April 2025 Progress Report
Had an excellent month! I finished Horizon Forbidden West, but I’m liking the DLC too much to finish it quickly in a few days, hence why it’s not on here. It will be in the next post! I also finished and reviewed a curator game I ended up really liking, Canvas Menagerie, for an indie game it was written super well and the normalcy was refreshing. Usually in VN’s the author likes to push the plot via misunderstandings and drama, so I really liked the realistic normal relationship here. Goetia was cool, the storyline was unique in which a young girl wakes up years later as a wisp of a soul above her grave, and goes home to find her family missing and demons in the house; so a point and click investigation. The puzzles were vague though, and honestly, I don’t think most people could beat it without a guide.
This May…. hrm. Not sure. I know I’m 100%’ing Forbidden West. Possibly TCG card sim. I’m going to try Deliver Us The Moon, but it’s a bit of a frustrating game since it doesn’t have save slots, just chapter selects and the settings don’t show what keys do what actions. I stopped playing it for a while and suffice to say, I had no idea where I was or what I was doing. I’ll think of something. Happy MAy!
Total games added to backlog: 1
Total completed: 4
Notice: This game was given to me for free to curate, which does not guarantee a positive review, and reflects my sincere opinion.
Niko has been a small-time actor since childhood, mostly landing small roles in commercials and other short projects; so, when he auditions for a supporting character in a brand-new long-running series, he’s stunned to be cast as the main lead instead. The pressure is immense – especially with a famous actor as the second lead. Fortunately, the rest of the cast is warm and supportive, because Niko is gonna need all the help he can get!
15-20+ hours to complete, Canvas Menagerie is a LGBTQ+ slice-of-life visual novel with realistic romance, authentic friendships, and the challenges of Niko – a commercial actor who unexpectedly landed a lead role in a major teen drama series. This game is extremely polished with high-quality writing, expressive character sprites, multiple CGs, and its completely hand-drawn art style. Overall, it’s pretty impressive for an Indie game; not only was the writer in particular very skilled at their work, the storyline kept me engaged with it’s realistic portrayal of people; meaning there was no dramatic misunderstanding pushing the plot forward, no instant friendship connections, the main couple did not trip head over heels the second they saw each other; which was an extremely refreshing experience that makes this easy to recommend. Opendyslexic font available in settings!
Search for cats in an ancient 700-year-old 40ft (12 meters) long silk scroll titled “Autumn Hunting in the Yuan Dynasty” which depicts a historical scene of a royal hunt, featuring Mongolian nobility. In this revised edition however, there are 200 distinct, individual cats diligently hidden among the artwork. With various meows and purring should you hold your mouse over a discovered cat and a hint button to guide your way, I can say that Catnip Studios has created one of the most enjoyable Hidden Object games I’ve ever has the pleasure of playing. To view the unedited scroll in its entire high-resolution glory, click the cover logo!
Catnip studios has also done other famous silk scroll artworks, such as the highly famous “Along the River During the Qingming Festival” made sometime around 1736 by collaborating artists as well as Zhao Boju's "Xianshan Louge Tu" from the Southern Song Dynasty, all for less than 1 USD! Pick this game up already! You won’t regret it!
Poor little Abigail Blackwood fell out of a window at 12 years old and died in 1902, so when she woke up as a small wisp of a soul above her gravestone much, much later, you can understand her confusion. Naturally, the first thing she does is go home in search of her parents and her sister Anne, but the Blackwood manor is… strange now. The wallpaper is dirty and cracked, strange sigils and symbols are marked on walls and doorways, iron metal sheets are nailed into walls, and the house is much, much bigger than little Abigail remembers. She can’t find her family, but she’s not alone. A large white raven claims to be a demon named Malphas, and they know your sister quite well, apparently…
6-9 hours to complete, Goetia is a point-and-click puzzle game set in a giant manor and its surrounding locations. As you progress through the game, you will slowly unlock more rooms to explore and uncover more of the storyline. While most of the puzzles were fairly straightforward, the few that were difficult were due to vague objectives and unclear directions, since you can re-read any notes and papers you previously discovered by simply pausing the game and looking at your Codex, conveniently sorted by areas. Overall, it’s a pretty solid game I don’t mind recommending, the biggest downside to Goetia is that you’re probably going to need to look at a guide to finish it.
Dawn is a young cat that’s faced significant hardships in their life. Abandoned at a shelter, their luck changes when adopted by an elderly woman named Olive to be her companion – and for the first time in a long while, things might start looking up for Dawn! Safe shelter, food security, friendship, Dawn could get used to this! Things change however when you find out your name was taken from someone else, and you were adopted because Olive’s first cat, the original Dawn, looked just like you but ran away a week ago. You were a replacement, and when the original Dawn comes back, things get a bit complicated.
3-5 hours to complete, Copycat is a linear simulator that focuses less on gameplay and more on the story as it attempts to make an emotional impact. Objectively, it’s not a bad game, especially for an indie group; the writing is without errors and the voiced narration is well done. However, the middle and end of the story is fumbled pretty terribly, the game tries to deliver an emotional story but ends up feeling shallow and honestly kind of irritating. The narrator is antagonistic and railroads you into doing aggressive actions without the player understanding why until the end of the game when you learn the cat’s backstory, and does it’s best to make you sympathize with Olive, Dawn’s owner, when by the end of the game, you’ll probably hate her. ![spoiler!] Upon losing her cat, she adopts another one, when her cat comes back, she accidentally kicks you out of the house. When she realizes she has two cats, she drives far, far away out into a forested area and abandons you there instead of returning you to the shelter, and the good end is making your way back to her and forgiving that action. \ To sum up the spoiler to those who don’t want to be spoiled, neither Olive or her daughter Mae should ever own an animal. Copycat is a game that tries to be bittersweet, but in the end, it’s just bitter. If you like cats, this game will probably upset you.
Very nice! I loved Forbidden West, so I can totally see why you’d want to 100% it. Such a cool setting.
I’m such a huge fan of post-apocalyptic settings, and Horizon is such a special series to me. It’s such a beautiful world and stumbling on an actually recognizable monument or landmark always makes my heart beat a lil’ faster than normal. Forbidden West is a huge upgrade from Zero Dawn, because you can fly and seeing recognizable locations from the air is always cool, and more times than I expected they let you go inside and check out the building and give you a lil’ reward for doing so.
I’m very fond of the series! Looking forward to the next game, though I suspect it will be the last.
Congratulations! And thanks for the reviews! Goetia has always looked pretty intriguing, but you confirm that it’s pretty flawed, and safe to ignore for me. As for Copycat, what a sad thing. I love cats, so it’s to avoid and ignore completely.
Despite Goetia being pretty flawed, it’s still an enjoyable game, you should get it if the storyline interests you. It’s just, a handful of the puzzles are a guessing game and require a guide. (Example: One puzzle is a scale in a room with multiple objects, you have no idea what the weight you need to reach is, so you can either randomly place objects together on the scale or look it up.)
As for Copycat… the game itself wasn’t bad, but I can’t approve of the message being told story-wise. Also the narrator was a bit annoying, since the game gives you options to do things, but both are similarly aggressive, so the game rail-roads you into being mean for no reason without understanding why until much further down the storyline.
I see. Thanks for those precisions! That’s the thing, Copycat sounds like an emotionally painful experience. And as for Goetia, there are so many other more rounded good games to play out there… It’s a pet peeve of mine, to have to look at a guide to finish a puzzle game. I have to do it, sometimes, with really hard puzzles, but it spoils my overall sense of achievement, so it’s always a last resort. So, when I find out that it’s just because of bad puzzle design, it feels particularly bad. Happened to me recently on The Last Door Season 2. I went through both seasons without looking at any guides, except once that I got stuck, and it was due to an outstandingly bad and senseless puzzle design, completely illogical, and demanded just randomly trying things to do the specific right thing at the right time to unlock progress (as recognised, I saw, by other players, when I referenced their guides). It stuck with me, which is a sad note on what was otherwise a pretty well executed duet of games.
Oh nice ! Didn’t know there were this sort of cats searching games in chinese settings !
Yeah!! It’s super cool, and you can see the texture of the silk and the old stamps. I highly suggest checking the studio out, they have done a lot of famous scroll artworks, and different versions of them.
Yes i took a look they cover a large part of chinese history ! :o