July 2023

Steam

• Costume Quest
  

  11 hours playtime

  21 of 21 achievements

• Flower
  

  4 hours playtime

  9 of 14 achievements

• Nihilumbra
  

  3 hours playtime

  11 of 24 achievements

• Costume Quest: Has the Double Fine charm and weirdness, but JRPG style team combat is particularly mediocre, exacerbated by only having one battle stamp allowed (which avoided any potential for interesting complexity with interaction of multiple stamps) and some punishingly long battle animations. I’d not be at all surprised if this were developed from draft material cut from Psychonauts.
• Flower: What a lovely little game. Has the best credits mechanics I’ve ever experienced.
• Nihilumbra: Finished story mode which was an enjoyably original puzzle game, )(though not mad about the narration). The post-ending Void mode is much much more difficult.

Game Pass

• F.I.S.T.: Forged In Shadow Torch
  

  
  2d 0h 19m playtime

  27/43 achievements

• Zombie Army 4: Dead War
  

  
  16h 56m playtime

  23/70 achievements

• Maquette
  

  
  3h 27m playtime

  11/22 achievements

• F.I.S.T: Forged in Shadow Torch: Competent post-Ori metroidvania with a good range of abilities, and some sporadically nice QOL in where it will re-start after a death during a challenge. Could have used some more shortcuts to make the backtracking nicer given the multitude of twisty empty paths, and definitely could have replaced coins with some other collectable (eg: make the stat upgrades require 4 pieces instead of 3) or single tradable to better reward complete exploration.
• Zombie Army 4: Dead War: 4 player co-op campaign completed. Fun enough squad vs hordes, but Sniper Elite is more my jam. Parsimonious healing / medkits can be a bit cruel.
• Maquette: I liked the puzzles / mechanics. The story and acting were a negative, however — I would have preferred a much lighter touch on the story and leave things ambiguous/surreal.