Progress report: December ‘19
It’s finally here! 2020 IS UPON US!
…well, it’s actually 2 AM while I’m writing this, but I digress. I don’t usually get emotional on days like these, but somehow I feel like this time around there’s a lot I want to say.
First off - Happy New Year! May what you all aspire for become real. If you like drinking, I hope you drank responsibly; if you prefer eating or celebrating in any other way, I hope you had a great time doing that! I just had some kids’ champagne - not one for the real thing.
Sometimes, when I watch movies I see characters writing in their diaries and I think “Aww, I wish I could write a diary too…”, which is then followed by a “Your life isn’t even interesting? What would you write about, huh?”. Now, I think that BLAEO might just be my special kind of diary - after all, gaming is a big part of my life. It kickstarted with watching other people play and now my own playtime could match up with that. It could be daring to share thoughts and opinions with other people, but what we have here is a pretty secluded community - since non-members can’t peek inside, I like to think this is a safe space for us all. This kind of thinking might be encouraged by how few of you I’ve ever talked to - but by all means, feel free to interact with me! I really feel like I want to get to know more of you.
As for the meat of it - the games - 2019 has seen a definite improvement, mainly because it was the first year I seriously picked up my gaming tools and went on in. (Too weird of a way to say it?) Compared to the first year I ever played something on Steam - 2016 - my completed game count is over ten times higher! (I-it’s eleven. Eleven, to be exact. Almost twelve, but still, eleven.) 106 is a pretty nice number, too. I can proudly say I’ve completed over a hundred games (and movies!) and it does fill me up with a sense of achievement. I’m glad I squeezed in that last game on the 31st; on a side note, I was also hoping to be done with Papers, Please before the end of the year, but ultimately, I decided against it - too much obligatory reading on WWII in school does its thing.
Other than that, I’ve been okay. I’m definitely not sick, my room is still a mess (much more contained than whatever has been going on those past months, but still nowhere near ready for a TV setup), my psyche might be weakened… but I’ll see if that’s anything I can work on sooner or later.
Oh, and I won’t be doing a summary of the whole year - I’ve already been catalogueing all the games I’ve assassinated during the year instead, so you can hop over to my profile and take a quick look.
Since I can’t tell if there’s anything I might have omitted, without further ado, here is the final progress report of 2019!
- Adolescent Santa Claus
0.6 hours playtime
no achievements
- Its your last chance in new school
0.5 hours playtime
no achievements
- My Brother Rabbit
3.1 hours playtime
- Path of Sin: Greed
4.1 hours playtime
- Welcome To... Chichester 0 - Preview
0.4 hours playtime
- 美少女麻将接龙
6.7 hours playtime
Adolescent Santa Claus - A series of short vignettes about the time “you” spend with a schoolgirl Santa Claus. It was cute, but tiring enough since all it did was reiterate the same things for half an hour.
Its your last chance in new school - You thought I said Hanae Novels’ creations were bad? Let me tell you, at least those VNs knew they wanted to describe some (mediocre) fucking. This VN, however… I don’t think it knows what it wants to be about. That, and the writing is terrible. The grammar is all over the place in the worst ways possible. I could forgive the generic chibi sprites if the story was good, but it’s simply not. I have no idea what the title is supposed to mean, the protagonist is some kind of sick weirdo and all the characters insist on being his friends from the first time they see him. (Oh, and you can’t tell them you’re not their friend, because God - yes, God himself - will “give you another chance”; as if you needed it). To add insult to injury, there’s a chunk of the VN that plays without the text box, so it’s pretty much impossible to even imagine what the hell is going on during that time. The endings are abrupt, uneventful and horribly disjointed from the whole thing. I’m not one to use superlatives, but for all I know, this might be the worst VN I have played yet.
My Brother Rabbit - Once again, Artifex Mundi brings their A-game. My Brother Rabbit is a point-and-click constructed much like The Tiny Bang Story - every chapter gives you a few locations to work with (multiple types of items to find and use in a certain way; not sure if that explains enough), although unlike TTBS, this game is aimed more at children with its easier (mostly) riddles and cute, but weird art style. Speaking of being a kids’ game, I have to say the overarching plot is surprisingly serious, albeit realistic and free of violence. That being said, I’d suggest this game to be appropriate for kids of age 7 and up, unless one’s willing to solve riddles together and explain the story. I wouldn’t know how it goes since I don’t have a kid. All in all, it seems my love for AM and their games won’t be running out any time soon.
