Recent reviews by The Machine

If you can get it for under $10 then I would recommend it. The game play is fairly unique, there are some cool cut scenes, and it is well optimized. At the end of the day I think the game is fun which is the most important aspect when it comes to these simulator games in my opinion.

My main critique is not being able to pick up multiple things so you need to walk back and forth several times to perform an action. I wish there was a dolly system or something that lets you carry multiple things such as crime materials to your back room so you don't need to make so many trips. I really wish there was an inventory system because a lot of aspects in this game feel extremely tedious to me with how many trips I need to make.

I am also surprised there's little automation and no employee system. It makes progression feel like you are just being given more and more things to put on your plate with not much help. The only automation I have come across is you can purchase a self-service ticket machine so you don't need to deal with customers using the self-serve washers.
Edit: There are some upgrades that enable automation on annoying machines like the money printers. I wish these are a little more obvious as I have just now noticed them after nearly 3 hours

There is also a decent amount of AI art used. From what I have seen so far, all of grandma's pictures are AI and the icons that appear above the text while talking to some people (Dude in the Alley way) are AI. It's not a massive deal for a game of this size but at the same time, profiting off AI is pretty frowned upon, especially when it's used to replace what would probably be cheap to purchase from a real artist anyways.

TLDR:
I would give this game a 6/10 all things considered. The price tag is the main reason I am recommending the game despite my critiques. It is overall enjoyable and this review was written immediately after launch so I am hoping some of my critiques are taken into consideration and there are updates to address them.

An upgrade from Escape Simulator 1 in every aspect I can think of. The graphics got a substantial upgrade so the rooms no longer feel like a cartoony puzzle and more like a real immersive escape room. Played through the full first chapter with only one minor bug, and one fairly substantial bug. The first bug was my character lagging while moving but turning off V-SYNC fixed that. The second bug was on the first room of the Dracula chapter. We placed an important book in the center of the well, so when it opened it fell outside of the map and we had to google what the book looked like to proceed with the level. Typically if something falls out of reach it is supposed to teleport back into your inventory, but it didn't in this case for some reason.

My only critique is so far on launch there are only 3 chapters, 4 levels each, so 12 rooms in total. In my opinion 12 rooms for $20 isn't great, so I hope to get at least a couple more full chapters or a couple more levels for each current chapter for free before they start charging for DLC. There is a new Room Editor so people can build their own rooms, so in a couple of weeks I imagine there will at least be more solid rooms built by the community.

All in all I think I would price this game at about $15 given the current content, but they did add an additional chapter post launch for the first game so I'm hoping we get at least one more in this game.

i was having a lot of fun until i realized that the only way to save is to find these reels and then put them into the film camera. in 44 minutes of gameplay i found one single reel meaning in 44 minutes of gameplay i was able to save once. horrible game decision since you basically need to rely on being able to find a rare item to be able to save. loved everything about this game in terms of gameplay, but unfortunately having to search and search to hopefully be able to find an item to be able to save is just not good game design.

better game design would be to have these reels activate these cameras permanently and make them save hubs that you can run back to.

Fun little game. The story is pretty dark at times which was unexpected. SPOILER: one of the moms literally kills herself in front of her small child. I was able to 100% the game in under 10 hours with ~100 WPM. I'd recommend getting the game on sale. I don't think the gameplay loop is worth $20, probably worth closer to $10-15 if you can get it on sale, but its also an indie dev so you could see the extra cost as supporting them.

Only real complaint about the game is balance. There should be a limit to how many VIP's you can get at a time. I understand they are supposed to add a level of difficulty, which is nice, but sometimes I would get too many in a row and I couldn't help other customers because the challenge for that level was to not have duplicate dishes in your toolbar, and it would make it actually impossible to 3 star the level and I'd have to restart since I was going for 100%.

There is currently a bug that I didn't experience until 2 stars where my character will start teleporting and lagging whenever I walk or sprint around. It is unbearable. I cannot recreate it, it just randomly happens and it will not fix until I leave and rejoin. The issue with that is when you load into a save, it starts at either the beginning or end of that day, so if I get the bug halfway through the day, I either need to leave and rejoin and redo that entire day, or I need to wait until the end of the day by just standing around so I can save then.

I was going to recommend this game until I came across this bug, and now I can't even get through a full day without this movement issue. If its patched, I will change my review to recommended.

#1 Simulator/RPG/Farming/Fighting/MOBA/Shooter/Platformer game of all time

definitely some extreme balance issues that make using a decent amount of weapons impossible simply because they have significantly less dps output than others. however, it is a charming game and absolutely worth $5. im hoping there are some balance changes in the future to optimize some of the weaker weapons

no explanation is needed

they got rid of chat in the enhanced edition so the whole world feels lifeless.

i have a ryzen 9 5950x, a 3090ti, 64 gb of memory, and the game is loaded on an M.2 that has 7200/mb read/write speeds. Yet, I still consistently get stuck in extremely long loading screens whether it be my acid lab, nightclub, or just a simple mission. If you want to exclusively drive around the world without loading into anything other than online, you're chillin. If you plan on doing quite literally anything else that involves any type of loading screen, expect to restart the game 25-50% of the time.

If this was an indie company and these were new issues, it can be understandable. But these are issues that have been in a multi billion dollar companies most successful game for over a decade. They do not care about anything. GTA VI will flop, they will sell the franchise to EA or something, and then Grand Theft Auto will finally be in the grave.

There is zero obvious use of AI like almost every negative review claims. I'm pretty certain somebody just started a trend and now everybody rides it. If they do use AI, unfortunate. I'm giving my review based off the game play, which is very intuitive and enjoyable. The game also gives you an extreme amount of free cosmetics, which is rare nowadays. Yes they also give you ample opportunities to spend money, but it is absolutely not necessary. I only have 4 hours so far and I haven't spent a dime and have gotten very nice porcelain skins for almost every gun. They also have a gacha system which you can either pay for or complete quests to unlock rolls in the gacha machine.

Overall, its a free game so give it a shot. There's a reason the only negative thing you can find is "THEY USE AI!!!!! (i will not supply any proof)".