(June 1-June 15)

The Magnificent Seven Six (+1)

• Slime San - I mentioned last year my love for JumpJet Rex, and really, I have the same praises to give for this game. Super tight controls, amazing soundtrack, great level designs, and just the right amount of difficulty. The only real issue that I had was with the ladders, which were kind of finicky to maneuver on. In all, there were 100 levels, each with their own ng+ (think "Dark world" in MeatBoy) that provided for a nice additional challenge. And, just like Meatboy, the game had additional characters that you could unlock, each with different abilities (double jump but no dash, higher jump but slower, etc..). Never having actually tried them out though, I can't say how much easier or difficult they made the levels, but if just going by how the levels were designed, I'd imagine the double-jump slime to be the most OP.
  


• Headlander - Loved this one for both it's stylistic design and originality. The humor aspect of it was rather hit or miss, but for the most part, I did rather enjoy it (I mean, in the first five minutes, I was a farting roomba!). The character-interaction was also well done, with most of the NPCs having different dialog based on whatever body you happen to be occupying. Gameplay-wise, it kind of played like a metroidvania-light, in that there were abilities to get (4 + branching sub-upgrades), with backtracking a-plenty, but the sparsity of bosses made it feel slightly... empty? In games like these, you expect bosses/large fights to cap the zones that you complete, but out of the five zones in this game, you only get the two. Being directed from one zone to the next often feels unrewarding... It almost seems enough to not recommend the game, but floating around and taking over bodies is just so unique and fun, I kind of have to recommend it (plus, <3 Richard Horvitz)
  


• Hue - This one kind of fell flat for me. It's the type of game that is very heavily hoping that the player is invested in the story, while throwing some puzzles at them to keep them occupied between the chunks of dialog... The problem is, the puzzles felt more tedious than difficult, and the story just wasn't enough to keep my interest. There was definitely some potential for great puzzles, but they didn't really capitalize on it.
  


• Hot Tin Roof - Fun game with a decent mystery. I'll try to avoid spoilers, but there are a couple of cases that you can work on, and depending on how thorough you are, determines the type of ending you will get. The game is also fairly lenient, keeping track of everything you have discovered, as well as giving plenty of hints to help you along the way. The platforming was fine, for the most part (some underground sections Felt a little too long), with a few different ammo types used to help you traverse and solve puzzles. The characters and dialog were very well written, making the characters very loveable (bubbles!).
  


• Anna's Quest - Absolutely loved the story on this one (the ending especially). The style felt vastly different than the Daedalic games that I'm used to, in that main protaganist is actually quite likeable (IE, not a complete asshole)... That said, the voice acting did leave a lot to be desired. There were a bunch of characters who came off as extremely flat and emotionless, which took me out of the experience on more than one occasion... It also had a few frustrating moments as well (and not just the classic P&C logic jumps), where Anna would refuse to pick up various, obviously useful items without a clear trigger indicating a purpose despite the fact that very early on in the game, she picks up something with a remark of "having no idea what it would be used for"... Very contradictory
  


• Chronology - Cute little puzzle-platformer. It is super short though, at about 1.5 hours, so the game feels like it ends just when it is getting started (there are a few mechanics that you only ever see once). The puzzles and level-design are well done, but because of that length, it does leave you wanting more.
  


• Stories of Bethem - So, I wanted to start this out by saying that the base price of this game is just $5... I mention that, because going into the game, I had a completely different set of expectations, like it being a short zelda-like experience, but this was a full-fledged 20+hour adventure, and much to my surprise, it was actually rather good! There are 9 full dungeons (plus a couple of optional ones), outfits to collect, a bestiary/museum to fill out, collectibles to discover, and a slew of side-quests to complete, so the game is chock-full of stuff to do. For the amount of work that went into this game, $5 feels like the dev undersold themselves.
  Now, its not without its issues, but what problems it does have are rather minor... The monsters tend to be a little bullet-spongey, even when fully upgraded (*curses the flying whatevers*); The map-system is rather disappointing, with the overworld having no detail what-so-ever to it, and the dungeon maps being completely void of any/all markings; and certain puzzles tend to be more tedious than difficult, always requiring you to push blocks in the most round-a-bout ways (and always far too many)...