Progress report: Third week of December ‘21 (a.k.a. Preparations!)
Due Tuesday, again. Late… again. At this point I kind of can’t wait for this year to end.
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A Case of the Crabs: Rehash
1 hour playtime
no achievements
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Azurael's Circle: Chapter 1
0.4 hours playtime
no achievements
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Cowpocalypse
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Devolverland Expo
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Flaws in the People We Love
0.2 hours playtime
no achievements
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Good Morning World
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Larry The Unlucky: Part 1
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Loneliness
0.0 hours playtime
no achievements
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My Light In The Dark
0.3 hours playtime
no achievements
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Something for Someone Else
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Sprite Sequence: Chapter 1
0.1 hours playtime
no achievements
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The Walsingham Files - Chapter 1
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Universe For Sale: Prologue
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Yu Crossing Animals
A Case of the Crabs: Rehash - A much improved remake of a Flash game that originally came out all the way back in 2004, ACotC is a noir-style point-and-click that follows Nick Bounty, a true to form detective, starved for a new case… that is, until one, quite literally, walks right through the door to his office. Now, it is up to him to solve the mystery of… seafood? Crabs. Mostly crabs. ACotC is easy, but doesn’t really hold your hand; as for the humor, ya gotta get the references, so I’ll write it down under “player must be American (I think)”. Knowing that a former Telltale Games employee is the original creator makes the experience so much sweeter and having learned that there is already a sequel out, and that it features voice actors billed for multiple of said company’s titles, I am more than willing to go on another investigation with Nick Bounty in the near future.
Azurael’s Circle: Chapter 1 - Yet another game made in RPGMaker; in this one, you investigate the suicide of your own mother. What’s weird about this one is, I’ve gotten so used to having to select the object I want to use from my inventory that I actually got confused by this game doing all that work for the player, which was a refreshing change that most of these games could easily use. Other than that, there’s really not much worth mentioning. The main character seemed very meh, neither overly good nor even ambiguously snarky/annoying/whatever else could make him interesting. It was also odd that while walking around in locations that are supposed to be lit up, only the spot around the main character was really bright, as if he was carrying some flashlight he forgot to mention. I would dare say it even gets a tad annoying, considering that it might have been an attempt at making the game scary… but if so, that’s a failed one. I don’t find something like that scary at all. Ultimately, it’s disappointing to think that this is where this character’s story ends; I got a peek at the next chapter and it seems to be a whole another story. This got good just as it ended, but maybe one day I’ll buy the second chapter.
Cowpocalypse - A mediocre point-and-click that I only completed thanks to a user-contributed guide… which may be an important distinction to make, considering there is, apparently, an official guide within the game. I opted not to look at it, though, since it warned me it was going to show a playthrough and no matter how crappy the game is, I want to be as unspoiled as possible. Now, the actual story… it was all a fever dream and you can not convince me otherwise. You play as a guy who wakes up in the middle of the night only to find that a fire broke out near his house, the cows that were supposed to be sleeping in that exact place are nowhere to be seen aaand there is also a reindeer stuck in the roof, butt-in, because somehow Santa Claus happened to crash his sleigh. Hey, at least that makes it fitting for the season, right? It’s 40 minutes of clunky UI work, moon logic and okay voice acting that not only did the actors not get credited for, but also didn’t omit any of the (sometimes really glaring) grammatical errors, which begs the question… how on earth have those native-sounding VAs not had a hand in fixing the script? It doesn’t seem like that tall of an order to ask. Even though this is the dev’s first game, its controls are too clunky, the story is, again, a fever dream and the dev’s claim that after the continuation comes out, “you’ll feel that this is why you were born: to play [Cowpocalypse]”, is a little too weird even as a joke.
Devolverland Expo - What do you mean, it’s the pandemic and everything’s closed down? Devolver Digital’s expo went off without a hitch! That’s right, Devolverland Expo is a virtual representation of what could potentially happen if one were to sneak into a closed down, called off convention. …except there are security drones flying everywhere. Yeah, that one’s a bother. Most of the presented games weren’t up my alley, but I still enjoy a good trailer. The merch gun was a pretty tongue-in-cheek idea, I liked that. I wonder if there is any info on the unannounced titles yet; I get books and cups, but plastic bags? That genuinely got me curious. The boss fight was tough for me to manage, mostly because the game as a whole was a little heavy for my laptop, but I got close enough to the end on one try that the game counted it as a win… cause I died right after that. I checked out the very ending online and there really wasn’t anything I missed, so I won’t be playing through again. Overall, a really cool idea.
Flaws in the People We Love - I don’t get it. I don’t know if I’m supposed to get it. The overarching story comes out of nowhere and doesn’t make a lot of sense, the game looks unfinished in a bunch of ways (visible FPS counter, mouse cursor is visible and stuck in the middle of the screen, many of the textures are clipping), but, having come from the same dev, I will say I enjoyed it more than Tennis Story. A good bunch of games could use the kind of jump feature this one offers.
