Just released (7min ago) and already got 1/5 rating... some serious trolling is going on here - I wouldnt even be able to gather enough informations of this game before I could rate it that fast ...

Some people have such miserable self-esteem that the only way they can feel their lives are worthwhile is by putting down everyone and everything around them. This was probably someone who bought the game, quickly gave it a 1-star rating to be vindictive, and then refunded the game. It's good that gog only allows verified owners to rate and review a game (at least I think they do), but they should also remove/cancel any ratings from people who return the game. And this site has been begging for a reviews curator for ages. Many of the game reviews are completely irrelevant, but it's like reviews are holy cows in India - no one is allowed to touch them.

To at least talk about this game: the description mentions playing solitaire - does the game contain a solitaire "mini-game"?

Since the filter for the text-based reviews includes an explicit "Verified Owners" filter option, I strongly doubt that is the case.

Anyway, reviews without any form of explanatory text are less than pointless.

On GOG folks can review a game without owning it. Folks that do own the game will have their review marked "Verified owner". It works much like Amazon's system in that.

As for your other question, usually Zachtronics includes a new Solitaire game, not only a minigame or a copy of an existing game. Shenzhen Solitaire (part of Shenzhen I/O) even got a release as a separate game on Steam.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/570490/SHENZHEN_SOLITAIRE/

It's been the same with Plague of Tale. You don't need to buy a game to rate it

Now it says: 4.3/5
============================= "None of the verified owners
have rated this game" and still it has ratings, so I guess people can rate and not own the game.

As for removing ratings....why? If they are not obvious gaming the system why remove them? The review reviewing system(how many liked a review) should be enough...we don't want people(who can be prone to bias) curating reviews like they do games. That part made me wonder as well.....there is one screen shot showing a card game, so perhaps you play it while waiting for the game to process chemicals/etc?

To clear up any confusion, there's three ratings on each store page:

- The overall rating, which includes all the rating votes made.

- The verified owner rating, which only includes the rating votes of verified owners. Being verified means that you own the game on GOG.

- The filter based rating, which only includes the rating votes that match the filters you've selected.

Of these, the verified owner rating is generally the most reliable and the same tends to apply to reviews. There's a filter option that when selected only shows you verified reviews, so it's easy to ignore non-verified reviews if you want to.

I saw this was released on gog and at the same time I realised I was hungry. So I heated some bagel bites. But my microwave decided to die half way through cooking them. 1 star.

It's quite disconcerting that Zachtronics continues to treat as second-class citizens those who buy its games on GOG by cutting achievements for all its games, even now that virtually any other publisher is implementing them.

Can somebody tell me, why this game needs DX 11? Judging from the look, it seems as if even the Graphics Chip of an Amiga 500 would be able to display such graphics, maybe even a C 64.

I also heated some and also some hot pockets, and burned my tongue on the filling....1/2 star.
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fair enough, but would such a game even benefit from achievements?

Maybe I am underestimating the amount of chemist-gamer hybrids, but doesn't this description read as being "too niche"?

You don't get the "great minds" at gog......it's so niche that it's un niche and thus not niche at all. o.0

I mean why have an RPG that might sell a few thousand copies when you can have this and sell...*dr evil finger wag*....dozens?

The last time they rejected a Zachtronics game, there was quite a bit of furor from the sector of that developer's apparently rather devoted fanbase who also are GOG enthusiasts -- enough of a furor that GOG wound up reversing their decision and releasing Opus Magnum after all. They probably don't want a repeat of that, as long as the games haven't been actually unprofitable for them to carry (and I presume they haven't).