Rather short but quite enjoyable hidden object game from Artifex Mundi.

Visuals are traditionally very pretty. Our main duo of heroes is fine and the voice acting isn't so bad (as sometimes can be).
Puzzles and HO scenes were good, nicely varied and nothing too hard to solve. I enjoyed preparing potions in the Apothecary mini-game and also the boss fights were fun! The story made sense for once and I liked the Persia setting. It felt like a combination of Aladdin and Prince of Persia! :)

Great for casual and quick gaming sessions.

Amber, an aspiring artist, is preparing her art piece for a gallery exhibition. Right across the street lives yet another artist, an old man with an old cat, and every morning she watches him working on his canvas. The daily routine of her life gets twisted and old memories becomes to resurface. The truth is hidden deep below the dried paint.

I think I am slightly torn apart on this one, but gosh, I simply LOVE the visuals! It's like playing through some of Studio Ghibli's movies! The music is beautiful and creates a fitting atmosphere. I also liked the gameplay, you are not being rushed anywhere and can just enjoy your surroundings, but you are just a passive watcher and you can't influence a thing in the story (which is a little bit disappointing). Painting and sketching are done in a simple way, but it's fun. Puzzles are nice, varied and some even challenging.

The story is bittersweet, with DLC's story being more bitter than sweet. If I understand it right, the game is inspired by the lives of two real artists… which sadly doesn't make the whole story any less sad (for me).

Behind the Frame is a relaxing and visually beautiful game. The message of the story missed its point with me, but that's just because I value and search for different things in my life. I have still enjoyed my time with it. Also, in one chapter I had the feeling I am playing the Layers of Fear, but don't worry it doesn't turn so macabre. ;)

My Brother Rabbit is a beautiful game about a brother trying to help his little sister who has suddenly fallen ill. In a surreal world, we follow their journey to the healing land and help them to overcome difficulties that correspond with the family's struggles in real life.

The graphics are very pretty and colorful. Each location is nicely varied and filled with surreal feelings. Music corresponds nicely with the game and the intro song is just beautiful. The environment is full of interactive things that can be played around with and it's fun!

As for the gameplay, there are puzzles to be solved - nicely varied and some even challenging, and items to be found - no extra hidden object scenes though, the items are hidden right on the main screen, and some of them rather well.

It's a little bit short but nonetheless very enjoyable game. :)

A simple puzzle game where you uncover photos from your vacation trips with your cute cat. :3

There are 10 different pictures that you can complete in two difficulty settings. It is not like a standard jigsaw puzzle where you build the picture, instead, the photo is divided into grids where you need to swap the little squares. As you place them in the right spot they become colored and unmovable. If you need help with positioning some of the pieces you can even check what the picture looks like.

Memories with my Kitten is a short easy game with cute graphics and music, great for casual and relaxing playing. Also, you can download the pics afterward. :3

Dead Hungry Diner is a very nice restaurant management game. It has cute graphics, a catchy tune (only one though), and most importantly fun and addictive gameplay!
The premise is simple, to save the city of Ravenwood from hungry dead you have to serve them a properly juicy dinner! They come every night in increased force and simple human powers might not be enough to manage the hungry horde, so you have a few magic tricks up your sleeve. To make it worse Vanda van Helsing, the hero and protector of the town, is trying to sabotage your hard work and even threatens you with Mr. Death himself!

Our main heroes are siblings, Gabriel and Gabriella. At the beginning you can choose your protagonist for serving the food and cleaning, the other one will be preparing buckets with food. The difficulty is constantly rising as new hungry monsters are presented - some dislike sitting next to each other (like vampires and werewolves etc.) so you must sit them carefully or risk them getting into a brawl and losing money because of it; as your restaurant gains popularity more monsters come and that means another queue for you to manage (yes, two)! Vanda will also visit and attack your customers, you have to stay vigilant and quickly protect them if you don't want to lose precious money. ;)
You can level up your skills with enough coins (different from regular money) and it's highly advisable to do so. Some levels are really challenging to master and those skills can make your life pretty easy. Also, a good thing is that you can pause the game and think about what to do as you can still see the gaming screen, that way you can prepare your tactic without the time pressure - convenient on higher difficulty (there are three in total).

