Riverhill Trials

This is my first bad review, I really wanted to enjoy this game, but I got motion sickness playing it. I think their game oracle is much better, if you like walking sims you should give it a try, but I cannot recommend Riverhill Trials.

i really tried to enjoy it, but it's just boring, and the movement is not precise, the visuals are quite pretty though and the atmosphere is relaxing, 4/10

Not actually that bad if you can forgive sluggish platforming. I loved the scenary and setting and while there wasn't much story I think that it really did not need it, but felt more like a some nice shortly lived dream. To make some comparison with the 'Oracle' which was developed by same group, I prefer indeed this one. I really enjoyed my short trip in a dreamlike universe <3

This game looks good, so I really wanted to enjoy it. However, it's practically unplayable. To start the game off, you pilot a spaceship through some tunnel of space junk. The controls here feel very awkward, there's some lag between moving the mouse and the spaceship turning the way you want it to, so you have to go slowly or you'll collide into something because you can't steer out of the way in time. And by collide, I mean fly through the junk because there's no collision and warp back to the start.

Once you land on the planet, the control problems still occur and you'll probably experience the game itself lagging as well. Which is terrible, because not far ahead you can find a few moving platforms that you'll need to jump on to pass. I thought that I could minimise some of the lag problems by changing the graphics settings, but I was playing at the lowest resolution and you have 3 options for the graphics quality: Beautiful, Gorgeous and Fantastic. I don't know what's wrong with having Low, Medium and High as quality options.

In conclusion, I think that the developers should have fixed some of the problems with this game rather than sell it at a lower price.

Riverhill Trials is a game with beautiful environments that would have worked well as a walking simulator, but also has some mediocre platforming gameplay. If you like what you see in the trailer and screenshots, and if you can enjoy/tolerate some bad platforming, this is a thumbs up. The exploration is quite linear, the voice acting in the game doesn't take centerplace like a typical walking-sim, and is not too serious and not trying too hard to be funny either, but gives the player some basic motivation and connection to what's going on. It works well in my opinion.

The platforming, quality control and the general technical side of this game are the weaker points, the developer hasn't shown up for some months now so it's not clear if any of the bugs and glitches are going to be fixed.
The achievements are all achievable, a glitch about one collectible being obviously unobtainable (nobody ever playtested this?) is balanced by a glitch where you can pick up collectibles another time after a restart and increasing the counter, so... let's not dwell on it. :)

If you play reversed y-axis dont even bother. Devs never heard of this options, although it has been standard for 30 years in pc games. Other options not there either, like not even an menu to change anything. So dont like the music? Too bad.

What a stinker.

I believe I first saw a post for this game on imgur. Followed it, saw it launch for a ludicrious price, but bought it for the $1 or whatever it was reduced to.

The environment and art were very enjoyable, and nearly worth the asking price. The few background beats blended well into the atmosphere for the hour or so.

Now for the gameplay: pretty much non-existent. Super frustrating platforming (sticky controls, bad jump initiation, waiting too long for platforms to sync up only for your character to instead decide to jump AFTER DEATH), random UFO collection with no ties to anything else. Just not a lot of substance here. Feels like an unfinished walking simulator with bad platforming mechanics stapled on.

Nice art, cool environment. Very annoying gameplay for something of this length.

Broken engine translates to bad gameplay.
Pretty colors, but not pretty graphics.
Nice music, but I'm guessing it's royalty free, so there's that.
It was beatable, so thats another plus, but there was such a serious lack of actual game mechanics that I'm very glad it's over.

See despite putting a thumbs down on this game I really liked it. After the first time I played it I found myself drawn back to it. The stunning visuals and nice music makes for a nice experience. But I still wouldn't recommend it. Not in this stage.

My main complaint is that certain rocks glitch out so that the jumping and/or walking gets delayed. Getting to the middle of those hellish (but challenging and quite fun) floating rocks only to realize that you can't jump on one isn't fun.

The dialogue feels stiff and a bit weird from time to time. The breaking of the fourth wall is strange and the way that the character isn't controlling makes is worse. It feels like forced comedy wich makes it not funny at all. For me that isn't a big problem but it felt like something I should include.

The controls are very laggy. It goes from running perfectly smooth to low frame rate even when just looking around.

Another thing that brings down the points is the lack of sound effects. Especially the lack of footsteps. I don't care if I can't see the legs, I still want to hear the sound of walking.

It's a nice game with great potential that lacks in it's current state.

While I did not enjoy my time playing this game, due to various reasons (lack of variety of gameplay, broken mechanics, missing textures, etc.) I do have to give it some credit: this might be the most gorgeous game I have had the pleasure of experiencing.

