Journey of a Roach

A short but fun, low stress & puzzle driven adventure for the whole family. Finally, a game that finds the ideal balance between being neither too hard for beginners nor too easy for veterans. It can be comfortably finished in one evening but despite its short length, this game is packed with puzzles that feel like the designers made them to ENTERTAIN you rather than stop you in your tracks. Aside from a very basic understanding of electricity, no outside knowledge is required. All the puzzles are clued, creative but logical and don’t feel rehashed. No pixel hunting due to hotspot highlighting and no annoying timed puzzles, only one short sequence where you need to be careful where you’re crawling - thanks to the super simple controls hardly a challenge and you can’t die. Progression is entirely linear and tiresome backtracking is non existent. You can crawl on walls and the entire world will turn around with you, thankfully it’s not all too disorienting as the level design is simple and compact. Crawling on walls is a fun feature and a key aspect of the game yet never feels like a gimmick. Interaction with the environment is very limited but it's an acceptable price to pay for such a well designed, streamlined and frustration-free experience. The only bugs you'll encounter are the cute little fat ones you get to eat in-game, and even those are optional so no worries. As in Machinarium or Gomo, there is no spoken dialogue and not much of a story beyond the “rescue your friend and reach surface” premise. Instead, you get light-hearted slapstick humor and charming characters who mumble in a hilarious non intelligible language reminiscent of Pingu the penguin. Sadly, the game is all too short so if price for value is important to you, you might want to wait for a sale. Not as magical as Machinarium but Journey of a Roach is a very charming game that perfectly succeeds at what it intends to do. Final rating: 4,5 stars (rounded to 5 stars)

The gameplay itself seemed fine - the animations and graphics are pretty slick and the few puzzles I did were okay, but the constant shifting and spinning of the camera when climbing on walls and ceilings made me incredibly motion sick to the point I am unable to play this game. After 30 minutes, I was too nauseous to continue. I rarely suffer motion sickness from games, but this one is intense with the constant camera spinning. I've seen reviews where others are saying the same thing. It's just something to be aware of before purchasing this particular game.

A cute little adventure game. The style and sound effects are really neat and the possibility to crawl on walls and ceilings gives it some twist, I just wished it would have been longer, because it's incredibly short and too expensive because of this. My rating is based on the $15 price tag, I'd recommend it for $5.

I love the art, the puzzles, and the story told through symbols. However, I had to stop playing it as the camera revolves with the character as he climbs up, over, around ... you get the idea. I can usually read just fine in a car, but after about an hour I had to stop playing this game as I was seriously concerned about vomiting. I then got my husband to play it while I only looked up when he hit a new room/item/puzzle (using him to navigate), but even then I couldn't keep going as I would look up and my stomach would heave. My husband did not experience any motion sickness, but then again he loves to sail in rough seas. If you have a strong stomach and like adorable cockroaches, play this game!