Vortle

I was excited when this product showed up in my Curator Connect feed, as it decribes itself as "anxiety management and stress relief app designed by and for neurodiverse, disabled, or mentally ill people." As someone who falls into all three categories, I was hoping to see something tailored for people like me... but this is not even what it claims to be on the store page. Positives * Free * Technically playable Tetris and match-three (though Tetris can be very slightly laggy) * Music volume slider, additional sounds on/off toggle * The lightly animated backgrounds seem to have had some effort put into them * A vase gradually filling up with water to make flowers bloom in the match-three is a nice touch Negatives * No unique selling points worth noting * There are far better free Tetris and match-three games out there * Unpolished feel - no audio feedback from actions in the games, for example, and opening interface is not particularly user-friendly * The background designs weren't particularly aesthetically pleasing to me (this is subjective, but I suspect the art style and scenes depicted are slightly too generic for many people to genuinely like) * No overt accessibility features in settings menu, despite claiming to be a game designed with disabled people in mind - what about making the tiny game screens and icons larger for people with visual impairments, for example? * No actual content relating to stress management, mindfulness, mental health, neurodivergence or disability * Misleading store tags - to give the benefit of the doubt, I suspect the developers don't actually understand the tagging system or what half the tags they selected actually mean... but if they did understand, then it's wilfully misleading potential customers to try and get them more clicks Overall, this product is not what it claims to be, and unless substantial efforts were made in future to add in more provision for stress management and cater to the specific needs of users who are disabled, neurodivergent and/or mentally ill, it is unlikely to benefit anyone much. You can follow my Steam Curator page at [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/35646443-Inclusive-Games/] Inclusive Games[/url]!

Vortle is a pleasant and inclusive set of activities designed for the neurodiverse, those living with a disability, and those with various mental illnesses. I wanted to review this game in particular, both to help those who might live with a challenging situation, but also to spread more awareness about neurodiversity and mental illnesses, which really caught my attention when I was offered to do a review for this game. Thank you to the developers for creating such a thoughtful set, and I hope that many find benefit from it. ~ People who are neurodiverse or have a mental illness often face discrimination, so please take a moment to consider how we treat others, especially those who seem different to us. *** ~ House Blythe, curator for Non-violent Entertainment: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/35899705/

5/10 Tetris and match-3 in the context of relaxation. The app lets you play Tetris and Match-3 in "endless" mode without score counting or difficulty increase. You can select several 3D-rendered relaxing backgrounds. Also there is an in-built music player with a few chill sound tracks and advice-like song names, e.g. "relax your shoulders" or "set boundaries". Good: - free - pleasing though simple graphics of the game elements - nice-looking backgrounds - the bits of advice this game gives are actually very needed. E.g. I just noticed that I never relax my shoulders and tend to play with clenched jaws <- stuff that the game keeps telling you in a fade-in dialog each time you start a game. - playing an unscored game is an interesting take. Indeed, it's all about the process, not the result. Who cares what score you got in Tetris? What matters is the interesting decisions you had to make during the game. So-so: - the dev replied to another review that this wasn't supposed to be a commercial project. Indeed, there are thousands of implementations of Tetris or Match-3 and many ready templates that work better out-of-the box and have far more features. As a game, this app is certainly not interesting for more than it takes to just look through all the buttons on the starting screen and see what they do. Still, the purpose of this app is to act as a reminder: your health is all you got, and most of the problems you stress about are actually illusory Bad: - in Tetris, the shapes only move 2-3 tiles when you hold Left or Right key. So, you have to press keys repeatedly to move the shape. This makes the game annoying instead of relaxing. I'm not sure but the issue may be that the game is reacting to key down events that come from Windows, instead of just regularly checking if a key is down or not "set boundaries" song has a typo Don't treat this app as a game. If you are a perfectionist and a super-busy hyper-achiever like myself, this app is a reminder: death awaits you if you stress out too much. And then everything was in vain. There must be a healthy balance. Your body has its limits. And your willpower has only so much leeway until your body breaks. [table][tr][th][i]I'm a Steam curator, you can [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/43946907-Friendly-Nerd/]follow me[/url][/i][/th][/tr][/table]