September 2025 Progress Report

9 – 30+ hours to complete, Song of Farca is a point-and-click interactive novel set in a Cyberpunk (lite!) Dystopia, where you play as Isabella Song, a talented hacker and Private Detective who takes on cases ranging from locating missing pets, settling inheritance disputes, to tracking down suspects and investigating crime scenes, but there is a catch! Isabella is under house arrest and monitored by the police; she can’t set foot outside her apartment without her parole officer knowing about it, so all her work must be done by her PC and through the use of Drones and hacking into cameras. Carefully consider your choices, and make sure not to lead anything dangerous to your home.

I really, really enjoyed Song of Farca, the really cool storyline and hacking gameplay had me hooked, and I ended up playing six hours straight on my first playthrough, and the twist at the end made the build-up and finale deeply satisfying and had me wishing for a second game in the series. However, this game does have its flaws; the replayability is limited, and it’s admittedly much, much more enjoyable with a guide since Song of Farca is autosave only – no saving and reloading! There is no way to get any of the endings easily since it’s determined by your previous cases and their resolutions, in spite of the chapter select. Overall, I still really suggest picking this game up if the storyline sounds interesting to you, especially if it goes on sale, because at that point, you’re just missing out!

5-7 hours to complete, Cavern of Dreams is a short 3D platformer game that uses deliberately outdated DS era graphics to get that cute pixel nostalgia. You play a Fynn, a baby dragon who enters the Cavern of Dreams to rescue his stolen, unhatched younger siblings from a mischievous little bat. There is a central hub world that branches into four themed areas, all managed by a mysterious sage who both watches over your rescued siblings and grants you new abilities as you progress through your journey. While there are plenty of environmental hazards, you won’t encounter any enemies to attack or jumpscare you.

The experience is generally very cute and easygoing, which reflects in the pretty whimsical soundtracks; that said, “generally” is the keyword – while the game starts simple, the last section of the game introduces weirdly punishing platforming sections. On top of having difficult controls, commands don’t always input smoothly, making some abilities either straight up not work, or go after a 1-3 second delay, making the game way harder than it should be. (Specifically, I’m calling out the ability to launch yourself with your tail after rolling, which I never could apply reliably!) There is also one weirdly placed timed segment in the game that’s particularly frustrating, as it hinges on finding a hidden item in the map and then rushing to it the second the timer starts – making it actually impossible to complete your first few tries until you discover it. Compared to the smoother pace of the previous levels, it’s a pretty noticeable difficulty spike. Overall, I still recommend Cavern of Dreams; even though it can be complicated, you have infinite lives to throw into the literal fire until you do the sections right.

4-5 hours to complete, Pilo and the Holobook is a hand-painted adventure game with sticker collecting! Play as Pilo, a cookie-loving red panda who was raised by a human Professor and inventor, Chiron. His latest invention is called the Holobook, a journal with the ability to scan objects and create stickers based on them to document various worlds and, more importantly, show off Professor Chiron’s ingenuity to the scientific council. As his fluffy assistant, it’s your duty to actually use the Holobook and fly to various worlds to record and learn about the planet's history and uncover the secrets of some really old civilizations, and – hey, what’s this weird purple stuff?

Ok! Storyline out of the way, Pilo is a cute, easy game with a surprisingly solid storyline, a satisfying ending, and some pretty engaging environmental puzzles. I honestly didn’t expect much out of a sticker-collecting game, but a lot of love and effort clearly went into coding, painting, and overall creating this interactive tale that you can finish in one sitting. I didn’t run into any bugs, and the only con I was going to write about was addressed in the last update. Anyone of any age can enjoy this, but younger kids may have difficulty solving the desert planet’s environmental puzzle by themselves. (Especially if they don’t know what a compass is, or have general knowledge on how it’s used.) Highly recommended!