My biggest complaint goes to the achievements - It's full of stars! for earning 1000 stars and Waiter III for serving 8000 customers. Their numbers are just ridiculous and unjustified. The 8000 customers could be doable in an All-You-Can-Eat mode where you just serve food until you are overwhelmed, so that wouldn't be such a problem. But the stars are only gained upon clearing the level for the first time! So that means you have to play the whole game again and again and again. Also, if you make the level with one or two stars and then replay it to get three, it doesn't count! You only get what you got for clearing the level the first time! Anyway, if you do superbly you end up with 150 stars for one playthrough and that means you have to play the game 7 times. Have fun. ^_^

If you look aside from those two stupid achievements it's a great, funny game, I can only recommend it. Would love to see a sequel as the story suggests some kind of continuation, but none exists as far as I know.

The infamous Minotaur from Greek myths is threatening our world with his return. Only the descendant of Ariadne can use her thread endowed with mysterious powers to put an end to it!

Rather short HOG by Artifex Mundi, you can be done with the main game and extra chapter in under 4 hours, but still quite enjoyable. I have liked the whole Greek mythology setting, if you think about it it's a great theme for a game. ;)
The graphics are nice and colorful, and the music is fine. Puzzles are varied and of good quality, nothing too hard to get stuck on. Same way with the hidden object scenes. There are various collectibles to be found and they are surprisingly not so hard to spot, which is good! We also have at our disposal Ariadne's thread which can help us with melting various items, reviving creatures or dispelling magic. Pretty handy. ;)

It's a fairly good HOG and I can recommend it.

In this classic adventure game we follow young archeologist Sylvie Leroux. Her uncle, also a famous archaeologist, uncovered a hidden temple containing mysterious artifacts and invited her to Malta to consult his findings with her. These artifacts could be the missing link in her research about the Templar and Hospitalier Knights and some unworldly power that could destroy whole cities (like what happened with Sodom and Gomorrah)… I think? Anyway, as Sylvie arrives in Malta her uncle is nowhere to be found, artifacts as well and the excavation site is under police surveillance. In a search for her uncle, she has to overcome many obstacles on the way and use every bit of her wits to prevent the artifacts from falling into the wrong hands.

The main weakness of Chronicles of Mystery: The Scorpio Ritual is pretty short length and confusing storytelling. When you have the feeling that the story is finally going somewhere the game ends, quite abruptly. It's a shame because the theme is rather interesting and could have been further developed.

I liked the visuals of the environment and documents, very detailed and pretty to look at. Characters on the other hand were somewhat blurry. Voice acting is mediocre and is sometimes cut off in the middle of a sentence which disturbs the immersion, there are subtitles luckily.
There is a standard item combination and a few puzzles, which are mostly of good quality. Sometimes it was a little bit hard to progress as you needed to perform some actions in a certain order, which tends to be confusing.

If you are a fan of classic point-and-click adventure games I suppose you can enjoy it, just don't expect something bigger from it.

Faerie Solitaire is a nice, addictive game great for casual playing with a little twist to the classic Solitaire formula.

The story is simple but serves the purpose well so you don't aimlessly repeat one solitaire game after another. I liked the card's visual and background graphics which change accordingly to the story progression. The music is fine, voice acting though a little bit mediocre. But all in all, it works together.

There are 40 levels in total divided into 8 "worlds". Each level consists of 9 Solitaire games and a set of goals that have to be completed before moving to the next level. If you don't meet the goals you need to repeat the whole level, which can happen occasionally. As you clear the board from the cards you can uncover collectibles - various materials and eggs of magical creatures. When you find an egg you can then keep it on an active spot, where it will hatch as you play. If you have enough of the desired materials you can then evolve it! The pets are just collectible for your amusement and don't serve any other purpose, which is a shame on one hand, but when we consider the overall amount of pets (32), it would be a bit too much of a hassle to give them some bonuses.
With every win, you are also collecting money which you can spend on getting sweet bonuses that are quite helpful in the long run.

My only complaint concerns the amount of grinding that is necessary for you to collect and evolve all the pets. Finding collectibles is random and I simply didn’t have enough magic most of the time. ^^

As I said, Faerie Solitaire is a good relaxing casual game. Just be prepared that one playthrough may not be enough for 100% completion.

Another game from GameHouse that brings us a compelling story, bright visuals, and challenging addictive gameplay. In Unsung Heroes: The Golden Mask we follow three young aspiring archeologists uncovering buried secrets of the past in the Far East and with more artifacts found the story of a young farmer girl Xi Niu will be told to the world.

As an innovation, we get to follow two storylines instead of one! In the modern age storyline, we play as the archeologists digging in the ground. When we find all parts of an extraordinary artifact we switch to the past to experience the hardships of young Xi Niu. And that's how it works.
Sadly, you quickly realize that modern-age levels require a lot of grinding and get somewhat boring because of that. On the other hand past levels are quite fun!

