July 2026 Progress Report
Solid month, not upset but I got distracted with Palworld 1.0 update, it’s amazing.
Anyway, August, huh. Wild 2026 is almost over. I’m planning on Chants of Sennar again, it’s a fine game but it doesn’t really do anything to keep your attention so it’s kinda hard to focus on. NEVA, for sure.. hopefully, .hack or the og 2009 Oblivion, battle chef looks fun, and I kinda wanna poke at The Invincible. Sounds like a busy month, but if you’ve even briefly skimmed my previous posts to see my future plans, I don’t really use them as anything other than a vague reference.
Total games added to backlog: 7 (Petit Island, The Invincible, Planet Zoo, Mass Effect Legendary Edition, Battle Chef, Gone Home, Inua)
Total completed: 5
35-50+ hours to complete, Amber Isle is a shopkeeping management and Island restoration sim in which your character arrives on the island in search of earning their “Sarname,” a name only earned from doing a great accomplishment or inherited from your family. After finding and taking over an abandoned store, craft and carve items by collecting local materials to draw other potential residents to the Isle, and with your new friends Adi, Maple, and Old Mayor Clawsworth, restore the Isle back to it’s former glory!
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I love this game to bits but wow, does it have it’s bugs! None are gamebreaking or even able to softlock you, but the camera angles can get a bit annoying, and your store can be a mess at times, especially after a shop upgrade and I’d honestly consider the economy to be in shambles. (Granted, that one might be lore-accurate given there are only three Paleofolk, four including you, on the island at start.) but I really like the gameplay loop of collecting materials, crafting a fun and rather large variety of items, selling them, haggling, and then picking a section of an Island to restore. The initial thing that sold me was the character customization options as well as the large availability of what species you even wanted to play as, and Amber Island is just, a really charming game! Just… one that needs a bit more work.
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7-9+ hours to complete, Petit Island is a casual exploration adventure game about a cat named Lily visiting the Island her Grandpaw grew up at, in an attempt to restore his old journal and help him recover his missing memories. Find and take photos with Grandpaws old friends, talk about the adventures they went on together, fish, collect bugs, then return home with a completed journal to help your Grandpaw remember the things he’s forgotten in his old age.
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Overall, Petit Island is a really cute game with a good storyline. The island is small but there are lots of neat things to find, a variety of fish and bugs to catch, scenic locations to explore and secrets to find. There were a couple minor irritants, such as being unable to wear a hat and hold an item at the same time, as well as a finicky gliding system I never was able to figure out, but it didn’t impact the overall experience that much. I particularly liked the Volcano Island as there are some fun secrets on it, but I’ll leave those for you to find.
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Inua
2-3 hours to complete, Inua is a fun narrative game that follows three protagonists across three different periods of time, while you engage in a bit of time manipulation to share realizations and ideas between them to change the course of history. The story is centered around the real life disappearance of The Terror and The Erebus on the famously doomed Arctic exploration around 1846. While the wrecks were officially rediscovered in 2016 and 2014, the Inuit had known their locations through oral history since they interacted with survivors, and have shared it with British and Canadian search teams but were ignored essentially delaying their discovery for about 170 years. It’s a bit of interesting real life history to read up on, but I really loved how the developers made a video game out of it.
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Overall, I really enjoyed Inua not just because of the fun spin on a cautionary tale, but because I appreciated how the developers were authentic with the music and the art, using Inuit artists as well as voice actors and even an author to share this story. The only downside perhaps is that I wish the end of the story was expanded on a bit more, as I felt there was room to make a more satisfying ending, I suppose. Also, I strongly suggest playing Inua in a single sitting if you can, as it’s much easier to follow along and enjoy the game.
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Salvation:Immortale
2-5 hours to complete, Salvation:Immortale is a VN with one ending and I believe is a part 1 of 2, where you follow along a case with Detective Mei Qu who lives in the lovely city of Florence and occasionally takes on cases that interest her; the latest one being issued from the famous Medici Family regarding a cold case that happened fifteen years ago that has since resurfaced and warrants a more through investigation…
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Overall, it’s a fine VN that is definitely a love letter to Sherlock and I was surprised to find it’s fully voice acted! There are some bugs, particularly with loading save files so be sure to make a few, and also with using your mouse wheel to backtrack which tended to not only freeze the game, but corrupt that save file for me. The story itself was fairly ok, but I had more enjoyment with the twists than anything, with only a few odd translations. The ending was kinda abrupt which makes me believe that there will be a part 2 in the future but I don’t see any news on that at the time of this review.
