Progress report: Second week of June ‘21 (a.k.a. Still Going Strong!)
A whole new batch of targets, ready to be shown off! And this week, I’ve actually started to catch up with my schoolwork! We gon’ ace this! keeps panicking on the inside
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Algebra Ridge
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Almost My Floor: Prologue
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Don't Kill the Cow
0.2 hours playtime
no achievements
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Escape Lala
0.2 hours playtime
no achievements
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Fingerbones
0.2 hours playtime
no achievements
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Linda & Joan Prologue: “Four Months Earlier”
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OH MY GOD, LOOK AT THIS KNIGHT
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Samorost 1
0.2 hours playtime
no achievements
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Summerland
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Temporality
0.1 hours playtime
no achievements
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The Mirror Lied
0.5 hours playtime
no achievements
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The Old Tree
0.2 hours playtime
no achievements
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Tukoni
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vApe Escape
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Video World
0.6 hours playtime
no achievements
Algebra Ridge - Despite it not yet having an entry in the VNDB, Algebra Ridge is a VN about a few students from Algebra Ridge University, who are swept away on a weird adventure as they take it upon themselves to bring back an artifact that’s just about the most important thing to their school. Since they’re studying math, the duels ensuing between them and the baddies are naturally quickfire math quizzes, featuring simple addition, subtraction, multiplication and division problems. It’s a little funny to see that all the characters have “same face” syndrome due to the art style, but other than that, it was just a decent way to spend ~40 minutes AND to remember I’m not a total math dunce!
Almost My Floor: Prologue - An introduction to the world of the game of the same title, to be released in the coming months. Almost My Floor: Prologue has you control a guy (without a name, apparently), who gets the wrong kind of an elevator ride. That’s it, really. I think the art style’s okay, I guess? I’ll keep the main game wishlisted, too.
Don’t Kill The Cow - Well, actually… do it, if you want to see all of the endings. Yet another simple game from the dev of a bunch of the titles I played last week. There’s really not much to say about it, you either kill the cow or not.
Escape Lala - A short, pixelated point-and-click, reminiscent of the good old days. Controls like a mobile game, but that doesn’t stop it from being entertaining for the 15-25 minutes it takes to beat. My final score ended up being less than ideal, but since there isn’t a Steam guide on how to get a perfect score, I decided to pass on replaying. [EDIT: I know, I could look at a guide on some other side and play again using that, but there’s really no pay-off to it. Also, I’m lazy :P] I will, however, wishlist the sequel for the future.
Fingerbones - It’s, uh…. it’s a horror game? I was warned there might be jumpscares, but as it turned out, that’s not really the case. There’s just a lot of reading and an unintuitive password lock.
Linda & Joan Prologue: “Four Months Earlier” - As the title states, this is a prologue to the upcoming Linda & Joan, a game about “the worst year of your life”. In other words, it’s going to tell the story of Linda and Joan, the mother and grandmother of the developer, passing away within a short time of each other, and how he deals with it. This prologue, however, places us four months before that, as Russell and Linda are on a hike up to the Griffin Observatory in Los Angeles. It’s an interesting take on a walking simulator, combined with a long stream of conversation which is delightful in how real it feels. Add to that the minimalistic art style and the pleasant guitar strumming, and you’ve got yourself a pleasant ~30 minute experience. I will definitely be looking out for the full game.
OH MY GOD, LOOK AT THIS KNIGHT - OMGLATK is a story of a chick convinced he’s a knight, the one and only, the best in the land. …but is he really? In 15 minutes, you too can find out! I think I saw somebody play this online before, but I completely blanked it out of my mind until I found it on Steam recently and knew I had to see it again. It was okay, nothing amazing or terrible about it.
Samorost 1 - I’ve owned the third game for a while now, but I didn’t expect the first one to get a remaster released on Steam! Samorost is a point-and-click about Gnome, a tiny human-like being who lives on an asteroid. The first game has you help out Gnome as he sets out on a mission to change the course of another “planet” that’s about to crash into his “home planet”. Rather than like a traditional point-and-click, Samorost plays out in sequences of logical puzzles which help keep Gnome moving from screen to screen. I’m definitely ready for Samorost 2 now.
Summerland - Summerland puts you in the shoes of Matthew, a police detective made to relive parts of his past. It’s a short narrative-driven exploration game, which… seems to be poorly optimized, specs-wise. As for the narrative itself though, I enjoyed it, albeit not without having questions. Some points in the story contradict each other and the ending is left ambiguous, so perhaps keep that in mind if you’re thinking of checking this one out.
Temporality - Since this game is only 6 MBs, I will review it in exactly six words: It was nice. I liked it.
The Mirror Lied - Ah yes, the infamous short from Freebird Games, creators of To The Moon and Finding Paradise. Having played it, sadly I don’t have any more answers than most other people. It was just really… meh.
The Old Tree - In this point-and-click, you have to help some weird, apple-headed alien get to… what I think might be the titular tree? This game’s got a considerably darker aesthetic to it than Samorost (despite having the same ’00s point-and-click feel). Still a good way to kill 15 minutes.
Tukoni - A gosh-darn beautiful point-and-click about a forest spirit called Tukoni, who embarks on an adventure in the forest. It is also the hero of a series of award-winning books by the Ukrainian artist Oksana Bula, who I believe also had a hand in making this game. As breathtaking as the presentation is, I must say it is also an immense letdown. The game cuts to the credits after about 15-20 minutes of playtime, which is incredibly jarring to say the least. Still, if you want something to get your kid’s interest (for just about 15 minutes!), this might be what you’re looking for.
vApe Escape - An interactive comic-style point-and-click which places you in the position of an ape contained on a spaceship delivering… drugs. I don’t know the next thing about drugs, so I’m just going to say drugs. After finishing a playthrough, there’s an option to have it converted to a PDF comic book, which is kinda cool… but not so much if you happen to get stuck and click around on things.
Video World - Featuring songs from the EP of the same title by Monster Mansion, Video World is a “game-meets-music-video” thingy about being a video store employee. It’s a small “go here, do this” combined with a straightforward rhythm game. It features three modes, and I played all three of them - the “story mode” is the most appropriate to play, I feel. For a free game, this was nice and since the music is right up my alley, I decided to listen to it fully right after - I’m genuinely shocked that the artist’s only got a little over a hundred listeners on Spotify!
See you next week! :)