• Archeologists - I liked the idea of uncovering the artifacts and then switching to see how the past events unfolded. Finding treasures is related to reaching certain thresholds on the progress bar at every level. You aim to serve your fellow workers the best you can to obtain golden hearts from them and yet it may not be enough for you to uncover all the pieces of the artifact and that means repeating the whole level. Occasional re-dos wouldn't be much of a problem for the "story mode", but as there are collectible artifacts (for achievement) that you can get only after you collect the story artifact you are bound to replay each level two or three, or four times. Checking their short description in the museum afterward is nice, but that's all.
  There are three dig sites, which pretty much differ only in terms of background and a few extra challenges. All the jobs you have to perform remain the same. Upgrades of the stations that you can buy are scarce. Also, there is no music, only sounds of work… it's a little bit disturbing, to be honest.

• Xi Niu has a bigger scale of jobs to perform, which is refreshing and fun. Her levels can be quite challenging to master and require precise and quick movements. There are no upgrades to buy, instead Xi Niu levels up slowly and opens skill bonuses… not that it's very apparent though. 😅

The story is rather interesting, you can find romance, danger, sadness, and thrill in it. What made me a little bit disappointed was the ending though… it seemed so abrupt and without any real conclusion. Not sure what to think about it.

So, even if it feels somewhat unbalanced in terms of story and gameplay I have enjoyed it. I would love to see more games from this series. ;)

When your life is slowly going downhill it might be a good idea to take a step back from it. Taking a lonesome job out there in the Wyoming wilderness seems like a great idea. Just you with your thoughts, supervised by a similarly lonesome fellow far on the horizon and connected only with a walkie… what can go wrong, right? A simple job of a fire lookout gets twisted around when strange events begin to occur in close vicinity to your watchtower. You are then confronted with difficult questions about yourself, your previous life, even about your mentor Delilah on the other side of the walkie, and answering them isn't gonna be easy… just don't forget about the fire, okay?

Firewatch is an atmospheric walking simulator with a heavy concentration on visuals and story and most of the time it works pretty well. The visuals are beautiful and some of the sceneries are just breathtaking, one could spend hours roaming through the wilds. What surprised me though was the overall lack of animals you get to see when walking through the woods. Music is also exceptional and does a great job of creating a fitting atmosphere. Voice actors are very good and they bring us believable characters, which is important in this game as you don't get to know them by any other means than through their voices.
The story becomes rather mysterious over time with a few twists that do a great job of keeping you in suspense, but once you have all the hints the story becomes pretty clear. The ending is a little bit unsatisfying though… not sure why, I have just expected something more.

The story, the mood in the woods and the overall loneliness reminded me of Someday You'll Return, which I can only recommend. The music on the other hand reminded me heavily of The Flame in the Flood.

All in all, I have enjoyed my time in Firewatch and can safely recommend it.

In The Testament of Sherlock Holmes we will take a peek under the coat of distinguished Sherlock Holmes only to find that hideous criminal hide beneath it? Even his close, long-time friend Doctor Watson begins to question Sherlock's motives as a strange series of events portray the great consulting detective in a bad light. The truth is hidden out there in the dark, dirty alleys of London so let's find it!

First thing that you can notice about this game (when comparing it to the older titles) is that the graphics went through some serious upgrades and it's a rather pleasant change. The overall tone stays dark and grim, which suits the detective theme. All the characters and environment look good, although some problems are still present - like truly dark areas where you don't see a thing or not so good lip sync during conversations. Music is all right. There is a new voice actor for Sherlock Holmes, Kerry Shale, who does a nice job in his shoes (little side note: he is also voicing main protagonist in Someday you'll return, which was a big surprise for me). He sounds very close to the previous actor, so the change isn't that apparent and it doesn't disturb the immersion built throughout the whole series. Watson is voiced by the same actor. Voices of other characters were improved, except for those of children (they still sounded pretty silly).

Gameplay wise it's a standard adventure game where you have to search different kinds of rooms, alleys or even dead bodies for clues and then further analyze them to uncover the truth. Also let's not forget about the puzzles - there are quite a lot of them, they are nicely varied, logical and rather pretty good! Most of them offer a challenge, but shouldn't prove too hard to solve.
You are still free to pick your desired point of look (first-person, thirds-person or standard point-and-click). Besides Sherlock you are gonna spent a lot of time as Watson and even as a most helpful companion Toby!

