July 2023 Progress Report
Welp, this happened. I got 70+ Hours into Fallout: New Vegas but I’m having soooo many issues with crashes and the game freezes it became impossible for me to finish it in a month. Dishonored 2 is also almost done but man, no powers playthrough + the dukes manor, yikes. I think I would rather go for all the collectables + ghost + clean hands again. Tbh I wasn’t super impressed with most of my games this month which really, really sucks. They were good but every single one I was just like “eeeh” or short and I didn’t really have a great time. Next month should be better as I’m playing stuff I was kinda holding off on while focusing on Pop, but to heck with it! To! Heck!
Total games added to backlog: 4
Total completed: 5
Miku and Taku have drifted around the world as outcasts, never allowed to live with their own kind due to Miku’s gift after she was blessed by an unknown entity that allows her to bloom flowers and grow plant life. Drifting for a long time over the endless ocean, the siblings discover an abandoned city whose residents have mysteriously vanished in the aftermath of an unusual disaster. Investigate the disappearances to learn what happened, explore the beautiful world around you, and decide if this is a home worth settling for.
5-10 hours to complete, Submerged: Hidden Depths is a gorgeous, post-apocalyptic open world exploration game with fun puzzles and a charming atmosphere. A sequel to Submerged, Hidden Depths is a massive improvement in every single way; musically, graphically, and environmentally. Not only are there now outfits and hairstyles to collect, you have a base that you can improve, a garden to grow, and treasures to discover! Taku is also now an available character to play in some areas, and the interaction between siblings as they explore another sunken city is very well done! I genuinely could not stop taking screenshots and it was difficult to narrow them down to a few to post. While the storyline is admittingly almost as confusing as the first game, it’s still worth picking up and playing them in order.
Submerged
A drowned city, a strange infection. Taku and Miku arrive at a submerged metropolis in search of medical supplies air-dropped and abandoned on rooftops left over from the end of the world. Taku is injured with a high fever, so it’s up to Miku to take care of her little brother and climb the ancient, crumbling towers. The animal life here is strange, tinted green with glowing bioluminescent spots that light up at night similar to patches of plants floating on the water but even stranger- Miku doesn’t think she and Taku are alone.
2-5+ hours, Submerged is a post-apocalyptic open world with parkour that I actually consider to be a walking sim. It’s fairly relaxing, there is no time limited events, it’s impossible to fall or die, and there are no enemies. While the puzzles are non-existent, the storyline is learned slowly through drawings collected encouraging adventures around the city and looking for landmarks. Graphically, the game is beautiful, climbing around and up towers is pretty fun, and I particularly enjoyed the overgrowth of plant life even in the most unlikely places. Dolphins follow your boat as you explore and there are quite a few interesting locations and encounters should you choose to play.
Boyfriend Dungeon
t’s summer vacation and your absolutely amazing cousin Jessie is offering up his old apartment room rent-free for you to stay at while he and his fiancé live together and prep for their summer wedding! Verona is a gorgeous town with malls, museums, art studios, a college and cat cafes! Capulet Beach is a popular tourist spot with the Verona Lighthouse as a scenic landmark, and best of all, there are dungeons! The three dungeons are super popular dating locations between wielders and weapons, to clarify… people who wield weapons and people who transform into weapons. This summer, it’s time to be brave, step out of your comfort zone, identify your fears and literally fight them head on as you dive deep into the Labyrinths!
5-11 hours to complete, Boyfriend Dungeon is a Roguelike Dungeon Crawler that’s also a VN and LGBTQ+ friendly with non-binary options. There are 3 procedurally generated dungeons and 10 dating options that can turn into various weapon types that leave a lot of room for creative and diverse playstyles that you can level up and unlock new skills! There are also plenty of customization options and outfits to wear, things to craft, and skill books to use. The music is notably made by Marksye and songstress Madeliene McQueen and is honestly really good to dungeon with. I only really have two complaints.
Let me mute my phone! I get it! You have a lot of dating options. That’s great. But when you step out of a dungeon and you have like, 9 people blowing up your phone trying to get your attention and set up dates it just makes me not want to come out. This is made significantly worse by accepting the “Encouraging texts from mom” option when you start the game, which you can’t turn off unless you make a new game btw, who absolutely has no idea what moderation or personal space means. My phone was constantly popping off and it drove me * NUTS. Secondly, not everyone is super comfortable with polyamory! I only tried to date like, 2 people and one of them I decided I didn’t like later on, but I ended up pulling like, 6. If you don’t immediately tell the other person on the first date that you just wanna be friends, I think you just straight up get locked into the romance route; which is a bit terrible because at that point you literally do not know anything except a brief summary and first impression of the other person.
