Alright. Springtime Hike is done and dusted. I noticed some differences in both some of the assets used and in the way the locations were set onto the map, so I wandered around for a bit, but overall, you can find all five locations in about a half hour.

So, some differences between this entry and past Hike series entries, and some general game notes:

This one has a new song. Really more of a piece, and it’s kinda whimsical. It’s okay if you get in, find the five locations, and get out.

The forest assets used somehow seem more colorful and vibrant.

The map is more concise than in many of the other games.

The checklist works.

Fast walking is the default speed.

I also note that the developer is actually responsive in this game’s forum.

It is Steam Deck compatible. As with most other entries, you’ll need to access the keyboard at the beginning, and from then on, it’s gamepad controls.

Anyway, this was 59 cents during the 2023 Autumn sale. That’s clearly good value for the content. I enjoyed this one more than past entries.

Alright. Chop Goblins is done and dusted. Generally speaking, ‘boomer shooters’ aren’t my favorite genre, but Dave Szymanski is one of my favorite devs on Steam, so at some point, I’ll always give his games a go.

And I’m happy to report that the bite sized nature of Chop Goblins made it a boomer shooter I could easily finish. Five fast paced and sensibly designed levels with fun gameplay, equally fun graphics, great music, and funny goblin voices made this a game that was entertaining and did not overstay its welcome.

It was completely Steam Deck compatible with no adjustments necessary.

I think cost vs value is definitely there and it is definitely a short game with a lot of replayability worthy of your attention.

Zero Escape: The Nonary Games - Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors (999) is done and dusted. The first entry in the Zero Escape series tmk. I’m pretty certain I saw and did everything available.

Pretty cool overall. Overall, the game asks what would happen if you could have a direct impact on the collective subconscious.

How it presents is via an escape room visual novel with a variety of endings. The puzzle logic in this game is mostly consistent throughout, so once you get a grasp for how the game approaches things, it should be relatively smooth sailing.

The voice acting kind of went back and forth between really well done and marginally annoying, lol. The story can be separated into the character focused parts and the technical/science/pseudo science/sci-fi parts. The latter was really quite interesting. The former jumped between really well done and marginally annoying much like the voice acting.

The writer(s) did a great job with pacing, and with mixing in humor to break up the intentionally oppressive and serious feel of the game. The characters themselves were all pretty cool as well.

There was one truly annoying thing about this game: it is a shameless over explainer. You walk into a cargo hold of a ship, for example, the game will definitely go into an unnecessary description of what a cargo hold is lol. Maybe you were wondering how to operate a pencil. This game’s got you covered, lol

Anyway, this half of The Nonary Games took about 17 hours to complete. I’ll likely jump into the second game tomorrow or the next day.

Alright. 1 Bit Survivor is done and dusted. The game and its premise are pretty simple. You play as a survivor of a viral outbreak that wipes out humanity and leaves mutants in its wake. In 28 days, the surviving government will carpet bomb the world to destroy the mutants. You are about to just give up and die when you find a cat, and now your life has purpose again. There is a bunker 28 days away. You have just enough time to escort the cat to safety before the bombs drop.

And so you basically have four weeks where four levels, each with 7 sub levels. Each map will have gasoline required to power your car and get to the next sub level, level, week. There are also health and ammo refills in crates, and one crate per week which gives you upgrade materials. At the end of each week, you’ll be given the choice between two random upgrades, which might be increased health, increased ammo, better damage, the ability to destroy walls, knock back enemies, or see the entire map.

With that in mind, this is a turn based puzzle game at its heart, where every time you move, all the enemies move afterwards. Rinse and repeat. You have a pistol for ranged attacks and a knife for melee (resolved by bump combat). As mentioned, your goal is to fuel up your car in each area without dying.

And that’s it. The graphics are of course 1 Bit and are very cool looking despite the limited size and scope of each area. The soundtrack is game appropriate as is the sound design. A single run can be concluded in +/- 30 minutes.

Once you conclude a run with the Survivor, it unlocks a new character with different firearm and lowered stats, and concluding a run as that character unlocks the third character with a new new weapon. Those are basically challenge runs for people who really enjoyed the base experience. There are also leaderboards for those interested. As of the writing, it appears that around 140 players have finished the base game, so your pool for competition will be somewhat limited.

1 Bit Survivor was fully Steam Deck compatible.

I do have one further note: you can skip a turn by holding down the Y button. This specific tactic will be incredibly important in being able to finish the game.

Anyway, fun game. I think cost vs value is there. Worth a look for sure.

