I wanna preserve this comment here ‘cos it made my day when he posted it. This is his impromptu review of his first time playing the game, and it hopefully captures the general feelings of most people who play Valley of Gwangi.

Downloading now - I’ll post opinions etc as I experience the game via a notepad document.

First off, I gotta say I was confused with why you put the screenshots with the .zip. I’m not complaining, I’m just curious to know why.

(reading the readme like a good boy)

I lied I’m just skimming. Zedex to play? Alright, sounds intuitive enough. Also this sounds super cool, you’ve already got me interested in the movie and novel just from the enemy listing - dinosaurs AND gypsies? Sounds like a helluva time!

Right time to boot it up. If the game immerses me enough I won’t alt+tab, just when there’s a breather for me to update this.

How do I get off my horse? I just sorta jumped on it and I don’t see any downsides just yet but still. (checks readme) Oh, alright, that makes sense mechanically, I’m cool with that.

FUCKING PTERODACTYL IMMEDIATELY KILLS ME alright let’s try that again

oh shit literally a six-shot I love small resources like this. makes every bullet precious (except i just fired off the first one by accident). one thing is I wish aiming was easier to make up for the lack of accuracy. (still haven’t fought anything so maybe i’m wrong).

Right, that little bit was fun (until the ptero got me again - i shouldn’t expect a spear to get it anyhow). i don’t really get the point behind the lasso unless you’re out of bullets - maybe that is the point after all.

attempt 3. gypsies shot my horse, i grabbed a stick but they shot me again first. combat is fun, but hella fast. i’ll play it through a few more times without adding to this, see how it goes. I’m certainly intrigued, I’ll say that much.

I LIED I GOTTA COME BACK AND SAY FRIENDLY FIRE BETWEEN GYPSIES IS HILARIOUS, AWESOME AND SUPER USEFUL. Man, monster in-fights. Talk about an underappreciated mechanic.

Well, I killed everything but Gwangi - there any way to win this thing? (checks readme again) oh, get all the money and leave. sounds fair enough.

That was super fun. I didn’t beat it, but it was still a blast. I’m gonna move on to a bigger board, apparently they have more enemies. I wish esc brought you to the menu though, instead of closing the game completely.

I love this game. Every time I died I knew why - just now I lassoed Gwangi, but instead of running away like I should’ve (it was my last lasso), I grabbed all the shit on the screen. My horse was dead, so he just came up and ate me on the next screen.

I love how you have to be resourceful as shit in this - every lasso and bullet counts. Spears aren’t that useful though - do they not get used up when I attack smaller stuff? otherwise they’re less useful AND less populous than bullets. i still use them though because they’re there and I run out of bullets often enough. So I guess it’s more a thing of “when you’ve run out of even spears you’re kinda fucked” even though you’re still not because monster infighting is a thing (which more games need).

I wish there was a “shoot behind” button though - especially when your horse is dead and Gwangi’s on your tail.

Oh, now I get it. You really can’t miss with a spear so long as you’re in range. I do vertical sweeps against gunmen, gets them every time. Good shit indeed.

I love this game. I’ll be playing it for a few hours now. These kinds of games are exactly what 64D needs - small, yet mechanically rich and intriguing. 9/10 will play multiple times in the future.

Edit: OH SHIT the lassoes are super useful for catching the fast little critters that I just now realize were the point of the game. Alright, time for some serious gameplay.

Edit2: Oh I don’t even have to kill them. Awesome! And the lasso recycles! Literally every 5 minutes I’m learning new stuff about this game, either mechanically or about the meta. Bumped to a 10/10. Everyone should play this right now, it’s a shame nobody has commented on this yet.