The gameplay of Journey of a Roach is a bit on the short side, but that's to be expected of an indie title like this one. Sure, you'll finish the game in a few hours. Five, maybe six. But in that short period of time you'll have a blast. And that's why we think Koboldgames and Daedelic deserve a round of applause. We have a saying in Holland: 'klein maar fijn', and that's an accurate description of Journey of a Roach. It's relatively small, but great nonetheless!
Journey of a roach has a good story and interesting puzzles from the beginning to the end. Also it has lovable characters and nice songs.
It is a short game and you will finish it in a few hours but it worth it. It has cool achievements to unlock and this will double the playing time.
Journey of a Roach is ideal for someone who wants a change of pace in a puzzle game. It is for someone who does not want a complex story line and is looking for an affordable puzzle game for your PC.
I would only recommend this game to die-hard fans of the point-and-click genre. For the company’s first published game on Steam, I feel this was too much of a moonshot. I praise them for being ambitious and it definitely has potential, but sadly, the only element lacking is the most important thing: fun.
The game thrusts you into a difficult puzzle almost immediately and my first thought was "This feels like a version of Monkey Island". The movement around the game is seemless and I played through using a 360 controller, it was generally hassle free although inventory management took a few attempts to get used to. The can climb up walls and along ceilings which leads to some movements that resemble Fez.
After playing through however, I decided the game was not similar to Monkey Island at all with regards to the puzzles. Some of the choices were bizarre and made the game difficult not because of how hard the puzzles actually were but the placement and sheer ludicrousness. The game effectively consisted of 3 'large' puzzles. Each zone was unique and had a certain theme to it but all followed a main 'quest' or aim linked to the zone. The game difficultly was mostly gauged by the awkwardness of certain actions, combined with the fact that rarely did you get any sort of clue other than a speech bubble depicting a cruel picture of what the character you're interacting with wants.
The length of the game is fairly short, I took around 3-4 hours of passive gameplay, i.e I was watching TV whilst playing this game every so often. I can't imagine the replay value of this game is very high, maybe at some point I will speed run this game but it doesn't have that charm Monkey Island ever had and thus I don't feel that I could return to play this game simply for the storyline. Then there is the price, I wouldn't say this game is worth the RRP at all, I caught this in a bundle by chance and after a while decided to actually play it.
However, despite that overall difficulty/awkwardness I think the game deserves some credit. The game is technically flawless with regards to bugs and the developers should be applauded for that, not often does this happen now that they can just simply release broken and patch later.
The game really should be around the £5 range though due to its length. I honestly think I could speed run this game in under 20 minutes and that isn't really a selling point.
Journey of a Roach is an adventure game that is in my opinion aimed for the more casual players. The game itself is not too long and most puzzles are not very hard, but it is great as light entertainment and a fresh breeze for those who are tired of the conventional **** for survival post apocalyptic games.
The game-play is fairly creative being able (and having to) climb up on walls and ceilings to reach certain objects adds a bit of extra flavor to the conventional rub item A to item B mechanics. I am not sure it worth the full price, my price would be no more than 6£ about half of the original. But since I picked it up on a sale I can't complain.
Feels like the 3d rendered version of machinarium, which is the superior game. It does try to add something new to the genre, through the perspective changing movement, so it deserves some recognition for that. Works only because it is a short experiment.
SummaryJourney of a Roach is developed by the Swiss team of Koboldgames in co-operation with Daedalic Entertainment. Players will visit a sarcastic, post-apocalyptic world where Roach Jim and his sidekick Bud are out and about to find their way from a deserted vault to the Earth's surface. Players must steer them through classic point & cli...