Amitte

Progress report: December ‘22 (a.k.a. Burnout…)

THIS TOOK A WHILE. Between putting off writing reviews for games I beat with my boyfriend (whom I decided to start calling “A” from this point on to avoid the tiring repetition) and going back to school after the Christmas break, I realized I had little to no focus and desire to write reviews for the games I play anymore. Naturally, the longer I took to write from playing a game, the harder it was to reach back into my memories and pull out anything worth writing about, but in general… a few years ago, this started out as an exercise in creative writing (“I barely do anything except play games in my free time, so why not at least write down some thoughts I’ve had on them?”), but now I barely have time to play my games as it is, and with the “necessity” of writing a post, I felt blocked from playing too much (I’m only putting this out now, yet I’ve already completed five games since the start of January… imagine playing catch-up now). This doesn’t have to be goodbye forever, but I feel like for now, I’m going to only list the games I’ve completed in a month, no reviews attached. Hopefully that doesn’t deter any of you from interacting with my posts! :)

As for the games I’ve completed in December:

100 hidden birds - Still got nothing to say on the matter.

Abedot Family Estate: Search for Hidden Objects - Echoing multiple reviewers on Steam, this game has to be some kind of a joke. The art is beautiful and the music compliments it well, but the UI is weird, you’re just thrown into the game without any context and then it all stops dead in its tracks after five-ish minutes, because the game is apparently in early access. Why does the technical side of it have to be so clunky? Why doesn’t the game try to distinguish the items you found from the ones you haven’t? And, perhaps most importantly, why is there an option to go back to the main menu by clicking on a chair(?) [which, by the way, is the only thing found in a suitcase you pick up in the first scene, because…?] I don’t know, I just… I honestly don’t understand. I’m just glad to have won this game on SG, otherwise I would not have ever gotten to play it; still, I recommend everyone stay away from it.

Arcade Moonlander - A retro-styled game with a simple concept - fly a spaceship to a landing pad and land it carefully before you run out of fuel. Three modes are available: Arcade Mode (aka the main mode, pretty much) with 20 levels to complete, Adventure Mode, which is supposedly more expansive than Arcade Mode (A only really played Arcade Mode) and Procedural Mode, which, as the name suggests, can generate an infinite number of levels (yet is still in development, according to the store page). It was fine, if you’re into that kind of game, I guess? For me it was one of the games I reserved for A to try, and most of the time he spent playing, I would be talking his head off about something and before I’d notice, he was done for the day ^^;; Recommended…?

bit Dungeon - Got this one as a random gift from a friend once (thanks, Dev!) A cheap little game, I’m hearing it’s a mobile port. It’s got a simple concept - fight your way through randomized dungeons using randomized loot. I was planning to try it out myself at some point, but since I added it to A’s category in my library… he pounced right on it and cleared it in about 40 minutes. “For a hour-ish game, it was cool; can’t see myself playing it again though,” he said. “But I’d say it’s a 7/10.”

Bucket Detective - Bucket Detective is, ah… it’s a hard game to describe, really. It’s a first-person adventure game about a middle-aged guy, who’s weirdly obsessed with hardcore sex (or at least the idea of having it). He thinks writing a book (of the same title as the game) will be a great way to make women want to get in his pants. Okay, that’s… great, I guess? Well, he’s not very skilled at writing, so he asks a fellow writer about whether or not there’s a way to get better. Upon suggestion, he heads to a mysterious building… and that’s where everything kicks off. The game is by no means long, but it quickly establishes itself as delightfully absurd, confusing and immoral; if you’re not into crude sexual humor, gore, or even deafening silence, you should probably stay away. There’s also close to an hour of director’s commentary, which I commend for going into great detail on the challenges that cropped up while working on the game, mistakes that were made, as well as advice for aspiring indie devs, though not as much on the game’s lore itself. Still, it seems the devs are passionate about helping other people make good games, and that really came through. I’m excited to see what they might make next.

Cuties Hacked: Oh no someone stole my photos! - I vaguely remember stumbling upon this one in the store before and chuckling to myself at how ridiculous the title sounds (gotta love the usual “man writes unbearably horny woman”), but as soon as I caught wind of it going free, I couldn’t help but add it to my library. It’s yet another modern take on Qix, except they made it harder for no reason. While the usual rule is that cornering an enemy and cutting it away from the rest of the play area eliminates it, here you only get to cut it off into its own box. Sure, you can move freely and all that, but it makes going for the more perfectionist achievements harder. The whole “ogle cute girls” appeal is also weak, there’s not all that much to see, especially because most of the levels are locked behind DLC. Thank god all the achievements were unlockable with just the base game and good riddance.

