Recent reviews by BohoLibra🌿

Find Your Words is a heartwarming little day-at-camp adventure in the spirit of A Short Hike!

You begin by selecting one of several children you’d like to play, and then go about meeting your fellow campers. Naya and Tai were my favorites. :) Each camper has a favorite hobby, and you—as a non-speaking camper—use your communication binder of symbols (which you build over the course of the game) to get to know each camper and help them with their projects. Birdwatching was my favorite! Though finding one of those birds proved to be pretty tricky, as I found myself running multiple figure-eight loops around the island’s trails in search of that elusive little guy!

The game vibes are so wholesome and kind. The focus is on acceptance and inclusion. This is emblematic of the developers: two dads who created this game in honor of their own non-speaking children, and generously decided to make their game free for everyone to enjoy and become educated on AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication).

Find Your Words will take you about an hour to an hour-and-a-half to play through, depending on how much time you spend meandering around the island, snapping screenshots of the scenic views (like I did). :) Achievements are directly tied to the requisite activities, and mostly unmissable, save for a couple. But, there’s an achievements guide available on Steam should you need it, and even after you roll credits, you can pop back into the game, pick up where you left off, and knock out anything you may have missed.

A bonus feature: this game functions flawlessly on a handheld. I played on a Lenovo Legion Go with SteamOS (operates nearly identically to my Deck), and when I went into the settings, I was impressed to find that the developers had already thought to create a graphics setting specifically for Deck, to which my device defaulted.

I ran into just a single type of bug that presented itself a few times, in the form of becoming sort of “stuck” in a screen with a character following quest-completion cutscenes. It wasn’t a big deal, as I just went into the menu, exited to the title screen, and then re-entered the game. I didn’t lose any progress, so it was the most trivial of inconveniences, and who knows, maybe related to my device.

For many reasons (the game’s quality, the delightful time I had, the developers’ generosity, and the educational good cause), I will immediately download//purchase any future games that these guys release!

I highly recommend this to everyone in need of a warm hug in the form of a video game, to remind you of childhood fun, and the value of taking the time to slow down and meet people where they are.

I am enjoying Animalkind! I’ve played either 1.5 or 2.5hrs; can’t tell which since Steam is saying two different things depending upon where I look. Regardless, I could tell right away that—despite my skepticism and willingness to refund the game when I purchased it—this is the sort of game that I needed in this moment.

I’ve had a particularly busy couple of weeks, with no time for gaming in the last ten days. I was hoping for a “soft landing” sort of game, and Animakind is very much that.

Let me say, I can completely understand some of the early concerns I’ve seen expressed by others, that the world feels somewhat sprawling yet a little empty so far. I think that I was less disappointed by this fact, precisely because of those very honest reviews. That’s why it saddens me to see such reviews attacked by people who love this game, because this is the sort of honesty that newcomers NEED when purchasing an early access game that’s being produced by a very small developer, so that we can go into the game with reasonable expectations. Because I had the opportunity to adjust my expectations before purchasing and playing, I wound up pleasantly surprised.

I will say here that I have been lurking in the Animalkind Discord server for a little while and have seen nothing but kindness from the developer. Both there and also here on Steam, in their news posts, responses to discussion board questions, and in their game patches, which have been pretty speedy and responsive to feedback.

On to the game itself!

While there are only three animals from which to choose, you have a great variety of color patterns for each, and the developer has gone as far as to name many of the colorways something cute. For example, this is may be the only time that I’ve ever seen an option for BOTH a black cat AND a void cat!! So of course I chose the void, in honor of my Fuzzy Wuzzy here at our wildlife sanctuary. :)

The dialogue is immediately so charming and has made me giggle numerous times. There are tongue-and-cheek references to cat habits (I’ve only played as the cat so far, though *you can freely swap among the three animal types,* and also freely change your colorway!), such as sits-and-fits, floofs, and zoomies. Yes, you can run zoomies. :D

There are so far only two other animal inhabitants on the main island, a squirrel and an owl, but the owl just referenced someone else to me before I exited the game to write this review, so I suspect//hope that this is indeed a nod to future characters. Both the squirrel and the owl are absolutely adorable, and their locations are always marked on the in-game map. The squirrel is my favorite. The dev has, in my opinion, done a great job of injecting some species-specific endearing quirks into each animal so far. The portal with which you interact is also “sentient” and silly.