My biggest complaint goes to the story. It's… it's just strange and somewhat wrong. Dark portrayal doesn't suit Sherlock at all and what's worse it isn't even believable. I was quite at loss for most of the time as the plot holes are sadly rather big. In the end, I didn't pay much attention to the story. Watson is much bigger help this time and also not such a good for nothing sidekick, but him doubting Holmes is ridiculous. On the other hand Sherlock turns into a complete idiot.
There is still some kind of stability problem and the game may crash from time to time. For me it happened only twice, I believe, so it wasn't such a frustrating problem as with the Jack the Ripper, but it may be annoying if it would be more often.

Even though the story wasn't up to my taste I have liked the visuals, puzzles and overall atmosphere of the game, so I can safely recommend it to fans of adventure games. Oh and the credits are perfect!

Another hidden object game from the creators of Sherlock Holmes' games - Frogwares. Their first HOG Sherlock Holmes and The Hound of The Baskervilles was quite enjoyable (my review). Shame that there aren't more from them, because this one is also quite good.

Count Dracula awakens from years long slumber after being defeated by Van Helsing to learn that the world is threatened by the Queen of Vampires and what's worse, his beloved Mina Harker is nowhere to be found! As he is still weakened and has yet to accumulate his powers back, Dracula has to form an unbelievable pact with his Nemesis. With the help of over zealous Igor and cautious Van Helsing he sets around the world in a search for means of destroying the Queen and saving Mina from her bloody clutches!

I have really liked the dark mysterious setting of a known story with a new kind of development. Graphics are very nice and detailed, and the music fits the game nicely. Voice acting is a little bit crazy, but overall funny. My only complaint goes to the lacking cutscenes where we watch the night sky while Dracula summarizes our story progression.

Both hidden object scenes and puzzles are of good quality and you shouldn't get stuck on any of them. After completing a scene you will be notified so you don't have to search through various places to move on. It works even on expert difficulty, as well as quick travel through map.
For completing the game you have to make two playthroughs as you can be truthful Prince of Darkness and satiate your blood thirst right from women's necks or you can reach deep inside, uncover your hidden humanity and let them live!
Although the double path is a nice touch, it doesn't add anything new to the game - except for the ending and different companion in the extra chapter.

Anyway, I can recommend this game to lovers of HOGs and supernatural stories. :)

We came back to Unium after few years of a break and as I lack required patience and imagination my soulmate had to struggle with it in my stead. ;D

Unium is a puzzle game where you need to flip black tiles back to white while drawing just one line. Simple concept yet pretty much challenging, especially in the later levels. There are over 100 levels divided into difficulty stages (Beginner > Easy > Medium > Advanced) which open up gradually with your progression, that way you can't get too ahead of yourself and your skill. The overall difficulty rises not only because of the size and complexity of the pictures, but also thanks to added elements like neutral tile or line crossing. Some levels will take only a few minutes to solve (even the advanced ones), others can twist your mind for an hour. The best strategy for solving is to go with the flow, just try to draw the line and you will see where it takes you. Also there are usually more ways to solve each picture, although I am not sure about the more advanced as we were lucky to find even one way the line worked. ^^ Once you are done with the normal levels you can play custom ones created by the players, but I haven't tried them myself though. There are also some achievements for specific ways of drawing the line in certain levels, which adds another type of a challenge.

I can recommend it to lovers of mind bending puzzles. It's great for short session playing and somehow relaxing even though few of the levels can be truly challenging and take you some time to solve them. Both music and graphics are of simple design, which is fine as you are not disturbed and can fully concentrate on the puzzles.

Go to hell… just go to hell.
I don't want to talk or think about this game ever gain.

This game is a gem. I am not sure that I can describe what makes this game so good, as it would be better to step into it blindly, but it's just perfect. It's terrifying, cute, sad, clever, disgusting, heartwarming, cruel, funny, heartbreaking… And even though you know right from the beginning how's it gonna end, it's surprisingly hopeful.

The voice acting is awesome and some lines will stay with me forever.

HAPPINESS TO MR. VOICE!!!

We are playing as Ava Turing, space engineer awakened by the station's AI Tom from her long sleep on an orbital station near Jupiter's moon Europa, in a task of contacting the ground team on Europa which has gone silent for some considerable time. As we take steps into the ground station we are met with a series of tests that only the human mind can solve, as stated by Tom, and which are supposed to protect the crew from… Tom? As we navigate through the station we get to learn more about the research undergoing on Europa, the members of the team and ourselves. Complex questions considering humanity rise up and finding an answer for them is gonna be a challenge… oh yeah.

