Amitte

Progress report: November ‘21 (a.k.a. Screw School, Do Game To It)

I’m not studying properly! I feel bad about that! My sleep schedule is a mess! I feel bad about that also! I can’t stop biting my nails! I feel bad about that, also also!

:) Do better next month, me.

100 hidden frogs - These games seem to be all the rage lately, so when I noticed there’s a free one, I instantly hopped on it. It’s much like the dev’s previous title, Mushroom Cats, although I guess at this point he’s given up at coloring or animating the whole thing in favor of churning more of these out. It wasn’t bad, but I don’t see myself paying for any of the other ones.

12 Labours of Hercules - Getting my start on one of the bigger time management franchises! Much like the two Alicia Quatermain games, which I’ve played before, this is a clear-the-road time management game. I wasn’t as into the attempt at having a story as with AQ (the narrator just doesn’t sound as good as Alicia), but I found this one much less time-consuming than the AQ games - it had less levels in total, but it also seemed very lenient with its time restraints. An enjoyable, but mind-numbing (as usual) experience.

Amorous - Hey, you! Looking for love? Why not swing by Amorous, subjectively the best furry nightclub out there? That’s right, Amorous is a furry dating sim. From the outside, it may seem like there was a lot of love and hard work put into it, but upon looking closer… While the fursona creator is in-depth (and therefore, encourages making a fursona you like looking at), you will not see much of it again… except from the waist down, when the time is right. I’ve no idea what engine the devs used to create the game, but it’s raw and lacks a lot of functions modern VN engines can easily provide. The text boxes are huge, fitting paragraphs so long I only really read them halfway through. Speaking of which, not only would breaking those down let the game use smaller text boxes (hopefully), but it would also extend the playtime a reasonable amount. As it stands, each character’s route can be experienced in less than two hours, allowing for no genuine attachment. I also believe most, if not all of the secondary/background characters have been contributed by Patreon backers and the like, leading to naming dissonance (single names you might have heard before for the love interests vs, in some cases, double names that seem more like usernames for the contributed characters). There are also a bunch of characters around the club that look much more intriguing than any of the love interests, but can’t be interacted with. (Come on, there’s a girl with an Egyptian-themed fox tail that ends with a snake mouth, I wanna know what’s up with her!) Last, but not least… the sex scenes. I believe they’re the drive of the game and despite whatever trouble the love interest might have been (lousily) working through thanks to the main character, the sex scene was the only thing I was really waiting for. The big problem is, though, that most of their meat is in the writing, and as mentioned above, there’s too much of that hitting you at a time. Aside from that, the experience is watching the main character (use this chance to remember what color you made their fur!) and the love interest doing it… while the accompanying sounds come from one and the same person for all guys and one and the same person for all girls. (Kind of hard to believe a submissive boy voice would be coming out of a dominant lion man, eh?) Then there are also minigames, one of which is stopping me from being able to say I’m done with this game forever. I need to know what demon is out there, possessing visual novel developers to include precision-based minigames and not bat an eyelash as players rightfully complain. Those are the things that make me shake my head in disbelief at the fact that this isn’t just some “labor of love, made with my own money” game. No, Amorous is a game that has likely been in development for years before it had something to show and it used potential players’ money… so it should be able to offer more than it does.

Batman: The Enemy Within - The Telltale Series - Wasn’t planning on getting this done so soon, but here we are! This time, as the subtitle suggests, we get to infiltrate the bad guys - there’s a whole bunch of them, they’re new in town and they’re working together, so that’s the best course of action, really. Despite my knowledge of Batman lore not having expanded since I played the first game back in April, it’s nice to say that I’ve recognized the villains from this one. That, and despite the ending being… shall I say, limiting, I wouldn’t mind a continuation.

Bulb Boy - On an evening just like any other, Bulb Boy, his grandpa and the family dog are enjoying their daily dose of TV… wait, what’s that? A monster? Whew, it was only a nightmare. …or was it? An interesting take on the point-and-click genre, Bulb Boy would be best described as a P’n’C-boss rush hybrid. As the titular main character, you’re forced to square off against multiple frightening, sizable and downright vile horrors. Definitely not recommended for the squeamish, as there is plenty of bloodshed and toilet… humor?

Carpe Diem: Reboot - This sequel to what you might have well thought was a one-off kind of story starts on a day like any other for Jung, as he is out and about with Ai. Since Jung’s birthday is coming up, Ai wants to surprise him… little does he know, her gift is about to turn his whole life upside down. The store page for this one notes that there’s no need to play the prequel, seeing as Reboot has its own story… but then again, the original is free (and short), so why wouldn’t you? After doing that, though, feel free to spend a few hours reading about Ai and Jung’s antics. While Reboot wasn’t anything that will stick with me for years to come, it was a solid VN, with a good-looking UI, pretty art and voices provided by actors billed in a good bunch of anime dubs. (Plus, one of the endings calls for a continuation!)

Chaos on Deponia - Once again, traversing the trash-ridden land of Deponia! Our anti-, clearly hero, Rufus, continues busying himself with earning the heart of his Elysian love, Goal. This time around, however, due to a set of unfortunate circumstances, Goal’s personality gets split into three parts. Since that isn’t really something anyone wants to get used to, it’s Rufus’ task to get all of the Goals to like him, help bring them back together and one more time, keep Deponia from being wiped out of existence. While I like me a point and click like Daedalic’s, I have to admit I might not be a fan of this series. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems like there’s a Deadpool-esque cadence to Rufus’ expression… yet none of the charm. Since the funniest thing I can think of him saying in this game is that he’s farted (yes, I am mentally three years old, thank you for not asking), I feel like it’s a problem. Yes, yes, I know he’s not supposed to be likeable… but somehow, I just found myself wishing for a new Edna and Harvey game I could play instead.

Dreamscapes: The Sandman - Premium Edition - Wow, I really did leave the last ten minutes of the game for next month, huh? Anyway, Dreamscapes is… a HOG, so this won’t be long. You’re a voluntary assistant to a mad scientist, who happens to have a comatose girl, Laura, in his care. When push comes to shove, you find a way to connect to her brain and access her dreams, which will not only let you help her to wake up, but also reveal a whole another plot. This may not be the first time I say it, but with how high-quality and prolific Artifex Mundi games are, I can’t help but compare all other HOGs to theirs. Dreamscapes definitely falls behind; it features ugly 3D animation, which makes me wonder when the game was originally released (I dare say it couldn’t have been 2014, as the Steam page for this release states) and some poor voice acting. It wasn’t a bad time, but if I wanted to experience a memorable HOG (which is an oxymoron), I would have picked something from the AM catalog.

Emily is Away Too - Double the nostalgia. Double the easter eggs. Double the… conversational partners? Friends? Or… maybe even something more? This time around, it’s indeed not only Emily who can be away, but it all comes down to who you’re interested in more. I still very much enjoyed the aesthetic of “the good ol’ days” - I would wager a guess that someone who got to live it sees it as accurate to how it was in real life - but I find that the relationships seem very shallow. Yes, we don’t see anything besides the online conversations, but in the end, no matter who you’re talking to, it comes down to choosing to echo (or not) their favorite things, outlooks on life, help out with a similar enough problem and see an ending with either of them play out in an identical manner. At least the easter eggs were fun? Ultimately, I’m kind of disappointed with this one, but still curious about the third installment.

Enigmatis 2: The Mists of Ravenwood - Since there’s never much to say about HOGs, I might as well repeat the formula I’ve used multiple times in the past that this one reminded me of: while I don’t mind the supernatural, I much prefer stories set on more realistic ground. What will be specific to this particular HOG, though, is that I think whoever was in charge of implementing the SFX must have been going through something terrible in their life at the time, because I really don’t know what else could explain the fact that everything in that game is so freaking noisy. The minigame where you have to maneuver balls in a maze sounds like vehemently scraping a wooden ladle against an also-wooden bowl while trying to sit whatever is in it. A minigame that has you unlock a door with multiple latches keeps clinking and clunking every time you manipulate any of the parts. Needless to say, my ears hurt.

