Terraformental

“I love the mechanics of the loop where you can gain little bits of knowledge in one loop and use it in another, like finding blueprints/devices, hacking to just skip it in future loops, or finding the fastest ways to travel.”

“The core mechanic is that you are stuck in a timeloop and the only thing that sticks around is knowledge, both in the form of your character learning things like passwords, maps, secrets and skills, and also in the form of you yourself learning and formulating the best routes to most efficiently exploit and make use of your limited resources.”

“Wrapped around this delightfully brain-tickly mechanic is a strong narrative mystery, secrets, and areas to unlock across repeated runs as you backtrack with items and equipment you find further out, like someone implemented a metroidvania as a visual novel.”

“Each area has its own music, and while each track is perhaps a bit basic in a vacuum, they all combine perfectly to work together and it really nails that cold, sci-fi vibe that Terraformental is looking for.”

“It mixes old school text adventure with a time loop mechanic, metroidvania elements, idle elements, although it is not an idle game, an incredibly well written narrative and a haunting soundtrack that lead to a super atmospheric mystery that pushes you to explore and plan and really work to uncover the story.”

“But the music in this game is memorable, sets the tone for the setting, keeps me wanting to keep playing, and isn't something that makes me irritated to hear on repeat loop after loop.”

“The demo pulls off a nice minimalist vibe, but the full game catapults the visuals straight into the valley between 'good because it's minimalist' and 'good because there's actually pretty graphics', and it suffers for it.”

“I am well aware that good graphics aren't the point, it's an indie game with a low budget, the buttons and options the game provides take up the entire screen, and the writing clearly intends for you to use your imagination given how it details what each room looks like.”

“2) Speaking of graphics, the text can get a bit cluttered and therefore tedious to read despite the information conveyed being interesting and immersive.”

“Each loop is more optimized, so you're always making progress.”

“This game is at its best when you have to solve resource optimization puzzles with clever routing and timing, and at its worst when your resource situation is sustainable and the game is sending you back and forth on several-minutes diversions with lots of writing that doesn't say much of importance.”

“This can be a game about incremental progress, or it can be a game about strategy and optimization, and you can flit effortlessly between the two approaches as and when you feel like it.”

“The atmosphere this game manages to create with just some text, a minimal UI, and a soundtrack is pretty incredible, and the story so far has been super compelling.”

“It mixes old-school text adventure with a time loop mechanic, metroidvania elements, idle elements, and an incredibly well-written narrative and haunting soundtrack that lead to a super atmospheric mystery that pushes you to explore, plan, and really work to uncover the story.”

“Like many incremental games, the game can be explored and enjoyed with little actual focus on the text and story, and coupled with the atmospheric music, it can be enjoyed even while mentally checked out.”

“Updates seem to come out at a pretty reasonable pace, and the game is set up to have potential for some pretty freaky optional challenges and replayability for those who are truly dedicated.”

“Revisiting places to find out even more efficient approaches adds an odd level of replayability within the game.”

“An incremental game with no microtransactions, timegating, and actually a decent story?”

“They have their own 'private' humor that one would expect someone with only themselves for company to develop, and are overall just a really compelling character on their own.”