Progress report: October ‘22 (a.k.a. An Unexpected Development!)

Well, what do you know… I got myself a boyfriend! It feels weird to even say, like it’s not “my style” or something… but hey! He likes games and he likes me, so that’s all that matters (I think)! We’ve had a good amount of time to spend on playing together this month, so he features heavily in my reviews. He was a big help in finishing quite a few pesky games, too, so all kinds of positive feedback specifically for him will be more than welcome :)

Without further ado, here are this month’s assassinations:

• Among the Dead
  

  1.3 hours playtime

  7 of 7 achievements

• Chris Isn't Alone
  

  0.5 hours playtime

  no achievements

• Crazy Taxi
  

  10.7 hours playtime

  12 of 12 achievements

• Drop Alive
  

  2.3 hours playtime

  9 of 9 achievements

• Gothicc Breaker
  

  3.6 hours playtime

  6 of 6 achievements

• Kach
  

  0.3 hours playtime

  1 of 1 achievements

• lure
  

  0.0 hours playtime

  1 of 1 achievements

• My Sticker Book
  

  0.4 hours playtime

  no achievements

• OutDrive
  

  4.6 hours playtime

  48 of 48 achievements

• Space Girls
  

  2.7 hours playtime

  6 of 6 achievements

• Submorse
  

  0.1 hours playtime

  1 of 1 achievements

• The Dark Side of the Moon
  

  5.6 hours playtime

  26 of 26 achievements

• We Went Back
  

  0.7 hours playtime

  11 of 11 achievements

Among the Dead - A terribad VN about living in a world plagued by zombies. I’m genuinely curious as to where the author learned English, ‘cause they’ve got the basics down, but they’re often only close enough to saying what they mean, as opposed to writing like a native speaker would (things like saying “Probably…” instead of “I guess…” or a lack of sense for what the right word order in a sentence should be). Other aspects of the presentation don’t fare any better: the zombies all look like one and the same bald guy (at least they give him two different sets of clothes! lol), and you fight them by… wait for it… repeatedly clicking a button with the word “Kick” written on it. God, I wish I were making it up. There’s an introduction for this “mechanic” near the start of the VN, which tells you that the amount of clicks will depend on how many zombies you’re up against; there’s only one in that scene, and to top it off, he’s distracted, so I thought “five clicks will probably do it, right?” Alas… he took 15 clicks before eating it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that these mobs grow to the point of absurd (there’ll be four zombies at most, and that’s how you know you’re headed for a bad end anyway), but I counted up to 50, even 60 clicks at some point… I think it’s safe to say the dev missed the note about how that’s not entertaining in any way. Last, but not least, the story stops dead in its tracks at what looks like a decent sequel hook, but this game came out in 2018 and there doesn’t seem to be any continuation, so… that’s it, really. I’m glad I finally played it, though, since it’s been at the back of my head for a while now.

Chris Isn’t Alone - Simply put, a joke VN about a boy, taken aback by a monster that suddenly appears in his room at night. It’s a “joke” VN in that there’s a high ending count in relation to the playtime - you make a few choices, some of which get progressively more imaginative, and you either win or lose (or, in this case, “die or live”). Problem is… I’ve gotten all but one ending in the span of about half an hour, and that’s as far as I want to go. It honestly feels like I’ve exhausted all choice combinations and while I can’t tell where it is, that last ending has to be buried somewhere in there. I’m also aware that I’m not supposed to expect literary genius from indie games (and even more so “baby’s first game”, which this is), but come on… you’re creating a visual novel, at least care not to let half the script go unchecked. (I assume the devs are native English speakers, but still, capitalization and punctuation are less than satisfactory.)

Crazy Taxi - Have you ever wanted to try working as a taxi driver? No? Well, what about driving a taxi with no rules to adhere to? That’s where the essence of this Dreamcast classic, Crazy Taxi, truly lies. In this port of the game, you’re free to work for 3, 5 or 10 minutes in either the arcade or the original mode, or test your crrrazy skills using the Crazy Box challenges. Funnily enough, three different people contributed to progress in this game on my account - my ex pushed me to start this delightful mess (then got started on the challenges), I got all the achievements for regular gameplay and my current boyfriend helped with completing the rest of the challenges. Crazy Taxi is a game that’s easy to learn, hard to master, and enjoyable to both play and watch, so if you’re into oldies, racing games or both, I highly recommend it.

