‘Time Hacker’ VR Game Review

Time Hacker by Joy Way is an enjoyable VR puzzle game that seems designed for those of us with short attention spans. Time Hacker is about a secret agent who can freeze time, and hijack the minds of his enemies – so he can force them to kill their co-conspirators. It’s a silly concept, but it works really well, especially in VR.

Swinging my arms wide to freeze time, then waving a hand to hack a badguy and aim his arm to shoot his buddy; this was all done in one smooth motion, and felt entirely badass. Of course, as the game progresses more quirks are thrown onto enemies and players are given additional options for takedowns.

The game’s developer, Joy Way, has created this quickly paced game with puzzles that can be finished in seconds. That is, assuming the player is familiar with the level, its enemies, and its hidden traps. With the benefit of time hacking (And the game’s excellently optimized performance) we can quickly reload and retry levels, or even edit them with the game’s Sandbox mode.

 I did find that many of the game’s puzzles could be easily solved with little effort – though there were a few exciting exceptions. I’m still stuck thinking back to this one level I didn’t solve that involved a crashing jet, a pile of explosive barrels, and several distressed civilians.

One thing Time Hacker does right, is its presentation. While yes, the game looks lower budget in its interface and cartoony style, I think that was an excellent decision. It gives the game an overall B-movie feel, which I think is perfect – we need more B movie games in VR, especially puzzle games. So, thank you for that Joy Way!

I do recommend Time Hacker, especially to lighter puzzle game fans. If you’re looking for something super hard and complicated to solve, this probably won’t do it for ya. Interested readers can download Time Hacker from Viveport Infinity or through Steam.

Note: Time Hacker is still in Early Access, and this review could change down the line. If my opinion on the game changes massively I’ll be sure to update this post.

Follow the IndieSamAdonis Reviews Steam Curator page for all sorts of interesting VR experiences and adventures.

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Steam NextFest June 2021’s Best VR Demos: ‘Sentenced VR’, ‘AGAINST’, ‘Retropolis’

For the past year or so, Steam has been running these huge demo festivals where they’ll get an awe inspiring number of indie game developers to release short playable samples of their works in progress. I wrote here about how impressed I was with some of the VR games in the demo festival this past February. Another demo festival is here, and I’d like to point out some of the cooler VR games again.

Sentenced VR – Steam Store

Sentenced is maybe one of my favorite games to tell people about to pitch the idea of VR as a whole –  Play as a medieval executioner, look your convicts in the eye, and maybe feel guilty when carry out their sentence. The players control an Executioner in 15^th century Europe, probably wearing a big black hood and ready to chop things into the basket. But the game is more complicated than that – Our job is to follow orders from the town sheriff and listen to the cues of the prisoner for when to complete the execution.

There are a few things players can choose to do to change things up in the demo to change the ending. I won’t spoil them, but the demo’s ending statistic screen does reveal more when you finish the game. Sentenced VR’s developer, Samuel Gordon, has said there will be a good number of different scenes in the full game when it releases on June 25. I’m absolutely looking forward to seeing more people pick this one up.

Secret of Retropolis – Steam Store

Secret of Retropolis is a cute point and click adventure game from a VR point of view. It has a great parodied film noir presentation, with really cartoony art that is recognizable right away. The demo was almost insultingly short, but hey, all the best adventure games insult their players a little bit, so I don’t mind wishlisting this one.

AGAINST – Steam Store

AGAINST is a fairly typical VR rhythm game in the style of Beat Saber – which isn’t an insult, I can’t even imagine making a rhythm game outside the stereotypical style in VR for the next few years. What separates this one is that it has a really cool comic booky art style, and honestly the single level I’ve played was much better than anything I’ve done in Beat Saber. It feels more involved as the camera twists and your drumsticks (swords and guns and brass knuckles in this case) change themselves up every little bit. This diversity of movement added to the rapidly increasing tempo of the excellent soundtrack…AGAINST just felt good to play.

 I’d love to hear what anyone else has been playing on VR, or specifically in the latest Steam demo festival, VR or not. Reach me on Twitter!

