There’s a lot to like here. It’s charming, the visuals are great, someone clearly loves games and put a ton of thought into it. But... it’s tedious. It’s the things you like least from Samarost: the walking around, the lack of clear direction. You’re going to have to rely heavily on the hint system, which has a waiting period each time and the hints are obscure sometimes.
I’m having trouble getting through it, and I’m a diehard point and click gamer who really wants to appreciate this project. It truly is clever, and a lot of effort went into it. There are no real puzzles, it’s all “try to use things on things and then check if the hint timer is done”. But that’s okay; Machinarium and Samarost both have a lot of this. But they also have better hint systems, or at least, clearer hints.
I’m going to keep playing. I’m not sorry I bought it, and I promise I’ll revise this review when I get to the next chapter. I will add, I haven’t experienced any actual bugs, and I’m on an iPhone 6. None of the control issues or crashes anyone else has reported, it’s been absolutely fine technically.
In retrospect, I’m moving it from three to four stars, because I can see what the developers were going for. They haven’t quite got there in the first chapter, but I have high hopes for the next. And I want to encourage that, I think we will see great things from them in the future.