Progress report: January ‘23 (a.k.a. I’m Back!)
Like a bad month could ever stop me! It took two whole hours to write all of these, but I did it! I managed to… uh… remember what I wanted to say! Mostly. Probably. Yeah!
Oh, and also, most of my February is going to be off, so… mayhaps something special is on the horizon? eyes emoji
On with the post!
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100 hidden gnomes
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Calico
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Coloring Game: Girls
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Dark Nights with Poe and Munro
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Edna & Harvey: The Breakout - Anniversary Edition
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Fireboy & Watergirl: Elements
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I commissioned some bees 0
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Pixel Puzzles 2: Paintings
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Portal
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Super Seducer
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Teddy Floppy Ear - The Race
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WooLoop
100 hidden gnomes - They’re not even really hidden. They’re all right there, in plain sight.
Calico - This life simulation game promises oodles of fun, as you get busy rebuilding a cat cafe left behind by your older relative (either your grandma or aunt, I can’t even remember at this point). That… is there, sure, but there’s only so much you can do - after you fill up your cafe with as many different animals as your heart desires and prepare each and every recipe at least once, you’ve pretty much seen it all. Besides that, you’ll spend most of your time running around completing quests for everyone in the world, simply to fill up their heart levels, which… does nothing, really. Meanwhile, as long as you’ve got things in stock, the cafe works itself. Besides recipes (the only thing for purchase that’s actually useful), you could also buy a bunch of decorations for your cafe and all kinds of outfits for your character, but… why even do that? After you’re done with all of the quests and your cafe is stocked, there’s absolutely nothing to do anymore. It’s sad, really; it’s clear as day that this game wants to be a grand open-world adventure, but fizzles out after you unlock the second, maybe the third biome - it’s all rinse and repeat until you’ve seen the credits and/or gotten all the achievements. The cons I feel are most annoying are 1) controller preference; yes, I do own a controller, but that doesn’t mean I can use it whenever, and while playing a cozy life sim, I would prefer not to have to be asked to use one. This game did really push me to get myself a mouse, though, which made it more bearable; and 2) some of the cooking minigames are too damn tedious. Maybe it’s because I don’t actually really like cats (GASP) or pool (I swear, whoever thought that was a good idea…), but those were an exercise in misery. Perhaps if I had been using a controller, this wouldn’t have been an issue, but as I mentioned, I believe life sims shouldn’t have to be played with a controller. Not to end this on a negative note, though: the cooking minigame concept in general is cool. Nowadays, life sims likely have trouble setting themselves apart from each other. (Personally, I would kill for a game like MySims…) This is one thing I haven’t seen anywhere else, and while not always perfect, it deserves recognition for being a fresh concept. The theme song is really nice and the smooth switch between the vocal and off vocal versions when you enter/leave the cafe is a neat idea. General body/identity positivity, showcased through both the character customization and the characters from the game is always a plus although it feels like they forgot to make the characters interesting on top of that… Oookay, I’ll stop there! Last, but not least, I’ll say that I got this game off of someone who didn’t want it for cheap and personally, I’m glad I didn’t spend much more on it. Unless it gets a massive content update one day, to hopefully match the size of the world the devs are trying to cultivate in-game, but I’m not really holding my breath for that. On to the next life sim!
Coloring Game: Girls - I felt compelled, okay?! A-anyway, yeah… another pixel coloring game. Tons of breasts and buttocks in this one… or, I guess, it’s pretty much all breasts and buttocks. It’s like a camshow, except you don’t get to take part in any kind of action. Now, to go on and keep telling myself that my addiction with pixel coloring will one day let up…
Dark Nights with Poe and Munro - I was really excited about this one; after all, Poe and Munro were easily the most intriguing characters in The Shapeshifting Detective! However, that quickly fizzled out. As it usually is, you look at a preview of a thing and start to imagine what you’re going to get. When looking at the store page of this game, I couldn’t help but imagine Poe and Munro going on some kind of grand, exciting adventure. However, as it turned out, Dark Nights with Poe and Munro is merely a series of vignettes, showcasing all of the absurd things that somehow seem to happen only to those two, possibly just so they can talk about them on the radio later on. There’s no real callback to The Shapeshifting Detective, with only one other character from that game appearing briefly in one of the chapters, which means the mysteries from that game are still left unsolved; however, there is a reference to the studio’s first game, which I still haven’t played, but imagine might be enjoyable for its fans. What really bothered me about those vignettes was the lack of any sense of time that I could grasp at, making August seem like the most alienating and the most intriguing town at once. I also would have liked to see Poe and Munro’s lives outside of the radio booth; the fact that they supposedly keep broadcasting every hour, by the hour is still incredibly sus. Alas, I shall look out for whenever a new game from the studio comes around…
Edna & Harvey: The Breakout - Anniversary Edition - Getting to replay this one was such a joy! The timing was made even more perfect by the fact that I managed to find a code for the original in the wild, to get A in on the fun. Despite forgetting most of what happened in the game, I still managed to shave off about two hours, compared to my playthrough of the original. Conclusion: I love it just as much as the original, if not more! There hasn’t been a similar remaster for Harvey’s New Eyes, unfortunately, but I do own a second copy on GOG, so… I might play through that one this year!