As for gameplay I would say it's like Portal but without the portals and danger. All we have is a "weapon" that can store energy balls inside, with it we can transfer these balls and power up closed doors, inactive bridges or platforms. As we progress new mechanics are presented and with them the rooms become more complex. I was rather surprised how well I was able to cope with it, I usually struggle in such games. Most of the levels are pretty straightforward, you overlook the room and see the solution, but few of them were pretty challenging and required a bit of outside the box thinking. Little bit problematic were mostly "timed" sequences where you needed to be quick and precise. I would say that Portal was harder, although it has been some years since I played it last.

As for the story, well, that's a hard nut to crack. I am gonna admit that I was pretty lost in the Turing test and Chinese room talks and I am not sure what exactly the ending was supposed to prove in that aspect… If we look aside from the AI talks we can learn about the crew and their lives on Europe prior to our awakening from audio logs, notes or emails. All of these draw a pretty clear image of what has happened on the station. And yet our heroine seems to ignore all of these "hints" and acts completely in the opposite way. I was truly baffled from this development. I don't want to spoil you, but the ending is very, very much unsatisfying. I don't see any sense in it. Also, no one else finds it strange that five people are living in an extremely huge station that allows building over 70 puzzle rooms? Very strange that they had so many resources in such a limited environment. o_O

My biggest complaint (aside from the story) goes to missing subtitles during audio logs. It wouldn't exactly be a problem if you can actually hear what they are saying, which is pretty hard with all the static sounds, hushed voices and so on. Huge oversight from the developers. Otherwise I haven't encountered any problems or bugs.

Even though I said that it was somewhat easier than Portal, I am glad it wasn't much difficult and I rather enjoyed the puzzles. Just don't play it for the story.

Side note - Why do both women look so artificial when the men look like living beings? o.O Just curious.

The premise of the game is simple - organize cats of different shapes into square grid, and in its simpleness it works well.

There are 80 levels for you to crack with a slowly escalating difficulty. Some of the levels can be pretty challenging, I would say even hard, as some of them took me a lot of time. My biggest problem in such cases was that I have unknowingly tried the same solution again and again, even though I believed that I haven't tried this particular combination yet. ^^ Later in the game the square grid gets larger with a lot of cats to fill in and you can easily lose track of which one exactly you should try to position elsewhere.

Even though I became stuck like this a few times, it's rather relaxing and I have really enjoyed it. The cats are very cute, both in design and their sounds. Their descriptions fits my cats in many aspects. =^_^=

Second game in Blackwell series, but this time we are gonna experience the life of a Medium destined to helping the lost ghosts from a perspective of Lauren Blackwell, aunt of Roseangela Blackwell the heroine of the first part.

Our main duo, Lauren Blackwell and Joey Mallone, can't surprise us much, because we got solid background on them in the first game, but to see them actually working together is a joy. Although a little bit bittersweet.
Lauren is pushing through her life without any certain goal or purpose out of helping the lost ghosts, which is a never ending work. We can say that she is undergoing a burnout. Joey is trying his best to make it easy for her, to support her, but what can he do exactly when he is only an immaterial entity? Lauren's current job of solving mysterious murders will present before her serious questions about her future life and in the end the decision is made. And as we already know, it's not gonna be for the better.

Gameplay wise it's an adventure game focusing on investigation and combination of clues more than on simple item using (there still is some). Sometimes you can become a little bit stuck, but simply trying everything on everything will save the day (as always). This time we can even switch between our main duo, which offers new perspectives and possibilities in the investigation.
The highlights of the game are yet again greatly written characters and their voice actors! The interaction between Lauren and Joey works really nicely and especially Joey gets shown in a more carefree mood, which is a welcome change from the first game where he is more bitter.
Oh and the music is awesome, one could just sit and listen to all that jazz!

The game isn't long, but for getting 100% you need to play through it two times. If you are lucky. Yet again you have to experience the whole game with a developer commentary, which sheds an insight upon the creative process in making the game and other interesting stuff. I really enjoyed that, my only complain goes to the missing subtitles, because sometimes it was hard to understand them and I didn't caught their every word. More problematic proved to be the achievements for Lauren’s smoking - one time you need to smoke as little as possible, the other way too much. But as there is no counter you will get to know after the end. The high count isn't a big problem as you will just load it up, but you can't lower the count exactly… so if she smokes too much you have to replay the game again. Word of advice, be quick and don't linger anywhere, because when you play as Joey she is gonna light up her cigar. So you really want to do a speed run. Little counter for us in the notebook or some notification would have been helpful for sure. But other than that I don't have any issues with the game. Blackwell Unbound offers a great compelling story and further builds upon the Legacy, can only recommend it. <3

Not sure if it's needed to somehow introduce Wolfenstein and B.J. Blazkowicz character, so just a few quick words… The year is 1960, alternate reality where Nazis won the II. world war and rule the world now, last remnants of resistance are still trying to fight back with more or less luck. And although Blazkowicz spent the last 14 years in a vegetative state he is the one who's gonna hunt the Nazis down one by one!

