Consumables

I really enjoyed Consumables. It is silly, fun, and includes some macabre moments that had me laughing in surprise. It is a small game, with 3 chapters that each contain 5 or 6 scenes. The goal of a chapter is to discover the survival ending and move ahead. Along the way, you are likely to discover more than a few fatal endings. Your progress is automatically saved if you leave a chapter while still alive. However, when you die, the chapter resets. This mechanic results in quite a bit of replay as you try this and try that. I did not mind this, as it reminded me of The Henry Stickmin Collection (which was delightful).

Consumables has original hand-drawn art with a bizarre quality that feels a bit like Isoland. The soundtrack consists of instrumental music that changes based on the scene. There are no voice-overs or dialog.

The game is simple to play. You gather objects into inventory and then use them in creative ways (often with surprising results). It is not clear which items on a screen can be picked up so you will need to do some extra clicking to find everything. Items are used by dragging and dropping them on a scene. Some inventory items (like food or matches) are consumable. When you use one of these items, it respawns and can be replaced. Other items (like swords) are collected once and used multiple times. Your inventory is limited to one of each item.

Consumables does a nice job of supporting achievements. A screen is provided for each chapter to show your progress. Between the achievement icons and the descriptions on the Steam store page, it is easy to determine what is needed for each scenario. Completionists will need to figure out how to kill themselves in various ways and then how to reach the survival ending. I hit only one roadblock which cost me quite a bit of time. I made an erroneous assumption after a fatal ending and, as a result, missed a collectible that was needed to progress. Adjusting for this, it took me under 5 hours to finish Consumables with 100% of the achievements.

I did have the game hard lock on me when I tried to use an inventory item after the character who needed it had flown away. This required a shutdown and a game restart but I did not lose progress and did not try that again!

I recommend Consumables to those who want to take a break from serious quests and play a simple game of discovery that is aesthetically pleasing and very entertaining. I hope to see more from SpringBone in the future!

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Charming and surreal experience, aside from some technical issues I enjoyed my playthrough, occasionally even giving me a few good laughs. The puzzles don't actually make much sense, granted they are not too difficult, you just have to figure it out where everything goes. In theory it should be a relaxing game, but every death resets the level, so I feel the game has a lot of unnecessary frustration to it, just wasting time at that point. If it's not too late, maybe don't reset the game on death (unless you think it would break the game somehow, and I imagine It probably could)

It took me about 2 hours to finish and get most of the optional interactions, about 50 minutes of that was artificial length due to level resets, so I would say it has around 70 minutes of content if we include the optional animations. The puzzles were not necessarily logical, but they were still fun to complete because there are so many silly animations, and frankly, I personally really like the art style. It kinda has that "book for kids" look, and yet the game has some dark and mature undertones to it, including something like bloody animations.

There are 3 levels that have some limited exploration, generally you get a map with like 6 rooms, and you can backtrack between them while finding items and helping characters. I am sure you played many similar games, not too different from Cotton Game releases, just with an unusual look to it.

Pros:

(+) Has many silly animations and some funny interactions, as well as some interesting dark undertones. Personally I liked the art style even though it looks simple on a surface. It's short, although I actually thought it would be shorter, you can get maybe 70-90 minutes out of it, which is okay for the price.

(+) Many optional deaths, good achievement support

Feedback:

Death Resets - if you die the level resets, so you end up playing each level potentially more than 5 times from the start, even though there really is no need for it. Assuming it won't destroy your code, you should just reset the player prior to the optional death.

Technical/Glitches/Puzzle Design - is there no way to force Fullscreen? I get that you can't stretch the animation, but I would like for you to at least hide the bars. If you give meat to the dancing bunny, it will freeze the game. Some animations and items can respawn after the puzzle or the room is already completed, for example you can destroy the glass with the sword over and over. You had some hints in act 1 that were for act 2, so a little misleading.

Overall Thoughts: 7/10

As a short surreal experience I think it works pretty well. Yea it could really use a few changes just to make it flow better, but it still managed to make me laugh, I liked all the randomness and unexpected moments. It's a bit cheaper than similar games, and maybe a little worse overall in technical terms, but for the price it's a fair experience, I hope you make more.

Niche, obscure and underrated games: http://store.steampowered.com/curator/31294838-Hidden-Gem-Discovery/

This little point-and-click adventure is as simple as they come. The entire game is played with just your mouse: you click to explore, collect items, and drag them onto the screen to use them. There’s almost no story to speak of; you play as a man who gets sucked into a strange world through a television.

The game is divided into three short chapters, each unlocked after completing the previous one. Every chapter consists of a small map with around six single-scene locations. You can revisit these areas at will, as they’re always accessible.

Visually, the art is quirky and full of oddball characters, but it’s not particularly innovative. The active play area is a small square centered on the screen, surrounded by a dull gray background. Still, the character animations are expressive, and every action—correct or not—comes with a short, often humorous visual payoff.

The core mechanic revolves around item collection and usage, but instead of traditional inventory management, items are represented as cards displayed at the bottom of the screen. You drag a card onto the main area to try it out. If the item is usable in that location, the game automatically triggers the correct action. If it’s not usable, your character might perform a silly animation or gesture involving the item.

One engaging element is the achievements. Each chapter has multiple hidden achievements, some tied to progress and others unlocked by using unusual item combinations. These achievements offer an incentive to explore and experiment, even if the game itself is fairly forgiving. You can’t really fail—dying only sends you back to the map, and some single-use items can be recollected.

While it’s not a game that breaks new ground, it offers a relaxed, mildly humorous experience with just enough interactivity to keep you clicking.