Fireboy and Watergirl: Elements - Nostalgia throwback! Assuming you’re somewhere in my age group, you’ve more likely than not heard of this series, if not played it with a friend in your school’s computer lab. As far as I’m aware, this is a rerelease that compiles the first five or so games from the series into one big adventure. Knowing that I’ve got A on my side now, I bought both this and the other release from the series to play through together. This one starts off relatively easy, but as time goes on, it gets really freaking hard, as you have to plan out a way through levels involving buttons, switches, portals and rotating mirrors. All that with the pressure of a time limit on top made me feel like I was getting betrayed by my nostalgia (lol). Side note: one of the achievements is broken, but a simple fix from the community forums helps. Now, on to the other game whenever we have the time!
I commissioned some bees 0 - Now that I’ve finally gotten the chance to introduce myself at no charge to this series - I commissioned some bees seems to be like an evolved version of the 100 hidden… series. The concept is the same, but ICSB goes above and beyond - the scenes look vibrant, they’re drawn in the distinct art style that many people seem to just adore and want on their walls and the ambient BGM is pleasing to the ear. Not only were there bees, in every level there are a few items distinctly related to bees that need finding - and some of them were really hard to spot! (As opposed to the 1-2 items in the 100 hidden… series, those are just annoying.) All in all, it was a cute little time waster, and so… I suppose I am forever confined to this series now, too.
Pixel Puzzles 2: Paintings - I was hoping to finish this one before the end of 2022, but alas! There’s nothing special to talk about here, just another Pixel Puzzles 2 game with a different lineup of puzzles to solve.
Portal - Here it is: the game, the myth, the legend. The one title no self-aware medium forgets to reference: Portal. Despite having a peabrain when it comes to puzzles (and yes, I know I say that in just about every review of a puzzle game I play), I bought both games on sale a good few years ago, feeling like I had to play them because of their status. I originally spent some time in both this one and the sequel back when I was dating my first boyfriend, but then my interest naturally fizzled out. When A learned that I still hadn’t really sank my teeth into either of the games, I got the message: it was time to buckle up and go back… starting from the first game, obviously. I picked up most of the story mode without much trouble, but the later chambers were a nuisance. And here’s why: I have been gaming on a laptop, using only a trackpad 99% of the time. Naturally, whenever there was a chance to borrow somebody’s mouse, I’d gladly do that, but I never really felt the need to own one myself. For the most part, I’d rather just connect a controller and use that to play. So… the last few levels were doable, if a struggle, but the final encounter left me in tears. I actually friggin’ cried! A knew it all came from the fact that I was using a controller, and so I left the game like that for a while. Back then, I still hadn’t been considering getting a mouse, so the next time we considered playing, A helped me out with the final sequence, as well as the side challenges. Call me out for being a wimp; I’m just glad I can finally write this game off. I’ll pick the sequel back up eventually, since I know A really wants me to.
