Dynamite Jack (PC) (2012)

Reason for Playing: On my custom "Recommended by Filter" list. Small game on my Zenbook.

Overview: A top-down stealth game. A space marine escapes with just bombs and a flashlight.

20191110:
The game gets tough towards the last few stages. At times it feels a little too much. I'm guessing this is hard to balance.


Setup: Xbox controller.

Steam Game Time: 3.1 hours (session game time)

20191111:
I put some time into trying to finish the game but encounter burnout. At this point I see the end. With the first floor being the tutorial (with one level) and the eight floor being the top (with three levels), I have yet to complete the crystal level on the fourth through eighth floor, plus "Micro Palace" on the fifth floor, "Laser Lab" on the sixth floor, and "Branching Fissures" on the seventh floor. In every other level I have acquired the three achievements. As such, I've completed approximately 60% of the game (17/28).


On a different note, I couldn't see my mouse cursor in the game and I tried to find something about it in the game's Steam discussions. While editing this post, I thought to search it as a general issue and found a working solution.

Steam Game Time: 1.0 hours (session game time) / 4.1 hours (total game time)

Thoughts:
Pros:
+ Simple game mechanics.
+ Reasonable amount of difficulty.
+ Reasonable amount of new gameplay elements introduced during the game.
+ Reasonable leeway in game progression.
+ Map is generous.


Neutral:
~ Music is subtle, but possibly appropriate for a stealth game.
~ One of the achievements used in the game was something to the effect of "Use at least 30 bombs in the map." I think a more impressive achievement would be to "Use less than X bombs in the map" where X-1 or X-2 is the minimal number of bombs needed.

Summary:
A part of me enjoyed playing this game only because it seemed easy to get 100% on it. However, the game really focuses on the gameplay and doesn't put much into the game's sounds or visuals. As a result, the game was underwhelming and I would have trouble recommending it to others.

20220521:
Today I started with the last level which completes the story. I then knocked out a couple of the achievements in previous levels (every level has three). I did not, however, feel compelled to grind through the many levels I have left to achieve (I count about 19 remaining, not including the two at the end which are "Collect all the cartridges" and "Collect all the achievements").

Okay so I went back into a game, entered a level I hadn't played, and knocked out it's three achievements in 0.3 hours (measured as the difference between 5.5 and 5.2). I think the time investment is per level, but averaging out the time, then it would take between 1.5 and 2 hours to complete the remaining 16 achievements.

Steam Game Time: 1.4 hours (session game time) / 5.5 hours (total game time)

Dynamite Jack (PC) (2012)

Relevant Links:
Dynamite Jack (PC) (MetaCritic.com)
Dynamite Jack (Steam Store Page)

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