X
- E10+
- What Pumpkin Games, Inc.
- E10+
- What Pumpkin Games, Inc.
- E10+
- What Pumpkin Games, Inc.
- E10+
- What Pumpkin Games, Inc.
HIVESWAP: Act 1
Released On: Sep 14, 2017
Metascore
Available after 4 critic reviews
7.1
Where to Buy
Where to Buy
All Platforms
Hiveswap: Act One is brief, but I already have a lot of hope for the world and cast introduced here. (And the music. Oh god, yes, the music.) There’s a lot to see, and anyone looking for a light-hearted adventure will have a great time. Despite its minor bugs and short length, both Homestruck devotees and those who never experienced the webcomic will find a fantastic, humorous introduction to this new pocket of an already-massive universe.
The game looks good and plays well, and I only encountered one minor glitch while I was playing.
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 30 User Ratings
7.1
70% Positive
21 Ratings
21 Ratings
7% Mixed
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
23% Negative
7 Ratings
7 Ratings
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 30 User Ratings
7.1
70% Positive
21 Ratings
21 Ratings
7% Mixed
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
23% Negative
7 Ratings
7 Ratings
While Brief, and very delayed, this game still stands as a true gateway drug to Homestuck. The soundtrack is nearly unbeatable, and while it may not have very much to it gameplay wise, It makes up for it with Character and story. Best indie game of 2017
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PC
good game good graphics good storytelling, homestuck's witty humor with a brand new caste. if the next acts come out with more expedience then we could have something special in our hands.
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PC
Pros:
- Really good humor and writing(I would say it's as good as Homestuck's Andrew Hussie's, if not as eclectic).
- Excellent soundtrack.
- Amazing art, tons of unique animations and cutscenes for even tiny stuff.
- Attention to detail, both in gameplay and text. However, I feel like this might have harmed the game's length, check below for what I mean.
- Vast breadth and depth of references that are subtle enough to not be cringey (and in fact would go over most players' heads, there were even humanimals references), but recognizable enough to still make you smirk.
- Good worldbuilding and setup, I can see future acts having a really good plot.
- Very, very good characters. I wish Jude could have been fleshed out more, but I guess that's for Hauntswitch so I can't complain!
Cons:
- Music transitions are buggy, especially around strifes. Volume is also extremely inconsistent across rooms, even compared to sound effects. Seems more of a programming issue than anything related to sound design, however.
- Weird "hitboxes" for items, and a few "conflicts" between movement and interaction. Particularly, having to use an item on a door was unexpected, considering the icon didn't change from the regular movement icon when you hovered over it with the item, and the fact using items on transitions was unprecedented.
- ANY button skips stuff, even the screenshot button. A nitpick, but an annoying one.
- Relatively short, took me three hours while taking my time. I would have vastly preferred a bigger amount of interactions between the characters over item combination/interaction text, which I enjoyed, but wouldn't deliberately seek out. That said, this is no big deal: I have to remember it's only Act 1.
- It's just too easy. I got stuck one time, and that was with the door incident I mentioned above. I definitely don't want an obscurely frustrating experience like with some old adventure games, but I feel like the only times the game made you use your head were ruined by the fact you got unasked hints for them right afterwards. Maybe make the hints optional in future acts?
Conclusion: A very fun adventure game, and a great Homestuck experience (if you're into that), but a bit too easy and too short to be perfect. I hope future acts make you think a bit more often.
I can recommend it to everyone who enjoys adventure games, and it's definitely a must-play for Homestuck fans.
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PC
Hiveswap: Why the "Game of the Year" or whatever isn't as good as some other stuff I like that's better.
*This review printed on 40% recycled asbestos. For big ups to Mother Earth, yo.*
So okay.
Hiveswap is this game that a lot of cats seem hella pumped of. And this beta is sitting in my Steam library for review, so I'm like, yeah man I'll write something.
But I don't know. I'm like, so this is about houses or some noise? That's fine, I'm sure that's like **** dynamite in a handbag for some brosephs. But all I'm saying is, when do you get to THRASH anything? While you're playing house or some **** are you ever in jeopardy of getting mud on your doll's dress or whatever from busting out, and I quote; "the mad stunts all wicked up-ins?"
Know what I'm saying, Bro-Yo-Ma? I didn't actually play this game, but I gave it 3 hats out of 10 hats to keep it real.
At this point I'd like to give a shout-out to my boy Dennis who was over the other day. We were going to chill in front of The Dark Knight and he was so psyched of it y'all.
So this one time he was leaning against the screen door and the **** popped open, and the back deck was wet and he slipped down the steps and broke his thumb on the lawn. It wasn't a long fall, but hey I guess a thumb bone wasn't made for supporting the brunt of a huge useless tool against wet grass. We never did watch Dark Knight on account of Ron trucking his bawling candy-ass girth to the hospital.
But it's cool. I still got another watch in me, Brotel Rwanda.
*BRO-NOTES: Dennis was so wasted, ha ha. I mean damn.*
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PC
Surprisingly.... tedious, for such a cute/nice looking game. I never knew about Homestuck, just picked this up during a sale one day because I like point and clicks. Maybe it helps if you're a fan? But as someone who came at this as just a point and click game, there's a load of junk in every single room and, with very few exceptions, no indicators of what's interactive and what's not until you're mousing over something and the mouse icon changes. And what you can access seemed to change depending on when you were looking at the room (that or there was a delay when mousing over stuff for it to actually say "there's something here", one of the two) so you had to mouse over EV-ER-Y-THING, EVERY time you were in a room in CASE something had changed, and the 'battles' were just trying everything in your inventory... and your action bar.. and oh maybe some stuff in the room.. and THEN finding the correct order for those things... and even cutesy attack titles can only disguise the underlying monotony for so long. Also there's a LOT of interactive stuff that's just flavor stuff, I mean a LOT a lot, so again, you just have to click around a LOT in every room to find out what is and isn't going to be useful, and will learn - over and over and over again - some facts like
- absent dad is a hunter & daughter hates that
- daughter doesn't like guns
- babysitter is a bad (drunk) babysitter
- brother is a paranoid nerd
- the house is messy
- mom is gone
- girl loves animals
Then there's the new world where you're talking to a guy who repeats himself ad nauseum. There's a (kind of) rebellion. His friend is the paranoid nerd of this world. There are bad people on this world.
Despite the really pretty art I just got BORED of the tedious clicking through of multiple items AND actions AND dialogue for every petty little step trying to advance the story.
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PC
Summary A hand-drawn tribute to hilarious '90s adventure games (with none of the accompanying frustration). Play as Joey Claire, a puzzle-solving teen snatched out of her time (1994) and place (Earth) and stranded on a hostile alien planet on the brink of rebellion.
Rated E +10
for Everyone +10
Platforms:
- PC
Initial Release Date: Sep 14, 2017
Developer:
- What Pumpkin Games, Inc.
Publisher: What Pumpkin Games, Inc.
Genres:
