The End: Inari's Quest

Spent an 1.3h trying to get this broken mess to work save your coins for a porn game on sail at least you can enjoy yourself 1.3h Waking one off

The End: Inari's Quest is a shining example of why, if you ever see a game on Kickstarter, you should run far, far away from it. The game scraped through the Kickstarter goalpost with a $5000 budget, and man, I don't know what they did with the money. In fairness, the game visuals look fantastic... and that's it. The quality of every other aspect of the game drops sharply, from technical implementation through to a plethora of questionable design choices.

Before we get into the specifics, it's important to point out that for me at least, the game is simply unplayable because it crashes to desktop after about 30 seconds worth of gameplay, and there's no save feature either. The game is horribly unpolished and should never have shipped in the state it's in. I suspect (and hope) that the only reason they let this get out was because they felt obliged to do so for the sake of the Kickstarter backers. See why I'm saying that Kickstarted games are a really bad idea? Yeah. Releasing games in such bad shape as The End is a disservice to gamers... it makes gaming worse for everyone.

The idea here is basically a thematic ripoff of games like Shelter where you're an animal and you have to look after your baby, in this case, you're controlling a fox from third person perspective and you have to stop your kit from being eaten by rats etc... which is both frustrating and heart wrenching at the same time. I don't play video games to get my heart wrenched. Life will do that to you for free.

The frustration comes from really poorly thought out game mechanics like the only way to protect your baby is to carry it, which locks you out of other abilities.. this is more annoying than interesting.

The game doesn't have any save game features, despite that being a basic standard for all games of this time. The developer might defend this as an attempt to make the game seem more "difficult" without them having to balance the game or do their job properly with engaging and challenging level design, but it's just as likely they simply couldn't work out how to make a save game feature work. Either way, that's a defect that adds another reason for gamers to avoid this game.

The game is very very short and can be finished in about an hour. Developers have at least some responsibility to provide enough content to make a game last more than 2 hours if they're serious about providing something of value to gamers. There's less content here than some free game demos.

On the upside, the game does feature customisable controls and resolution, so at least some of the basic, minimum requirements have been met. Unfortunately there's a number of other technical defects and shortcomings which contribute to the game being difficult to recommend to gamers. The customisable controls are critical because the developers seriously didn't know that WASD is the default movement layout on PC. Like... what planet did these guys come from?

The controls and game handling are notably very clunky and unsmooth here. It's janky and unsatisfying to play... and any experienced gamer will tell you, the handling, responsiveness and general gameplay feel of the control scheme must be well polished for this kind of game to succeed. Unfortunately, this is something the developer seems to have phoned in, with little to no apparent gameplay testing. They dropped the ball on this one.

These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game.

The poor quality of this game is reflected by how many people spent time with it. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the all-time peak player number was only 5 players. This is a remarkably low number, and now, the only player activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Considering there's over 120 million gamers on Steam and well over 100,000 games for gamers to choose from, the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality game is to be expected.

Because the game is broken and unplayable for me, it may also not work for other gamers. This is a solid reason to approach this game with some scepticism.

So, should you buy this game? Is this one of the best of the 100,000+ games on Steam?

The End: Inari's Quest has the total ripoff price of around $4 USD, it's not worth it given the defects and shortcomings with the product, especially considering the sheer number of completely free, much higher quality games on Steam. This is also competing with over 11,000 free games available on Steam, many of them far better than this paid product.

When I bought 'The End: Inari's Quest' for 28 pence in the Plug In Digital sale - I understood the criticisms going into the game, but it looked weird enough to draw me in to whatever the hell this game is.

The game is a single player adventure, where you play as a fox in a long overtaken, cyberpunk world. The graphics are nice for a game so cheap, and the environments include subways, tunnels, streets, apartments, corridors and ... Squares?!

To see the rest of my review, watch here! : https://youtu.be/wmb3QaVWjbg

GAME SUCKS!!

This plays feels more like a demo than a game. At the end it promises "To Be Continued", but that doesn't look likely.

Poor controls.
Short game. Watch walkthrough.

it's alright

No Items, Fox Only, Final Destination!
Don't walk away yet and grab this during a sale for a few cents. The world is nicely designed and unique by mixing neo-traditional elements like shrines in cities with cyberpunk tech. Giving it a great look and feel I didn't see in many other games so far.

Just look past the few pitfalls, like literally taking less than a minute to rebind controls and getting used to the movement, it is alright. And even though a short game with just a few story bits narrated through text overlays, it still gets the mood across. Who wouldn't save a fox cub from cyborgs and sewer rats? The atmosphere, the neon lighting and ending make it a game that is worth to own. Can you skip this one? Surely, but if you enjoy even small things you'll get some fun out of this.

This game drew me in because hey, cyberpunk and foxes! That's a combination!
Initial thoughts; the game is beautiful. Aesthetically, a lot of time has been spent on making every little nook and cranny fit in. The fox looks believable in the way she runs, although the pouncing onto rats takes more than a little practice due to camera angles.
Control wise, it takes some getting used to. Fiddling with the settings and using WASD and the mouse for turning as you move feels a lot more natural.
The text (brief though it is) is mostly correct, some weird sentence structures in places but it's easy enough to follow.