Good Morning World - A diamond in the rough. …who am I kidding, it’s only rough. It tries to mix a groundhog day scenario with a self-aware secondary character and the results are poor. I have no idea what engine this was made in, but it suffers from the lack of the most basic options, most importantly the exit button. I had to pop up my taskbar while it was running and close it from there. There is very minor point-and-clicking, which, when actually important, is pretty much impossible to figure out on your own; again, not that there is a lot to click on, but when you want to do it, things either stand out way too much or are not visible at all. The VN side of things is just ugly - everything is in Comic Sans, using what I assume is the default textbook look and the skip option works all willy-nilly. Not even the end credits look good, and you’d think at least that part would be important. I only have about 5 minutes recorded in this game, but I really fumbled around for much longer - that discrepancy is there because, I think, this game closed Steam upon launching. Sounds ridiculous, but I’ve never experienced that happening before; I could have sworn I launched it from Steam, but when I wanted to check something in the client, I realised it’s not even on anymore. That and the achievement - it unlocked as the game was installing, which I would guess is because some people reported having trouble with it not unlocking. …but then it also unlocked after I launched the game, now without the client closing on me randomly. Lastly, even though this didn’t interrupt my playthrough, it might be worth mentioning that this game gives you the option to sign in with your Steam account at what I assume is the developer website. Not to demonize, but I’m not sure that’s cool.
Larry The Unlucky: Part 1 - Ported from mobile to Steam (made obvious by how it advertises the sequel), this one’s a nostalgic trip back to the good old times of Flash games… more specifically the escape room ones; I’m not sure I ever really made progress in any of the ones I used to check out back in the day. It’s short and it’s even got some easy achievements, so if you’re feeling it, give it a try.
Loneliness - Certainly not the first time someone decided squares are a good way to portray people… and I didn’t really buy it.
My Light in the Dark - Made in no more than two weeks, My Light in the Dark was originally a submission to a gamemaking contest and has seen little change since then. It’s short, relatively simple and tells the story of a girl who had been living with her abusive mother her whole life… until you take control. I don’t really have anything else to say about it, except that I appreciated the lack of the default UI sounds, which would have undoubtedly broken the immersion (they definitely don’t fit in with many other games, yet none of the creators seem to care?).
Something for Someone Else - I may not be the person this game was originally meant for, but I am glad that I got to play it. I’m not the best with games like yours, but, perhaps because you were so nice to me, I held out far better than I usually would. I think that is also why I truly regret cheating, even though you were the one to tell me it’s possible. In my defense, I will say that I played around with the option, trying to see if I could pass certain sections without cheating. I liked the song you played in the background; it may not be my favorite kind of sound, but I think I’m going to look it up and listen to it again. I’m sorry to hear that the one you wanted this experience to touch ultimately remained unconcerned. This probably won’t be much coming from a random player, but while I find it hard to deeply empathize with your struggles, if only because I don’t share them, I wasn’t indifferent to them (and that’s been a big thing with me for a while now). I didn’t care about that achievement you so graciously provided me with; it’s a nice thing to have, a memory of having gone through this experience with you, having listened. I appreciate the kind words you had for me. I wish I could listen to you more. Even though you said that this game came out of an idea for a somewhat different one, which you later scrapped, I would still love to experience the original idea, come to life. Considering that’s likely just my wishful thinking, though, I would also gladly listen to you talk about many other things. If you ever create another story, it would be a pleasure to meet you again.
Sprite Sequence: Chapter 1 - The Creation - A short platformer, supposedly about the process of creation. I wouldn’t know about that, but I guess it could be metaphoric in the most basic of ways. I liked the simple and friendly look of it, and even more so, the self-made sound effects. Recommended for the shortest of breaks.
The Walsingham Files - Chapter 1 - Another story about Sara the detective; this one is set after all of the events of Silver Creek Falls, meaning I have no idea about what happened or why we’re in a completely different place… but it’s okay, I only played this for the achievements anyway. The character sprites and portrait art remain pleasing to the eye (as I’ve mentioned before in my review for Silver Creek Falls), but this time… there’s more game. The riddles in the latter half of the game were pretty obtuse, and especially as someone who didn’t really care about the game, I may not have been able to complete it without the guide I found (outside of Steam!). Really don’t get the whole ending, though I would hope it makes sense if you play the whole series. This game also seems to have its achievements programmed in differently, as I unlocked the one for starting the game twice; the second time wasn’t because I locked it again using some third-party software, it just… triggered again on its own. Peculiar, that one.
Universe for Sale: Prologue - The first step into the universe (ha, get it?) of Universe for Sale. Its graphics are advertised as entirely hand-drawn (and impressively so), and inspired by European comics, meaning I wasn’t too far off in thinking it reminds me of those. One downside I want to mention is, in the menu there’s an option to set the voice volume… but the game isn’t voiced, it just uses beeps for character talk. That’s misleading and I’d hope it gets changed when the full game comes out. Since it seems that the game will mostly revolve around space and similar themes, it might not exactly be my cup of tea (again, accidentally punny), but I did wishlist it anyway.
Yu Crossing Animals - I sure hope the title isn’t a very obvious pun about a different, much more popular game! Anyway, Yu Crossing Animals… not sure why the main character here is also called Yu, but I’ll just roll with it. Yu is a furry (?) with mixed features (not unlike the other characters), who one day becomes assistant to the mayor of the village she found her home at. The catch being… the residents like getting to know each other closely. Having gotten a few pointers, Yu sets out to fulfill everyone’s requests and lewd them in the process. The game still looks unfinished, given how many empty houses there are standing around. I appreciate Yu having a voice, but I’m not convinced her kids’ cartoon-esque sound fits the theme of the game. I would also like to see VAs being brought on board to voice the other characters. The minigame is fine, although I think there could be more added in the future. I find the buttplug acting as the item to speed up movement ridiculous… correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t walking around with one inside you be more uncomfortable? All that being said, the game is relatively new, having come out just at the start of the month, and seeing how it’s being advertised as “still free”, I think it’s safe to say that there will be updates in the future.
See you next week! :)