Speaking of maps, I spent a chunk of my time exploring the little island. I made it to the very top of the mountain, which I recommend doing for the views! There is a small cave system in the island as well. The size of the island felt a tad reminiscent of A Short Hike. The latter feels larger, probably because it’s more densely packed with NPCs and surprises. Animalkind’s island is sparse, but it’s a really pleasant and relaxing place to be, which is again what I sometimes want: just something mindless to wander off to collect some resources.

EDIT: I have just discovered a SECOND island! It has a very different feel compared to the first island, so there’s more to explore than I initially thought when I wrote my review. The second island also appears in need of repairs, so more things here to craft, outside of decor. I also see in-game plans for a third island, it appears.

Speaking of gameplay, it seems to be fetch-quest and resource-gathering oriented right now. So much so that I think this game would be delightful for young children. I don’t believe in gatekeeping games by age, and so if you’re a fully adult person like me, and enjoy really simple tasks for the purpose of relaxation, go for it! I just mention this to say that I do wonder if the simplicity of this game could be an intentional design, perhaps targeting accessibility for younger players.

So far I have set up my tent, crafted several tools (axe, pickaxe, watering can, and fishing pole), crafted several pieces of decor, and have just unlocked round two of decor options, of which there were more than I expected (go snoop my profile for screenshots of Animalkind). I’ve gone fishing, and it’s probably my favorite fishing mechanic that I’ve played in a game like this. It’s intuitive, and not at all frustrating, which is not usually my experience with fishing games, for whatever embarrassing reason! I’ve also cooked some dishes, but I have not yet unlocked gardening (I think the squirrel offered me something up that alley, so I’ll need to revisit the squirrel so that I’ll have something to do with my watering can). EDIT: Still unsure where to start gardening, but I know it exists based on pretty Discord screenshots. :)

There’s plenty of decorating to do. Lots of indoor pieces to craft (I’m assuming I’ll eventually own something bigger than a tent lol), as well as outdoor. I’ve seen really impressive designs for Animal-Crossing-inspired outdoor areas that people have created on Discord.

I get a sense that there’s probably an initial 3-4 hours or so of gameplay where you’ll stay rather busy learning new things, and then that will taper off while we await the dev to add more to the game. I could see this being sort of like Cozy Grove, at least for now, in terms of logging in for maybe 20 minutes or so at a time each day to gather resources to complete your crafting catalogue, and await the unrolling of new quests and animal inhabitants. If you’re into designing outdoor spaces, there’s plenty of room to do that all over the (so far) two islands, and so you’d have more opportunity even in this beginning phase of early access to squeeze more hours out of the game each day.

The music is pleasant enough, but does tend to become repetitive as of this stage in early access. That’s not a big deal to me, though, as this is the sort of game perfect for just zoning out while watching a movie or listening to an audiobook, and thus turning down the music volume.

I’ve been playing on a handheld (Lenovo Legion Go with SteamOS, which controls nearly identically to my Deck), and it’s a pretty smooth experience. The buttons are all mapped on screen, which I greatly appreciate. Note that it appears that it’s an always-online game though. At one point I disconnected and the screen went black. The game returned to the title screen. When I spawned back into the game, I was in my tent, in the mech suit. I was thus stuck, as the mech suit was too big to exit the tent lol. But there is an “I’m stuck!” button in the menu options, so I selected that and POOF, I was back outside of the tent.

This game is definitely a keeper for me. I have high hopes for more animal inhabitants, more playable animals, more islands, and lots of interesting quests to unfold the lore of this little island blissfully void of humans. I see that earlier this evening, the developer responded to a question in the discussion board here on Steam about the roadmap, and promised to publish that soon!

For now, I recommend this for anyone who enjoys a cozy game that doesn’t require any planning. The resource-spawning is even so generous that you won’t have to wait long at all for bushes to regrow berries, plants to sprout fiber, or those mechanical boxes to mysteriously dot the landscape. So even gathering sufficient materials for crafting is completely frustration-free. I think this is just a gentle space right now, and ripe for planting what will hopefully be a lot of fun ideas from this developer throughout early access! <3

Incredibly narrow review, mainly for the purposes of (1) sharing my settings for playing on the Lenovo Legion Go (SteamOS) with the Z1 Extreme chip; and (2) *super early* gameplay first impressions.

(1) GRAPHICS SETTINGS: This is *specifically* for the Lenovo Legion Go (SteamOS) with the Z1 Extreme chip. (See endnotes in this section regarding my predictive thoughts on Deck performance.) After a full hour of trial, error, and perfection to the best of my and my handheld device’s abilities, I’m very pleased with the graphics. I’ve uploaded two screenshots of my settings (go snoop my profile), as well as pretty gameplay screenshots, but I’ll summarize the settings here, because I write all of my reviews on my iPhone and can’t upload screenshots to my reviews here.

VIDEO
- Fullscreen
- 1920x1200 resolution
- AMD FSR Upscaling 3.1
- Quality upscale resolution
- AMD FSR Frame Generation on
- 2 frames generated
- Contrast 50
- V-Sync off

GRAPHICS
- Custom preset
- Everything medium, except …
—— Model Quality high
—— Textures Quality high
- Ray Tracing off
- Advanced Weather Effect off

This is the precise mixture of settings giving me rather reliably crisp visuals, and 45-50fps. I think the game looks quite stunning. I wasn’t sure if FPS felt “off” at first, but I think it’s because the main character has a generally slower movement speed than I’m used to (you can jog, but it’s still just a little slower than my typical ARPG), and also the effect of enabling FSR Frame Generation (which is 100% necessary in my opinion).

I will note that with these settings, the tutorial area of the game (without spoilers, I’ll say it’s a lot of beige stone) looked sort of muddy for some reason. But that area is brief, and then you’re dumped into the beautiful open world where these settings otherwise seem to offer a consistent balance of performance and quality.

Now, Deckers. I have a Steam Deck OLED. I have not installed Crimson Desert on my Deck (it’s a huge file; I’m not doing that twice). Based on my comparative experience with other graphically intensive games, such as Clair Obscure, I know the Z1 Extreme chip in my Legion Go is doing A LOT of heavy lifting in this game. *I cannot overstate this.* For instance, for Clair Obscur, I was using a mix of low-to-medium settings on my Deck, but was nearly maxed out on all high settings on my Legion Go. Therefore, here’s what I would expect of the Deck’s handling: You’ll probably need to drop the graphics down to a mixture of low. Maybe even with a few “minimums” thrown in with the “lows,” and perhaps it can handle a couple of “mediums” for things you really prioritize (for me that’s always textures and models). The not-so-great news is that I did try out minimum and low graphics settings on my Legion Go, and in my opinion, even with the upscaling it just looked incredibly muddy. That said, depending upon your personal standards (as a nearly exclusively handheld player, I understand being okay with lower graphics in exchange for the cozy convenience of bed-gaming), you may be fine with that. In many cases, this is a matter of “if you don’t know better,” then it’s playable.

I do think that you’ll need to prioritize FPS, though. I found for myself that—while I’m not usually the FPS police and am perfectly happy with 30fps—Crimson Desert has sooooo much movement at all times (it’s a very “windy” game and the world is “alive” with many NPCs and animals). Thus, it felt to me that 45fps should be your minimum goal for things to look natural.


