Strange Seed

This game is really fun, but honestly, if I could give a middling review I would. It's fun but there are a lot of problems. It is really prone to bugs and bad hitboxes, the keyboard and mouse controls feel really bad. This game has a great idea with really fun concepts, I love the creature building and the concepts put forward, but the game still needs a good bit of work. I am excited for the next big update but I do hope some of the bugs are smoothed out and the controls are improved. Especially with gene-snake as it is very clear the game was made controller first which kinda sucks for players like myself who lack a controller. The combat could also use some work as it is incredibly basic and is not that interesting, the only real difficulty to it is if you can pass the damage check of a boss. The combat system could really use a rework, but, this game feels almost like a sequel to Cubivore, and I love it, but I hope some of the issues get worked out eventually. Overall, games alright.

honestly i'm only a few hours in and just kind of messing around while inebriated but i can safely rec this so far! i'm having a lot of fun and it scratches that spore itch what i like thus far: - making abominations against god and science - combat and part-mixing mechanics actually make me think in terms of "okay what would be most efficient for this biome" - SPEED 8 GO GO GO GO dislike: - controls are a little bit wonky sometimes - some areas are a little too dark/muddled and it makes it hard to figure out what you're looking at - NPCs can die and they leave a little gravestone :( - mantis shrimp there's also an underwater area that does not play well with my depth perception (but that's not the fault of the devs or anything) so i figured i'd mention that for the other vision issue girlies out there

Charming game, my 3 year old daughter loved watching me play. Runs well on my laptop on medium settings.

This game is a lot more fun than I anticipated. There was a review that called it a spiritual successor to EVO: The Search for Eden which was a really cool and interesting game on I want to say the SNES. That sealed it for me so I chose to pick it up. They were pretty much spot on with the assessment. That being said, this isn't Spore, it's more of an action adventure/puzzle game where your combat, puzzle solving, traversal, ability to climb walls, etc is based on the parts you choose to use. You don't have freedom of placement ala Spore, but you can mix and match parts from the various creatures you fight and eat (which gives you the parts, along with the ever increasing biomass stat that basically "caps" your parts.) You have Head, Neck, Body, Arms, Legs, Wings, Tail. You can have an Axolotl head to breath underwater, chicken legs to attack with, a snakes tail to move a bit faster, the arms of a mushroom boy, all while flying on using seagull wings and defending yourself with the shells of your geoduck body. I was sort of floored that they animated a Geoduck, don't really see that often. Still, it's a fun game. The levels are basic in terms of overall scenery, aesthetic etc, but they're an excellent form of level design. The pathing, secrets, and shortcuts on the map are really impressively done with some real ingenuity so whoever was in charge of that did a great job. The story isn't really there for the most part. It sort of throws you in and lets you sort of do your thing as you organically explore. You'll end up doing quests and making whatever decisions you want regarding which paths to take while you continue collecting parts but beyond a few points where it's clear you need a certain part or to interact with a specific NPC to progress it's relatively hands off. So far, I've made it through a small handful of zones and the variety of creatures is pretty well done along with the parts available. They give you a ton of freedom in choosing your attacks and buffing your stats with whatever builds you think are handy. They even have a mechanic for simply increasing or decreasing size with corresponding tradeoffs to include map traversal in smaller spaces. I haven't really seen any sort of real detriment to dying, but perhaps I didn't notice. There's platforming and some instant kill falls but progress is tied to check points in the form of nests you change your stats in and evolve ala dark souls bonfire style. It doesn't automatically refresh everything, but it lets you choose to do it so you are able to farm parts. There are definitely some decisions you cannot take back though, even with a refresh. If there's something in here that's interesting for you, I think this is a game you'll really enjoy. For the price it's hard to find anything to dislike other than perhaps some of the jankyness and somewhat exploitable mechanics. Still, I have a feeling I'll be playing this one all the way through for sure.

Considering the older title with the same premice(and it's quality(not that good)) this game is a very significant step for the developers and the result is a very VERY well executed release, I cannot wait for the ocean expansion

Was NOT expecting a spore-ish souls-like when I bought this tbh but it's incredibly charming and delightful. It's pretty janky but really enjoyable, highly recommend. Love messing with the part options and the 3D print part combiner was a truly inspired idea. Great way to keep the parts you like for the aesthetic without losing out on stats. If you enjoyed spore creature stage, you'll love this too. The game isn't particularly difficult despite the souls-like tag I'm giving it though. I beat the final boss with my cave navigating build which was just some damage heavy parts with a glowy skin on. Ignore anybody complaining about the graphics, not important at all. Dumb. The real issue is just general bugginess and some not-fully-realized ideas. The indie single dev really shows through here. Lots of invisible obstacles when running around, quests and events that don't really fire quite right, fake hints because I'm assuming updates made them obsolete, hitbox markers that are just plain wrong, etc. But nothing *important* is broken. The game was fully playable on the steam deck, I think I only missed out on a few accessories because of the bugs.

Just played an hour on the deck, got to the first boss who was a little tricky, think i need to get myself some faster legs. There's a really cozy charm to it. It reminds me of games from the 360 era in the best way possible!

This is the dark souls of sporelikes. It's fun and silly, which is too uncommon these days. The game definitely feels early access in that the overall level of polish for the core gameplay isn't quite there yet but the game idea is solid. The combat is the big issue, as the game is largely centered around combat (you need to consume creatures to gain more parts) and it is either much too easy or unnecessarily punishing. As it stands, the game is fun enough to explore around and design horrendous abominations that I can't really complain too much about the overall experience. The music is a nice touch, very whimsical and reminiscent of the work of Grant Kirkhope in the Banjo Kazooie games. Some nice quality of life touches in the game as well, you can resurrect dead NPCs should you accidentally kill them (though at a cost). And in the occasions you manage to clip through the geometry and fall through the world the return to in-bounds mechanism is very friendly. It just casually pops you back up, no deaths or anything penalizing. I spent I think $10 and got ten hours of gameplay, doing the vast majority of the content. Can't really beat the cost to gameplay ratio. And while I don't plan on playing the game in the near future as I don't see this as a game with back-to-back playthough levels of replayability, but I will certainly come back for another playthough some time in the future.