GNOG - Hey, you! Feel like using your GNOG-gin? If you said “yes”, this game is for you! GNOG features puzzles in the form of big heads, each with a specific theme. You’ll get to rotate the heads and poke at whatever is poke-able in order to solve their mysteries. It’s a short and fun game that I’m afraid is a little too expensive for how long it lasts (two hours at most). I got it in a bundle, and so I recommend it at a lower price point.

Gone Fireflies - A set of short vignettes centered around the lives of two couples and the least expected ways they continue to cross and intertwine with each other. It may only take an hour to play through, but it immediately becomes obvious how much care was put into making it - it’s very straightforward, leaving no room for aimless wandering, which means you can experience the whole story at a consistent pace. I also appreciate something I’m not sure I’ve seen before in an RPG Maker game - the sprites’ faces showing up in the dialogue boxes, making it easier to know who’s talking. Not a big deal, but I know I sometimes lose track of that. All in all, a solid game, although maybe best bought on even the tiniest discount.

Heart and Seoul - An incredibly mediocre VN about finding love in Korea; but most specifically, Seoul. I really feel like the creators of this one set it there just so they could make the “looks like I found my Seoulmate!” pun, as if it’s the funniest thing they’ve ever come up with. The characters are extremely one-dimensional, the VN doesn’t look good (my eternal hatred for TyranoScript rages on) and there wasn’t even much to learn about Korea - you’d think if someone wanted to set their story in a foreign country, they’d at least be willing to put in the effort to research more things and share that knowledge. I’ve seen reviews complaining about the match-3 minigame, which by now I may as well imagine is present in some form in all of the devs’ VNs, but honestly, I thought that was the best part. Especially during my second playthrough, when it started running smoothly for no apparent reason (lol). If you’re interested in a good otome game, this isn’t it; if you’re curious about Korea… I don’t know what game could satiate your curiosity, but I do know that you’d be better off not playing this one.

Hidden Numbers: Twisted Worlds - One of the many endless, mobile-style games I’ve been working my way through, Twisted Worlds has a unique twist on the HOG gameplay that’s limited to looking only for letters, numbers or symbols. It’s mildly entertaining, at times also frustrating… and knowing the studio that developed it, broken. Yes, I have originally completed this game a few months ago, but I was still missing the last few achievements. Two of them didn’t unlock for reasons I can’t explain (I have fulfilled the conditions to unlock them) and the last one is programmed in, even though there is no way to work for it honestly as of now. …so I caved in and unlocked the achievements from outside. Sue me if you want, but I think I have already spent enough time in this game and that it’s no longer worth it. All I really wanted is to be done with it, ultimately.

Lost Lands: Mahjong - Whew! This marks the completion of another endless game! Achievement-wise, that is. This is the second one from this dev to go (after Clover Tale), since I really enjoyed it. You can dunk on the “spend in-game energy to play” model all you want, but to me, that makes games like this one perfect to play in short bursts - right after I wake up, before I go to sleep or whenever I get the “I don’t even know what I want to do with myself right now” kind of feeling. Lost Lands: Mahjong is a quest-driven mahjong game - much like in Clover Tale, you’re expected to repeatedly explore various locations by solving mahjong boards and pray that the thing you need to complete your current quest is one of the reward drops, rinse and repeat. Naturally, there is a story attached to the whole thing, but I didn’t care about it at all - I’ve always been more wrapped up in the actual gameplay. Besides mahjong, you also get to play minigames to unlock chests - I’ve used guides to get through some of those more often that I would like to admit - and interact with monsters to get other drops. If I had to find something to complain about, it’s that after building everything there is to build in the game initially, there’s an overabundance of supplies used strictly for that that are being handed out constantly, which quickly becomes annoying; and secondly, since I believe this is adapted from Lost Lands: A Hidden Object Adventure, some of the items that are useful only in that iteration still appear in this one (as opposed to the first problem, not nearly as often… but still), which is obviously redundant. That being said, if you’re looking for a good, free mahjong game to hop into from time to time, I fully recommend this one. (P.S.: Mind the playtime.)