I will say it right away, this game is awesome! Killing the Nazis is such great fun and so satisfying! Also, there are so many ways to take them down - silently from behind with just your knife or two; from a cover with a silenced handgun; or you can close up at them with a fully loaded shotgun and let their heads blow up; or you can ambush them with two-handed assault rifles… So many possibilities for you to pick from! Good thing is that most of the chapters can be done in a subtle stealthy approach if you don't fancy a heated up firefight and even then there is usually a spot that offers you some kind of an advantage (have to say that for me the most hardest chapter was the Return to London Nautica, my heart still hurts when I remember it).
The pace of the game is great with just a short time for Blazkowicz to catch his breath before his next action, it's nice to connect with other members of the resistance. Level designs are pretty good, nicely varied and offer some pretty challenging (boss) fights. In addition to collecting Nazi's scalps we can search the locations for enigma codes, golden items, letters which will uncover more about the lives of the people, upgrades for armor and health. Throughout the game we will also open descriptions of visited places and every important character. As for the enigma codes - once you collect them you need to crack them and trust me that it's easier than it looks, the solution is right inside the game. Just keep your eyes open. Prize for solving those numbers are new playing modes for some additional challenge - like Ironman with no saving or checkpoints, only one life for a whole game. I have tried one of them (999 mode), because I am no masochist, and it was fun… for a while. As I have played through the game before, going right away through the same old story turned out to be slightly off-putting.

I really liked the story, some moments were truly unsettling (Camp Belica), but it was fun. The characters are great, very likeable and believable. Voice acting is just superb! I really enjoyed all the German, Polish, English… voices, they do a great work at creating fitting atmosphere. <3 Graphics are pretty good looking and I loved how Blazkowicz plays with his weapons when he is idle! I have really expected that he will stab himself with the knife once. XD Music is also very good and you can tell when some serious fight is gonna happen by it.
Through my three playthroughs I haven't encountered any bugs or some kind of problems, which is usually rare.

So, soldier, what are you waiting for? There are Nazis out there that need to be killed!

I both adore and hate this game. We took turns with my soulmate in playing Airscape, because sooner than later your head is gonna be dizzy from it.

We are playing as Orange octopus on a quest of saving its family from a clutches of some mean alien abductors! As we go through the levels in 18 zones we have to save sea critters as they are needed for our progression. Good thing is that we don't have to collect every one of them in the respective zone as the next one opens with a lesser number. Pretty convenient with harder levels.
We will slowly save our octopus siblings one by one. Once they are saved, they can be used and some levels require their specific abilities (although it should be possible to complete each level with every octopus, I am not gonna test it for sure). Mind you, the last ultimate Boss fight will be Orange's duty which doesn't have any special skills.

The game description doesn't lie - ultra-challenging. Yes. It's very, VERY MUCH challenging. I can't possibly stress enough how challenging it really is. Don't be fooled by its colorful and cute graphics, because you are gonna get smashed, squashed, blasted, minced, disintegrated, eaten or drowned in acid on a regular basis. It's fast-paced. Yes, you need to be quick, because most of the hazardous things around actively seek to destroy you. You are left with only a fragment of a second to make a jump or slide or run and most of the time you are not gonna make it. Majority of the levels can't be done on a first try, because you are going blindly ahead and you are gonna meet some nasty surprises on the run. Practice makes perfect.

With a high probability you will get motion sickness from Airscape, because of the frantic rotation that happens all the time. There isn't much you can do with it. You can lower the screen rotation rate, which will seem like a good idea at the beginning, but later in the game you will get in some tight spots because of it. What is mandatory to know when controlling your octopus is that you move where you "look". So as the screen rotates you can suddenly move the other way and die. You can center your view by a dedicated keyboard button, but realizing where exactly you are will just rob you of a precious time. Also the rotation actually helps your octopus to gain momentum in quicker sequences. In the end we set it back to normal.

As for the difficulty, I will repeat yet again, it's high. Each level has usually two or three checkpoints from which you are gonna start when you die. Sometimes it doesn't seem enough though and some sequences are quite punishing, frustrating even. In such a case it is best to take a break from the game. After all, we were playing through it with combined powers since 2020.

I think Airscape deserves a recommendation although it's certainly not for everyone and those who decide to play it can feel pretty miserable from time to time. But all of it will be forgotten once you clear some hard levels and then you will strive for more. You have been warned.