A key reason I didn't enjoy the gameplay aspect of this game was because the flying platforms moved at the exact same speed as the player, without varying speeds. The space aspect of the game was a neat idea, however the controls are inconsistent, laggy, and slow responding. One minute, the game would run perfectly, smooth as butter. And the next I would be getting 2 fps!

Despite its many shortcomings, I can see this game having loads of potential, and if the developers happen to stumble upon this particular review, with a lot of work, I can truly see this game becoming amazing.

Cannot recommend the game in its current state. I only played for a short while, but had a decent amount of issues with bugs, along with some quality of life issues and some more general gameplay design issues. It looks like development is still quite active on it, so hopefully it will improve going forward.

EDIT: Just to make it a bit clearer, I played it after the 0.4 update. I didn't post my specific issues here as I assume most will eventually be fixed, so I put the specific issues in a discussion in the game's forum instead.

Sadly, I have quite a lot of complaints about this game.
-No Story
-Bad death barriers at start of game (and sort of everywhere else)
-double tapping quickly jump makes you do two jumps
-low speed
-tapping any direction, your character will move that way and maintain a little bit of momentum, but only sometimes
-horrible collision
-OOB is blocked off by only invisible walls sloppily thrown in
-OOB is still very simple
-You can skip 90% of obstacles by mashing space along walls
-HORRIBLE placement of invisible walls
-Overlooked pathways that are actually blocked by walls
-One of the items is actually impossible to grab (https://youtu.be/6019nt_CpZQ Sorry about audio)
-Can't unpause during flight section at start
-Horrible flight controls
-Several parts of the game will not be loaded until you get just feet away from them
-No easy access to previous sections of the game
-No settings menu
-Sparkles that follow you are quite infuriating
-Barely any sounds effects

With all these cons, it is hard to play the game and have funn, but once you bypass the invisible walls, it is quite fun to roam around and look at the world.

Edit #2: I am reversing my recommendation back to my inital No.

The reason being is that they have not patched the game since the inital few patches the week the game came out. Ther is still some major parts twords the end of the game that require work and have been pointed out on thier disscusion board. The developer however has been silent ever since. Once again we see a developer grab cash and run. Quite a shame because this game had some potential.

End statement: Don't buy this game unless its on sale for less than $1.00 and you dont care about being able to 100% complete it.

Edit: I have now replayed the game after the 0.4 patches. I will leave my initial review of the game prior to the current patches at the bottom for posterity and as a reference to how the game has progressed.

It is good to see a developer so engaged with its community to the point where they have made changes and updates to the game based on its user reviews. It’s a good thing to see, and I hope they keep it up. On that note I have decided, after replaying since the updates and fixes they've made, to change my initial review. I still think the game requires more improvement, but in my opinion their fixes so far have made the game much more enjoyable. I see the game now at about 6.8/10 and now receives a recommendation.

Pros:
- Artistic design. The graphics and models of the game have a well done stylized feel
- Pleasing sound track. Well done soundtrack that blends well with the artistic design of the game.
- Simple controls. You really can't screw up a platformer's controls but hey.
- No Game Over. You cannot die or lose the game other than giving up.
- Price. $7.00 is a pretty fair and comfortable price.
- A developer engaged with its community and committed to improving their game base on reviews and reports.

Neutral:
- Game design. Your average platformer complete with collectables. Nothing new or unique added to the old tried and true genre.

Cons:
- No options menu. This has not changed. Past the start resolution and keybindings there is no main options menu. The music is nice but I would like to adjust volume levels between music, FX, and voice. Also no mouse sensitivity adjustment and base sensitivity is way too low.
- Very few sound effects. They did add in character grunting when jumping but other than that and specifically timed events, there seems to be very little sound effects. No footsteps or any kind of environment sounds. Or if there are any, they are completely drowned out by the music.
- Voice sound. This I actually think is still rather off and I think I understand why. The character dialogue is inconsistent. It switches between first person narrations and third person. Also the dialogue breaks the 4th wall and addresses the payer a few times. This is rather off putting unless there is a reason for it; for example, an AI companion like Cortona in Halo or your Ghost in Destiny.
- Character/environment collision. The developers have quite improved this aspect but there is still some areas, and foliage that are off. Also a huge area towards the end of the game, the character's walking plane is way off to the point where it prevents the player from getting a UFO collectable. I will be creating, or contributing to an independent bug discussion for that specifically.
- Input lag. This is nowhere near the amount before the patches but there is still a very slight, but inconsistent, jump lag. When trying to do consecutive jumps, on rare occasion there may be a half second lag or required to press the jump command again. Also if the player runs off an edge just as jump is pressed, the game will still log the jump command and will jump once the player hits land. This kind of jump lag is not uncommon in larger indie or AAA games, which is why I no longer deem the input lag a deterrent.