(2) VERY EARLY First Impressions on Gameplay: As of the time of writing my review, the game now sits in the “mostly positive” rating, following a patch that addressed controls and inventory management (and yes, I did play with that patch installed). I do understand the hullabaloo surrounding the controls … to an extent. In my personal opinion, they’re simply a little nonconventional. Sprinting is done by holding down “A” for example, which I’m getting used to. There are variety of melee (and even ranged) attacks to learn, and most of them have felt a little unusual to me in terms of the button combos. I can’t quite place my proverbial finger on why. But, it’s not such a bizarre control scheme that it’s baffling or unduly challenging. The tutorial does a pretty good job of teaching. I don’t consider myself to be the greatest brawler (despite ARPGs being my favorite genre), and I’m doing perfectly fine so far. In my limited time, I have been able to button mash if I prefer, which I usually do, because exploration is my favorite part of RPGS.

And wow is exploration fun so far here. It’s giving me Breath of the Wild vibes. You seem to be able to climb anything, immediately. (I saw flying in trailers?!) I was scaling cliffsides and climbing onto rooftops like Spiderman, with a generous stamina system. This is my dream “See that mountain over there? Let’s go!” type of green grass game. Everywhere you step is a photographic moment. Vistas around every bend. The world feels richly alive. From the plethora of animals (I’ve befriended quite a few dogs already), to the delicate flowers littering the roadsides, to the vibrant NPCs, to the array of mountaintops and water features in the distance. It looks … endless.

I’ve not even “barely scratched the surface” of this game. I’ve just opened the door and taken a peek. The story is already gripping me, not pulling any punches. I think that this game is truly something special. You can feel that as soon as you enter the world (and particularly so once you exit that stone tutorial area).

I think that if you value exploration and a “lived-in” world, this is something you simply must try if you are able.


P.S. I know this isn’t much of a “review.” But, one of my favorite gaming-adjacent hobbies is sort of forcing these “impossible” games to run well on handhelds with only the available out-of-the-box settings (no Decky, for instance). Kind friends have told me that this is indeed helpful, so it’s become sort of a niche area of “review” for me, in addition to the first-impressions//barriers-to-entry reviews I also enjoy doing. :)

I had zero plans to play Lost Nova tonight, but between a dear friend expressing interest in what I’d think about it, and another trophy-hunter friend happening to be playing it when I logged into Steam, I decided to try it out. And here we are!! 6am, eight hours later, 100% achievements!! I had wayyy more fun than I even hoped to have. I got Lost Nova on sale for only $3, and I truly feel guilty for paying so little. So I’ve wishlisted the dev’s other games. :)

Things I LOVE:
+ beautiful cel-shaded pastel art direction
+ endearing dialogue (so many little lolz)
+ quirky NPCS and relatable female protag
+ five distinctive biomes to explore
+ steady, well-designed progression
+ very addictive cyber gun foraging mechanic
+ unlimited storage for your items
+ more things to do after completing story
+ really wholesome overarching message

Things to consider:
• jumping mechanic takes practice to master
• no quest list (though tasks don’t overwhelm)
• several achievements are VERY grindy

For the trophy-hunters out there, of which I am usually not one (but I loved this little world so much that I didn’t want to leave it): I relied on a guide that I found on Steam. One achievement in particular has a 1% spawn chance, and so I spent 15-20 minutes walking into and out of the spawn area over and over. >.< Another achievement requires an extraordinary amount of money. I earned it the “honest” way over the course of an hour or so, but I’ve seen that some people are simply modifying their save files to trigger the achievement. ;)

So, I think that I finished most of the true game content at about the 5-6 hour mark, and took an additional 2-3 hours grinding out a few achievements while concurrently watching a movie. :)

I played on a handheld (Lenovo Legion Go with SteamOS, which operates nearly identically to my Deck), and it was a flawless experience.

This is a very easy recommendation from me. It’s a STEAL at $3, given the charming characters, delightful art style, and addictive foraging mechanic. I’d happily have paid double or triple that sale price for Lost Nova.