Love Rhythm - Definitely one of the better low-tier lewdie games out there. You randomly appear in the lives of the girls, magically fitting all their (clearly vastly different) needs, not unlike other games of the sort. Between dates, you also get to play a rhythm game, which is the one reason I got this game in the first place. The track list mainly consists of J-pop and K-pop, which I also found appealing. The visuals are somewhat lacking (at times the narration will venture out to a different setting, yet there’ll be no background change to try and support it). The H-scenes look good, but the writing is their downfall. I’m not really a fan of things that might sound completely fine in hentai being translated straight into English, it all comes out stiff and unnatural. I will say, though, that I feel like the VAs are making the best of what they were given. If you’re interested in a simple enough rhythm game, I do recommend this one.

Mad Father - One of the RPG Maker horror games, lauded and deemed one of the classics by many, has semi-recently made its way to multiple commercial platforms, along with a remastered look. This is the first time I played through it on my own, but in a way, it was nostalgic to me, since I’ve watched the original version be played online, perhaps multiple times. To introduce the game’s story shortly: you control Aya Drevis, the only daughter to Monika, who has since passed away, and Alfred, who spends all his time in his laboratory in the basement of the family’s mansion. One peculiar night, Aya realizes she’s being called down to the lab and soon enough, she becomes exposed to all the terrors that are waiting for her on the way down. A horror game through and through, with heart-stopping jumpscares, clever riddles and even quick-time events. If you’re looking to play an RPG Maker game that doesn’t resemble the countless bottom of the barrel, copycat fantasy RPGs, definitely check this one out.

my fluffy life - Let me tell you all, I was absolutely intrigued by this ever since I randomly found it in the store. A social game that’s all about earning money, dressing up, customizing your room and just having a good time? Sounds like everything I’m nostalgic for! The truth, however, is that the cute looks are all this game really has going for it. I will preface everything I say from this point on by mentioning that I think I played the game during the Halloween event… which was supposed to end sometime in October, but it didn’t, I guess? …so maybe the game looks somewhat different outside of that. Right away, from the first time I started playing, I found it uncomfortable that the in-game world doesn’t scroll from left to right and vice versa, but rather aims to achieve the look of living on a planet. I don’t think I ever really got vertigo from a game, but there might have been one or two games that made me mildly nauseous in that way, and this is another one of them. Then, poking around things led me to the realization that everything costs money… and I have none. That’s fair, I should probably look for places I can earn some. This is what makes the game painful and not worth it for me at all: the only way to earn money (excluding sifting through gift codes in hopes of finding some) is to play minigames… which are so incredibly dull I could barely stick with them. The Halloween-themed part of the world features three of those: a Flappy Bird clone, which is pretty much impossible to play due to the weird perspective, a game based around picking good pumpkins apart from bad ones as fast as possible and a game about keeping an eye on a teddy bear… which I think is supposed to be scary? Scary-cute? Whatever. What came next was the surprise of how little money playing those minigames actually gives. By default, the currency you’re gathering is happiness. At any time, you can exchange happiness for teddycoins, which is the currency that’s used for actual purchases. The main problem is, one teddycoin is worth 20 happiness points and in spite of that, the cheapest customizables are still priced in thousands of teddycoins. See where I’m going with this? Lucky for me, most achievements for this game were very easy to unlock (I got a thousand teddycoins through posting a screenshot of my in-game profile and tagging the dev), but the one I got last was really damn tedious. You are expected to spend a whole month in-game. You progress from day to day by going to sleep, but you can’t go to sleep if you’re not tired. You can tire yourself out by playing minigames or just clicking around the environment for happiness points. Considering my dislike of the minigames, guess which one I did. As viable an option as it is to stand in place and just click around, it still takes a good few minutes to drain your energy and to add insult to injury, the only information you get is that every click drops your energy by merely 0.10… percent, I suppose? But to flip that situation around, there are multiple NPCs around the world that give you free snacks daily, which can regenerate your energy, so… besides the small rewards on every other day, it really doesn’t seem worth it all that much to keep pushing the calendar forward. To sum it up, I will say that I do not fault the dev for wanting to make money off her craft - one look at her site is enough to see how multifaceted the work she does is - but for me, this turned out to not be an experience worth paying for. In my opinion, this game’s enjoyment value is on the level of a mobile game (albeit a good one in comparison to whatever’s polluting that space). That, and I should probably also mention that if you’re not the type to talk like this: “im a 16 y/o bewbi who wikes to hv fun!! uwu”, this game will be your personal hell. I know it was mine.