Initial review before any patches.

I rarely if ever leave a bad review on a game particularly because I dislike Steam's ya or nah review system I don't think it necessarily reflects an accurate assessment of a game. I believe a numerical system out of 5 or 10 is a much better system. If I could rank this game under such a system I would probably say it’s a solid 5/10. Alas we have what we have and to answer the question provided, "Do you recommend this game?" my answer is sadly no.

Pros:
- Artistic design. The graphics and models of the game have a well done stylized feel
- Pleasing sound track. Well done soundtrack that blends well with the artistic design of the game.
- Simple controls. You really can't screw up a platformer's controls but hey.
- No Game Over. You cannot die or lose the game other than giving up.
- Price. I bought it on sale for $6.00 but the standard $7.00 still isn’t that bad.

Neutral:
- Game design. Your average platformer complete with collectables. Nothing new or unique added to the old tried and true genre.

Cons:
- No options menu. Past the start resolution and keybindings there is no main options menu. The music is nice but I would like to adjust volume levels between music, FX, and voice. Also no mouse sensitivity adjustment and base sensitivity is way too low.
- Very few sound effects. Other than specifically timed events in game there seems to be no sound effects. No footsteps or jumping/character grunting, or any kind of basic character or environment sounds. Or if there are any, they are completely drowned out by the music.
- Voice sound. The way the voice sound is implemented into the game sounds off. It's hard to describe but it kind of sounds to crisp or clean.
- Character/environment collision. The character and environment collision are quite noticeably off. Very easily the player can run into invisible walls that come nowhere near any objects. Also when traversing some of the uneven terrain, the players view seems to stay level where the character should be on a hill or mound.
- Animation/physics. Jumping seems rather floaty and there seems to be no inertia to the characters movement.
- Input lag. This is honestly what did the game in for me. A platformer cannot have any kind of input lag. Delayed response to user input completely defeats the core aspect of the genre. Jump is quite delayed, and if tapped in air adds a jump to an input queue upon the next time you hit land. Also movement is very iffy with taking about 1 second to stop movement after input has stopped.

Like I said at the beginning, I don’t particularly think this is a terrible game. On the contrary, I think this could be a nice little indie game with a little more development time. As it stands right now though, it's a 5/10 and a No on recommendation. I'm going to keep this on my watchlist and if the developer addresses the main concerns I would happily change my recommendation.

First of all, I'm really impressed that this has been made only by 2 people!!

At this price, you don't just get what you paid, you get more and I really recommend this title!

PROS:
- Awesome music
- Great platforming
- Very good optimizations
- Great scenery
- Funny voiceovers

CONS:
- A few bugs, but nothing to worry about, doesn't ruin the game
- No double jump, I like to double jump in platformers

If there is one thing I'd have to say about this game is that the developer deservers to be in first rate development team where he can focus completly on visual design. How this game looks is absolutly amazing, with the exception of the spaceship :D The visual style would be a great asset to many developers. That being said, the game feels like more of a showcase for the graphics then an actual game. The sound design is only a nice sounding soundtrack with some voiceover which I can only assume it is the developer talking. The gameplay seems more like something the developer though of later on rather then planned to make all along. Like he build the game around the graphics rather then at the same time. Platformers are nice and all, but they are ground base for gameplay. Level one. 100% linear as well. Linear is fine, but it does suggest what I said.

Don't take this rant as a reason to not buy the game. It is cheap and still an enjoyable experience, especially if you like platformers. More importantly, it is to help a capable developer grow. Maybe a studio will take him on (take on me) to combine his graphics capability with a more focused gameplay crafter. Until then, enjoy this game

UPDATE:

A few hours after I posted my previous review I was contacted by one of the 2 developers on steam, that they've made some significant changes to how the movement works and some other negative areas of my review.
He urged me to try it again after said changes and so I did, and I'm glad I did.
I'm glad to see the devs get this involved with their community and actually listen to us.
I'm excited for future updates and I'm confident the devs will keep working on this game, getting rid of bugs as time goes by.

This game looks absolutely beautiful, the environment looks amazing and I easily found my self just standing still and looking around at the terrain and in the sky at the awesomely made alien-like structures, hot air-balloons and planets, really giving me a sense of actually being on some alien planet.
There's alot of flavor in the world in the form of some structures, plant-life and alot of ambient lightings.
Though I didn't like that some objects seem to be solid, while others are completely empty, being able to walk right through them kinda takes away the immersion of that area.

