (not a huge strategy fellow), I really enjoyed the gameplay loop.
You can divide Scattered Hopes into two main sections. One has you command your fleet in real-time space battles against the Cylons, while the other has you placed in a more managerial position, making strategic decisions to prepare for the next encounter with the sentient robots.
The battles are pretty intense, and positioning your ships is vital. It starts slow, but as you progress through each of the game’s stages, you’ll find yourself swarmed by enemy spaceships and incoming nukes. Thankfully, you can pause the game to figure out your space tactics to prevent a major catastrophe.
If you manage to survive and escape the encounter via a faster-than-light (FTL) jump, you’ll then be given 10 turns to prepare yourself for the next Cylon brawl. You are free to manage your crew, repair ships, level up your heroes, send them to scavenging missions, and even have a drink or two (all of which will consume time, that is, your turns).
All of these decisions matter, of course, as you’ll be presented with several crises along the way. This will be meaningful in the long run, as your fleet will need to reach the Battlestar Galactica after completing 12 different sectors, all of which are procedurally generated in a roguelite experience. Should your fleet be destroyed, you’ll have to start over with fresh new faces, and oftentimes, this will happen due to bad decisions and just awful luck.
In general, I enjoyed Scattered Hopes. I do believe that the graphics are a bit lacking in an otherwise compelling world with a top-notch atmosphere, and I’m not a huge fan of the repetitive dialogues (there is no voice acting, by the way) or events. Additionally, the game might feel a bit punishing at times, thanks to bad RNG. Still, waiting for the FTL jump button to become available had me sweating bullets, which is a good thing.
It’s not a groundbreaking game by a long shot, but if you have $25 to spare, this might be a good investment.