Trailer Released for Upcoming Shooter ‘Skin Deep’ by Blendo Games

Skin Deep is an upcoming shooter from Blendo Games described as an “immersive first-person shooter” with an increasing amount of complexities. The player controls a human in charge of protecting seven astro-cats on their ship as they are invaded by space pirates.

The VR demos of Steam’s ‘Play What’s Next’ Festival 2021

I’ve been loving the Steam Demo festival, Play What’s Next! So far I have mostly checked out the upcoming VR games – here are my thoughts on some of them.

TossVR – we play as an acrobatic ape climbing through jungle gym playgrounds of increasing difficulties. I had a lot of fun trying to figure out the exact movements and speed and everything required to get through! Very satisfying when you get to punch the “I finished the level” button! It’s also super colorful and happy to look at, so the game really improved my spirits! Steam link

BoomBox – this is a rhythm game in the style of something like Beat Saber, but wow it’s so much nicer to look at! There were only two songs available in the demo, but the dev promises to have a LOT more with a bunch of environments to go through. In the level that was available, it’s like you’re jogging down a trail and the whole experience is just so dang smooth and chill. This might sound stubborn, but if the devs price this under Beat Saber’s $30, I’ll definitely be buying it for its full release this month! Hope others will too, because a lot of work clearly went into making this game so seamless and relaxing. Steam link.

Sword Reverie – A JRPG with anime style visuals and HUGE SWORDS? It was fun! I only did part of the demo, but it was mostly just following a path and talking to characters, then combat, and you rinse/repeat. I think the devs have bigger plans than this though, based on the magic resource management system that’s in the game? Basically you have spells you can cast depending on how you wave your HUGE SWORDS and which element they have equipped. It felt so dang good Fus-Roh-Dah’ing badguys across whole dang battlefields with an arm swing, since all the enemies have ragdoll physics. Steam link.

I’ll be playing more demos on Steam, until the Play What’s Next festival ends on February 9th. Be sure to follow along on this blog, Instagram, and Twitter for all the cool stuffs.

‘General Horse and the Package of Doom’ Looks Like the Ridiculous FMV Game I Really Need

General Horse and the Package of Doom is a game coming soon to Steam that I am super excited for. I am seriously expecting myself to be talking about this game for months among friends and colleagues, if it delivers on the promises the developers are making in this insane trailer.

‘General Horse and the Package of Doom’ is a Bizarre Upcoming Adventure

Croatian based game developer Studio Spektar seem to be making a name for themselves in the indie adventure scene with a unique sense of humor that toes the line between bizarre and rude. First they earned my seal of approval over at IndieGamerTeam with their cartoonish “Viktor, a Steampunk Adventure“, and now have piqued my interest with the recently posted trailer for their next game, General Horse and the Package of Doom.

The trailer embedded above shows us that General Horse is a 90s styled FMV adventure game. But after watching through the scenes a few times, I now understand that the game is intended to be an Oregon Trail styled experience, complete with resource management and some roleplaying elements.

I worry that a lot of people will dismiss General Horse and the Package of Doom because the props and scenery look like they were quickly assembled from random junk laying around the house. The thing to remember is Viktor Steampunk Adventure also had a simple art design, one reminiscent of a cheaply made animation series for young children. But here’s the thing – it managed to be both consistent in style and keep surprising me as I played through it. So maybe they know what they’re doing?

 

While the trailer comes off as an abrasively silly homemade video, I am excited to see just how well Studio Spektar pull off their sense of humor in this sci-fi roadtrip adventure. The devs will be launching an IndieGoGo within the week that interested readers can look out for on this page or through Studio Spektar’s Twitter.

Update: Studio Spektar has launched their IndieGoGo for General Horse and the Package of Doom on this page. They are attempting to raise $3000 USD within the next month to help fund their game development.

Sam Adonis is a writer who feels very passionately about point and click adventures and Teddy Roosevelt. He’d love to hear your thoughts on this article on Twitter!