Recent reviews by Minzoku Bokumetsu

Well... UNLIKE the other MacVenture games on Steam, this one is playable! At least, I was able to follow a walkthrough and finish the game this time! *cough*Shadowgate*cough*

Beautifully animated murder mystery, perhaps on the "easy" side as you can effectively brute-force your way through the deductions by trying everything (although, I didn't actually deduce who did it--the murderer just shows up after figuring out HOW it was done). The "locked item" puzzles are the most challenging part of the game, because you have to solve the puzzle, THEN "submit" the puzzle to check if it's the correct solution. I especially enjoy the interview portions and watching the characters interact with each other. Grimoire and Sally have such fun banter, too =)

This is a fantastic point-and-click adventure with a spooky atmosphere, and one of the very few games I've been able to clear without looking up any cheats! (came close, but had an "A-ha!" moment just short of looking for hints! ...achievements are a different matter, to be fair). The full-screen animations are gorgeous, and the voice acting is top-notch! Literally about the one negative about the game is the ending is practically announced by Thomasina over the course of her monologues, such that the twist is not really a surprise, but in my opinion, Herbert alone is worth the cost of entry =D

How do you leave a review for a game that doesn't exist? And for free?

THERE IS NO REVIEW

(but check it out anyway lol)

Reviewing even though at current only 8 of 6 cases (2 bonus) are available:

Fantastic sequel to The Darkside Detective, which I highly recommend playing if you haven't already, as there are a lot of references to it in A Fumble in the Dark. Much of the same humour from the first game is reflected in this installment, although I did get stuck in a few places where, for instance, it wasn't clear there were additional exits in a room. Most of the puzzles are definitely fair, or at least fair in the sense that ok, yes, it's moon logic, but it's also moon logic repeatedly spelled out by the characters if you talk to them again. (Cute referencing both This is Spinal Tap and Stranger Things in the same line of dialogue!) There's also a fun time-travel section, which is a rare thing to do well, and something I'd like to see more games try in the future! (pun not intended)

Again, caveat that the binary nature of Steam's reviews means a "YEAH!!!" review is weighted the same as a "ok sure" while "meh" is the same as "ABSOLUTELY NOT": I think it's worth playing, but the game as currently runs doesn't make replays terribly easy.

The good:
+ super realistic visual novel, essentially a choose-your-own-adventure movie
+ interesting tutorial guides
+ great story
+ more or less believable models (Jacob and Nick kinda creep toward Uncanny Valley tho)
+ accessibility options for colourblindness and automatic aiming/clearing QTEs
+ Movie Mode if you aren't actually interested in playing
+ some of the terrible dialogue is actually endearing in a cornball way ("Son of a... binky bonky")

The meh:
- unskippable cutscenes
- 90% of the game is cutscenes
- basically only one save state per game (chapter select available after finishing a game, but currently only allows one chapter reversion, meaning the game only goes forward from that chapter)
- getting 100% achievements will take at least two full replays (one took me ~10 hours)
- exploration areas confusing to navigate, especially when the POV switches between free roaming and fixed camera
- key points where the story automatically advances, even if you haven't quite finished exploring
- water effects (splashing) look strange and break immersion
- The Monkees are now an irritating earworm
- after New Game+, main menu always, always ALWAYS, prompts to turn on the extra lives option, even if it's already on
- never found out the most important thing: who REALLY got the POP POP PEANUT BUTTER BUTTERPOPS

Basically if you like visual novels/Telltale Games and/or horror, this is for you! If you like games to have more interaction than a few decision points and QTEs, maybe pass.

Tl;dr: I enjoyed it, hence the recommend. YMMV

DEALBREAKERS:
- Terrible if you are any amount of colourblind: Yes, the bubbles have textures, but they are nigh-indistinguishable at advanced level of play, or in a pinch. I don't understand why more plain textures, or even just solid white and black, are not used. Maybe there's a community mod to help fix this, but I didn't look, and at any rate it's not something the players should have to fix. All colour-based puzzle games should be tested on a monochrome display for accessibility, no exceptions.
- Match 3(+): Like pretty much all of these type of games, the fatal flaw is that matches generally require the same match in order to clear any specific piece; i.e., red must be cleared with red, green must be cleared with green, etc. The only exceptions are when a gimmick such as a "wild" piece that matches everything or a "bomb" that clears all of any type comes into play.* This is terrible when you need one colour but it never comes up in the launcher.
- Glitches: The bubbles in this game do not "snap" to a preset grid like in Puzzle Bobble or clones of such. This means there are times when it may look like a bubble touches a matching group, but it doesn't clear, because it's the slightest bit away.** Also, the bubbles will randomly spin in place for some reason, which causes them to "shudder" sometimes. (Actually, this can cause a hilarious glitch if enough are shuddering in the same place at once, where they spontaneously clear the entire board.)