Super Seducer - I made the mistake of showing gameplay from this series to A as a “hey, check out how bad this is” kind of thing and oh boy, there I go owning both this and the sequel now. This is… a game. If you’ve heard of “pick-up artistry” or PUA for short, you might have an idea about who Richard La Ruina is. You likely also know that “pick-up artists” tend to be rather conservative/right-leaning. I would really rather not get political, for all I know I’d never be equipped well enough to argue politics with anyone, but really, with this game it shows. It’s an FMV-style game that’s all about approaching women in different types of situations - on the street, at a party, at the park. Sounds innocent enough, right? Well, as some others have likely pointed out before me, there’s really no situation in which the women are simply not interested; they always leave only after Richard has tried to show them his dick or made some disgusting comments about them or their interests. Richard - and I presume, the people who helped him make these games - know well that those choices are all there for the sake of being jokes (and the talking head you get after picking them will outright say “congratulations, this is a joke choice, don’t try it in real life, now go pick something better”), but nevertheless, most of them are simply in poor taste. There’s also the matter of some passable/middle of the road-type choices, where Richard seems to think that offending a woman and turning it into a joke is a passable move. There’s one particular instance of this happening that I can remember, most other ones are escaping me now, but I remember feeling distinctly weirded out at some of the choices that were considered “passable” by the game. For a game released in 2018, the humor feels really dated (and, again, in poor taste) as well - there’s mentions of “being gay” as if it’s an insult (although in one scene it works as the best choice when said jokingly) and multiple instances of Richard defaulting to calling the girls he was trying to pick up “lesbians” after they decide to go away, disgusted by whatever he said. Not a good look, Richard, but I can only assume it all comes from some kind of conservative beliefs still being lodged deep down inside. I don’t know, I guess maybe 10 years ago this still would have been laugh-out-loud funny, but now that I’m a young adult (and, in a way, somewhat of a target for “being picked up”… or whatever), this kind of thing is genuinely terrifying to me. I can tell a lot of people played these games to laugh at the ridiculousness, but if they’re considered legit learning material by even one guy… we might be in trouble.
Teddy Floppy Ear - The Race - It’s been a while since I checked in with this game. I love Teddy Floppy Ear (who doesn’t?), but I suck at any and all kinds of racing games. So… A took up the mantle. We quickly realized that racing hardly takes any effort, all you really have to do is keep track of the shortcuts, as AI players never really use them. The game just gets tedious when you have to race to win cups, then race to win in leagues, then do the slaloms… I, for one, thought the slaloms would be fun, but for every star you pick up while driving, there’s a loud sound effect that only gets more annoying the more you collect. The visuals have this “cheap demo from a gaming magazine” kind of vibe, the BGM isn’t much better, although it does worm its way inside your head. I can only assume the devs tried to make the gameplay varied, but ultimately, it flopped. I’m pretty sure the only reason A pulled through was that while boring, it was still really easy to 100%. Halfway through December, Forever Entertainment announced the discontinuation of support for the Teddy Floppy Ear game series, likely due to license expiration. So with that in mind and this completion, farewell, Teddy Floppy Ear! Even if this is the end of your gaming adventures, you’ll remain a symbol of the old days of Polish animation.
WooLoop - The new game from Coloring Pixels’ devs is finally here! This time, you can create all kinds of things just by wrapping and looping wool around strategically placed pins. Make no mistake, though, it’s not a sandbox game - the images are predetermined. I’ve seen a bunch of reviews from people saying that it’s disappointing to not be allowed creativity and all I can say is “welp, those people clearly haven’t played Coloring Pixels”. Since the game’s only come out less than three weeks ago, it’s still in an early development stage, so I’m sure that after more people have downloaded and played it, not only will new content be added by the devs, they’ll also host community contests like they already have done for Coloring Pixels multiple times. Just have faith in them and keep on looping!
See you next month! :)
I tried Portal shortly after getting my Steam Deck as it seemed “fitting,” but kinda bounced off of it as well. I think I’m not really in the mood for that sort of puzzle game at the moment. I’m sure I’ll give it another try someday!
Ooh, I’m immediately jealous of your Steam Deck. It’s probably also worth noting that the game has a specific kind of atmosphere to it - you’re all alone, everything is mostly black or white and there’s only slight, robotic, chilly ambient playing in the background - so, I would say, not good for times when you’re feeling sad or lonely already. You’ll get back to it eventually :)
Yeah that’s definitely true - and the only person talking to you is a mean robot lol
Congrats on your progress and thanks for bringing the bee and WooLoop games to my attention :)
Okay… I guess now I’m on the bee train as well^^
It’s worth it! :3