In DISTRAINT we play as a young man called Price who longs for a better life, one where he is successful and can afford a higher standard of living - because with wealth comes happiness, right? To obtain the desired recognition from his bosses Price has to work hard and complete given tasks of property seizure without asking, doubting, disobeying, showing compassion… but as Price isn't a heartless individual his first assignment shakes him to the core. Questions concerning ethics and morality of his work resurfaces with a growing urgency and his conscience gets exposed to horrid hallucinations. Each step he takes brings him closer to his desired future life… the question is - does he still long for it for such a price?

DISTRAINT is a pretty good little game. It's a little bit weird to say that I had fun with it, when we consider that it's a psychological horror, but I have enjoyed my two playthroughs and even had a few laughs. The graphic design is rather strange but very appealing, especially the color tinting in different scenes. Music is also fine and helps to create the right mood when you explore, run for your life or just wander drugged up through halls.
Everything in the game is rather simple and yet it manages to deliver disturbing and unpleasant feelings that are closely tied up to our society. Through the character of Price the game holds a mirror to our greedy souls and shows ugly things in it. Whole atmosphere of the game is heavy, unhappy and every time a flicker of hope shows up it gets stamped by an elephant to the ground. So, if you are not feeling well, wait a bit before playing it and go find some cute kittens instead. Otherwise I can recommend it to anyone who's not afraid of taking a glance in the mirror.

When the world find itself at the crossroad and the tension is slowly growing among the people, it's a high time for its divine protector to appear. Celestial elephant Yono is sent upon this world to help the people find balance and lead them into a peaceful and prosperous times. But as Yono is just a small, young elephant it's hard for him to see how he could help anyone. With newfound friends he travels around the world, meets its inhabitants, learns about their hardships and dreams… after all, it's not about solving their problems for them, but more about accompanying them through their life. And Yono has still time to search for his purpose on this word before he becomes a full fledged celestial protector.

Yono and the Celestial Elephants is very charming, relaxing game. Playing as this small blue elephant is probably one of the cutest things I have ever seen. Running around or splashing water from my trunk always brought me a big smile! Also can't forget about the fact that Yono doesn't have hands, so if you take some items you carry it on your head and as you move the item jumps on your head. :D Money that you collect can be spent on changing your appearance and there are a lot of possibilities!

There are three main locations with sub-locations that connect them. You open a quick travel after you successfully go through, so you don't have to walk through them again. But if you have missed a collectible core (that raises your health) you can of course explore some more, but I have usually collected everything without any problem. Another thing you will collect are letters. With enough letters you can restore ancient tomes and learn about your celestial predecessors and their deeds on this world. I have enjoyed reading about them!

Graphics are cute and colorful, the music is cheerful and fits the game well. As for gameplay I'd say it's a 3D sokoban. Most of the time you are required to push some box on a specific place for you to be able to proceed. Every location adds something new - like ice cubes, balloons, chili peppers etc. Most of the puzzles were pretty straightforward, some required a little bit of trying, but the overall difficulty is easy, which is fine as it doesn't disturb the relaxing atmosphere. There is also a little bit of fighting with simple enemies (snakes, rat bandits) and a Boss fight awaits you at the end of each location - you always need a right tactic on them which can be hard to realize (I look at you Dog), but they are overall fun.
I had some problems with controls (played on keyboard) and sometimes it was hard to position yourself on the exact spot required in some moments (when splashing water etc.), but it wasn't any serious game breaking element. I have encountered a bug (?) when I have solved a puzzle in the wrong way and leaving the screen didn’t reset it. Loading up solved it.

I have really liked Yono and the Celestial Elephants. It's cute, funny and heartwarming, if you want to cheer up then this is the perfect game for you. I'd say it's great for the younger audience, but even if you are far beyond this age range you can quite enjoy it. I know I did. :)

As is pretty clear from the game's name, this time we will follow Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson to the dangerous moorland in an attempt to save Henry Baskerville from a family curse which haunts them in a form of devilish dog for several generations! In the old Baskerville manor we have to visit long abandoned rooms of Henry's predecessors in a search for clues about the curse and how to break it.

This is truly excellent HOG! I have really enjoyed the setting which is pretty dark with a few scary moments. Graphics are very nice and detailed, music creates a rather ominous atmosphere and suits the game. Whole game is dubbed, so we can enjoy our familiar duo from the main games, which is a big plus!
Game is taking place mostly inside of the manor and its many rooms and we are gonna visit some of them even in the past (yep, time travel)! We have a map so we can see in which room an action is required or which was completed. We can also fast-forward through it. That the room is completed is also shown right on the screen once inside (even on hard difficulty), so no searching for missing objects or hidden object scenes there.