Assemble with Care
Maria’s world traveling and antique restoration takes her to the quaint, quiet town of Bellariva in anticipation of its celebrated historical food festival a few days away. Setting up in a hotel, Maria passes out flyers to make some extra income while she’s here and ends up fixing more than she anticipated. Repair beloved possessions and meaningful mementos to fix fractured relationships in their owners’ personal lives, and discover new perspectives that might allow you to heal your own.
1+ hours to complete, there are 13 chapters with an additional epilogue. Full voice acting, wholesome vibes, and a wonderful hand illustrated story accompanied by an impressionist art style, Assemble with Care is very charming. The game takes place around 1980, so many of the objects you are fixing are things I’ve never actually interacted with before, making for some fun, if easy, puzzles. If you’re wanting to spend a couple hours playing something sweet and simple, look no further.
Hidden Cats in New York
This game was given to me for free to curate, which does not guarantee a positive review, and reflects my sincere opinion.
45 minutes – 2 hours to complete, Hidden Cats in New York is a Hidden Object game with 2 modes, normal which consists of 120 cats in a fixed position, and advanced with 200+ special cats which unlock 6 extra maps to find more (425) cats in. Compared to Nukearts Studio’s previous game, Cats in Paris (2022), there is significantly more feline variety in shapes, sizes, colors, and features. Finding a cat offers a wide variation of meows, making sure the game continues to be interesting after 10 minutes.
Due to the large map size, the game cleverly segments the area into sections, and finding all the felines in that area colors it in so finding any missing cats is fairly simple. The animations are fun and fairly amusing, and the music was enjoyable. Admittingly, I wasn’t expecting to like it very much but I had a good time streaming it for two hours with friends going through all the content. There has been remarkable improvement compared to Hidden Cat’s previous titles, and for the affordable price, it’s a solid buy that I don’t think anyone would be disappointed with.
Congrats! Very nice set of games you have here! Hidden Cats in New York is on my list to get during sale. Played “Paris” and “London” - both are very good. I enjoyed the coloring thing when you found everything in a given segment, so less frustration when you have last few to find. Assemble with Care looks like something I can enjoy in resting mode, just to
relax a little.
Also have Submerged: Hidden Depths in my backlog, hope I will eventually play it too :)
if you liked the other hidden cat games you will like this one. ^^
Enjoy Hidden Depths! Play the first one if you can, the end has a special treasure hunting segment that leads to the second game.
Thanks for both Submerged games in my wishlist now.
Both are 90% off right now and it doesn’t get better than that! Lemme know if you get them, would love to hear your opinions afterwards.
Congratulations on the assassinations! 5 in a month! and I love your personal notes on each one of the games. This update of yours is a real inspiration and motivates me to keep doing better. :)
Congrats on the progress and on playing New Vegas!! Sorry to read you’re encountering many crashes, that must make the experience painful :/ Hope you’re still enjoying the game itself despite the hassle :3
I really liked the chill experience with Assemble with Care even though it was so short.
The game is fun but I think I’m trapped in the Honest Hearts DLC area for now, when I discover some new location, it might crash, or if I get into combat, or if I talk to someone, or if I pull out my weapon.. and it really sucks because the game doesn’t close out, even if it’s not fullscreen there is no “x” at the top right corner and I can’t move my mouse out of the window so I have to shut my pc down. so far my solution is to type nonsense in a word document without saving so my pc stops me and I can cancel the shutdown.
Assemble with care was cute but.. what was with the girls motivations? It sounded really incomprehensible to me. Maybe it’s just because I’m an adult but running away from home is a really stupid solution to her very mild problem. At least the game was chill.
Oof that sounds like a pain indeed. Especially for that DLC that was by far my least favourite (is the one in that national park location if i remember correctly). Smart workaround but you shouldn’t have to juggle with that nonsense. I hope you can finish it soon and the rest of the game goes smoother.
To be honest i can’t even remember the story of Assemble with care so it was probably very forgettable indeed. I just liked the chill vibes and the relaxing mechanics.