Jane’s Realty - This one was a throwback; I’m pretty sure I used to play the free trial of this on Big Fish Games back in the day. You’re Jane, an up-and-coming realtor and you’re tasked with building neighborhoods from the ground up. Starting from the power and water plants, you have to buy lots, construct houses or public buildings, furnish houses after they’re built and keep their tenants happy after they move in. It’s a casual game, but it’s also a strategy game - I can only wonder if the devs knew how hard the later levels got, or if it’s just me who played in all the wrong ways. There’s a “Business” mode, as well as a “Design” mode, which I thought focused only on furnishing the houses, but when I launched it, it seemed to me like the same exact game… and I wasn’t exactly raring to go again after the last eight levels took me just about the same amount of time as the whole rest of the game did back in January. Recommended - no joke - only for people with strong nerves (or better strategic skills).

memoir - A series of VN-style vignettes, telling the story of a blooming relationship between a boy and a girl, interspersed with picross/nonogram sections. I’ll admit, I only decided to check this one out on a whim because of the picross/nonogram, and… that part’s baaad. The story part’s fine, you’ve got your usual teens’ ups and downs, with the typically nagging Asian parents to match; the girl even has some nice voice acting. The picross/nonogram, though, I found kind of pointless in the end. The images are 10x10, which, sure, that’s easy, but then it’s hard to tell what most of them are supposed to represent when finished. There’s also no option to drag to color, not to mention that sometimes it felt like my inputs didn’t register properly. If the image isn’t solved properly, the game just goes “no, that wasn’t it” and you have to solve it all from the start… whyyy… Between that and the characters themselves taking their first steps into game development, I can only wonder how much (if any) of the game was influenced by real life. Unfortunately, the result is very basic and sub-par.

Pastry Lovers - I bought this one for a friend on a deep discount once… and she hadn’t played it for years (not much of a gamer in general, I suppose), until I reminded her of it and suggested we get through it together… well, somewhat. I like to think of myself as a completionist, but obviously, there are times I can’t help but give up rather than 100% a game. The achievements of this one really helped with that, otherwise I’d be stuck putting in another 14 hours. Let me explain. 甜点恋人 or Pastry Lovers was initially released as a browser game… which is fine by itself, except I have no way of comparing that to the Steam version. What exists on Steam, though, is a game that always launches in windowed mode (only supporting one size, much smaller than you’d expect nowadays) and on max volume, effectively blowing your ears out every time you want to play. But most importantly… the translation. Hoo boy, it feels like I could go on for hours. Obviously, it’s machine translated (I’ve seen some weird takes in CN>EN translations, and I say this as someone who doesn’t know a lick of the source language… but I refuse to believe anyone could be this bad), but every once in a while, the script will pull out words like “shrewish”, “cudgeling” or “vicissitudes” and every time, I’d stop and think “When was the last time anyone used that word?” Needless to say, we had some fun with that. Otherwise, the game’s concept is as simple as it gets; it’s an otome stat raiser, but the only thing you’d really need to worry about - money - is set up so high by default (supposedly it wasn’t like that from the beginning) that there really is no challenge (although multiple people have created day-by-day guides to make sure you can achieve absolute 100% completion). In the process of going through the game blindly, naturally I missed some minor things here and there, but after getting all the endings tied to the achievements, I realized I don’t feel the need to go all the way back to the start. The game is already so broken, playing it is like walking a tightrope while balancing a raw egg on the tip of a freshly sharpened pencil. It’s one of those games that’s good to play if you want something to laugh at, but not actually a good game and after almost 14 hours of playtime, I feel like I’ve seen enough. My friend, however, takes longer to process all that mess, so after a similar amount of time, she’s only reached her first ending… we’ll see how it goes from there. (I’m rooting for you, Saku!)

Picross for a Cause - Hey, it’s another free Picross game! The title of this one comes from the fact that it used to be paid, with all proceeds going to the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc., for almost two years since its initial release. Now, however, it’s fully free to play and more than worth that price point. I wouldn’t consider myself a picross aficionado, but after spending over 40 hours playing this game, I would like to think I’m a few steps further than I’ve been before. (I admit, I still used auto-solvers when I’ve had enough of a puzzle.) Fully recommended for anyone looking to get into picross.

Project Mercury - An action platformer, emulating the vibe of a game that’s waaay before my time. You’ll be running, riding a hoverbike, even floating down a chasm, all to hopefully save your fellows from the currently going monster outbreak. I got A to play through all of it aaand… it seems to have been a mediocre experience. According to him, there was clear inspiration taken from Megaman and Contra showing in the mechanics, but in the long run, the cons outweighed the pros. The little story there is is unskippable (even if you’ve seen it before), the music, while changing slightly from level to level, is still much too samey and last, but not least, the fact that getting hit mid-air leaves you no room to react, making you watch as you fall to your death is what really got him started. “No need to make it ‘retro-hard’ just for the sake of nostalgia emulation”, is what we both think, I feel.

Seek Girl - One of the many cheap erotic games floating around Steam these days, except this one has you whack-the-mole over parts of the image to uncover it. Besides the BGM, there’s also random R-18 situation tracks playing, which is… weirdly distracting. Between those clearly coming from the dev(s?)’ personal collection and the who-knows-if-it’s-not-stolen art (make no mistake, it’s very pleasing to the eye), I’m glad this was free, cause I wouldn’t have played it otherwise.

