Fox's lair Kyrrelin’s profile
Also Steamgifts wins deserve her bigger attention!

Let's do something about it, so even other games get equally played.
Stats of completed games
2013 | 7 Completed | 6 Beaten | 2014 | 5 Completed | 10 Beaten |
2015 | 7 Completed | 7 Beaten | 2016 | 15 Completed | 7 Beaten |
2017 | 9 Completed | 8 Beaten | 2018 | 15 Completed | 9 Beaten |
2019 | 48 Completed | 10 Beaten | 2020 | 63 Completed | 14 Beaten |
2021 | 53 Completed | 6 Beaten | 2022 | 36 Completed | 11 Beaten |
2023 | Completed | Beaten |
January | Dishonored 2 ~ Little Farm ~ Space Legends: At the Edge of the Universe |
February | Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth ~ Silent Age ~ Eventide: Slavic Fable ~ Samantha Swift and the Hidden Roses of Athena ~ 12 Labours of Hercules |
March | Kholat ~ CAT Interstellar ~ Lost in Woods 2 ~ Mass Effect |
April | A Plot Story ~ Samantha Swift and the Golden Touch ~ Virginia ~ Mata Hari ~ Fahrenheit: Indigo Prophecy Remastered ~ LOOM™ ~ Mass Effect 2 |
May & June | Mountain Crime: Requital ~ The Journey Down: Chapter One ~ STAR WARS™ Knights of the Old Republic™ II - The Sith Lords™ ~ Plastiland ~ Vampire Legends: The True Story of Kisilova ~ Faces of Illusion: The Twin Phantoms ~ 9 Clues: The Secret of Serpent Creek ~ The Whispered World Special Edition ~ Glass Masquerade ~ The Journey Down: Chapter Two ~ LEGO® Marvel™ Super Heroes |
July | Glowfish ~ Lumini ~ Ricky Raccoon 2 - Adventures in Egypt |
August | Velvet Assassin ~ Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure ~ Guild of Dungeoneering ~ Luxor HD ~ 7 Wonders: Treasures of Seven ~ Adam Wolfe |
September & October & November | >observer_ ~ Never give up! ~ Lost Chronicles of Zerzura ~ 7 Wonders of the Ancient World ~ Satellite Reign ~ Tropico Reloaded ~ Sins Of The Demon RPG ~ Abyss: The Wraiths of Eden ~ 12 Labours of Hercules II: The Cretan Bull ~ The Walking Dead: Season Two ~ Path of Sin: Greed ~ Merchants of Kaidan ~ Midnight Mysteries |
December | Under Leaves ~ Midnight Mysteries: Salem Witch Trials ~ The Secret Order 2: Masked Intent ~ Gardens Inc. – From Rakes to Riches ~ Gardens Inc. 2: The Road to Fame |
January | Aurion: Legacy of the Kori-Odan ~ Heart's Medicine - Time to Heal ~ 12 Labours of Hercules III: Girl Power ~ The Journey Down: Chapter Three ~ Costume Quest ~ Trine Enchanted Edition ~ 7 Wonders: Magical Mystery Tour ~ Hand of Fate ~ Nihilumbra ~ Mass Effect 3 |
February | Alien: Isolation ~ Pikuniku ~ The Darkside Detective ~ Solstice ~ Cataegis: The White Wind ~ J.U.L.I.A.: Among the Stars ~ LEGO® Star Wars™ - The Complete Saga |
March | Beyond Eyes ~ Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine - Anniversary Edition ~ Valiant Hearts: The Great War™ / Soldats Inconnus : Mémoires de la Grande Guerre™ ~ fault - milestone one ~ The Dreamatorium of Dr. Magnus 2 ~ Solstice ~ Cataegis: The White Wind |
April | Murdered: Soul Suspect ~ Degrees of Separation ~ Weird Park Trilogy ~ Twisted Lands Trilogy Collectors Edition ~ Cyrano Story ~ Valiant Hearts: The Great War™ / Soldats Inconnus : Mémoires de la Grande Guerre™ ~ My Jigsaw Adventures - Roads of Life ~ The Emerald Maiden: Symphony of Dreams ~ Plantera ~ Life is Strange |
May | Machinarium ~ Lara Croft GO ~ Midnight Mysteries 3: Devil on the Mississippi ~ Midnight Mysteries 4: Haunted Houdini ~ In the Raven Shadow – Ve stínu havrana ~ The Secret Order 3: Ancient Times ~ The Secret Order 4: Beyond Time ~ Cook, Serve, Delicious! ~ LEGO® The Hobbit™ |
June | Mary Le Chef - Cooking Passion ~ Alex Hunter - Lord of the Mind |
July | Full Metal Furies ~ LEGO® The Hobbit™ ~ Dark Arcana: The Carnival ~ 7 Wonders: Magical Mystery Tour |
August & September | Transistor ~ Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!! ~ Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice ~ Alter Ego ~ Lost Legends: The Weeping Woman Collector's Edition ~ Shadows: Price For Our Sins Bonus Edition ~ Nancy Drew®: Curse of Blackmoor Manor ~ Black Mirror III |
October & November | Prey ~ Skautfold: Shrouded in Sanity ~ Someday You'll Return ~ Stories: The Path of Destinies ~ Fairy Tale Mysteries: The Puppet Thief ~ Fairy Tale Mysteries 2: The Beanstalk ~ Lost Grimoires: Stolen Kingdom ~ Lost Grimoires 2: Shard of Mystery ~ Spooky Cats ~ Alan Wake's American Nightmare ~ Robinson Crusoe and the Cursed Pirates ~ Eroico ~ Black The Fall |