Drop Alive - Deceivingly cute, Drop Alive is a platformer that follows the life of a water drop, as it goes on a movie-like journey through a bunch of locations and various states of being. The “deceiving” part is in the fact that this game is unnecessarily hard with its lack of checkpoints, iffy precision jumping and size reduction mechanic (the more you move around, the smaller you are, eventually resulting in death), which while clever, feels like an unnecessary punishment most of the time. Unsurprisingly, I was only able to play through the first two levels, and my boyfriend finished the rest.

Gothicc Breaker - Just a small Arkanoid-type game with goth girls. According to my boyfriend, “the easiest game I’ve given him yet”.

Kach - A short student project with a premise that’s just a little bit off: find your sister, who’s ran off and hid in a strange, abandoned house and make up with her. I’ve had an okay time playing this, though I do feel puzzled by some reviewers bemoaning the lack of jumpscares or monsters to run from.

Lure - I… I just… is this a fear anyone genuinely has? Sure, the a e s t h e t i c is cool, but I know I would get a more complete experience out of watching a playthrough of an actual PS1 horror game… so I recommend everyone else does that, too.

My Sticker Book - You’re a little girl with a sticker book, who’s just moved into a new house; how fun! After presumably having fun with your stickers the whole evening, you go to sleep… and wake up in the middle of the night, because you’re feeling thirsty. Oh, no! Creepy shadow monsters won’t let you go any further! You’ll have to use your magic stickers to progress! I… have spent over twice the estimated time playing this game, just because I can’t deal with games that don’t provide any instructions. That is all.

OutDrive - An, uh, “racing” game where you have to keep a girl alive by driving around at a moderate speed, with no particular destination in mind. If you drive too slowly, she’ll get weak and die; if you drive too fast, she’ll overheat… and die. It’s kind of an interesting concept, if not somewhat off-putting, considering the girl in question being more of an object than a person, but the game is broken as all hell. There’s only one road around the whole map, and it’s not particularly hard to loop around, but for all I know, you could be driving without fooling around and still put yourself in an unwinnable situation. However, it’s just as easy to drive off the road and right near the mountains that are supposed to work as a sort of frame for the map, then clip through them and start falling endlessly. You know it’s bad when that’s the strat recommended by an achievement-focused curator (and coincidentally, how I completed the game as well). In short, the aesthetic’s pretty good - the visuals are decent and the soundtrack is nice, but the game is broken as all hell and the achievements, as uninspired as they are, don’t help at all. Avoid, avoid, avoid.

Space Girls - A shoddy clone of DEEP SPACE WAIFU. Couldn’t get through the last few levels for years until my boyfriend came along.

Submorse - Apparently you can learn Morse code using this game! …I only cared about the achievement.

The Dark Side of the Moon - Having played through The Shapeshifting Detective with my boyfriend a few months ago, I got this game on sale as soon as I noticed it starred Rupert Booth… who, as it later turned out, carried this whole game on his shoulders (and he doesn’t even play the main character!). The story has a simple premise: you play as Dean, a man left to take care of his children alone after his wife mysteriously disappeared a few years back. One night, you drink yourself to sleep, and the next morning… the kids are gone too. Everything quickly unravels into a story that’s way too big for the overall playtime. We had a few small ideas as to what could happen, which we knew were cliche anyway, but we still ended up disappointed when none of them came to be. All I wanna say now is: the title didn’t have to be this literal.

We Went Back - A time-looping horror game; sounds easy enough as a concept. Played it with my boyfriend; neither of us found it particularly entertaining or impactful, so we ended up speeding through the whole thing.

[Bonus] Boyfriend’s game ranking for this month is: Crazy Taxi > Gothicc Breaker > The Dark Side of the Moon > We Went Back > Space Girls > Drop Alive

See you next month! :)