Alright. Choo-Choo Charles is done and dusted. This was a pretty fast paced sandbox action horror set on an island isolated from the rest of the world ATM. I don’t think I’d really call it survival horror since there’s really only one resource (scrap) to collect, which is quite plentiful; and the only penalty for dying is losing a couple scrap. Anyway, it was a fun little game.

The aforementioned scrap is used to upgrade your train’s damage, armor, and speed; and can be used to repair your train as well. Speaking of trains, you ride one around the map, leaving it to investigate locations, meet people, and fulfill quests on foot.

Each quest will offer you something relevant to trying to survive long enough to kill Choo-Choo Charlie, a half train half giant demon spider (or giga spider as one NPC calls it lol) rampaging about the island you’re on. For your efforts in completing quests, you’ll receive scrap and weapons you can interchangeably install to the back of your train. You start out with a machine gun, but quickly get a small array of much cooler weapons. I used the flamethrower for the final boss fight, personally.

Many times throughout the adventure, Choo-Choo Charles will show up to try to chase you down. When you’re on the train, doing enough damage will scare him off temporarily. On foot, you’ll need to hoof it into a building or back to your train to avoid getting eaten. Fortunately, you can run pretty fast.

There are also sequences where you’ll need to sneak past enemy NPCs. They’re armed, but you’re not, so stealth and running for your life are the proper tactics. Although you can bait them onto the train tracks and run them over if you so desire, lol.

There are collectibles in the form of paint cans used to give your train a make-over; and notes which offer expanded lore about the island, its inhabitants, and of course Choo-Choo Charles.

Graphically, this is a nice looking game with the highlight obviously being Choo-Choo Charles himself. A funny thing with the the quest giving NPCs. They’re voice acted well, and are generally fun characters, but they stand in whatever pose they’re given initially, their lips don’t move, and it basically makes them intentionally comical. Enemy NPCs tend to whistle while they work. In general, the audio in this game is exceptional in every way, from the OST to the in game sounds to the voice acting.

And that’s it in a nutshell. Not a particularly difficult game, although the final boss battle with Choo-Choo Charles was somewhat challenging. Pro tip. Make sure you have spare scrap going into that sequence.

Choo-Choo Charles took me about four hours to complete and I bought it on sale, but in reality, cost vs value is there at retail price. I enjoyed the game and there’s a solid chance that you will as well.

Alright. Strangeland is done and dusted with all endings seen (thank you cheevo list for making the necessary save point fairly obvious). It took me roughly four hours to complete. Despite being a point and click, the logic of the puzzles in this one clicked with me, and they seemed to mostly be pretty intuitive.

I’m not going to write much about the story since almost everything could be a spoiler, but it’s a psychological horror with an interesting look into the mind of someone who has suffered great personal loss. Presented in a twisted extradimensional horror carnival setting.

This was probably the greatest PnC I’ve ever played, which includes many Wadjet titles and Wormwood Studios’ previous game (Primordia). It’s very impressive how they managed to truly modernize the genre and other PnC devs really have been put on notice with this one. It’s fluid, intelligently designed, has excellent pacing, a pretty gripping story, outstanding voice acting, amazing artwork, requires no work on the player’s end to get it running, and has intuitive controls that work perfectly with both k/m and gamepads. It is also perfectly Steam Deck compatible.

If you enjoy Point & Click adventures, cost vs value is there and this should be considered a must play. Highly recommended.

I will add a disclaimer though. If you are sensitive to graphic and disturbing imagery, this might not be a game to play.

Alright. Alba: A Wildlife Adventure is done and dusted. This was a good feeling casual adventure in a micro open world setting. You play as Alba, a little girl following in her grandfather’s footsteps as an amateur bird watcher. You however find yourself embroiled in an adventure to save the island you’re on from capitalist overreach while helping to preserve the island’s Nature Reserve. And that’s the game in a nutshell.

You wander around taking pictures of wildlife, helping to clean up and restore the island while also assisting its residents.

It’s a graphically charming game with a lush palette and surprisingly detailed sprites. The soundtrack is similarly charming.

It was also completely Steam Deck compatible.

By my mind, this is an easy recommendation and a nice break from more serious titles while still managing to convey a serious message. Worth a look.

Alright. Rusty Lake Hotel is done and dusted. This was a pretty trippy murder point and click adventure. It was clearly focused on the topic of gluttony. Beyond that, the meaning behind the ending was somewhat lost on me. So, I read up a little on it after finishing it tonight, and it turns out that I probably should have played the Cube Escape Collection first, to get a better understanding for this game. I don’t currently own that collection, so I’ll pause moving on to the other Rusty Lake games until I’ve had a chance to check out the said collection.

