HurrJackal1
May 2026
-
Mafia: Definitive Edition
-
Mafia II: Definitive Edition
-
Assemble with Care
-
Gori: Cuddly Carnage
-
Librarian: Tidy Up the Arcane Library!
-
Life Eater
-
The Red Pearls Of Borneo
-
The Monster Inside
-
Conscience
0.1 hours playtime
no achievements
-
Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy
-
Lingo 2
-
Vampire Crawlers
25.75 hours playtime
153 of 161 achievements
GAME
PASS -
Motorslice
11.3 hours playtime
24 of 24 achievements
GAME
PASS -
Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy
3.4 hours playtime
12 of 26 achievements
GAME
PASS -
Archives of Trevosa
0 hours playtime
no achievements
-
The Case of the Dungeon Descent
0 hours playtime
no achievements
-
My Friends the Monster Trainers
0 hours playtime
no achievements
- Mafia: Definitive Edition: This is a post-GTA3 game, but one with clarity of design. Each of its 21 chapters is a single mission of varied styles and content, and while your One Man Army will explore the map over the course of these, it does not encourage you to go off-piste. Indeed, it may time you out if you stray too far outside zone. Similar games will drown you in side activities and side quests, which can actually draw attention to the thinness of their worlds. Mafia has a bunch of collectables but those are mostly for its free roam mode. Its laser-focus on progression through the story it wants to tell might feel constraining in a lesser game, but Mafia has such good writing and acting overall that it wasn’t an issue. Driving generally felt pretty good. Only significant niggles were that the AI was not great, that stealth could have used a distraction method, and that the somewhat janky lateral cover system could have included a dash forward into next cover rather than needing manual disengage and movement. 9/10
- Mafia II: Definitive Edition: I was wondering why the characters of this game felt worse than its predecessor, when I discovered that M1:DE had had a new writer overhaul the original. It’s still the same missions and broad beats, but with significantly strengthened relationships. In particular Tommy’s love interest Sarah is barely in the original version, while she is a consistent figure throughout the rework. M2:DE, however, appears to be fundamentally the same game as M2. Unlike M1, the writing and acting didn’t absolutely have to be replaced (at least from my quick sample of a youtube playthrough), and the duration that the story extends over was welcome, but the relationships do feel lesser and pulpier and more caricatured than M1:DE. There are vintage Playboy Playmate nudie pictures as collectables but the models aren’t identified in any way other than a collectable number, which speaks to a specific lack of care. 8/10
- Assemble with Care: A recent BLAEO review reminded me that I’d stalled halfway in this tiny tinkering puzzle game, so I finished the remaining puzzles. I did not pay attention to the story once I resumed, as it was largely why I initially stopped; if it wasn’t deliberately constructed to pad out a very short game, the writing and acting was at least not compelling enough to justify the roadblock in progressing to the next puzzle. As for the puzzles, you’re taking apart small personal and household items, replacing broken/misplaced parts, and putting them back together – and they’re ok, but mostly straightforward. 7-/10, but be prepared to race through the story if it shits you.
- Gori: Cuddly Carnage: An anthropomorphic cat on a hoverboard kills an Adorable Army of mutated biological toys, mostly unicorns. The game tries way way way too hard to be edgy, they could have cut a percentage of the combat, the combat camera would be better a little further out, because it tends to be quite chaotic and it can be a little tricky to track ranged combatants behind you. But the hoverboarding definitely works – there’s a button to lock onto rails, a double jump, an air jump, limited wall-riding, and some generous hang time to help you manoeuvre both during platforming and arena sections; it was rare that I fell during the former. And the levels are mechanically different enough despite common enemies. 8/10. (Steamgifts win)
- Librarian: Tidy Up the Arcane Library: A second screen game for those with mild OCD. Books have been removed from their shelves by a mischievous fairy, and you need to put the sets of books back in order into the right section. At the start it’s a slow object hunt, but the more sets you do, the more points you’ll have to spend on spells to make the job easier. By the end, you’ll be grabbing and shelving a full set with a couple of button presses… unless you are going for the one non-magical achievement which is a far slower and more painstaking process. I didn’t experience any physics bugs (books pushing on books resulting in things falling through surfaces could have been catastrophic). 8/10 – but it very much is what it is.
- Life Eater This game is one of those oddities where it’s not pleasant or enjoyable, and nor is its gameplay particularly good, but I’m still going to recommend it if you are into experimental games. In Life Eater you are probably an insane serial killer, but you may well also be the only person stopping the god Zimforth from destroying the world. Either way, you take no pleasure in performing each year’s necessary kidnappings and sacrifices. You will spend your limited time selecting methods of gaining information to identify what your potential victims are doing and who they are (just a short text description with a name of an associated non-openable media file for each time period), while attempting to avoid notice. When you finally kidnap them, their status and attributes will determine how they are to be mutilated (there are a couple of more or less static images for the post-investigation phase, but the gore level is mild). The investigation gameplay is rote and significantly random (there’s a post-game endless mode), and is really more of a resource management game than a detective one. Disappointingly, except for unlocking some related periods, the methods you use to uncover information do not appear to affect your risks and abilities in future information gathering – you are not following delicate threads so much as making educated guesses with a shotgun and hoping to hit one of the few pieces of key information by happenstance. 7-/10 for gameplay, 8/10 for vibe (Steamgifts win)
- Red Pearls of Borneo – This pure detection game is well worth a play. You are a psychic who, in search of a client’s sister, works out what happened within a plantation in WW2 Borneo under looming threat of Japanese invasion, and beyond. A partial transcript for a particular hour at a particular location can be read when you use an object associated with a person at the scene, and the full transcript unlocks when you identify all people there at the time. There are a few minor oddities in the writing (though no AI use has been declared), and a fair bit of the last third is worse due to the structure and writing, but it’s still a 9-/10… and it’s free!
- The Monster Inside: A microscopic pulp noir visual novel. Music and art are effective. Gameplay consists either of selecting a conversation choice or finding a couple of hotspots to progress to the next of its seven chapters. Good for what it is, which isn’t much 7.5/10 (free)
- Conscience: A 10 minute snack of a fair detective game - 3d, but uses a Golden Idol style word-slot mechanic. 7.5/10 (free)
- Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy: A surprisingly enjoyable action adventure which very much captures a Weird Space Fantasy feel. With the exception of Gamora, who generally felt overly gentle character-wise, the team hold their own against their MCU counterparts (and surpass in the case of Mantis), with some well-written and acted banter. Of note was that there were some choices and consequences in the dialogues which had a little mechanical effect. 8.5/10
- Lingo II: Like Lingo, where you need to enter words into panels to progress, but with a different main mechanic. This has been overall far kinder to this point both in a bunch of cluing and design choices, and getting to the first ending was significantly easier, though there’s definitely rabbit hole ahead. Curiously, the order in which I’ve reached my 4 endings are the same as the order by percent of players finishing, so it’s again giving that read-my-mind magic. 9/10
- Vampire Crawlers: A card battler spin off of Vampire Survivors where the three companions you use determine which cards you have in your pool, and you move around 2.5d levels, which gives you some choice in order of combats. It was fine as a second screen game, but it relies on you buying permanent unlocks of necessary improvements using coins collected in a run to deal with its balance issues, and it’s nowhere as mechanically complex/interesting as Slay the Spire or Inscryption (Kaycees mod). 7.5/10 (Xbox 25.75h 153/161)
- Motorslice: A girl armed with a chainsaw performs feats of improbable parkour while traversing a ruined megastructure infested with construction robots gone aggressive. There’s some Shadow of the Colossus here as you reach gigantic bosses and do enough damage to their weakspots, and some Prince of Persia: Sands of Time with its wall runs, pole jumps, and traps; and some Mirrors Edge in the feel. It’s not as good as any of those at what it wants to do (eg: the weakspots are somewhat exploitable and there’s no stamina meter), but it’s still reasonable. The sense of impossible scale is great. The combat was mostly not great, and was mandatory as there are magic walls that won’t let you progress until you’ve killed all robots in an area. The perviness in the cut-scenes was surely unnecessary, and possibly influenced by some Japanese game I’ve not played. There’s one rather amusing and silly achievement, but none for the load of optional orbs that can be collected for extra challenge. 8/10 (Xbox 11.3h 24/24)
- Mixtape: As a GenX/Xennial, this was a joyously bittersweet and highly playful nostalgic work that should be experienced blind if possible. It’s been a very long time since something made me giggle anywhere near as much. At one point I (correctly) realised that this was probably Australian despite the US setting (Rage was/is very much a mixtape of a music program overnight on Fridays and Saturdays). There are a bunch of relatively minor flaws, but its emotional core is true, and that’s what made it a 10/10 for me, but I don’t know how much anemoia will hit those who came of age in a post-analogue world. I will say that if it’s not for you because you want more game than toy/story in your systems that’s understandable – I have that with a fair few games that focus on story over gameplay – but there’s a bunch of discourse that is fucking stupid to the point of hysteria. (Xbox 3.4h 12/26)
- Archives of Trevosa: A good little Roottrees-like where you work out the names and monikers of a royal dynasty by hunting through (and for) incompletely-translated documents. 8.5/10 (free)
- The Case of the Dungeon Descent: A small Obra-Dinn/Roottrees-ish puzzler where you must determine the fates of those who entered a fantasy dungeon by scrying for people, their objects and spells, and the locations they have visited. You can only view a scene when you can isolate one of its unique scrying combinations. Good plotting. 8/10 (free)
- My Friends the Monster Trainers: Another small jamwitch puzzler where you must determine the nature and capabilities of various Pokemon-style creatures through letters you receive. 7.5/10 (free)
Congratz for your month ! First time i see Librarian on Blaeo, was it fun at least or it’s really a job simulator ?