The Watchmaker

Love the concept, the visuals and the neat puzzles. HOWEVER, if like me you like to explore freely and hate time pressure, this is NOT for you. I gave up after second stage. I simply can't be bothered learning how to race through puzzles - it takes away the enjoyment for me.

This game delivers on what is advertises an action adventure steampunk puzzle paltformer. If you like challenging puzzles that you will struggle to solve than you'll like a lot of what this game has to offer. The platforming is more of a side feature than a main focus but is usually incorperated into the puzzles you complete. The fights don't feel especially great but they are creative and if you can figure out what to do quickly they are quite enjoyable. At times what you need to do or how you can do it does feel a bit unintuitive. The core mechanics of the game work well and the time based abilities are fairly fun to use. The age based life system also adds a welcomed change to the classic health forumla that makes gameplay feel more fun and like you need to progress. The story itself is enjoyable to experience although its not going to knock you out of the water.

Fun and challenging, The Watchmaker is an action-puzzle game, which visuals and mechanics pleasantly reminds me American McGee´s Alice and Alice: Madness Returns. The story is well constructed, and all the aspects of the game are coherent with the concept of time: from the personality of the characters to the visual aspect of the scenarios. This game shows us the potential of the chilean industry in the development of interactive entertaiment. Entretneido y desafiante, The Watchmaker es un juego de acción y puzzles, cuyo aspecto visual y mecánicas me recuerdan gratamente a American McGee´s Alice y Alice: Madness Returns. La historia está bien contruida, y todos los aspectos del juego son coherentes con el concepto del tiempo: desde la personalidad de los personajes hasta el aspecto visual de los escenarios. Este juego nos muestra el potencial que tiene la industria chilena en el desarrollo de entretenimiento interactivo.

6.5 / 10 While there is a lot to like about The Watchmaker, there is also a lot wrong with it. I'm giving it a positive review because the developers have clearly put a lot of work into it and it has some really, really good aspects. Unlike many other reviewers here, going by the total time played at least, I actually completed the game. It took me 14 hours* because it is probably the most frustrating game I've ever played, but I think the good outweighs the bad, just about. *Probably at least an hour of that time the game was running and paused as I watched a Youtube walkthrough, because the guy on the video (DL GAMER) also took a long time figuring out what to do! GOOD: The level design is incredible. As you can see from the screenshots, each level has its own unique style and layout. Some are really linear but others aren't and you have to work out where to go and what to do to progress. The puzzles are really varied. As with the level design, a lot of thought has been put into ...

Game introduced the rewind time mechanic but the bridge that fell didn't come back and I couldn't progress. This is less than 5 min into the game. Also horribly opitimized with a 3-5 minute initial load screen before even getting to the main menu. Takes less time to refund the game which I'll be doing, sadly. The art is appealing and the concept interesting but utterly wasted with shoddy programming.

[h1 ]WARNING! This game is BROKEN and ABANDONED! [/h1] On the second level there is an ai bug that prevents you from finishing the level and continue the game. On top of that some sound effects do not work, same with achievements and there is no exit game button anymore. Tons of annoying glitches like invincible enemies in some parts and janky physics in puzzles. These issues have existed since the last patch which is came out almost 3 YEARS ago. Last dev activity on forum was around 2 years. It's not even worth for 2 bucks.

The main menu doesn't offer an Exit button. That's the level of polish you can expect. Despite a strangely long loading time, the starting level is ugly and poorly designed. It also means poor visibility, orientation issues, that sort of things. The 3rd person view uses an unpleasant camera, causing a degree of motion sickness, Options include a FOV slider (yet no resolutions selection,) however it's clamped between 80 and 100. If this slider works, which I'm not sure it does, it's not enough. The platforming is what you'd expect with such a camera and moving platforms: low quality, the opposite of awesome. Save system is subpar, even by checkpoints standards, because I'm lost when respawned. Finally, the gameplay wants me to rush. Apparently we are on a timer. This is usually enough to get a thumb down or two, yet here it's particularly baffling as it defeats the purposes of the advertised time manipulation mechanics. Also, rush into motion sickness ? I'll pass.

Giving a bit of context, I saw ads for this game on facebook during early 2018, because I was excited to see that a game made in my country (Chile) was getting local newspaper attention and I liked the concept itself, I decided to buy the game. The concept is pretty cool and the story, although told terribly by the game itself, is quite charming and intelligent if you read the collectibles available on your inventory. Sadly, it's a complete disappointment and a mess all around, with issues such as: - [b]The game's mechanics are broken[/b]. There's barely any response to any attacks the protagonist receives during the game and these either do nothing, very little damage, or completely wipe you out, there's no metric to know how much damage you are receiving aside the age gauge which, even by being a core mechanic, is pretty vague, easy to cheese, and hardly used throughout the game itself. Funnily enough this age system is crappy in a lot of ways since a lot of enemies 1 hit K.O. yo...

Couldn't really play the game. Got some 25FPS even on lowest resolution and graphic settings, which made the game unplayable. For a comparison: the game "Youropa" runs with a steady 60+FPS with all sliders to the right, so I blame The Watchmaker and not my machine, What really did it for me was that you can actually lose quest objects (like the battery) which then never return, so you break the game :( I uninstalled it after about an hour or so of gameplay. Sorry.

too many game breaking bugs ):