Life Eater

Life Eater is an extremely unique game that succeeds in a lot of ways. And it's great on the Steam Deck, in most ways.

Life Eater offers a truly unique premise. You are the reluctant follower of a God that promises devastation on the same day every year. To stave off an annual apocalypse, you must kidnap and sacrifice human targets to the all-mighty Zimforth. What this requires is careful monitoring of people’s characteristics and schedules to make sure you complete your rituals correctly.

Mechanically, Life Eater uses a diary-based puzzle system in some really interesting ways, but it struggles to say anything meaningful about the shock-factor setting it's gone for.

While I was undeniably a little disappointed after going into this with high expectations, it's a very unique game that offers an interesting experience once you accept that it's a much smaller project.

Life Eater takes an interesting premise but loses itself in monotony.

Life Eater feels like an experiment that neither fizzled nor exploded. All the parts are there, but they don’t fit together quite right. Something is missing, and before that something was located, it was released into the wild as-is. Because it can’t find its effectiveness, the central concept that should be so compelling and disturbing is just kind of fluffy. If an apathetic detachment from ritual sacrifice was what Life Eater was aiming for, then it nailed it. Unfortunately.