Progress report: Second week of August ‘19 (a.k.a. Selling My Soul To The Devil)
This week’s progress is honestly embarrassing… and the reason for that is my sudden obsession with Coloring Pixels - for some reason I decided to get to finishing everything I can so far… we’ll see how that goes later. Oh, and I still don’t have my new furniture! :D
EDIT: I almost forgot - I officially earned my platinum trophy in Amnesia: Memories on the PSVita, which means I won’t be playing the Steam version until at least next Summer! …in case anyone out there really wanted me to play it :D
- Dark Arcana: The Carnival
4.3 hours playtime
- Lily's Night Off
2.7 hours playtime
- missed messages.
1.4 hours playtime
- Rogue Quest: The Vault of the Lost Tyrant
1.7 hours playtime
Dark Arcana: The Carnival - One of the many SG wins that have been long overdue. There’s only so much one can write about these if they look, sound and play pretty much the same. One personal problem I’ve had with this one is the use of an animal friend (not the only Artifex Mundi that’s done that, I know Grim Legends 1 did that as well); I don’t like being dependent on an animal. Also, there was one minigame in particular, in the bonus adventure, that lagged incredibly for reasons unknown to me.
Lily’s Night Off - Coming from Kyuppin, this time Lilypad Lily has a free night! Four years after the original release of Lily’s Day Off, I have to say the progress that has been made is astonishing. The premise is still the same - depending on your choices, the characters will construct the plot on their own and all the outcomes are hilarious. This time, you’ll also get to meet the other members of Lily’s unit and they’re just as cute as her! Speaking of improvements, the music is just as cute, if not cuter than in the first game, the menu and loading screens are animated, there’s an in-game music player, the CG gallery is a big mashup of different artstyles (which also makes for good achievement images), and there’s even a cool speed-up effect when skipping text! I could probably go on for hours about all the qualities, but this has to be one of the most beautiful VNs made in Unity. Oh, and I wish the extra scenario had an achievement pertaining to it - that could bring people’s attention to it - but at the same time, I know the struggle of having to come back to a finished game to do something new (the extra scenario was added some time after the original release).
missed messages. - Another amazing-looking game that still has limited features, cool. This one is the Steam debut of Angela He (aka Zephyo), who has already made a name for herself in the VN community (presumably because of the amazing art style of her works; can’t say much about the writing). missed messages. shows a seemingly normal day of a girl trying to focus on her uni assignment… that is, until goth gf’s iPhone airdrops her a photo. (Can’t get more on-brand than that, eh?) Accept or decline - this seemingly meaningless choice might have meaningful repercussions. As it is with such short works, saying more than that would spoil everything. The art is absolutely wonderful and the music is fitting as well. I’m not sure I should say anything about the writing, the plot wasn’t anything elaborate, really. One might say the VN is lacking functionality, since it was made in Unity (and god knows I don’t like when people do that), but this one is short enough to complete in one sitting, so it doesn’t need save/load functionality. Looking at the negative reviews, a lot of people seem to be complaining about the fact that the message of the VN was really bogged down by the playtime, but our lord and savior VNDB has come to remind me that this was originally created for Ludum Dare, so I think that excuses it.
Rogue Quest: The Vault of the Lost Tyrant - Picked this one up because HLTB told me it’s pretty short. In the end it took me longer than the estimate (like it always does), but I don’t mind that much. Rogue Quest follows Cassandra Nech, a skilled adventurer and treasure hunter, as she scavenges the caves previously occupied by none other than the aforementioned Tyrant. The few things worth noting are no pixel-hunting and a built-in hint system, which mean that the store page for the game doesn’t lie. Also, sadly, there’s no voice acting, so on one hand, it might be harder to stay on track if you prefer to trust your ears more than your eyes, but on the other hand, the music gets to shine because of that. When I saw Cassandra mention the name “Caos”, I also realized that the same people created A Tale Of Caos, so I guess that’s next on the list now, huh? Well, this was as fun as it could have been, but I got this game in a bundle and I can only recommend doing the same… or waiting for a deep sale. I’m not sure the whole price is reasonable for a game that’s an hour and a half long, at best.
See you next week! I’m 99.9% sure there will be more progress then! :D
I completed only 3 games this month, so you can feel better about your week :D
Aw! Thank you, I guess? Your backlog is still ten times smaller than mine, quite literally! :D
Haha that is true! But that’s only because I didn’t buy many games until this year’s Steam summer sale (and before joining SG). :D
I hope it doesn’t get much larger though, I don’t think I can play that many games even if I want to.