For me, the ongoing little life-lesson behind one of the first achievements you will pop, “No Rush,” was more than worth the price of admission. <3

A *very narrowly-scoped* first impressions review here from the perspective of someone who (1) has never before played the MHS franchise, and (2) is playing on a handheld!

Side note that my playtime at the point of this review is a little inflated, as I left the game idling to do other things. I have closer to around three hours of actual playtime. I still feel like first impressions reviews can be worth it, because I like to address “barrier to entry” type concerns that I sometimes personally have with games.

(1) My first time playing a MHS game. —> Creature collectors are one of my favorite genres, especially with open or semi-open world exploration, and I adore Studio-Ghibli-adjacent cel-shaded art style. So this hits a sweet spot for me! Character creation is *chef’s kiss,* some of the most fun I’ve ever had creating myself in a game. :) The cutscenes are phenomenal, harkening back to the nostalgia of 90’s animation. The story is compelling for me. It’s dark, political, and weighty. There’s a focus on (and future game mechanic for) monstie habitat restoration, which I conceptually appreciate so very much. The world is humongous and so much fun to explore, with monstie mounts acting as sort of metroidvania “tools” for traversing air, water, and vertical surfaces. 84 monsties to collect!!! The battle mechanics are A LOT and thrown at you all at once in the first battle. It totally overwhelmed me!! I’m used to being drip-fed a turn-based system. I initially felt a bit discouraged and bewildered by this, but I found a Wiki (by Game8) that is exceptional and a perfect game companion. This is fine for me, as I rely on Wikis for even games like Disney Dreamlight Valley. :D I have completed a bunch of battles now, and am catching on with repetition, and also by slowing down and studying what is happening on screen in terms of icons, colors, and lines (I’m an ARPG girlie so turn-based is always a learning curve for me). Finally, there’s clearly an enormous amount of content, customization, and depth in this game, and I’ve read that finding and doing everything will take 100+hrs.

(2) I’m playing on a Lenovo Legion Go with SteamOS. —> Very importantly, my Legion is the Z1 Extreme chip model (which boasts a significant power boost over my OLED Deck). The game defaulted to all High graphics settings when I opened it, and it looks and runs phenomenally. The controls are super comfy. I get a little bit of asset load-in occasionally, which doesn’t bother me. There was one brief bug wherein my character customization screen freaked out, as if I had leaned on the trigger to tab to the next customization window. The tabs cycled rapidly for about three seconds, but resolved on their own (mentioning so that if this happens to you, you won’t be as aghast as I was, thinking I was about to lose everything lol). All this said, I strongly *suspect* that if you are on a Steam Deck, you will either want to drop your graphics settings to Medium, or do some sort of custom blend of settings, as I do think that my Legion’s Z1 Extreme chip is doing some heavy lifting here. (Ircha Gaming is my favorite YouTube reviews channel and she posted a glowing review which included her scrolling through her “perfected” settings for her Deck.)

MHS3 has a DAZZLING big budget feel. I preordered the eye-wateringly expensive Premium Deluxe edition with Christmas money, and I have no regrets. :) This edition came with ALL available DLC (and a future expansion), which was refreshing to not to be unpleasantly surprised with a bait-and-switch “but wait, there’s more!” money-grabbing extra set of cosmetic DLC at launch. If you’re into cosmetics, these feel really quality and worth it to me. The monster hairstyles are especially striking (you can indeed customize the hair colors with these too). The layered armor is so pretty, and color-combination customizable to nail your dream look; mine is a bohemian warrior princess vibe. (I write reviews on my phone and don’t know how to embed photos here, but I’ve uploaded a few screenshots, and my profile is public if you wish to snoop.) I mainly purchased the Premium Deluxe version for the future content expansion, so for me, the cosmetics are just a huge cherry on top.

