Beaten and completed

I’ve actually managed to finish some of the games I’ve proposed to myself in my last post! Like I said there, I had already started playing Demon Hunter 2: New Chapter, and while I still wasn’t impressed by the story, I was pleasantly surprised by the significantly improved visuals (seriously, the game is so pretty!). The story itself falls a bit flat, and I kept mixing up three of the characters because I feel like the game didn’t even bother to properly introduce them, which led me to understand almost nothing about what happened overall.

Weirdly, 9 Clues: The Secret of Serpent Creek managed to leave a much better impression. Although it’s pretty obvious that it’s a little older, I feel like the locations were mostly used pretty well, managing to immerse me in the little town, and made me feel slightly attached to a character (Owen) for the first time in a HOG.

For me, 9 Clues 2: The Ward was an even more solid and impressive game than its predecessor. Definitely my favorite HOG I’ve played so far, as I’ve finally found a story that pleases me for a game of its kind. I liked the setting - a psychiatric hospital - from the start, and I liked that sometimes it made me suspect almost everyone, while other times it made me side with people I shouldn’t have. It wasn’t perfect (as nothing is), but I absolutely loved it. My favorite part was still Owen coming back :D I didn’t bother to get the last 4 achievements, simply because I’d have to play the whole game again and play mahjong instead of the hidden object scenes.

I feel like I’m repeating myself a lot, but I usually have different genres of games in my updates and I wouldn’t want misunderstandings - I don’t think most of the stories that I find in HOGs would be enough for me in other types of games (unless they aren’t necessary - like in some puzzle games, or if the gameplay is more interesting or focused on).

Moving on! 10,000,000 is a game I started playing quite a while back but I completly forgot about it. I’m really glad I came across it again because although it is quite a bit repetitive, it was still lots of fun. I played about 6 hours starting a few days ago, but it barely felt like an hour, since I played it in small bursts. As the title suggests, you have to get a score of 10,000,000 in order to win, which may seem impossible at first, but as you progress your score multiplier increases automatically and you also have a bunch of upgrades to get! I thought I’d never get the score achievements, but I said I’d try anyway since it was so fun to play, and I’m glad I did because it was easier than I thought it would be.

I didn’t really know what to expect about Hue, but I was looking through my games to see what I should play next and it looked interesting. I don’t usually like platformers, unless they have a story that really intrigues me, like Thomas Was Alone, or interesting and less common game mechanics, like this one. Although some of the puzzles were a bit frustrating (ended up looking up for a walkthrough for 2 or 3 of them because I was too lazy to think), I can definitely see how some people might like it exactly because they have to think them through. Even though I usually like puzzles, I strangely found myself enjoying the ones that include speed/quick reflexes a lot more. The game itself looks very cute and minimalistic, but I did find myself struggling with orange/yellow and pink/purple every once in a while, and when you have a lot of different bright colors in the same screen or if you even just need a bright background for solving purposes, it can get a bit tiresome.

The last one on the list is klocki, which I had wanted to buy since I first saw it in my queue. I ended up getting it in a trade instead, since I wanted to wait until it got achievements, but for some reason it looks like the developer will not add them anytime soon. Anyway! I was expecting it to be rather simplistic and repetitive, but it kept adding and changing things around in ways I was not expecting, turning it into a quite unique puzzle game that I would definitely recommend.

There were also a couple of games that I decided to postpone a bit for different reasons. I was not expecting for Detention to be that type of horror game, so I almost gave up completly, looking at a full gameplay instead, only to realize I’m an idiot. I thought it would be different “ghosts” chasing you around all the time, but apparently that was only for a short time. I actually still do want to play it, but I’m at a part in the game where I really, really hate going through alone - it’d be easy to say that it’s because I’m scared, but the truth is that it’s so tense and precise I really don’t feel like playing it without an “audience”, so rather than forcing myself to play it now, I prefer waiting a bit more in order to enjoy it fully, since it really does look like an amazing game.

I’m also waiting a bit more to play The Space Garden; I absolutely love it and it feels like Plantera (which I also absolutely loved) in space, with its own little unique functions, however it currently lacks a lot of things that would help it be the type of game that it wants to be. I’ve read that people have had issues with an achievement, with workers moving to other planets that don’t actually need workers, how leveling up sucks after a while (I didn’t get very far and I’m already feeling it) and a few more. The worst part is that although it’s designed to work as a casual game, the lack of idle functionality makes it tiresome and boring after at most half an hour into it. Unlike in Plantera, you don’t get coins if you’re not in game - actually, you don’t even get any if it’s not your focused window. The good news is that the developer is actually very active and is looking into these things, always asking for feedback and currently working on a new update, so my hopes remain high.

Up next

I added a few more this time, even though I will still update when I reach 6 more beaten/completed games, just so I’ll have more to choose from. I still have a lot more in my “Play soon” category on steam, which I’m thinking about transferring over here too.

I really feel like playing a lot of HOGs lately but I want to have slightly more diverse updates so I’ll try not to play too many ;-; I’ve been suggested the Enigmatis trilogy by Lady Santa on my last post, so I’m really looking forward to it! I currently only have the first two, so I’ll try to play only those two and Pickers since I saw in a post on here that you get to sell the items you find, so I thought it sounded interesting. I also looked randomly through my games list and put the Time Mysteries games on this list, but I might get to them a bit later than the three above.

I played The Stanley Parable quite a while ago, so I was really looking forward to The Beginner’s Guide, but I never actually got to playing it for some reason. I don’t have much to say about this or Pony Island because I’ve heard about both that they should be played without digging for any information because it would spoil it.

Ryse: Son of Rome didn’t really look like my kind of thing at first, until I found out it has something I absolutely love: quick time events. I’ve watched very short bits of gameplay to make sure I’d like to play it, and I’m glad I managed to get my hands on this!

I started playing Hell Girls a few months ago I believe, but, once again, I forgot about it -_- It’s a rather repetitive but casual game, so it’s the type of game that I can only play a few minutes every once in a while; I’m considering putting it on my “Long-term” list.

I had started You Must Build A Boat a long time ago, before even beginning with 10,000,000; I didn’t get very far but now that I’ve finished the other one, I’m determined to get to the end of this too.

As for Solitairica, it was on sale at 2,49€ and I had money in my steam wallet so I couldn’t help myself ;-; I wasn’t expecting for it to be this difficult, but I love solitaire-based games to death and it can’t take even longer than Chef Solitaire, right..? Putting it in the long-term list just in case.. D: