Magrunner: Dark Pulse
Skip · Shooter · 2013
Steam Deck PlayableThe verdict
SKIP IT.
The value isn't there at $19.99.
- Length
- 8.4h
- Value
- $2.38/hr
- Reviews
- 73% positive
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Minimum on the Steam store: 2 GB of memory, 4 GB of storage. Windows only.
Magrunner: Dark Pulse is an action-puzzle game in which technology confronts the Cthulhu Mythos, penned by H.P. Lovecraft. Equipped with your Magtech glove, you must harness the ability to magnetically polarize and manipulate objects in the environment to survive and surpass challenging puzzles.
What drives the score
How to read this
Every input gets a grade, S to D, read from the buyer's side. The score is multiplicative, so an input only counts as raising when it sits near the top of its own scale. Anything with real room left is holding the score back, because that room is the gap to 100. ▲ marks a lift, ▼ a drag or a dock, ? an input we do not have, • a fact this genre's score does not use. The exact weights stay secret.
The value story
November 2020 is where it bottomed out, at $0.99. It has been discounted 104 times in the 13 years tracked here, typically at 80 percent off, with about 5 weeks between sales. Today it is at full price. The last sale was about 13 weeks ago, and on this game's rhythm the next one tends to arrive within 5 weeks.
It is pricier than 79 percent of its genre. Among the games that feel like it, Scorn ($3.99, scores 49) beats it on value, while it beats Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs ($19.99, scores 20).
The drop-off
72% start to 9% rarestNo achievement in this game marks the ending, so there is no finish rate. The curve runs from the most-unlocked achievement to the rarest, and its shape is where players stop. Steam global achievements
What players say
8/10 been playing off and on , for 5 or 6 years. it is pretty solid. there are many portal clones. I do wonder if frogwares are actually Cthulhu worshippers, because they have so many games referencing that. over and over. anyway. " i dont know the language but it sounds like Cthu.. or something' 16 hours in made me realise . yes it s a bit mediocre and predictable, but the puzzles are fun . the anime style voice...
A lot of very neat puzzles and a story premise which is wacky in a charming way. Didn't love it as much as "Talos Principle" or "Portal", but it's still very well made.
It starts off pretty chill, and then the story takes a turn for the bizarre. It's not like Portal, but it reminds me of Portal, kind of like if Portal took a whole different approach to puzzles than using portals.
Player reviews from Steam: the most helpful all-time, plus the newest that clear the same quality bar, with the hours each player had put in when they wrote it. The mix of Recommended and Not recommended follows the game's Steam ratio. Rotates daily. Opinions are theirs.
Cite this score
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Magrunner: Dark Pulse scores 28/100 on the BANG Score (a skip). The BANG Score rates what a game is worth for the money. Via Steam BANGERS. https://steambangers.com/game/209630/magrunner-dark-pulseThe BANG Score is one number for value, 0 to 100: price against how it reviews and how long it was built to be. It answers the money question and stops there; whether the game is for you is still your call.
Reviews set the ceiling and price moves you inside it, so a cheap game that reviews badly cannot climb. Ratings from few reviewers are shrunk toward the middle, so 100 percent from nine people does not outrank 96 percent from ninety thousand. Length comes from HowLongToBeat where it can be matched, measured against a per-genre floor so a five-hour narrative game is judged against other narrative games rather than against a sixty-hour RPG. Where no verified length exists the score says so and carries a dock, because the biggest input is then a guess. The full method, including where it is weak → Steam reviews as of Sep 6, price as of Sep 24.
A number here look wrong? Tell me what it got wrong and I will look at the inputs behind it.