An obvious recommendation if you’re a MHS fan or a veteran of turn-based games. A more cautious recommendation if you’re green at turn-based gaming, like me, as this system is much more complicated, in my opinion, than I felt learning something like Clair Obscure’s or Metaphor ReFantazio’s systems. I’d say the game is still recommended for you if you love this art style, value exploration and a compelling story, and have the patience to slow down and learn the mechanics with a practice-makes-perfect mindset. :)

A quick and early review here to say that if you’re playing on a handheld, this does not have controller support out of the box. BUT! (1) It does work with at least my mini trackpad on the Lenovo Legion Go, so if you’re on Deck, you may find the trackpads comfy enough. And (2) I have created my own controller layout that is very simple and intuitive, and working great (completed the first two puzzles). However you will need to go into the in-game settings and checkmark something about being able to move the map around (it’s unchecked by default). That will allow the left joystick that I mapped to pan around the drawings (especially useful if you’re zoomed in).

***I uploaded my layout to the Community layouts.*** It’s called something like BohoLibra’s Deck//LegionGo Layout for Controllers. You won’t have any trouble finding it.

As for the game itself: this is the pièce de résistance of hidden object games as far as I’m concerned. I’m convinced within the first half hour or so of gameplay. Absolutely outstanding artwork (reminiscent of a colorized Hidden-Folks meets old school Where’s Waldo books) and interactivity with objects. There’s a thoughtfully designed hint system, three difficulty levels (with different challenges, if I understand correctly), and dozens of hours of gameplay over what I think is about 84 levels. Lots of replay value!!! The dev says over 20 hours to complete the game, but that’s a minimum. I think I saw up to fifty hours if you were to do absolutely everything on offer here. There are sort of side-questy surprises to collect, which i won’t spoil. Suffice is to say, it’s stuffed to the brim with content and smiles.

Oodles of love and care went into this, it’s clear. In my brief time so far, I’d put this at the very top tier of Hidden Object Games, easily.

Apologies for the rather casual review; this is such a gem that my main goal was to get it working on a handheld and share that layout with everyone in my cozy gaming community, as I didn’t want that initial hurdle to prevent people from trying this out. :)

What a delightful little game full of lovable NPCs! I just hit 100% achievements, though I think I have a few more item stories remaining to uncover. [Edit: It wasn’t immediately obvious to me, but another 30-40 minutes or so and I reached the end cutscene and credits!] Piece by Piece is a game that you could play in either a lengthy (5-6hr) sitting, or break into little half-hour to hour-long bits while you listen to a podcast or watch something cozy, like Gilmore Girls. :)

This is mostly a shopkeeper game consisting of repairing broken objects in the form of 3D puzzles that you can spin around. The animal NPCs are charming and humorous, really well-written, and each object they bring for repair entails a small story as to the item’s significance. Some objects must also be scrubbed clean, and some also require paint jobs. You will also be able to unlock sales tables to paint blank objects. There’s some VERY LIGHT farming in the form of growing your own paint berries, and there is quite a bit of shop decor to unlock. There aren’t any time-limits, so there’s no need to rush around the store for fear of losing customers.

My only nitpicks would be that very rarely, a puzzle piece would be a bit difficult to properly fit. And also, the paints are a bit expensive to buy, given that they don’t last long (I was in the monetary hole on a few of my overzealous projects!). [EDIT: The devs have heard our cries! :D A recent patch purports to address the painting economics!] Regarding the painting, there is no wrong answer in this game, however. So you can splatter, dot, stripe, scribble, or fill as desired. There are even toggles for which zones to paint on each object, if you are a perfectionist.

Piece by Piece launched with a green Steam Deck Verified checkmark and it fully deserves that checkmark! Absolutely flawless controls and super cozy experience in handheld.

A really sweet game full of endearing characters, warm smiles, and even tidbits of life wisdom. An easy recommend if you enjoy relaxing games that feel thoughtfully crafted for a curated experience.

I only bought this for the achievement lettering that matches my galaxy theme, after an incredibly helpful friend recommended Zup! to me to enhance my Steam profile. :) So many beautiful neon colors within the cyan, yellow, orange, pink, and purple range! Some symbols are also included with the lettering.

However, I ended up having more fun doing a 100% completion of this than I had expected. There are sixty puzzles of escalating difficulty. Tap the red explosive squares in a particular order to guide the turquoise ball into the pool.

