Summertime Madness

This is not a good puzze game, it is a mediocre one. The areas are made so you want to explore a bit, bu you're on a timer, so you run looking for puzzles and their solutions, while on the run. To make it worse, you have to travel a long way from one puzzle to another, like up a very tall spiral staircase, or a detour along a circular maze bridge. Not to mention that unless you have an ear for music and know how to read notes, the only way to solve the piano boat puzzle is if you do it correctly by chance. This game is badly designed, and poorly executed.

Summertime Madness has some good things going for it, with some nice visuals and soundtrack which can help relax in the game's early-mid stages. However, while some puzzles have good ideas behind them, most do not seem fully fledged. At no point did I ever feel a true sense of accomplishment for solving a puzzle, and one of the puzzles in particular is absolutely awful in concept. Furthermore, I spent the majority of the game walking, which is pretty slow relative to the size of game's areas even when running. I expect to spend the majority of a puzzle game trying to solve puzzles. Finally, the time limit mechanic seems to directly contradict the theme of the game. Sure, it fits in the narrative, but the narrative is essentially just a cap of cutscenes at the start and end of the game. But thematically, the game seems to be begging you to relax and enjoy the scenery and to take your time with it. But then they whack a 6 hour time limit on to it, which is plenty generous for a game t...

This game is beautiful but not a good puzzle game. Maybe i'm just too acclimated to these kinds of game but i often found them to be either really easy to do or really confusing because this is a game full of really simple puzzles wrapped in winding level design that seems designed to waste time in the worst way. Also you have 6 hours to work with in a game that would take around 2-3 so using hints doesn't really impact much, not like you'd need them for most puzzles.

Summertime Madness appeared to be a game that is just up my alley. It has all of the elements - art, music, and puzzles. It also has an optional timer for achievements. It started out great... figuring out how to get off a boat, turning platforms to build a path. And, then it took a downhill turn for me. The game evolves into a series of mazes and switches in an Escher-like house, a time-warped train station, a series of doors, and (seemingly) endless stairs/paths. To add insult to injury, I was well on my way to making a successful 6 hour run when I selected the wrong door and my clock advanced to a quick 'game over.' Evidently, I was not the only frustrated player because the development team listened and released their 1.2 patch which made these areas less punishing. In view of this responsiveness on their part and the improvements made to these areas, I am changing my opinion from 'do not recommend' to a 'recommend with caveats.' Summertime Madness has some nice features. It ...

I watched some streamers test the game and I decided to give it a try. There are several quotes to some of my favorite painters and the music really helps you to relax and to focus on the game. The puzzles are quite challenging and they are never trivial: it is a pleasure to explore this surreal world in all his corners. Totally worth its price.

Excellent music with both elegant story and narration, but tragically falls short in classic indie fashion. An art style that's too obsessed with appearing simple and charming. It instead comes off as lifeless, and at it's worst, such as the levels "Memories from the Future," and "The Castle," this and the chosen color palette become downright hideous. I should clarify that this isn't damning on it's own and I don't think it comes from a place of incompetence, but for a game that insists you run around and double back as much as this one, the problem becomes glaring. The loudest issue however is the puzzles, too many of which gain their difficulty from tricking the player rather than displaying a real challenge, one of which is laughably gimmicky, and nearly all of which feel incredibly drawn-out. Most levels consist of much, much more walking and time wasting than actual puzzle solving, which might provide thematic tension to an ever-ticking clock, but is a terrible detriment to a l...

i wanted to enjoy this game. played it during a indie fest iirc and only got around to playing it 2 years later. but the puzzles arent really puzzles, more of a test of endurance. nothings intellectually stimulating and just feels like a bore. not to mention, the controls for some of these are really jank making the puzzles much more infuriating than they otherwise should be (looking at the flower scales specifically here). yeah i could look up answers just to get through it quickly to see what the end is but the story isnt interesting enough for me to care to do so. game does look really nice though, especially with the paint effect ill give it that

Visually It's really nice looking game and the colors are even my vibe. Story wise It's good either but since this game is based in Prague and I do live in The Czech Republic I know that The Bombing of Prague didn't happen in July 1945 but in February 1945 cause in July the Prague was already under the Soviet flag saved from Nazi Germany. Over these good points the game isn't good in gameplay. The puzzles are nothing but tedious. Collecting 30 fireflies to build stairs? WTH?

Difficulty : 2/5 (Normal) Global : 0.5/5 (Bad) Summertime Madness is a 3D puzzle game, you're a painter trapped in his painting and you solve puzzles to escape. The game has a timer, or rather you're supposed to play with a timer (the lowest "difficulty" disables it fortunately). I don't understand the timer thing when you have a world to explore and collectibles to find but whatever. Even with the worst timer (3h) you should be good. The island you see in the screenshots can be explored but the game is not an open world, it's linear with puzzles appearing one by one. Now what are those puzzles about? What's the special mechanic? Well, there is none. The majority of them consists of slowly exploring a big maze and pulling levers that activate things. And that's why I can't recommend this game. Maybe if the running speed was 2 or 3 times faster, the game would've been decent. That's a shame because it's not VERY bad, the mazes are not totally braindead but the gigantic amount of time...

The puzzles in this game is... well... mostly flipping switches... not that it's not fun... just.. a little simple. The "hard" part of the game are the illogical part where it's impossible to solve without the hint from the pocket watch... so i wouldn't call those a puzzle imo... The art work is pretty but some part of it could be an eye sore... The music just isn't my type most of the time and pretty depressing than relaxing. So it turned out to be a "meh" experience for me in overall... kinda hard to rate the review on this one really.. more like a 50/50.