Chlorine Scales

Somewhat original graphic adventure and the experience playing it is very different from what you might expect, I really enjoyed the silly looking characters, and the artwork is amazing as well. The gameplay is just exploring the town with the point&click, but you also have a gambling mechanic with a dice, but not much control over it, aside from using consumable items or specific character abilities. It's a short game but it has a lot of replay value, if you beat it once, you will unlock more characters, and there are a ton of endings as well. On a side note, I have beaten the game a couple of times, but the achievements were not unlocking on Steam, only in game, so it needs a fix. It's about 20-30 minutes per playthrough, but you can replay it several times to get different endings and maybe try something different. There were a couple of very problematic glitches and a few balancing oversights, hopefully those will be patched. I'll explain in the 'feedback'. But the game is good, it just has a few stupid things in it that might waste your time. I actually had to restart a run like 20 times, i'll get to that in a second. There is an RNG element to the game and sometimes completing the run is impossible, actually depending on the character, you probably have less than 50% chance to win, unless I missed some feature. Well, the policeman can beat it pretty easily, maybe not the others. You can manipulate your "luck" to an extent, for example if your numbers are not close, you can intentionally lose a day to hopefully get a better roll before you start using items, but it's pretty much gambling still, sometimes you just get *****. It does not seem like there is a way to save the game, the runs are under 30 minutes, so I guess that is why they didn't care. Essentially there is a small "resource management" aspect to the game, you have 7 days to pay rent, but you can kinda strategically choose how to waste them, or use them to get another chance at the dice game. Sometimes you can risk and reward at getting certain items, but even then, most of the time it's not 100%, you just have to hope to get lucky multiple times for a win. [h1] Pros: [/h1] (+) I don't know if the trailer does the game justice with the art, but it's much better looking I think than your average static adventure, and the illustrations are very funny as well. There is more movement and a lot of character in each location. (+) Short game, but with a lot of replay value, you can unlock different characters with unique abilities or nerfs, and there is a surprisingly large amount of endings. (+) While the dice mechanic is not unique, it's somewhat unique in the format that they are using it. The game has a bit of a gambling, risk and reward aspect to it, which is unusual for a point&click adventure. (+) Fun vibes, very silly game, [h1]Feedback: [/h1] [u]Bugs and Oversights:[/u] - If you click (OK) while the opponent does the dice animation, it will freeze the game - the achievements would trigger in game, but not on Steam (all of them) - if you click OK before your animation is finished, even if you win, you will lose the game - Sometimes the forest route takes you straight to the temple which makes no sense to me, I can't think of an explanation for it, other than maybe it's a bug, because sometimes it just takes you to the street before the temple [u]Balancing Thoughts: [/u] - there are several places where the opponent can roll 2x (1-6) dices or even more in some situations, but you can only do (1-6)+(1)+(2)+(3) with items (and you also need some of those items), It felt like even if I did everything right, my chances of completing the game were less than 50%? Landlond kept rolling 6+5, 4+6, 6+6, 5+4. Like *** do you want me to do. Win the game with like 15% margin? Maybe his dice should be (1-6) + (1-4) or something, just a thought, and same for the dream games. -alternatively, if you didn't want to mess with the dice, maybe add another way to get an extra item somewhere, like another 2/2 dice perhaps [b]Overall Thoughts: 7/10 (8/10 if they patch the freezing bug) [/b] Small but very unique graphic adventure, the unusual art direction and character design made it stand out. I liked the strategy element, even though it felt like it was not in my favor most of the time. Yea, neat little game, has a lot of replay value with different endings and characters for more challenge. [code]Niche, obscure and underrated games: http://store.steampowered.com/curator/31294838-Hidden-Gem-Discovery/ [/code]