Now the reasons I recommend playing this (unless you literally can't, because colourblind):
+ I legitimately enjoyed playing the game.

To really explain my reasoning, understand first that I didn't think much of the game when I started: it looks like a Puzzle Bobble clone made in Unity as an experiment or test. The main difference besides the 3D factor is the bubble launcher is always facing directly upwards: the playing field rotates instead. Even though I found myself motion-sick at first, I quickly adjusted to it and actually now find it easier to play than Puzzle Bobble, especially since 1. the launcher always provides a helpful guide showing where the next bubble will launch, and 2. the launcher shows what colour the active bubble is (although, again, this is useless if you have any degree of colourblindness, especially since "orange" looks brown and teal is really too close to green, etc.).

I don't want to get into what other people have said that much, since I prefer to write my reviews solely from my own experiences, but I did note that other reviews have called the game boring (admittedly, there's not much difference other than difficulty and number of colours unlocked) and complain that the music is the same for every stage. I actually enjoy the repetition (and I don't listen to the music, just the sound effects). It's kind of like playing Tetris in that respect: I don't play for the music or sound. I just find it satisfying being able to clear all the bubbles.

Strategy: (because I don't like the game THAT much to sit and write out a proper guide, but I want these noted SOMEWHERE)
+ get Bomb and Energy upgrades ASAP, max them out as soon as possible (starting with full energy is almost VITAL for the later stages)
+ wild is OKAY early on, but I didn't use it at all in the higher levels
+ absolutely play around with the upgrade tree if you want; if you can't figure out how to make Rocket work (I sure didn't), reclaim the upgrade points and put it in something better
+ also try to use as many upgrade points as you can; if you can't afford to upgrade what you want, upgrade something else, then reclaim the points once you have enough for the better thing
- I saw folks recommending Shield... if you're to the point you're losing bubbles off the edge, just make better use of Bomb, and earlier

* and ** The exception to the bits mentioned above, this game has a fun(?) side effect, where if the bubbles aren't quite touching, or are swinging(!!) almost but not quite enough to touch a matching group, you actually CAN use a different colour to push the bubble group together to clear it. I actually found this quite a fun diversion from the "normal" (Puzzle Bobble) way that for the most part I forgave this "glitch."

Cute adventure game (not really Point and Click so much as Look and Interact), doesn't take too long to play. Obviously only a part one, but worth it for the price! (assuming the rest of the installments are released, of course, don't want a repeat of other games that failed to finish the story)

Pretty good for the low, low cost of free!

Downsides:
- a bit rough overall
- interface is clunky (press F5 for the menu!)
- rather tedious going in between different areas, especially ones that are far apart
- music and FX are fine but after a while sort of get tiring
- some puzzles are a bit obtuse and may require a walkthrough
- I sequence-broke a section where I got a glass w/o needing to distract the guy
- Robert suggests I need to open two doors that I didn't open after all (unless they're other entrances to the final room that Robert can't access)

Positives:
+ free!
+ decent story
+ likeable characters
+ well-animated
+ did I mention free?

Worth a few hours of your time, for sure! More than that might be frustrating (hence the aforementioned walkthrough).

I mean, idk, the Steam binary option means I either give an ok game a glowing review or a scathing dump... or no review at all, and I have opinions!

On the whole, I would recommend more than not. Gomo is a cute (if excessively) animated game, in that there's very little interactive content but loads of what amount to cutscenes. At least one is completely unnecessary, as all Gomo does is ride up an elevator from the prior screen, get stuck for a minute as some things happen in the foreground, then continue once the cutscene ends. Zero interactivity, zero contribution to the plot.

Also, don't expect much from the plot. The entire world is built and exists solely for Gomo to walk through it exactly once. There is no logic to how the world is laid out, and barely any interactivity to it despite the sheer volume of moving parts (see aforementioned cutscene).

I mean, it's cute, and if you don't pay too much for it, it's worth going through once to see. Only a few parts where it's easy to get stuck because the instructions and/or goals aren't clear. About the main thing I don't like is the limitedness of the game itself makes it feel very slow despite its length. Probably will forget about it in a week, too, haha, the only reason I remembered I even had it was I got a booster pack drop ¯\_(ツ)_/¯