Matchstick: Cosmic Flame

Only the first 2 chapters were available at the time of the review, about 30+90 minutes of content between them. My overall impressions were mildly positive, I think the game has very good visual effects for something that is retro inspired, you don't really get a good feel for it in the trailer, but there was some decent modeling across the game, with the second chapter taking place in some weird megastructure. Also, it's not really a horror game in my opinion, it feels more on a cerebral side with some cosmic type mystery. The game didn't have as much combat as I expected, leaning more into easy puzzles and immersive navigation, the level design sometimes reminded me of Lost in Vivo with all the weird tunnels, minus the spooky vibes. Honestly, the combat feel was so undercooked I wonder why it's even in the game, but I do think it's possible to salvage it, you just need a better stagger system because right now the enemies just keep coming even if they get stunned for like a fraction of a second. The game has some familiar mechanics like the grappling hook and the teleport, it vaguely feels like it was inspired by some legacy games from Valve, and other retro FPS games, but I can't say that I saw anything new or unique. I thought the story had potential, I think for the most part there is still some mystery in the first chapter, and maybe at the start of the second chapter, but toward the end I started to feel like you didn't give me anything new to experience, and I was mostly just exploring the rooms. I think part of the problem is that you don't have enough unique characters, like I saw the moth guy and like cool, and then another 4 just like him. Given the weird nature of the world and the narrative, I think you could use more weird character interactions, preferably not using the same model. [h1] Pros: [/h1] (+) The visual effects and the level design were relatively good, I like the multidimensional feel of the game where you constantly warping around. Sometimes the locations had good use of scale, perspective and making you feel small. (+) I think the narrative still has some potential, but I also feel like you about to drop the ball, you need more interesting characters instead of using the same moth model over and over. [h1] Feedback: [/h1] [u] Combat improvements: [/u] - the melee combat needs to have a better stagger system, if you don't give a proper stagger, it will always feel unfinished because there is no contact feedback for the player. There are multiple ways you could do that, either give the weapon a chance to stun, or have the enemies stagger at certain HP breakpoints. Let the player stun the enemies for 1.5 seconds or so, just not on every hit. - specifically for the melee combat, you really need to have the pipe make a contact sound effect with the flesh, not metal on metal, that should be only with objects. - it feels like melee needs a longer detection range/hit-box - try to add at least 2 more enemy types, preferably something creative that fits into the lore, and not just some flying junk or zombies [u] Random notes: [/u] - those yellow boost triangles should give you maybe another 10% more distance - you overusing the same character models too often, need more unique NPC characters to make the narrative more interesting, and more interactions across the game - the submerged labyrinth maybe was an overkill, perhaps you could place more marks to help with that [b] Overall Thoughts EA 8/10/2026 [/b] I think there is enough effort here to at least support the game in good faith, I thought the game was very good at first, very immersive as you explored the first area, but I feel like it lost most of the tension, either because of using the same moth model, or just not having enough interactions, doing many of the same or similar puzzles. You could do a lot worse, but so far, I think you could still improve on a lot of things, combat more than anything else. but also having more character modeling would help. [code]Niche, obscure and underrated games: http://store.steampowered.com/curator/31294838-Hidden-Gem-Discovery/ [/code]