Progress report: January ‘20

Well, looks like another month has passed! I’ve been thinking about what to say here, and I really can’t figure out if there is anything interesting to say this month. (Update: There totally is! This is going to be my first fully active year on BLAEO, you’ll see! Update 2: Oh, and I knew one day BLAEO was gonna include restricted games! Too bad my play history for this month is inaccurately cluttered because of that…) I’m still dragging my dumb ass through this last year of high school, hoping to pass my final exams without trouble, so that I can get possibly the longest holiday in the history of my schooling. Oh, and I’ve also gone to prom! It wasn’t anything special though - I didn’t dance, I barely talked to anyone… I just ate food. I wish I could get the money and the time back.
Gaming-wise though, I can sum this month up as one where I basically just took care of the most casual of the casual games, just to get them out of the way of my progress, I suppose.

Enough of my rambling though, let’s get to it!

• Coloring Game 2
  

  19.6 hours playtime

  15 of 15 achievements

• Demon King Domination: Deluxe Edition
  

  2.5 hours playtime

  9 of 9 achievements

• Pinstripe
  

  13.9 hours playtime

  12 of 12 achievements

Coloring Game 2 - No idea what could be said about this one that wasn’t said about the first installment, except that the Raphael paintings were an overkill. From what I can understand, there won’t be any DLC content for this game, so hey, I suppose I completed it already. Nice.

Demon King Domination - This one is, ah… it’s… pretty special. As Malos, the titular demon king, you have to fight Dianne, a princess who wants to avenge her father and protect the people she rules over. Win the duel (or not!) to get one of four possible endings and, well, dominate Dianne more and more each time. The battling mechanics seemed like they were going to be tough to figure out the best course of action… but then I realized the developer made a step-by-step guide to all the endings, so I guess the game is actually just very linear. Oh well, can’t tell if that’s good or bad though. The art and voice acting (for Dianne) were average, the music and Malos’ voice were just about what you’d expect, the sex scenes were nice and the voice-only epilogues that unlock with each of the endings were a neat idea.

Pinstripe - If I had to name this tidbit, it would have been titled “Thomas Brush’s Pinstripe, or How a Game Made Me Hate Itself”. Don’t get me wrong: when I first heard about it, I was sold. I saw a trailer and I decided I was going to buy it on launch day… and so I did! I spent about 4 hours on my first playthrough, because I had no idea what I was doing and platformers aren’t a genre I’m into, but I loved it! It was magical, being able to discover the game all by yourself, with no spoilers (or tempting guides, for that matter) around. Can’t say much about the later playthroughs, but at some point I realized… the achievements I clearly fulfilled the requirements for weren’t unlocking, so with that, I decided to leave the game for a while to try and see if they get fixed (the publishers seemed responsible enough). Somewhere in that period, I did a few “meaningless” playthroughs (no achievements unlocked) already. Now, for some reason I decided I really want this to be my first finished game of 2020, so I just went for it… aaand I ended up doing another three playthroughs to earn all the achievements I had been missing. Yay for me, the one person who just can’t seem to go the easiest way. Anyway, because of that, my perception of the game shifted. At heart, Pinstripe is a simple puzzle-platformer with a story just mysterious enough to keep you going… but it does its best to pad out the playtime in the most noticeable ways. Even in New Game+ mode (which you will need to play at least once to earn all the achievements), you can’t solve the puzzles you already know the solutions to before getting the related hints in-game, which is frustrating, to say the least. There are, however, multiple things you can cut back on, which makes me wonder why they’re there in the first place (in New Game+ mode you’ll surely have more than enough money to keep replaying the game over and over without worry). The biggest offender, however, is the fact that at a certain point, you have to go all the way back to the location you start out at to carefully collect enough currency needed to progress further (to add insult to injury, the first time you play, you have to look around everywhere, cause you’ll only be able to get just enough to progress, from what I recall). That being said, to give up the game entirely at that part is ridiculous in my opinion. Whether you aim for perfection or not, Pinstripe will undeniably have a smooth art style, an endearing cast, a fabulous soundtrack and enlivening voice acting, which I, personally, will most likely still remember in a few years.

See you next month!