I don't play or review early access games, plenty of supposedly finished ones (often in early access state still), but when they undoubtedly get abandoned for whatever reason, might as well see what's what, as that's most likely as good as they'll ever get.

since I liked the dev's first game, magicolors , despite its flaws, I picked this up as soon as it came out in november 2020, with the estimate of 60-120 days spent in early access. it received ZERO updates in 2 years and the developers have moved on without explaining the situation. they even had mens sana , developer of pretty good casual puzzle games, on board, so it's an even bigger disappointment. they said it was a financial decision, which I'm sure is true and very sad, but none of the player's concern.

it's a sci-fi puzzler, 12 levels unlocked one by one on a single planet (they were going for 30-36 and more locations in the finished game), and all you do is give the robot instructions to reach the exit. it's basically a simple programming game for dum-dums like me. simple doesn't mean easy though, especially with controls like this.

it's completely mouse-driven, no hotkeys at all. the camera can be manipulated with arrows on the dashboard or by holding right click, mouse wheel zooms, hold it to pan and there's isometric, 1st-person and 3rd-person view. some levels have multiple floors with no way of hiding the top layer and walls or making them transparent , and fighting with the camera to see what's where and how is tedious. it was a thing in magicolors , congrats on the step back.

click a tile to assign a command to it, left click rotates, right click removes the command, which can be a direction, jump, interact or push (placing a command under a box, so the robot can move on after dealing with it, can also be problematic). use tools if necessary (laser and two others later), then hit the play button to see what you've done. no pausing, movement is slow and there are all sorts of transition animations everywhere wasting even more time.

levels aren't timed, but you can only use a limited number of commands and the robot has limited energy to execute them (one bar per command, not sure why a separate energy meter was necessary). charge stations replenish resources and act as checkpoints, so failing doesn't necessarily put you back to the start of the level and placed commands remain intact as well. except every fucking time you hit a roadblock, the robot starts talking and only after that can you reset . or just close the dialog window to shut it up, but it shouldn't even come up after the first couple of times.

I love voxels, but the game is ugly and half the levels are really dark . the music is okay but text display is the annoying typewriter variety , can't be made to appear all at once, and of course there are bleeps and bloops because it's a robot talking.

settings, also available while playing a level, include separate volume settings for the incredibly loud music and sf

SMIB: Mission Cure is a somewhat badly made abandoned Early Access 3D/iso looking adventure game from the notorious asset flippers at Mens Sana Interactive, publishing as "Visual Arts Studio" to hide their identity (but they goofed and left their name in the game credits... without crediting any of the Unity assets they ripped off from real game developers, tsk tsk). It's a poorly made mobile app tier Sokoban like puzzle game with bad graphics... let's face it, this was never a serious attempt at making a game, it's just shovelware cash grab stuff.

The game was abandoned roughly tree days after launch and hasn't been updated in over two years. It blew past the developers commitment to complete the game, and will almost certainly never be finished. The developers just leave this on Steam in the hopes they can scam someone into buying an unfinished product. Sounds harsh? These guys have history:

Mens Sana Interactive are known asset flippers and have previously taken other developers work and put it on Steam in an attempt to scam gamers and get paid for someone else's effort. Mens Sana Interactive have shown a repeated pattern of trying to scam gamers, here are some examples of other asset flip scams they've pulled, all reskins of the Puzzle Creator Kit from Allebi (Mens Sana have never credited Allebi from having written the game they keep reskinning):

" Magic Lessons in Wand Valley " = Jigsaw Puzzle Creator Kit
" My Little Prince - a jigsaw puzzle tale " = Jigsaw Puzzle Creator Kit
" Lucky and a Life Worth Living " = Jigsaw Puzzle Creator Kit
" How Buddy’s parents met - a jigsaw puzzle tale " = Jigsaw Puzzle Creator Kit
" Alice in Wonderland " = Jigsaw Puzzle Creator Kit

From a technical perspective, if you were to take this abandoned shovelware seriously, the game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard.

There's no options to change the resolution for the game or customise the graphics settings. There's no way for gamers to ensure this is running at the native resolution of their displays... there's no guarantee this game will look right on any PC as a result of this hamfisted design decision. There's no way for gamers to try improve the low quality graphics.

The game features lazy low-polygon voxel "Minecraft"-like "art", making this look like a barely functional 3D game from the 1990s. A lot of amateur developers see Minecraft's success and assume it's because it looks bad, not because it had unique and appealing game mechanics, and they try to emulate the success without understanding it. It also happens to be easy, and doesn't need any proper talent in terms of game development/graphic artists etc. That's why reviewers are faced with so many of these terrible games with confrontingly bad graphics. Developers must learn that Minecraft succeeded despite the bad graphics, not because of them.

The controls can't be customised, which will be an annoyance for many, but it can also render the ga

I have a personal policy of never buying Early Access games.

This one makes me feel I should stick to that policy no matter what.

