Unknown but actually decent.
I can’t remember how many reviews I have begun with the words “I had never heard of this game before I was asked to review it.” I won’t start this review off with that. Well, except for right there. Factotum 90 came out of nowhere for me, but as I always say, I’ll give anything the old college try. Come to find out, it’s not a bad game. It’s a bit short, but for the price and the entertainment I got out of it, I’d say it worth the price of admission.
Factotum 90 is a puzzle game where the player is literally staring at a control panel. The control panel consists of simple controls, a communications prompt, and two screens that show the cameras for the robots the player will be controlling. Set on a space ship that has been damaged, the player must take instructions from the other man on board while guiding two walker bots around different parts of the ship in order to restore and repair. It’s a simple task that requires a bit of thinking and puzzle solving.
Platforms: XB1,Wii U
MSRP: $5.99
Price I’d pay: $5.99
Each level requires the player to move both walker bots to the exit. Getting there may require certain switches to be pressed, or other things to be activated. Along with walking over pressure sensitive buttons, the walker bots can pick up boxes as well as reflect lasers to certain areas. These simple rules are used for many puzzles in the game, some of which can be rather complex in the grand scheme of things.
Since I could only control one bot at a time, if for some reason I wasn’t able to get both bots across a certain way or if I missed my opportunity to succeed, I didn’t necessarily have to start the entire level over. Luckily, I could reset one of the bots to the beginning and work my way back to where I needed to be. Granted, that doesn’t always work out, but it is a nice feature just in case I made of dumb move.
There are a few puzzles that require some timing in when to drop something or move a bot to a platform, but it was never really an experience based on skill. If I was able to look at the environments long enough, I could figure it out without much difficulty. Although there are some later puzzles that can take a bit of time to complete.
There are a few issues here and there that slightly bugged me. First, the game is not very long. It has only 30 levels. And while that may be a decent number, when I consider the fact that the first 10 levels took me less than an hour to complete, I started to wonder how long of an experience I was in for. Luckily, the later puzzles offered up a bit more challenge. Still, most people can complete this game in around four to five hours.
The other issue that bothered me was the layout of the screen itself. Since I was looking at a control panel the entire game, trying to see everything on these two smaller screens was at times very difficult. If I could maybe have been able to expand the separate monitors when I had them selected, that would have helped me see much better.
All in all, Factotum 90 is not a bad puzzle game. I had a decent little time with it and at the cost of six bucks, I’d say puzzle fans should give it a shot. It’s not going to blow anyone’s socks off, but the game has a lot of heart. It’s a nice little weekend game to play through at least once.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