Bonus! Works perfectly on a handheld ***using touchscreen.*** I’m on a Lenovo Legion Go (SteamOS, controls nearly identically to my Steam Deck). I fiddled with the controller options and couldn’t get anything to function within the puzzles; the touchscreen was a great experience though!

Adorable little puzzley game, reminiscent of A Short Hike! I must agree with my dear friend who put this game on my radar: Flibbius’ run is a *chef’s kiss* design choice. :D

The island is full of cheeky NPCs who made me snicker over and over. The puzzles mostly consist of figuring out how locate a variety of items in order to craft clever solutions to problems dotted around the island. These solutions can take some trial-and-error tinkering, but there are generous hints provided within the quest log, should you wish to speed things up!

In the two hours or so of gameplay, achievements are easily obtained, *but see the very bottom of my review if you want a heads-up for the singular achievement that I missed* (but could pop on a second playthrough).

I played on a Lenovo Legion Go (SteamOS; controls nearly identically to my Steam Deck) and it’s flawless. I think the game should earn a green verified checkmark!

A lovely time, and well worth the small price for such a handcrafted experience full of smiles. :)

ACHIEVEMENTS TIP
*****************
The final achievement requires that you complete a playthrough *without using any hints.*

[Deck users: you should find this playable! BUT you must force use of a Proton because the game is currently set to run on Windows, which Deck doesn’t recognize. I used Proton Experimental. ALSO: See very end of review for what I think are ***extremely important tips*** for Bloomrise. I don’t consider these to be spoilers, but rather things that I think would make a new player’s time go more smoothly.]

An incredibly kind friend gifted me Bloomrise yesterday afternoon! <3 I sat down just to try out it at around 10pm last night. Now it’s 6am! >.< I have had a wonderful time, and it’s exceeded my expectations, both for the price point, and also for its history as a mobile game on Google Play.

I rarely complete games, but I actually 100% Bloomrise. I’ve earned 19/19 achievements, and I literally have nothing left to do in the game! A few of the achievements were quite grindy, and two are notoriously “impossible.” However, I figured out a workaround for those that I’ll share in my tips at the end of this review.

I think Bloomrise is a lovely miniature Stardew-lite. You have farming, fishing, mining, combat, crafting, quirky NPCs, and even metal detecting. I spent a lot of my time in the mines, engaging in combat. Combat is necessary if you want to complete all achievements.

Things I love:

- The NPCs are quite funny. A few lines here and there don’t make much sense in English, as this game’s first language appears to be Portuguese. But *nearly* all of it is properly translated, and I found myself laughing out loud a number of times. Note that you won’t be relationship-building or romancing anyone. These are bite-size interactions.

- The pixel art is outstanding. Note here that I HIGHLY RECOMMEND going into Settings and toggling the zoom all the way out. I think this makes the game look spectacular, with more of a hi-bit pixel art flair. If you prefer chunkier or medium pixel art, you can zoom in as far as you’d like, though. The map is quite large (though most of the town is centralized and surrounded by forest). The colors are so delightfully cozy and beautiful.

- The music is a nice complement. There don’t seem to be many tracks, but I noticed the music changing based on my location, to subtly set the mood. For instance, something lighthearted in town, but a little bit foreboding in the mines. After playing for 8hrs straight, I never found the music to become annoying. On the contrary, it is soft and pleasant.

- Once I got the hang of combat (and developed my strategy for making my mining runs overwhelmingly successful every single time… see my tips!), I really enjoyed the combat and found it rather easy to zone out and collect loot and experience points. There are a decent number of enemies.

- There’s a small skill tree you can level up as you increase your experience points, which helps greatly in combat.

- In-game stores are generous. The buyback price is the same as the purchase price. So no need to fear accidentally selling something low and having to repurchase it high.

- Lore books! The developer clearly has a great deal of passion for this game, as evidenced both in the handful of in-game books you can purchase and flip through, as well as the frequency with which they respond to players’ feedback on discussion boards or in reviews, from what I’ve seen.