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Gone Home
2-5 hours to complete, Gone Home is a walking simulator where you play as Kaitlin Greenbriar, who after spending a year away for College, finds herself exploring the new house her family moved into in an attempt to figure out where her family is after being unable to contact them. Explore every room and piece together what happened, find out why everyone is missing and what happened while you were away.
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Overall, Gone Home is a fairly solid walking sim with no monsters or anything chasing you, just a creepy atmosphere that keeps you curious and on your toes from the start of the game to the end. There are plenty of secrets tucked away rewarding you for being nosy and encouraging you to poke around, and when the main game is beaten I’d definitely recommend playing the developer commentary mode right after! It offers some really cool insight to the games development along with fun details and secrets you may have missed during your first playthrough. I didn’t find any bugs but I did find that I liked the game more than I thought I would, and hope the devs makes more games like this in the future, the incredibly subtle music along with the heavy rain and distant rolls of thunder nailed the atmosphere!
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Definite solid month. I’m afraid to jump back into Palworld and have it absorb all my gaming time, lol.
Don’t be afraid~ They are your pals! Your buddies!!! Go on a lil adventure!
My Pc doesn’t like the base I’m tryin’ to build and I’m trying to get beds sorted and indoor housing right now. I’m definitely going to be taking Ms. Violet and Chiffon near this volcano thing, not super far in, might wander the beach together and see what’s up!!! It might be cool to do a volcano base build but it’s super hot up there, I’ll have to figure something out.
I have a pretty decent base that is almost impossible to raid. Or was anyway. I’m guessing the enemy AI has improved at least a little since I played.
And lots of critters to farm and mine and fight with me.
But there was definitely still a lot of game left to explore. I imagine I’ll have no choice but to do so pretty soon. I’m guessing you can pick up where you left off, but with all the updates that happened between when I played and now.
They added some stuff but I don’t believe the actual island changed much, you could likely continue from your old save, I just made a new one because I was in a multiplayer server before and the people I was playing went with MIA for months on end and I got sick of waiting, ahaha.
Hmm i see a lot of cuteness here ! ;)
Ambitious plans there, Zel. Hope you are able to follow through with them or at least enjoy what you do make progress on. Gone Home was also a surprisingly good experience for me as well. Sure it’s not super interactive but it definitely nails atmosphere and I liked the story.
Since you liked Inua, though it is only tangentially related, you might enjoy Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna) if you have the taste for more stories by native tribes. Never Alone is a story about a similar Alaskan Tribe, following one of their fables and even has actual in-game mini-documentaries. It’s so informative that it was even displayed at a museum, I recently went to, as a playable display. It’s far more of a platformer but still pretty neat.
Also noticed you picked up the Mass Effect collection. Have you played any of those before? I was OBSESSED with the games ever since I took a chance on the first one so long ago. Unfortunately the original ending to 3 and more so Andromeda have done a fair bit of damage for my love of the series but guarantee I’ll fall in deep if I ever replay the trilogy. I now you’re more of a fantasy nerd, but I really hope you like the games and you’ll have to tell me what you think of them.
Otherwise great progress. Go forth and conquer!
So far I don’t like battle chef but the rest is.. so far going along swimmingly, but I’m getting distracted with Planet Zoo atm. About Never Alone, I’ve seen it but never bothered to pick it up, though maybe I’ll keep a closer eye on it now, and play it someday.
I’ve never played a Mass Effect game in my life. But… Soon^tm.
I’m nosey, maybe that’s why I liked Gone Home? Hahahaha congrats on your beaten games :)
Thank you! I accidentally beat Chants of Sennar yesterday, It a really good game just, a bit boring because nothing really keeps your attention but I figured out a game mechanic I really enjoyed and then spent 5-6 hours on it like a fool then behold, true ending. I thought I still had a few more hours to go!!!!! I’m a bit embarrassed because I coulda had it added to July’s month report, I didn’t know how close I was to the end!!!
Hahahah there was a time when I posted around noon on the last day of the month, then immediately started and beat another game and had to ammend my post hahaha but that’s the good kind of problems in life! :)
I think Chants of Sennaar is on my wishlist, but I hope I can play Heaven’s Vault before. While different, both have the same core idea and if I don’t enjoy Heaven’s Vault, maybe I’ll skip Sennaar. Glad you beat it thou!