The music is extremely soothing and further helps you to get into that feel of immersion.
The only thing that breaks said immersion is the poor performance of the narrator, though, luckily, he doesn't talk alot

Immediately after starting up a new game, I could tell the devs have really worked to fix the problems I had before, mainly with the movement in the game. The space-ship part is still a bit iffy, but seems alot better now, especially with the hitboxes (Or I'm just *that* good at it)

The parkouring is actually fun and challenging now, instead of frustrating, since the character now moves how you expect him to move when tapping a directional button, instead of gliding ahead all the time.

All in all, it's a very fun, very beautiful-looking little platformer, can definitely recommend if you're looking for a nice little platformer on the side.
There's still glitches here and there, which I relay to the devs as I find them, but it's very much playable and enjoyable.


TL;DR:

7/10

--- Pros:
- Fun & challenging little platformer game
- Beautiful graphics in the form of environment and ambience
- Very nice immersion due to the above & amazing music
- Devs are very involved and actively solving issues
- Controls are good

--- Cons:
- Checkpoints are still a bit glitchy, sometimes respawning you under the map, facing the wrong way and in completely wrong areas where the platforms have actually despawned
- Still alot of small glitches, though I haven't found anything game-breaking since the lightning-fast patch after my last review
- Some objects are solid, while others are empty, breaking immersion in some cases.
- Narrator's poor performance

(Edit; changed from dislike to like, since the author does seem to have fixed all major flaws, tldr: if you like 3d platformers, definitely get this.)

Pros:
-The game looks very good, and is optimized pretty well and feels like it should be great.

-full voice acting adds a nice touch, despite the fact it's a little silly

Conts:
-The platforms are easily desynced from eachother in random fashions, leaving you constantly waiting to see how many cycles it takes to resync and then make a failed jump and have to wait again.
-(edit: this may or may not be fixed, I tried to replay the game and gave up testing after pressing new game put me back where I just was after the ship scene) There are some strange movements by the character like they are up against invisible walls in random areas without platforms, like the controls go strange and then fix when you walk away and come back, you can walk normally in the area.

It's not a "bad" game, it's got a lot of effort put into it clearly on visual finesse, but as a platformer it doesn't work for me, but if you like platformers and have the patience and have the conscious mind of collecting all blue disks before touching different colored ones, then this game looks worth the price of less than 10 dollars for fun times.

(To add: One of my friends who I got to buy it wished there was an option for turn off voice or individual sliders on music and voice, but I know that's probably harder to add retroactively on unity games, but that's a suggestion. He also paused and unpaused and somehow ended up in this glitchy noclip mode?)

Very nice looking game. Was surprised to see that only 2 developers made it!
Platforming gameplay is very challenging from the start and it gets even harder as you progress but it makes you feel good everytime you surpass an area. Encountered a few small glitches and I could use some customize options menu but overall very good. Totally recommended!

I have refunded only one game before this and this one got to be the number two on that list.

I had high hopes for this. It looked nice in the trailer and I like to support Indie developers and studios, but this was something else...

- First bad experience was the spaceship flying part at the very beginning of the game. The asteroid hitboxes were awful and I died around 20 times in the first 10 minutes of the game. Sloppy controls didn't help that at all.

- The narrator seems too happy and almost idiotic/childish by the way he represents the game environment. Almost like a Forrest Gump ver.2, but without stutter and general "Gumpiness".

- Collectables were these small floating UFO's littered around the map. Did they relate to anything? Heck no!

- Jumping parts were horrible! The character slides a little bit after you stop, almost like on ice with a bit too much momentum. Combine that with moving platforms and you got yourself a quite nerve wrecking platformer part.

- Mouse cursor was visible all the time and didn't go away, no matter what I did.

- Game assets disappeared and reappeared suddenly, especially the environment itself.

- Music sounded like a weekend project without proper goal. Just a mix of something trown together.

- Bunch of random ideas thrown into a mix-match environment. The general idea of the game was lacking.

The frustration kicked in after 30 minutes and I had to quit playing.

Maybe I sound a bit too harsh with this review, but I genuinely cannot recommend this. Wait till you get it from sale or bundles... Or something magical happens and the developer turns this project into a decent walking and jumping exploration simulator.

I thought I was going to do some platforming, but I pressed New Game and found out I have to fly a ship through a tunnel and avoid asteroids.
All good. Next thing, I had to land on a planet, luckily I didn't do it by myself because I would have probably crashed.
The planet environment looks fantastic.
As a huge fan of platformers, I'd have to say the followings:

PRO:
- 3D Platforming mixed with first person view is a nice addition to the genre and there are not a lot of games like this
- The music is really good and gets you going
- The voiceover and subtitles are pretty funny, could've had more
- The game starts easy, but gets a bit harder along the way
- Really good optimization

CONS:
- No mute audio option
- Saw a floating mushroom, but hey, gravity


I haven't finished the game yet, all in all it's a really good game made by only two people and it looks better than AAA's.
I recommend it.