Nothing Strange Here

I love whimsy as much as the next person. I love cute critters, adorable animals and an open world experience.People are calling it a cozy gaming experience, and it looks cozy, but it is not enough to create a decent gaming experience. This is cozyslop. In Nothing Strange Here, you are given a map, but no compass. The controls are janky. The characters are generic. There is no way for you to mark your map to keep track of the various unmarked locations you've been to. The last saved point I left this game at told me to acquire various items from different characters to fix up a boat. However I don't know who these characters are, where I can find them, or what they look like. I don't see them if I hover over the map, and I don't have a diary where I can keep track of the characters, their names, personalities and locations. Unless I run all over the map trying to find these specifc people, I will not be able to acquire these items. The clunky controls make exploring the map quite a feat. The game introduces you to a mechanic very early on, whereby you can take photos and write articles based on those photos. Only for it to not come up again at all for (as far as I have played) the remainder of the game. I think maybe it comes up for side quests, but I don't know for sure. There is also some very heavy-handed and convoluted exposition for the mystery that ties this whole thing together. If you want to wander around and just explore and take photos of whimsical critters while completing various fetch quests, this is the game for you. But this game feels underbaked and a mish mash of other superior games, like Creature Kitchen, A Short Hike, Frog Detective and Duck Detective. It isn't the worst thing in the world but I wouldn't recommend this to anyone.

Quirkiness of this game, is it's charm. It's cute, silly, lot to explore and see. Everything is all over the place though. That might annoy some folks. You just run around aimlessly most of the time. You'll find things a lot that way. Main story takes bit too long to find where you need to go. I've explored north east part several times, haven't found where this second mine spot is, despite finding numerous of 'em a bunch of times but those don't seem to trigger the main story. Thankfully side quests are easy to get done. Hoping someone makes a guide. I'm missing that glowing deer one

Its a fun and cozy mystery game that has so many elements and quirky stuff to explore! highly recommend

A super cute and fun and weird open world photography game! The map is quite big but it's really fun to just get lost in the world - whether I'm walking a new path or a path I've taken 10 times, I always notice something new and interesting to take a picture of: Most of the gameplay is running around doing quests so it's always fun to get sidetracked by coming across something weird and often funny. I feel this game is meant to kinda be meandered through in that sense, taking the time to stop and smell the flowers, stray from the path, and maybe you'll find a disappearing rock or a UFO crash site along the way :)

Absolutely FANTASTIC game!! I've been waiting so long for release day and it has NOT disappointed!! It's full of so much crazy whimsy and my face hurts from laughing and smiling so much, not a dull moment in this game!!!

This game is incredibly charming in it's writing and world building. It's very much a photography based collect-a-thon more than a story game imo, but the stories told within it are a nice touch! The core of the gameplay is running around and taking photos of different things around the world, either to help NPCs with side quests or to collect stickers. If you are looking to 100% the game, I highly suggest taking a look at the sticker book earlier rather than later, although I enjoyed my approach of just taking photos of anything I found interesting and being pleasantly surprised when it triggered criteria for a sticker. If you are into this sort of thing, I do recommend this game whole-heartedly! I think it is worth it's price if this is the gameplay you're after. Unfortunately, I think the main storyline does fall a bit flat and isn't drawn out nearly enough to build intrigue. I think it would need an additional 3-4 quests to really flesh it out. It felt a bit rushed. The side quests are nice, but I think when you look at the game as a whole, there isn't enough story to justify playing it solely for that purpose. Maybe if there were some additional side quests added, it would be easier to recommend based on the story aspects alone. If you are only playing the main story, you will likely finish the game in just a few hours. Add an hour or two for the side quests. If you're a completionist like me, there's a quite decent bit more to enjoy. I think that's were the heart of the game really is. The world is interesting and fun to explore, lots of cute references and little secrets to discover! There's clearly a lot of love put into this, and I do overall recommend it! I'm enjoying my time with this game.

A great game (although I might be a bit biased ...) It's a cozy and very relaxing game, the sticker collecting feature gives that extra map exploring feature a lot of games so desperately needs. As of current I haven't gotten any lag/performance issues which is a massive +1 of course. Overall a great game to check out.

I would like to recommend the game, but it isn't quite over the hump. Controls need more work, the controller thumbstick view is way too sensitive, and turning it down makes the thumbstick menu cursor slow... yes, you have to use a cursor in the menus with the controller for a few things. While finding stickers is kind of nice, it leaves you pretty much taking a picture of anything vaguely neat in hopes of getting one. and a few are locked by progress/distance. The game is pretty short for the price in my opinion. I know I want every game to be longer than it is, but I think I am being objective on this. Once you unlock a certain transport, everything kind of rushes to the end.