Spa Mania - What. A. Throwback! It’s another one of the games I used to try out on Big Fish Games, back when it was there. You’re helping Jade, an animal rights activist, build and manage an eco-friendly spa empire. All in all, this game was stupid easy, just your usual time management fare; I had to replay a few levels here and there to reach the expert goal and that alone let me buy out all the upgrades a good few levels before the end of the game. There’s some minigames to play between the levels, which will give you special treatment formulas to use at the spas, as well as unlockable colors and patterns for Jade’s costume, which, despite being limited, made me oddly happy for a passive unlock. The last three or so levels were a real pain in the ass, however, cause all of a sudden you’re forced to ignore the regular strategy of “I’ll just tend to everyone in bunches and it’ll all be fine” and actually consider which type of customer to tend to first, based on how easily they lose patience or the fact that they can upset other customers when not tended to. One thing that dates this game horribly… every ten levels, you’re brought to a new branch of the spa and introduced to a new mentor, who teaches Jade/you about new customer types, treatments etc. Problem is, the game’s 13 years old at this point… so you’re going to encounter some really stereotypical caricatures. Assuming you’re able to dismiss that (it irked me enough to mention it, but then again, it’s a sign of the times), this game is an enjoyable, classic time management experience. I’m itching to play the sequel already.

Telling Lies - Made by the man behind Her Story (which I still haven’t played, shame on me), this is another FMV mystery that is split into a multitude of tiny pieces, which you, as the player, have to put back together to get to the end. You are, technically, represented by a character whose reflection is showing on the screen at all times, which is totally immersive and not creepy at all. The game starts at around 12 am, I believe, and you only have this night (until 6 am, that is) to find as much information as you can and hopefully piece the story together. The app you use to look for videos is fairly easy to understand, but it only shows the five most relevant videos for the search query you input, so to get to the rest, you’ll be expected to enter whole proper names, as well as split them up at times, not to mention some common words you might not think would matter at all. I didn’t see the appeal of this whole system at first, so A took full control, jotting down anything he thought might be important… but eventually, he got tired of watching everything from start to finish, especially if it was a 6-8 minute video of someone maybe saying a few things, but largely just nodding along to what the other person was talking about. At some point, we noticed the in-game clock seemed to have gotten stuck, so I looked up some stuff based on a guide and all of a sudden, we went from something like 1:40 AM all the way to past 3 AM and I still can’t tell what that was about. When we uncovered enough evidence for the game to let us finish, we had seen about 90-ish videos, but over 160 are needed to have seen everything… so A gave up and went to sleep, and I sat around for another 2-3 hours watching the rest. Interestingly enough, the way we got to the end, it’s like one of the characters was barely necessary to keep the plot going, even though they’re on the cover and all that. After all the catch up, I woke A up and we watched the ending together. It was… underwhelming, to say the least. I’m generally not a fan of stories where I can’t tell what’s happening half the time, and so I think that the fact that there’s a rundown of it on its Wikipedia page says a lot. It wasn’t “bad”, per se, but I much more prefer a standard FMV.

The Most Boring Game Ever - I know this game wants me to admit it is what it is… and it is… but you won’t ever catch me saying that literally. It’s possibly the worst attempt at a clicker game, ever, designed purely to frustrate you (at least if you want all the achievements). Some simple math seemed to suggest that getting all the achievements would require a 20 hour idle (due to how slowly the clicks register and the fact that the game is pretty much impossible to run in windowed mode), so I gave up and cheated it.

The Stanley Parable - What can I say about this game that hasn’t already been said? The Stanley Parable is one of a kind, simple on the surface, but introspective underneath; it inspired a whole slew of other games to adapt a similar sense of humor, complete with an emotional narrator and subversion upon subversion, so easily recognizeable and linked back by thousands, if not millions of gamers today. I couldn’t care less if someone thinks it’s not funny or tries to bully others into unlocking its achievements one way or another; I love The Stanley Parable. (Now, to play the Ultra Deluxe remaster…)

See you next month…

over 1 year ago 4 comments
Traqie

but now I barely have time to play my games as it is, and with the “necessity” of writing a post, I felt blocked from playing too much

I feel ya, I often don’t start new games until I finish writing about games I beated recently. And I don’t always feel like writing so I just end up playing games that never end like Binding of Isaac or some MP game :D

over 1 year ago
Amitte

And I don’t always feel like writing so I just end up playing games that never end like Binding of Isaac or some MP game :D

Exactly! For me that’s something even dumber, like one of those “ported from Facebook” hidden object games or whatever xD

over 1 year ago
ninglor03

I get that. Writing about games shouldn’t turn into pressure tho. So better to not write, than to feel bad about it hugs
Might also be part of the reason I don’t write about games anymore…

over 1 year ago
Amitte

Honestly, I can’t tell anymore… When I was on my own, all it took was completing the game, writing the review (I can’t even really remember a time when I’d spent more time on writing one than I’d like), uninstalling the game and it was all done and dusted for the whole month. Since I don’t recall ever asking my boyfriend if he’d be okay with me doing that even when I’m with him, I guess I just defaulted to leaving it for later to avoid downtime… I’m starting to wonder if that isn’t the real problem…

over 1 year ago