Zelrune

June 2021 Report!

Finished a SG win, beat another but still need to 100% it. Most of my games were mediocre and it was a bit dull this month. All the best games were so short…
I did however, get my first Curator request that I beat and reviewed, so that was pretty fun! (The Chronicles of Hercules: The 12 Labours)

I also bought a ton of stuff during the steam sale and added a lot of extras from bundles to my library, and I sorta cheated my new year resolution by deleting games I no longer had any interest in playing so I didn’t have to overwhelm myself doing 16+ reviews this month.
I had an odd amount of indie games I added in 2016 with genres I hated so out they went, an impromptu library cleanup.

4/11 SG wins left
+8 to backlog
+8 to 100%
So I’ve done nothing to make a dent this month, the battle continues.

2.6 hours
Very cute, very fluffy VN that's a bit dark if you squint.

Rosemary is a Knight! Well, not really, not yet. Anyway, Rosemary is a “Knight” who wants to make a name for herself and make her family proud! Traveling for a year, gaining experience and honing her skills, she makes her way to a tavern at the base of Mt. Needle seeking her destiny! Mt. Needle is a dangerous place, known for it’s freezing rain, blinding blizzards, and monstrous beasts; but it’s also a shortcut straight to Starlight City, making it a perfect place to choose her fate!
Luckily for Rosemary, four princes are in the tavern needing an escort across the treacherous mountain; Falkner, Prince of the Fae; The Little Prince of Elgandir and his caretaker; Kuya, The Beast-Prince of Moonforest; and lastly Tirune, Prince of Dragons.
With whom does her destiny lay?

This entire VN is so sugary sweet, I loved it! Rosemary is very innocent for a Knight and all the princes are so cute! The art style in particular just made everyone so endearing and the romance is so fluffy! While, if you squint, the story and worldbuilding is rather dark I still recommend playing Rose of Winter. However, the price point is a bit high for 3 hours max of content, you should wait for a sale.


Half-Life 2
Wished it was longer!

Windosill

9/10
0.4 hours
no achievements

A very cute and relaxing game if you want to decompress or just unwind for a bit. While having a rather short playtime of 20-30 minutes, it’s a fun and playful artistic interactive puzzle. Your goal is to find a hidden key -or in this case; a cube- in each room and use it to move on to the next area. The only downside is that it’s too short.

Half-Life 2
A fun match 3 game with a family friendly version of the 12 labors.

The Chronicles of Hercules: The 12 Labours

9/10
11.9 hours
no achievements

The Chronicles of Hercules: The 12 Labours is a match 3 puzzle game that can be completed in 10-12 hours. With multiple powerups and numerous puzzles, there are many different ways to play. Puzzles can be completed in 4-10 minutes and gradually get more difficult as the game goes on. Family friendly, you can create multiple profiles with friends and compete with each other in a sort of offline multiplayer.
The only Issue I noticed was you could not access the main menu from the map, and had to start a puzzle to exit the game.

Overall, it was a very fun and enjoyable experience. The puzzles were interesting and engaging and for $5.99 it’s an excellent buy.

Half-Life 2
A good HuniePop game but a bad management sim.

HunieCam Studio

1/10
14.0 hours
16 of 16 achievements

I would only recommend HunieCam Studio to devoted fans to the series, or at a good discount if you’re just interested. While it’s a good HuniePop game, it’s a bad management sim.
There are 18 girls you can manage; each can unlock 5 different hairstyles and 5 unique outfits. Actual gameplay is very simple once you get the hang of it, however, it’s very repetitive and gets more so as the game goes on. 1 hour to beat, not for younger audiences.

Half-Life 2
Underwhelming story but good side characters

AIdol

6/10
6.4 hours
7 of 7 achievements

Play as Hana, a young girl who loves Idols! Actually, she likes just one, her name is Aiko! Hana is a young high school student with a bit of social anxiety and awkwardness, but one day while browsing her favorite Idol Forums, she gets a request for help by a new user, someone who either actually is Aiko or is really invested in roleplaying. Suspicious of their intentions but as Aiko’s number one fan, unable to let this go, she must either punish this pretender or defend her Idol!

AIdol, while not the best VN I’ve ever played is definitely not that bad. The biggest con I can think of is that the story itself is rather plain and uninteresting. Where AIdol really shines is the upbeat music, adorable artwork, and its multiple well-built side characters and stories. 3-5 hours per route, LGBTQ+ friendly with same sex romances, it’s a decent enough VN if you get it on a sale. Not everyone has a happy ending however.

Half-Life 2
Lots of content and LGBTQ+ friendly, a fun adventure.