Hidden object scenes are of good quality and with mostly easy finds, although few items required a bit of searching. There is also a huge amount of puzzles and I simply loved it! They were nicely varied, clever and of good difficulty spanning from easy to normal. But two or three puzzles were actually extremely hard and solving them on my own was a real challenge!
To get all achievements you have to play the game two times, because Completing the game in hard mode won't open achievement for Completing the game… yeah, silly. XD When selecting the difficulty at the beginning you are told that on hard are the puzzles and HO scenes harder than on easy difficulty. And let me tell you that it isn't true. I didn't see any change in any of them, the extremely hard puzzles were still extremely hard. But this time I could use the skip button as I already got the corresponding achievements, so no harm done. ;)

I wholeheartedly recommend this game to lovers of HOGs and detective stories with hints of the supernatural. Just beware that the standard rational explanation from Sherlock Holmes doesn't happen this time!

Postmortem: one must die feels more like a demo or a teaser for a bigger game. The concept alone is rather interesting - you are an agent of Death visiting a benefit banquet and one of the persons present is your target. Which life you are gonna claim is completely your decision. You can spend the night roaming around the house (one floor), searching the rooms for clues about this world and talking with the people. Like that you can learn more about the conflict that is currently happening in the country, about their opinions on it, about their future desires or hopes. By talking to them you can also influence them for the better or worse, you will know for certain after your task is done though. With this knowledge you may decide whose death would be most beneficial for the country and then take him. Or you can just enter the banquet and kill the first person you meet. That also works.

So I liked it, but it's over so quickly… there isn't any particular replayability, only if you want to see what impact on the conflict has the death of each person at the party. At the end you are given an article in the newspaper which summarizes what happened at the party and then final words about the conflict and its development. That's all. Maybe if there would be more stages? Like helping to shape the country in the long term through this supernatural selection? As I say, like this it's just a demo.

I liked both the graphics and music. It's also very well written, the lore of the world is interesting with many possibilities on how it could continue. But it's so short, and when I say short I mean like 10 seconds to be done with the game. There are no secrets to uncover, no different future (it all ends almost the same way with only small differences). After you are done you are given an option to compare your results with other players, sadly it didn't work for me. I don't know, if it catches your interest grab it during a high sale.

Starfighter: Eclipse is a BL visual novel game set in the same universe as Starfighter comics of the same orientation. Because of that it's highly advisable to first read the comics, as most of the characters in the game have made their appearance there. The comics are short and completely free on the web, from them you can also decide if you like this particular setting and if yes, you are safe to go with the game.

We play as Helios (code name, everyone has one), a fighter, who is newly assigned to an Alliance starship Kepler. As he barely connects with his navigator, Selene, they are tasked with exploring an alien derelict ship. Simple recon mission turns bad when a member of another team gets hurt by a short circuit. Everyone pulls off from the derelict to the safety of the Kepler, but before long weird things begin to happen on the ship. Could one of them be a saboteur? Well, that's what Helios has to find out. ;)

It's basically a standard visual novel game with many choices and five romantic/just for sex pursuable characters (Cain, Abel, Deimos, Selene, Hayden). The game spans in a horizon of four days, so there is no time for usual dating and most of the time the boys go quickly down to business… if you get my point. ;) Only true everlasting happy end can be achieved with Selene as Cain and Abel are main heroes from the comics and a pair. So even if you end up with one of them (or both) it's only for a brief moment, so enjoy it. ;)
I liked the story, it was nice to revisit the Starfighter universe again. The game is rather short and you can be quickly done with it (there is skip). But to say the truth getting on Deimos's route was pretty painful.

I really like the monochrome graphics with slight hues of other (mainly light blue) colors, in this the game stays true to the comics. Also even if the graphics are slightly different from that in the comics it's still pretty great and most of the CGs are exceptional and very erotic. Music is normal, nothing extra, but the opening and ending themes are pretty awesome and I have enjoyed listening to them very much. There is no voice-acting, but I don't take it as a problem.
My only complaint goes to the lack of save slots, for the amount of choices it’s just not enough… Also more often than I would like the menu interface stopped working - I couldn't get into the save/load menu, to settings, to main menu. Only way to make it work again was to restart the game.

But even with these little flaws I can recommend it to any lover of BL visual novels, you won't be disappointed. Also there are no hard fetish practices or non-consensual sex so it's perfect for newcomers to the genre.