Anyway, taken on its own, Rusty Lake Hotel was a pretty interesting game. I wouldn’t call the puzzles intuitive, but some moderately frustrating trial and error will get you where you need to go. There were a couple particularly frustrating sequences balanced against some pretty obvious ones. YMMV of course, but it does follow old PnC logic much more than I’d personally like.

So much so that I played a chunk of this years ago, got frustrated and set it down, only to pick up where I left off today (the night am publishing this review).

That said, I did finally grind through the frustration, and I’d say the morbid payoff ended up being worth it.

It is a visually evocative game, and I’d say it really puts you in the correct frame of mind to really get into the murderous (and gluttonous) spirit of the game.

Is this game worth your time? Probably. Cost vs value is there. However, you will need to take on the additional cost of the Cube Escape Collection to maximize the value of Rusty Lake Hotel, and as such, you’re really looking at two separate purchases. So….make your decision accordingly. This game can definitely be played on its own and be enjoyable, but I think the story will be very vague if you choose to do so.

It is fully Steam Deck compatible. I did find the touch screen to be preferable to the gamepad controls

Alright. Frog Detective 3: Corruption at Cowboy County is done and dusted.

In this latest mystery for the Frog Detective to solve, somebody has….stolen…all the Cowboy County resident’s….HATS!!!

Will you find the missing hats? Will you find the Hat Thief? These questions and more will be answered in this game!

This was actually the longest game in the series by a wide margin. Too about and hour forty to wrap up, and the game features two parts. The second part accessed after the credits roll.

Episide 3 was an excellent wrap up to the series. It is completely Steam Deck compatible. Also…doing sick scooter tricks around the desert is pretty sweet.

This one is an easy recommendation, and presumably, you will have played the other two games anyway, so you’ll want to finish the series.

Alright. Black Skylands is done and dusted. tinyBuild sent a pre release key my way, but I prefer waiting until after full release to give games a playthrough and this review is coming in a bit late. Anyway, it was a decent game. I doubt I’ll be thinking about this game a month from now, but it was fun enough.

In looking through the forum, I note that there were many changes from early builds to now, and many of what I’d consider laborious/tedious gameplay mechanics, such as farming, were thankfully removed for the final version. What released is a competent Zelda-like with a nifty world premise.

Which is as follows:

Black Skylands is set in a post apocalyptic where mankinds excesses literally fragmented the world into floating chunks of land in the sky. The why’s and how’s of this are part of the story reveal, so I won’t spoil it. Anyway, mankind lives on these skyborn islands and on ships and stations.

The people of this world have to deal with piracy as well as a hostile group of giant insects known as The Swarm. You play as Eva Mills, daughter of a famous explorer, who through circumstance, becomes the Marshall in the region this game takes place in. You embark on a quest to free your people from the pirates, who are using the citizens as slave labor, while also investigating the Swarm.

Gameplay is split between ship exploration and combat (which has some similarities to Rebel Galaxy) and island exploration, which is where the Zelda style gameplay is evident, via combat, pacing, and puzzle solving. None of it is particularly complex, although for me, steering the ships had a bit of a learning curve before they became completely intuitive.

There are a few different ships to unlock along with their weapons, and both can be upgraded in stages. Eva is also well armed, and there is a reasonably large amount of weapons to fund or purchase in your basic categories (shotty, rifle, assault rifle, sniper rifle, submachine gun, pistol, rocket launcher). She can have three equipped at a time. They can be both upgraded and modified via parts found throughout the game.

You also have four slots to use fir amulets, which serve as buffs; and two slots for special abilities, from turrets to shield to more spell-like functions.

There is some very lite base building, and progressing your base will also unlock upgrade tiers for the ships and weapons.

There are also numerous quests, which do impact the world in variable ways.

Black Skylands does everything well, and in a way that could be considered almost casual. I say ‘almost’ because some of the boss battles do present a challenge. Overall though, I thought the game was fairly easy on default settings.

Graphics are pretty cool, isometric and vacillates between pixelated goodness and cartoon-ish with solid detail. The screen can however get pretty busy in combat, and I found it easy to lose track of Eva during certain sequences. Audio is all effects and music, and I didn’t find any of it to be particularly noteworthy. You could easily just turn the volume down and enjoy your own music, podcasts, what have you.

The story was pretty cool, but I’d also say that there is a distinct lack of real depth which holds the game back a bit.

It was Steam Deck compatible with no adjustments being necessary.

Is this game worth playing? Yes. Is it a must play? Definitely not. It will provide roughly 15-20 hours of gameplay depending on how thorough you choose to be, and cheevos are all easily had if you don’t mind doing everything the game has to offer. My recommendation would be to grab this on sale. Cost vs value is there at full price, but I don’t think the relative lack of depth warrants a full price purchase.