Nightmares from the Deep 2: The Siren’s Call - The fearless museum curator is back! Someone very peculiar caught wind of the happenings of her first adventure… and that same someone ended up roping her into another one. Another deal with Davy Jones had been struck, and as the subtitle suggests, this time a certain siren is an invaluable party. The main character now has to break off the deal and help everyone wronged by it. If you know how HOGs look/work, especially AM HOGs, there’s really nothing more to say. As much as I don’t like playing through them twice for all the achievements, I always enjoy a good HOG. If I had to name a con, I would have to say it’s the collectibles. This game has three (!) kinds of collectibles you have to be on the lookout for and it’s more annoying than anything. Still, I’m looking forward to finishing the franchise next year!

Orwell: Ignorance is Strength - While the you from another timeline first Orwell researcher is busy investigating the possible perpetrators of the Bonton bombings, you’re tasked with keeping an eye on Raban Vhart, a highly influential Pargesian immigrant, along with his circle of people. Save for two or three new things, this sequel is largely the same as the first game. However, I can’t say I enjoyed it nearly as much. I may not remember a lot from the first game since it’s been a while, but I liked the human aspect of it - I could find myself sympathizing with this or that character, or recognize that they clearly seem misguided in their actions. In Ignorance is Strength, nobody is really likeable, from the main person of interest all the way to the agent. Assuming the devs are planning to expand the franchise, I’ll gladly stick around to see it through, but right now I’m not really pressed for the continuation. I admit to having gotten a bit more tired with it than I would, simply because I didn’t realize it’s possible to replay the episodes one by one. If you’re reading this while taking a break from the game, all you need to do to speed the process up is highlight your in-game profile, then access the options and you’ll be golden.

Starstruck: Prologue - I originally picked this up back in June, as part of the free-to-play month, so it’s safe to say that I’ve forgotten how I felt about this game back then. What I do know is that I’m only writing about it now, because it took me five months to get the last achievement - that’s how hard the built-in rhythm game (which coincidentally was the thing that initially pulled me in) really was. (And in the end, I only really got that achievement after the dev introduced the option to remap individual buttons!) The stop-motion art style and Nintendo-esque conversation sounds are great and really sell the game on its quirkiness, but in the end, I’m not sure I’ll be rushing to buy it when it comes out.

Sudoku Jigsaw - For me, this was one of those “I’m smoothbrained, so I’ll just copy the answers from a guide and move on with my life” kind of puzzle game, but I have to admit, this is a cool take on sudoku.

Supreme League of Patriots Issue 1: A Patriot is Born - Extremely ‘murrican. I would go as far as to say that it’s what initially kept me away from this game. Having tried it out, I can confirm that there were quite a lot of references and jokes that made my poor little European brain confused. I’m not a superhero nut, I enjoy some of the established ones, so this was just okay in my book. Or maybe even less than that. See, I found the way the dialogues were presented refreshing - every time you enter a conversation, the game zooms in on the character sprites, but separate from the whole screen, if that makes sense. They emote in the area you move around, but you also get to watch a close-up of it, as if you’re observing the conversation from their level, off to the side. That, and most characters seem to have their own music themes, which could seem jarring when you think about it, but ultimately proved funny. However, I didn’t like the way navigating the inventory works - I’d like to think I played a good few point-and-clicks, yet even after completing the tutorial I would keep forgetting how it works; I would say that’s half-half on me and the game though, I barely paid attention to the tutorial and the game was too short to really utilize all functions equally. That, and the humor is, uh… sexual. I will be the first to admit that I am a pervert, and while it would take much, much more for me to say that I find something really disgusting, this was pretty tasteless. Mel, the sharp-tongued Brit is the resident straight man, quick on his feet… but he also takes to personal insults so casually, I wasn’t a fan. Then again, while I don’t generally hate loser characters (said term perfectly fitting Mel’s friend and the protagonist, Kyle), I also definitely do not enjoy humor centered around constantly making fun of someone, as if bullying has been the funniest thing ever since mankind established the concept of comedy. At the end of the day, though, it wasn’t terribly long, so I imagine I will be seeing it through to the end in the future.

Sword Daughter - Also known as: the worst superhero name ever. Sword Daughter is a short VN with an incredible art style, solid UI work and decent music… but none of that can save it from its mediocrity. The story starts with the main character - Tyrna, a female knight - making her way to the Warrior Games, a ceremony which she has to attend to prove her maturity. One thing leads to another and everyone who accompanied her on the journey has gotten kidnapped, while she wakes up alongside Gavin (not a very fantasy-sounding name, is it), a half-human, half-elven man. Despite her claims that she has never been in love and therefore doesn’t know how it feels, by the end of just about all of the 22 (!) endings, she’s in Gavin’s arms, about to sacrifice everything she’s ever worked for. It’s a poorly chopped-up fanfiction at worst and someone’s first VN read at best. Thankfully it has a chapter select menu, which is a feature every VN nowadays could use.

The Ghost of Joe Papp - I do not understand this VN. At all. It’s a short story about members of a theatre troupe? Sure, but it’s all a big mess. It starts off seemingly in the middle, as if it expects the player to know the characters, doesn’t use colorcoding (the basic method!) to distinguish between characters’ lines (I kept confusing two characters with vaguely similar names, which normally isn’t an issue for me) and most importantly, it’s chock-full of Shakespearean language and extremely American references (or so they would seem to me, a dirty European). I can’t even be mad about the incorrectly implemented skip function, as I didn’t even feel like reading attentively to pretend like I’m interested.

See you next month! :)

(Fun fact: I haven’t completed over 20 games in a month since May 2020!)

Bonus review:

Free To Play - This one’s been in the work for months! Free To Play is a documentary about three big-name Dota 2 players - their beginnings with the game, their passion for it and the push to play it well, as they take part in the first Dota 2 International Tournament. Splitting the time between three players from three different parts of the world, each of them with a different set of motivations makes this an engaging piece, that, at 75 minutes of runtime, doesn’t overstay its welcome (although, y’know, it couldn’t… after the tournament ended, it ended as well). I do have to say that a good aspect of it is that you don’t need to know a single thing about the game or how it’s played. I imagine that if you’re a fellow Dota 2 player, you’d probably get a lot more out of the scenes where certain character choices are being discussed or the recreations of particular plays, but for me, the vivid animations included in the latter were satisfying enough. Just like Indie Game: The Movie, this has been sitting in my library unfinished for a good while solely because of the achievements for listening to commentary tracks and despite the two not having been made to clash with each other, I’d have to say that Indie Game: The Movie still appealed to me more, personally.

over 2 years ago 5 comments
Zelrune

Congratulations on your assassinations! I loved your review for “my fluffy life” and huge congrats on finishing Lost Lands! What was your favorite game for this month?

over 2 years ago
Amitte

I loved your review for “my fluffy life”

Why thank you! Every time I go back to look at these (even before I post them for the first time), I feel like they’re so terribly disjointed, I’m the only person who could genuinely enjoy them ^^;;

huge congrats on finishing Lost Lands

Lost Lands is massive, yeah. The HOG version is still in the works, and I’m not exaggerating when I say it might as well take five times as long as the mahjong one did! ;w;

What was your favorite game for this month?

A quick look at the list is telling - I didn’t play much good stuff in November, and the few games I’d say were better than the rest, I’ve picked up after starting them sometime in the past. However, Batman: The Enemy Within definitely stands out. It and the prequel really made me wanna get to know more about Batman. (Starting with watching the movies properly, all I can think of when it comes to those is that I’d always find one airing halfway through and then just never get into it, lol.)

over 2 years ago
devonrv

it’s safe to say that I’ve forgotten how I felt about this game back then.

That’s why I have a txt file on my desktop: so I can alt-tab and type notes as I play games. Of course, then the problem becomes actually checking them when I make my posts instead of assuming I remember everything. :P

over 2 years ago
Adelion

Mad Father is actually a nice game and all. But that ending ….. that was what made me really mad.

over 2 years ago
Amitte

Yeeeah… I get you. It’s much more fun to watch people learn and improve, rather than succumb to past mistakes.

over 2 years ago