- There are a few small surprises here and there that will make you smile, in terms of exploration and also some mechanics in the mine (if you spend enough time in the mines).

- Works on handheld!!! I’d put this into the “playable on deck” category. The controller mostly covers everything and some of it is clearly mapped. I did make use of the touch screen on a regular basis when organizing my inventory and doing other similar tasks. (Note that I can’t speak to how this handles with keyboard/mouse).

Things that I don’t mind, but that you may wish to know:

- There is no tutorial. I’ve seen some Google Play complaints about this. The dev has seemed to stand by their desire for players to interact with the game’s environment via trial and error and exploration to figure things out on their own. I respect this decision because I do appreciate the joy of discovery. However this could frustrate some people, so that’s why I’m leaving my list of tips at the end of this review!

- Outside of reading the lore, a broader story isn’t (yet!) woven much into gameplay. The game is more of a cozy vibe. :)

- I have a pile of what appear to be important keys, but I haven’t found anything to do with them (yet!).

- I’m sure it’s a bug that they can’t be sold at the General Store, but as of right now, pumpkins are only sellable at the Forge.

- There’s a pricing error with teleportation charms. They cost $250 to purchase, and while they say they also sell for $250, they actually only sell for $25.

- There’s a beautiful map, however NPC locations and houses are not labeled. Shops are easy to distinguish, and I rather easily learned the routines of most NPCs.

- There are some shuttered buildings, sort of dilapidated looking, spotting the map. These appear to me to be placeholders for future ideas from the developer. I rather like this, as it gives me the feel of the game still growing, just like the real-world feel of a small town.

- If you are into farming, you will find that farming is more incidental here. Placing plots is free-form, and thus sort of “messy” and imprecise (both for placement and also for getting the seeds to align properly). There are a number of recipes to cook, though, and it could be a fun source of income for you if you want to fiddle with the farming.

- If you’re an achievement-hunter, two achievements are notoriously difficult to obtain due to what appears to be extraordinarily low drop rates for turbix drinks, and moderately low drop rates for sushi. See WORKAROUND, below.

MY ESSENTIAL TIPS for those who are easily frustrated by lack of direction in-game:

- It appears that not all NPCs have quests for you. Those who do will require multiple conversations to trigger a quest.

- Don’t go straight to the mines/dungeons. Your dinky sword, dinky health, and dinky stamina are not enough. You will die over and over. Instead, an easy way to make money (if you aren’t into the joy of farming and cooking) is to hack through the grass all over the place. You can sell tons of grass for a pretty penny. Things regrow super fast.

- Sell grass at the little florist stand in town. When you have other things to sell, you’ll need to go to the proper shops that will buy those things.

- Unlike grass, DO NOT harvest crops with your sword! You’ll lose them. I think harvesting is currently the same button used for entering a building.

- Once you are rich, go to the Forge to buy and craft supplies. I crafted the very best sword before heading back to the mines; my time in combat was MUCH EASIER.

- Remember to level up in the skill tree. This is found by opening your inventory/backpack.

- You can store basic things in a chest inside of your house, as well as cooked meals inside of your refrigerator.

- You also have a crafting bench inside of your house. Check other buildings; you have specific crafting stations for things scattered in a few locations in town.

- WORKAROUND for Sushi and Turbix achievements! These only pop if you *collect* the sushi and turbix. So you have to grind out the rng in dungeons forever. OR! Go buy tons at the general store. That won’t trigger the achievements. But … Drop the piles of sushi and turbix on the ground and then pick them up! You’ll need to pick up lots of piles, as each pile only counts as one item. But it won’t take long. :)

Ping me with any questions about Bloomrise! I recommend this game for anyone who enjoys a simple take on Stardew-likes. The pixel art alone is worth the price of admission. I loved my time in Bloomrise. I’m leaving it installed in hopes that the dev is able to add some more fun things here and there. :)