And I think you can conquer your backlog!!! :D
Well, that just means you are a selective collector :D Truth be told, I know next to nothing about most of the games I’ve yet to conquer, but I can’t wait to play them all!
Nah, I’m not a collector :D And if you’re excited, that’s enough :D Have fun :)
I said selective though - meaning you pick what you’re actually interested in, rather than adding/buying random stuff only to realize later that you don’t really wanna play it (I believe “Selective Collector” is also one of the game count badge names on Steam - think it was for the “+5” level though, and no gamer would stay that low, really :D) And yeah, I am! Thank you so much! Same goes for you :)
Do you play only VNs and adventure games?
Mostly, yeah - hidden object games, point and clicks, and visual novels are where I’m at, although there are a bunch of games in my backlog that don’t belong to any of those three categories. Why are you asking?
I was curious, because I got impression that everytime you posted, these were the only games you talked about :p
Oh, well… is that bad?
You’re missing out tbh. Unless you tried other genres and didn’t liked them.
It all depends on multiple different things, really. I’ve got a handful of games I wish I could play right now, but I’ve only got an old laptop that runs a 32-bit system, so no matter how I’d try, I wouldn’t be able to run them. Then, there are games which I only get attracted to after watching someone play them. And then there are genres/tropes I’m almost certain I don’t like in games - shmup, bullet hell, tower defense, RTS, and probably some others. It’s not that I’m not open to playing more, just that I mostly don’t think outside of those three aforementioned categories, because at this point in time, I’m stuck with the specs I have… and the worst thing that could happen would be trying to run all those games and getting disappointed at how poorly they work or how they don’t work at all.
You could always try older games from different games c: I refuse to believe that your laptop is that old to not run old 3d games :P
Like I said, it depends. Call me technically crippled, but instead of checking the requirements before launching, I launch and get disappointed at the result. Besides, what kind of games do you mean? The genres I don’t really play in general, right?
Derp, I meant to type “older games from different genres”. I didn’t meant any specific games then, but I looked at your games and you have some older, good games - psychonauts, Shadow Man, bully, amnesia, Lego Harry Potter and LOTR, portal 1 & 2.
And hey, I see you got over 20 hours in Yakuza 0 and Bioshock remastered, if you could play these then your laptop should run games I listed :P
Oh and I recommend giving Kathy Rain a shot! I haven’t played as many adventure games as you so maybe you it’s not as good as I think it is, but I really enjoyed it.
Oh, right right. I’ll get to those whenever I feel like it, I suppose.
As for Yakuza 0 and BioShock, I played them on different computers, ones I don’t have unlimited access to. Hell, if I did, I would only be playing the more demanding games :P
Thanks for your recommendation! Kathy Rain is actually closer to the top than the bottom of my priority list, so I’ll be playing it rather sooner than later.
Oh its bad to laugh but 4 games in 1 week is embarrassing? Thats alot compared to others however I get it. You just have to be oike whatever 1 is better then most
Well, compared to the progress I showcased in most posts before, it really isn’t much. But it all depends on how big your backlog is, what goals you set for yourself (or not) and where your emotions are during that time. I guess it’s not bad, because I don’t have a lot of truly long games in my backlog (or at least I think so), but then again imagine if that was my usual pace… I’d never be done with anything! I’m not sure if I meant to go somewhere with that, but yeah…
As i said i get it. When I had my laptop I was getting from 5 up to 10 once so when i did less it felt horrible. Just had to keep reminding my self that no its good thats more then others can do even if it will always be in the back of mind of you arent doing enough!
Everyone here is doing enough, really. I only really started gaming at the end of last year, because before that I was trying to spread myself too thin - watching anime, watching stuff on YouTube, wanting to translate stuff, wanting to read manga, and then trying to play games, and maybe even something else. It’s still sad that I don’t get to do everything I’d like to, but I guess it’s best to focus on games right now, especially since I can’t give them back now :D
Yeah true. Be it 1 or 5 its great to see the reports from others. Just like it is with my backlog. When it comes to sales I buy way to many games but then erm hello by the time thats happened ive done 30 anyway so no one can be judging unless they will actually defeat more and not buy anything
Oh hell yeah. I don’t do game count stats, but boy do I know I got a lot more games than I finished recently. I traded codes I had, and then there was a string of bundles with interesting stuff… I got really pushed back. But I’ll fight it!