Path of Sin: Greed - You know, I like being able to 100% my games - especially when they’re as simple as HOGs get (unless they’re bugged, but I digress) - and I almost thought I wasn’t gonna make it in this one, with an achievement for completing a HOG scene in less than twenty seconds. I mean really, what kind of sadist could set such requirements? Luckily, I earned it fast, so I was incredibly happy. To speak more generally about the game, though, I really liked it. I’m convinced I’m more into the realistic HOGs than the ones that are strictly confined to some fantasy realms, but I feel like the life-like aesthetic doesn’t always suit the game - I mean, I really liked the thumbnail art and it was one of the few things that made me so intrigued by this particular HOG in the first place… Also, similar to Agent Walker: Secret Journey, I wish I could have seen the protagonist in-game at least once. Agent Walker did have a voice though; however, some of the voices don’t fit the characters’ looks in my opinion, so I’m not sure a voice would help the protagonist here. All in all, this was a solid murder mystery HOG with a few odd achievements (the one I mentioned wasn’t the only one that fits this description) and some minigames I still wish HOGs would stop using, for the sake of keeping my sanity in check. Also, hey, doesn’t this title totally sound like it’s open for more installments? You know… the seven deadly sins?
Welcome To… Chichester 0 - Preview - I mentioned this one in a post before, but hey, it got achievements! So I spent, like, three whole minutes getting them all. End of story.
美少女麻将接龙 - Know Pretty Girls Mahjong Solitaire? This is that… but in Chinese. I didn’t write about the English version of this game, but it is identical to Mahjong Strip Solitaire: Harem Guild, which I did write about here. For reasons unknown to me, however, this version only launches on 64bit devices… and it took me twice the time to complete.
Wooh! There it is! Again, I wish you all an amazing 2020 as well as a fabulous new decade! (Wonder what the internet will have in store for us…)
Oh, and since we’re all assasins here at BLAEO: May your scope never waver.
Happy New Year right back at you. :)
I think you’re absolutely right about treating BLAEO as a creative outlet and while my output hasn’t gone up over ten times because of it I’ve most definitely kicked it up somewhat. Writing your opinions on a game/movie/book kinda lets you finalize what your thoughts were at the time. Certainly more constructive than trying to creatively vary “nothing happened today” entries in a journal if you ask me.
Well, the ten-times-higher output is a thing only because… I can’t remember what was hogging my attention back then, but that thing sure was not gaming! Maybe anime. Then again, back in 2016 I didn’t even have a backlog this huge - rather, I was only getting started. And I know for a fact I can’t write much - I either write like at school or I don’t - but being here made me happy with how my honest thoughts are all that counts, rather than a fleshed out review that can touch upon everything. That being said, I feel like it’s still more enjoyable to write about bad games, for some reason :D And since no one really seems to care if my opinion on a game was different than theirs, I feel safe with whatever my thoughts are. And I do remember trying out writing “a journal” or “cool things that happened today” - I’d always stop after two or three entries, because they were either leisure time-related or nonexistent.
I think it’s because voicing complaints is always a good venting mechanism. All praise ends up sounding the same, while each criticism has its own story… to quote Tolstoy in somewhat modified fashion. :D I think that whole “contrary opinion gets beaten down by the one majority holds” is one of the reasons why I can’t stand some vocal communities like Reddit at times.
Ah, that’s a good one, Mr. Tolstoy ^^ I think you’re right about that - for some reason, I think that when I try my best to write about a game I really, really liked, I can never find the right words, because it won’t be mine unless it’s what I actually think… and what I do think about the things I liked is most often “Well… I liked it, what else can I tell you?”, or, at most, I’ll focus on one tiny detail no one might have paid attention to and find it fascinating, which I guess then doesn’t work too well, since I’m the only intrigued one.
Hah, well, I suppose then I can say I’m glad not to be browsing Reddit too much… but I’ve seen it in different places too. I try my best to find the good in places like Twitter or VNDB (I really want to just talk about visual novels with people!), but Twitter has this whole “woke culture” (is that the right name?) of “Look, you can’t read/watch/play this, because the creator did bad five years ago, and I don’t care if they apologized and changed since then already” which, even if I’m not interested in the mentioned thing, still manages to ruin my mood instantly; and VNDB is home to quite a bunch of, dare I say, incels? who seem to be more interested in shitposting and arguing in the forums instead of actually reading visual novels. I feel uncomfortable enough surrounded by bunches of people at a time, but to be uncomfortable on a daily basis just through reading forums… that’s an even bigger problem.
I find it helpful to compare what I just played to other games that may have done it better or worse. You can begin to extrapolate further from that basic comparison as it kind branches out further out. Or that’s how it works for me at least.
That’s simply putting too much stock into what anonymous strangers online think about something and no way to live a life. Yeah, it’s rough when someone is being harsh on whatever it is you like, but that’s just people. So many these days seem to live for their social media and have fits over disagreements. To quote a timeless wisdom: fuck ‘em. :D
I think that is what I try to do already…
…and if there’s one thing I’m confident about, it’s my ability to create trains of thoughts :D
Recently I’ve realized I can’t even deceive myself - I do that all the time, although I feel it’s stronger than me currently.
Again, incels. The rubbish I’ve read them argue about simply because I couldn’t restrain my curiosity… I need to try my best not to involve myself with such forums.
That indeed, my friend! :D