Choice of the Deathless

10/10
8.5 hours
32 of 32 achievements

Fresh out of school, you sign a contract to work with an elite demonic law firm. Spend your days managing your student loans and love life, attend meetings, help break demons out of bad contracts to get them home or a nice work visa, while occasionally making holes in various realities and deposing a god or two on alternating Thursdays. Use your Craft to make friends, enemies, or lovers on your way to the top of the food chain and make partner, keeping your soul and body intact - if you can.

I had a ton of fun playing Choice of the Deathless, 2-10 hours of content, LGBTQ+ friendly, three romanceable options with one changing gender based off preference. Multiple endings, choices matter, extremely well written and lots of dialog options to choose from. It’s an easy game to recommend.

Half-Life 2
A fever dream with a Lovecraftian twist. A Microsoft paint nightmare. Do not.

Super Army of Tentacles 3: The Search for Army of Tentacles 2

-10/10
13.0 hours
59 of 59 achievements

It’s 2017 and the Apocalypse is years ahead of schedule and the gods have disappeared. You, a Deep One, have awoken from the Dreamland and must find the Necronomicon before Nyarlathotep, The Crawling Chaos and his 7 gods does and restore things to how they were or bring in a new age.

Alright, so SAT3: TST2 is the third VN in the series and it’s not nearly as cool as I made it sound in the paragraph above. This VN is, at its core, pure insanity and chaos. It’s a Lovecraftian adventure where you fight monsters by answering trivia questions (Brush up on your Shakespeare.) and fly around on a floating ship/city while “fighting” Microsoft paint horror monsters and creatures. One moment you’re in Antarctica making friends with a… yeti girl with pointy teeth (?) and the next you’re challenging Alexander Hamilton to a rap battle and signing the declaration of Independence. (Reminder: It’s 2017.)

TL;DR: It’s pure insanity and I would only recommend it if you love fever dreams with a Lovecraftian touch; or if you read the other two VN’s in the series and liked them, which prompts the question, WHY?

https://i.imgur.com/nxyEHm9.jpg

Half-Life 2
Good story, good gameplay.

Serial Cleaner

9/10
12.7 hours
28 of 28 achievements

In Serial Cleaner, take requests from killers and unknowns to clean up their crime scenes. Avoid the police, collect and dispose of evidence, use your trusty vacuum cleaner to clean up all the blood spill, hide the bodies, and vanish, leaving no trace that anything ever happened.

Serial Cleaner is a ton of fun, 20 story levels with 10 bonus levels with the movie contracts being my absolute favorite! The game has a 70’s theme with nifty background music, a customizable character with a bunch of outfits. I liked the story as well; the ending was really fun and I’m really glad I played! Gameplay can take anywhere form 7-20 hours, easy to replay!

44% (177/405)
20% (83/405)
18% (73/405)
18% (71/405)
0% (1/405)
Kyrrelin

Thanks for bringing to my attention the Rose of Winter, looks very cute and interesting. Now it has nice sale, so I will probably grab it. :D

Zelrune

Yes! When you beat it I look forward to seeing your opinion of it on your next post~ <3

Cece09

Oh well done on doing that curator thing. I still remember the accomplishment I had back when tsupertsundere was here and they would link to reviews for their master list of best visual novels. Yours though can be seen in a much bigger group

Zelrune

It’s mostly just leeches though for the group giveaway, I only count followers as actual group members lmao. 66 people.

aonrao

I wish I’d enjoyed Serial Cleaner as much… but after some time I was bored, so I dropped it. And Rose of Winter looks really cute! (I might need to add it to my wishlist.)

Zelrune

Ah yeah, the ending was good enough for me though, plus the movie contracts were pretty fun. If you ever get back into it it’s not a bad finish.

EvilBlackSheep

Rose of Winter looks so cute! I’ll keep an eye on it, I love the visual style.

Zelrune

The art style is so cute! The entire reason I actually noticed it was because Toby Fox composed the music for it, the same Toby fox who made Undertale. The soundtrack was fantastic!

EvilBlackSheep

Oh, good to know. An extra reason to keep an eye on it then <3

MouseWithBeer

Damn I was excited when I saw a 12 labours of Hercules match-3 but it is not the same dev as the time management ones. Dev that has made this one has also made some I played but they were not the most exciting match-3s out there. Have you by any chance played any others from the same dev and if so how do they compare?

Zelrune

Have not played any by the same dev as of yet, I’m going to play some open world themes this month though.

Py

Damn -10/10, from your review, I guess you’re not into Lovecraft.

Zelrune

Not.. whatever kind of Lovecraft that game was.