The first half of the game is escaping the 'city' which involves a few puzzles, the most annoying of which is getting a cyborg to follow you until he walks over a switch on the floor. Which would work better if he actually stays walking behind you and doesn't just sometimes give up for reasons best know to himself. And hey! You get to repeat this puzzle in the second half.
Speaking of the second half.. so you've carried your fox cub all the way through part 1, dropping him carefully so you can fight rats and carry items.. and in the second half, suddenly you don't have him and he's not mentioned again?
The second half in the park, again, beautiful backgrounds and color palette changes, and running around until you randomly find two switches on the floor, and activate another two around said other cyborg. Then a door opens and it's the end.

I get it, it's part 1 and as an introduction to a story it's pretty and interesting.. It's only $3.99 so eh, it's entertaining in it's own way for an hour or so, though I can't really recommend it until there's more of it to see.

It looks good, the atmosphere is nice and all. However it might take you like 30-40min to finish it the first time, and then you can do it in 5 minutes...

Extremely short.

Positive review for the art and style, not for the length. (wouldn't buy it full price)

Don’t get me wrong. The sci-fi atmosphere is great. The graphics are good and the music fits the ambience. BUT the gameplay is boring af. I know, it’s only the first episode, but why would anyone want to play this? It is a fox-walking simulator.

In addition, the controls aren’t fluid.

What you see in the trailer is basically the whole game. Don’t buy this. It might get better when you are able to play the full game, but for now, it is a waste of money.

I don't want to sound like an alarmist, but apparently after this corona thing goes away the world is going to go all cyberpunk. With everyone at home, 'automation' and 'robots' will be the new buzz word, that is until the robot uprising begins killing us all. We should have seen it coming, but apparently, we were all too busy getting rid of all the national parks in the world where bats and animals could be, bulldozing them for the next pretty neon shanty town we can erect.

There must also be a severe food shortage coming soon as the rats are beginning to eat the neon stuff and run around as radiated vermin. Yes, radiated rats, cyborgs that are training for the world cup, Police flying balls that like to stun and robots that do not like you running around them fills the Earth. But there is no need to panic. Apparently, some Vishnu type god has a super hero den at the last remaining park in the world. She intends to collect all the foxes in the world and commission them to find the last human/humans remaining.

Wow what a Pulitzer of a story right there. Personally, i think some game developers have been injecting bleach well before Trumps sarcastic suggestions. In all honesty it’s just meaningless dribble to try and thread together what this French indie developer can afford and produce with his current skill set. https://theendgamepc.wixsite.com/monsite

Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad game, but it's not a particularly good game either. It’s really just an hours’ worth of eye candy. Two levels, both consisting of you working what robots you need to get to what buttons. There is no real meaningful story or theme here and that is one of the major issues. If there were scattered letters around to collect, or audio clips to pick up tackling the big issues, then it might have been more meaningful, but that wouldn't make sense either since you play as a fox.

While it's pretty, there is really no long-term substantial effect that it will have on any of its players. Longevity might be fractionally there for speed runners as it’s a game you could get through in less than 20 minutes. If companies 'Might and Delight' and 'Feardemic' had a child this might be it. With the current talent that Mata is showcasing he could easily create better opportunities for himself. The only thing holding him back, is that he really needs to fox out what makes a gamer have a great and memorable experience. Open that door...

Complete game below...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gfwl0e_824

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Cool cyberpunk setting. That's it.

this game was short and had many flaws i cant recommend it was alright but probably one of the worst games ive played
it looks nice but there was a time i went to sleep and the fox wouldnt get up so i had to restart the baby fox means nothing there is no reason to bring him anywhere and therobots glitch through walls to kick you

This game has a review period limitation set to discourage negative commits, so if you are having difficulty posting a review that is why. Published 2018 with only a handful of reviews?

Want a validation of the quality of this game? = Look at the duration of gameplay from each review.

This does not constitute a game. I did not play for an hour. I adjusted the settings for 20 minutes, finished the "sample concept" in 15, and tried to find anything else appealing the remainder of the time. This is what happens when a content developer tries to create a game by themselves. Beautiful dystopian playfields, poor environmental & character interactions, and zero replay potential. The game is so short you will be scratching your head as to why it on Steam in the first place.

I wanted to believe that it had to be a proof of concept or a kick starter because no one would call this an actual game, but then I have read enough to know this is the intentional finished product. What little was made, is stunning and beautiful but a game is more then just a nice back drop. It should present some challenges and have a storyline that does not just stop abruptly because the developers gave up.

Here is to hoping that this is a prelude to better games, but as it is I cannot recommend this one.
Reason = Price does not equal the content. Refer to other commits for more detail.

No still a prototype

IDK why everyone is complaining about the controls. All you had to do is remap them and voila! for such a cheap price a lot games don't even have a keybind setting available. The animations are smooth as heck but the enemy AI could definitely use some work. Alot of parts are unpolished like the death screen and various camera movements but overall a nice game for the price nonetheless.

TLDR: Nice short fox simulator.

Terrible character controls

Amazing environment, very easy to get emerged in - one can feel the distopia and the work that has been put in to the scenery! A true masterpiece!

Sadly the controls are a bit wanky, first of you need to rebind them since nobidy can walk around with QEYC - seriously consided to tag along with the standarts WASD. It is also dificult to walk left / right and you will find yourselve mostly steering with the mouse while holding W (or Y?), wich sadly takes alot away from the athmosphere since you are always looking in the same direction as you are walking / running.

I completed the first and only, at the time of writing this review, chapter in about 50min. The puzzles are pretty basic as is the writing. You will buy this game for the Scenery and worldbuilding in which it realy shines! Also Foxes and Cyberpunk!