I have a personal policy of never buying Early Access games.

This one makes me feel I should stick to that policy no matter what.

I don't play or review early access games, plenty of supposedly finished ones (often in early access state still), but when they undoubtedly get abandoned for whatever reason, might as well see what's what, as that's most likely as good as they'll ever get.

since I liked the dev's first game, magicolors , despite its flaws, I picked this up as soon as it came out in november 2020, with the estimate of 60-120 days spent in early access. it received ZERO updates in 2 years and the developers have moved on without explaining the situation. they even had mens sana , developer of pretty good casual puzzle games, on board, so it's an even bigger disappointment. they said it was a financial decision, which I'm sure is true and very sad, but none of the player's concern.

it's a sci-fi puzzler, 12 levels unlocked one by one on a single planet (they were going for 30-36 and more locations in the finished game), and all you do is give the robot instructions to reach the exit. it's basically a simple programming game for dum-dums like me. simple doesn't mean easy though, especially with controls like this.

it's completely mouse-driven, no hotkeys at all. the camera can be manipulated with arrows on the dashboard or by holding right click, mouse wheel zooms, hold it to pan and there's isometric, 1st-person and 3rd-person view. some levels have multiple floors with no way of hiding the top layer and walls or making them transparent , and fighting with the camera to see what's where and how is tedious. it was a thing in magicolors , congrats on the step back.

click a tile to assign a command to it, left click rotates, right click removes the command, which can be a direction, jump, interact or push (placing a command under a box, so the robot can move on after dealing with it, can also be problematic). use tools if necessary (laser and two others later), then hit the play button to see what you've done. no pausing, movement is slow and there are all sorts of transition animations everywhere wasting even more time.

levels aren't timed, but you can only use a limited number of commands and the robot has limited energy to execute them (one bar per command, not sure why a separate energy meter was necessary). charge stations replenish resources and act as checkpoints, so failing doesn't necessarily put you back to the start of the level and placed commands remain intact as well. except every fucking time you hit a roadblock, the robot starts talking and only after that can you reset . or just close the dialog window to shut it up, but it shouldn't even come up after the first couple of times.

I love voxels, but the game is ugly and half the levels are really dark . the music is okay but text display is the annoying typewriter variety , can't be made to appear all at once, and of course there are bleeps and bloops because it's a robot talking.

settings, also available while playing a level, include separate volume settings for the incredibly loud music and sf

SMIB: Mission Cure is a somewhat badly made abandoned Early Access 3D/iso looking adventure game from the notorious asset flippers at Mens Sana Interactive, publishing as "Visual Arts Studio" to hide their identity (but they goofed and left their name in the game credits... without crediting any of the Unity assets they ripped off from real game developers, tsk tsk). It's a poorly made mobile app tier Sokoban like puzzle game with bad graphics... let's face it, this was never a serious attempt at making a game, it's just shovelware cash grab stuff.

The game was abandoned roughly tree days after launch and hasn't been updated in over two years. It blew past the developers commitment to complete the game, and will almost certainly never be finished. The developers just leave this on Steam in the hopes they can scam someone into buying an unfinished product. Sounds harsh? These guys have history:

Mens Sana Interactive are known asset flippers and have previously taken other developers work and put it on Steam in an attempt to scam gamers and get paid for someone else's effort. Mens Sana Interactive have shown a repeated pattern of trying to scam gamers, here are some examples of other asset flip scams they've pulled, all reskins of the Puzzle Creator Kit from Allebi (Mens Sana have never credited Allebi from having written the game they keep reskinning):

" Magic Lessons in Wand Valley " = Jigsaw Puzzle Creator Kit
" My Little Prince - a jigsaw puzzle tale " = Jigsaw Puzzle Creator Kit
" Lucky and a Life Worth Living " = Jigsaw Puzzle Creator Kit
" How Buddy’s parents met - a jigsaw puzzle tale " = Jigsaw Puzzle Creator Kit
" Alice in Wonderland " = Jigsaw Puzzle Creator Kit

From a technical perspective, if you were to take this abandoned shovelware seriously, the game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard.

There's no options to change the resolution for the game or customise the graphics settings. There's no way for gamers to ensure this is running at the native resolution of their displays... there's no guarantee this game will look right on any PC as a result of this hamfisted design decision. There's no way for gamers to try improve the low quality graphics.

The game features lazy low-polygon voxel "Minecraft"-like "art", making this look like a barely functional 3D game from the 1990s. A lot of amateur developers see Minecraft's success and assume it's because it looks bad, not because it had unique and appealing game mechanics, and they try to emulate the success without understanding it. It also happens to be easy, and doesn't need any proper talent in terms of game development/graphic artists etc. That's why reviewers are faced with so many of these terrible games with confrontingly bad graphics. Developers must learn that Minecraft succeeded despite the bad graphics, not because of them.

The controls can't be customised, which will be an annoyance for many, but it can also render the ga