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Review
I found this game a lot denser than other Ned Yompus games. It is almost a sequel to Shuffling Around in format and gameplay. The main sequence is exploring the environment to figure out what the wordplay is, then adapting your command to that scene.
Ultimately I found the solutions increasingly illogical and farfetched and ended up resorting to the walkthrough constantly. Even while following the author's walkthrough directly, the solutions just stopped making any sense to me pretty early into the game.
Since Buck the Past has essentially no plot or character development, everything boils down to whether or not the wordplay makes sense and is funny. In most cases, the solutions are so unintuitive that it is hard to enjoy the more clever moments.
I enjoyed Shuffling Around quite a bit, but Buck the Past, while based with a good premise, was ultimately too untamed and illogical for me to complete.
Comments on this review
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Thanks...there were reasons this was in the back garden and I already did stuff like replace the original puzzle. There's a long way to go, and I really didn't put the emotional development angle (from solving the puzzles or from the blocks Matt faced) into play and focused on getting the mechanics for each puzzle right without linking them together.
It's more intended to be a sequel to Problems Compound but I think the puzzles didn't have enough hinting, so I have a way to go.
I guess maybe I was disappointed because I liked the premise so much and I enjoyed games like Shuffling Around. I'm not familiar with Problems Compound so I will have to check that out. Anyway Buck the Past has a lot of promise so I hope you keep working on it.
Thanks for the nice words despite your frustrations! I'd be curious which puzzles *didn't* work in particular for you, because just knowing that helps me know what's most important to focus on. All I can say is, I'm glad you didn't see the original puzzles.
I think I opted too much for a smorgasbord approach, and unfortunately, I try for stretch goals when I should maybe look for straightforward stuff to nail down what I have.
As for Shuffling--your comment reminded me I have some loose ends I can tie up there with a final release (and for its sequel, too) so thanks for that. (Mostly just changing room names and adding hints.)
