The Alien Cube

Following "The Land of Pain", this game continues the same eerie world and atmosphere, building on it in all the right ways. The fact that this game was made by just one developer is pretty crazy. The visuals are beautiful, the atmosphere immersive, and it really feels like a passion project full of great Lovecraftian horror elements.

I liked the horror parts, they are not super intense, but they set a nice creepy mood. Most of the time is spent exploring the world, getting a few good scares, and trying not to accidentally walk off a cliff to your death, which I definitely came close to more than once.

There is plenty of walking and exploration, balanced with solid puzzles that are clever without being frustrating. It kept me engaged without ever feeling stuck.

A great pick for those who enjoy atmospheric exploration mixed with horror elements and cosmic mystery.

Well, its a walking simulator with lovecraftian themes, and there isnt that much to say about it other than; if that interests you, get it on sale.
It's short (sub 3 hours) but entertains you for an evening around halloween-times.
My enjoyment score for this one is 60%
There just isn't much to do other than walking and looking, theres like 1 puzzle.
I most probably wont play it again ever.

Well this was an interesting game! Great atmosphere, a few jumpscares, some gross goo and a bunch of dead people which kept it creepy. However, it has a few kinks in the game that make it awfully hard to play. Anytime I was near water (which is often) my frame rate would drop significantly to around 3-5 fps. It made the game slightly tedious to get through and I have excellent internet and a brand new 4070 nvidia chip so its not that. It literally only dropped in scenes near water (in caves, ponds, the river, a creek, a lake, etc.) and there there's a lot of water in the game. I noticed others mentioning their games would crash or stall randomly in the game so I wonder if its related to my experience. Rendering near water was just no bueno and I changed my graphics settings too. Besides that, there really isn't much to do beyond walking around though. No real puzzles or fight scenes or even talking to anyone really. Just reading journal notes, so that could be tedious for some as well. That said, I completed the entire thing and I didn't mind. I would play if you have patience to get through the frame drops.

A very nice game. Just like "The Land of Pain" and also playing in the same timeline. A bit short though and there is little to no explanation on what is going on. But since the game is connected to "The Land of Pain" I have some hope that the upcoming "Cosmic Fear" might shed some light into the dark.
Played the game entirely on Steam Deck and the experience was okayish. There where areas the game had a hard time to maintain at least 30fps. But it manageable imho. What bothered me a bit was the controller support which kinda is 99% there. You can play the whole game with ease no doubt but there are hard coded keyboards and mouse controls. Not sure why the compatibility notes so not mentioning it though. With some trial and error some will eventually find out how to navigate the journal, to exit the game without force quitting it via the overlay or how to apply any game settings. Hint: it's "X", "B" for the journal and "A" for applying options and "B" in the main menu to quit the game.
Anyway looking forward to the 3rd part of the series.

Pretty good lovecraftian walking simulator with some survival elements. The gameplay is nothing special (take item x, go to place y to use it and the occasional running away from undescribable horrors etc.) but the graphics and atmosphere are pretty good. The puzzles are fairly simple throughout. The only thing that slightly bothered me is the fact that the player character ist a complete moron who seeks out the most dangerous situations, including immediately activating every sinister looking strange contraption he encounters without having a clue of the consequences. But I guess that is a classic type of protagonist for a cosmic horror story.
Anyway, I felt very entertained the whole game through.

Sometime the steam ratings system doesn't really work out.
Do I like this game? Absolutely!
Is there any jankiness? Yeah, here and there. A few rough edges, especially when it comes to menu navigation with a controller, and a little with the occational platform elements.
But it saves, it has checkpoints, and a solid idea that drives the story and good ways of portraying things even if they sometimes fall flat in the telling.

The problem is, not matter how much I like this game and rate it highly I don't really think I could recomend it to a friend. Thats not to say I wouldn't tell them about it but it lacks a certain polish that makes a good game, truly great. Its a rough gem. I can't recommend it as such as the jank and walking sim heavy style is love or hate.
But I love it.

Warning : The main character is so dumb and / or suicidal that you might end up humming "Dare to be Stupid" through the first 5 chapters.
With this said though... you'll probably be humming it to steel yourself as you enter one of the most effective short horror piece I ever played.

Even on low the cry engine photogrametric and real time lighting are amazing!!! If your GPU is under the specs, still give it a try, you might be surprised how well it run up to "High".

The downsides? The game is way too short, and very linear... which means you will get about no replayability from this. Not even to fetch the missing secrets, as trying to load by chapter erase your secret progression... and doing it with a guide would ruin it. While incredibly beautiful, and trying to keep your eyes in the right direction in the critical moments... you will miss some of the things the protagonist sees. Also, if you want to feel less alone and actually get a good look at the enemies, you'll have to let yourself be killed... because they are mercyless.

I wished the ending wasn't such a handwave...
But since I got this under 10 bucks and had a solid heart pumping 8 hours of awesome out of it, I'm not complaining. In fact, I strongly encourage you to try it. Just don't expect any epiphany from the "mystery" here.