Castle Quake

I was unable to beat this game on account of a lack of friends and the fact that MacBooks do not have a right CTRL key.

Nah, I'm just kidding, I'm a fuckin gamer who can remap keys and I don't need no friends. All it took was a bit of sick gamer skills and entirely neglecting the right half of the screen.

Visually the game is truly photorealistic, because it appears to be made out of photographs. While this alone is cool the subtle flickering of the candles provide a slight dynamic feeling to an otherwise still scene. My main gripe with the game graphically is the lack of visual communication of the game state to the players, however it can definitely be argued that this decision is intentional. For example, it is not possible to immediately interpret what material is required to fix a room (this could for example be done by altering the textures of the cracks depending on the required material using colors that are immediately recognizable in the peripheral vision), however the fact that this is not immediately obvious further increases the amount of required communication between me and my hypothetical friends, which definitely increases the fun factor. The same thing goes for the number of remaining uses of a material, however I'd argue this applies to a significantly lesser degree.

In terms of audio the serene music is very nice and calming and the victory fanfare is fun with a fun little flare at the end. The instrument choice also makes it feel unique compared to the usual bombastic arrangement of horns you may usually hear in a piece used in this type of context. I haven't heard the game over music because I'm a fuckin pro gamer and I don't lose, so I can't comment on that, but unfortunately the music that plays throughout most of the game is relatively subpar compared to the other musical arrangements.

The main game music actually sounds really good if you listen to it with your headphones placed on a table about 2 feet from your head. This is because it renders the bass inaudible, and the percussion instruments and the harpsichord melody are very competently put together to create a feeling of stress and tension. Placing your headphones at a distance also makes it less obvious that the song is just 4 bars long and doesn't loop properly. If the instrument choice of the bass had been something other than a thin, stuttery sequence of 16th notes playing over and over this song would have been really good. I assume this choice was deliberately made to increase the feeling of stress in the players, but Hannes, bro, have some confidence in your melody writing. The song is already tense af even without the bass.

For a second I decided to put my gamer prowess aside to intentionally lose and hear the game over music. It may actually be the best track in the game. Very devastating and atmospheric feeling that truly captures what it's like to get trapped in a basement (speaking from experience).

Uh, anyway the game is fun, even without friends, and I imagine it would be even more fun when you have to hectically communicate with another human being (if you're into that kinda stuff and don't automatically start crying because it brings back bad childhood memories).

Uhhhh, the game is fun! I liked the game! But you should make it playable on Mac without needing to remap the keyboard. Oh, and also you can just beat the game by alt-tabbing and waiting 3 minutes. Oh, and also sometimes the music seems to loop even before it's done I think.

Mmm, yes I think that's it!

That's all I have to say!