December & January 2021 | GRIS ~ Summer in Mara ~ Super Chibi Knight ~ The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Final Cut ~ Cinderella Phenomenon - Otome/Visual Novel ~ Slime Rancher ~ Enigmatis: The Ghosts of Maple Creek ~ Enigmatis 2: The Mists of Ravenwood ~ Grim Legends: The Forsaken Bride ~ Detention ~ Discovery! A Seek & Find Adventure ~ Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island |
February & March | SKYHILL ~ Ara Fell: Enhanced Edition ~ Ryse: Son of Rome ~ LUXOR: 5th Passage ~ Guild of Dungeoneering ~ Small Town Terrors: Livingston ~ Small Town Terrors Pilgrim's Hook Collector's Edition ~ Small Town Terrors: Galdor's Bluff Collector's Edition ~ Voodoo Garden ~ 911 Operator ~ Leviathan: The Last Day of the Decade |
April | Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun ~ The Technomancer ~ Cooking Academy Fire and Knives ~ My Jigsaw Adventures - A Lost Story ~ Mystery Masters: Psycho Train Deluxe Edition |
May | Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes ~ The Fog: Trap for Moths ~ Lost Civilization |
June | Draugen ~ Pixel Puzzles: Japan ~ Nightmares from the Deep: The Cursed Heart ~ The Walking Dead: Michonne |
July | Love Alchemy: A Heart In Winter ~ Grim Legends 2: Song of the Dark Swan ~ Grim Legends 3: The Dark City ~ Time Mysteries: Inheritance - Remastered ~ Crazy Plant Shop ~ Time Mysteries 2: The Ancient Spectres ~ Time Mysteries 3: The Final Enigma |
August & September | Republique ~ Heart's Medicine - Season One ~ Season of Mystery : The Cherry Blossom Murders ~ Burly Men at Sea ~ Sea Legends: Phantasmal Light Collector's Edition ~ See No Evil ~ Gobliiins ~ Gobliins 2: The Prince Buffoon |
October | Remothered: Tormented Fathers ~ Eventide 2: The Sorcerers Mirror ~ Haunted ~ BioShock Remastered ~ Pyre ~ Goblins 3 |
November | Pyre ~ The Walking Dead: A New Frontier ~ Dreamscapes: The Sandman - Premium Edition ~ The Secret Order 5: The Buried Kingdom ~ The Secret Order 6: Bloodline ~ The Secret Order 7: Shadow Breach |
December | Old Man's Journey ~ Tiny Echo ~ Gone Fireflies ~ Bionic Heart ~ Seasons after Fall |
Summary of 2021 | Just statistics |
January | Shadow Tactics: Aiko's Choice ~ Greyfox ~ 16bit Trader ~ Shadwen ~ The Blackwell Legacy ~ NAIRI: Tower of Shirin ~ Kentucky Route Zero |
February | |
March | Spirit of the North ~ The Last Campfire |
April | Middle-earth™: Shadow of Mordor™ ~ Enigmatis 3: The Shadow of Karkhala ~ Eventide 3: Legacy of Legends ~ Nancy Drew: Secret of the Old Clock ~ Nancy Drew: Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon |
May | Tiny Tales: Heart of the Forest ~ The Last Dogma |
June | Mad Max |
July | AER Memories of Old ~ Silence ~ Jotun: Valhalla Edition ~ Little Nightmares ~ Batman: Arkham Asylum GOTY Edition |
August | Wuppo - Definitive Edition ~ Sherlock Holmes: The Secret of the Silver Earring ~ State of Mind |
September | LEGO® The Lord of the Rings™ ~ Tales of the Orient: The Rising Sun ~ The Secret Order 8: Return to the Buried Kingdom ~ Left in the Dark: No One on Board ~ Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened (2008) ~ Möbius Front '83 |
October | Sherlock Holmes: Nemesis ~ Sherlock Holmes: The Mystery of The Persian Carpet |
November | |
December | Spellcaster University ~ Sherlock Holmes versus Jack the Ripper ~ DISTRAINT: Deluxe Edition ~ Yono and the Celestial Elephants ~ Sherlock Holmes and The Hound of The Baskervilles ~ Postmortem: one must die (Extended Cut) ~ Starfighter: Eclipse |
Summary of 2022 | Just some stats |
January | Carto ~ Cats Organized Neatly ~ Blackwell Unbound ~ Wolfenstein: The New Order ~ Airscape: The Fall of Gravity |
February | Heaven's Vault ~ Unium ~ Last Day of June ~ Little Misfortune ~ The Turing Test |
March | The Testament of Sherlock Holmes ~ Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments ~ Dracula: Love Kills ~ Indivisible |
April | Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight ~ Endless Fables: The Minotaur's Curse ~ Chronicles of Mystery: The Scorpio Ritual ~ Faerie Solitaire ~ Unsung Heroes: The Golden Mask ~ Firewatch |
May | LEGO® Batman™: The Videogame ~ My Brother Rabbit ~ Memories with my Kitten ~ Dead Hungry Diner ~ Someday You'll Return |
June | Persian Nights: Sands of Wonders ~ Behind the Frame: The Finest Scenery |
July | |
August | |
September | |
October | |
November | |
December |

Original post
ABC Screenshot Challenge
Games used:
Hollow KnightDishonored 2
Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth
Mata Hari
Mass Effect (1,2,3) - playing on Origin so pictures are posted on Imgur
Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure
Aurion: Legacy of the Kori-Odan
Murdered: Soul Suspect
LEGO: The Hobbit
Ryse: Sone of Rome
Carto
Yono and the Celestial Elephants
LEGO® The Lord of the Rings™
July 2023 report
July shrinked to just four games. ^_^
I have yet again beaten Witcher 2 and although I like it, I really hate how the fighting works in this game - especially the potions are totally useless! When I play it next time I will hopefully complete Roche’s line. That will leave only one achievement, Madman, for playing the whole game on insane difficulty. The catch is that you can’t die, because if you do your saves get disabled and you start from the beginning… crazy, such achievement doesn’t belong to story driven RPGs.
I have also experienced a meltdown during my playthrough of Keepsake. After 12 hours in it I have accidentally deleted all my saves… that truly left me in tears. ^^ As I was dying of despair under the blanket my partner had recovered them for me and after some tweaking to force the game to recognize them again I was able to continue!!! Merci, my love. <3<3<3
Enough of small talks and now to the actual assassinations! Good luck in the new month and enjoy your games!
Lydia's first day in wizard school isn't exactly going as she imagined. Instead of a warm meeting with her childhood friend after many years of separation, she is welcomed by silence. The gates are closed shut and even after successfully opening them the school grounds are vacant. The only living soul she finds is a talking wolf who is supposedly a turned dragon! With him by her side, she has to navigate through abandoned halls, overcome many obstacles to become a full-fledged wizard and hopefully find her friend. And also ultimately find the answer to what has happened to everyone.
I have fond memories of Keepsake in terms of an interesting and emotional story, beautiful graphics and nice music (those points are still valid). The voice actors of our main duo are fine and do a good job in their roles, but other mostly supernatural characters are talking very slowly to the point it can be annoying (played in English, can't speak of other language versions). On the other hand, it seems like I have completely shut out the unpleasant things about it and I don't even remember how I felt when I played it long ago… as for now I for sure felt heavy frustration in the second half.
The game is practically divided into two acts. The first is taking place in the lower grounds of the wizard academy and although the area is quite big with a lot of places to visit orienting in them is quite well-arranged and you usually know where to go next. Some locations are closed off and require additional action to be performed to get open, so be prepared to do a lot of backtracking. But it's not so horrible. After getting to the upper part of the school it's not so easy anymore. The area is probably even bigger, but every location is accessible, so the biggest problem is that you can go wherever you want and do whatever you wish, which can be pretty frustrating if you don't know what exactly you are supposed to do at the moment - because you can be struggling with some puzzle but no one will tell you that you are doing it too soon and you don't have proper requirements for it! To make the navigation around the school even worse you can't use any means of fast travel. You have a map at your disposal, but it only serves to crosscheck your whereabouts. Add to it teleportation platforms in the second act, which is a puzzle by itself, and the "fun" is complete. The game would be a lot quicker without the constant roaming through the halls for sure.
The puzzles are interesting, varied and most of the time rather hard. There is a built-in hint system, which will give you a hint three times on how to solve the puzzle and if you still don't know it can be automatically solved. Sometimes the hints aren't useful much as they describe what you are supposed to do (which you know) but don't say how (which you seek from the hint). What annoyed me was that later in the game you can't tell if the puzzle you are trying to crack you should be solving at the moment - so when uncertain check the hint, if you are too early it will tell you that you miss prerequisites and you can stop wasting your time and go somewhere else! Another problem is connected to translation (again talking about English) because sometimes the assignment doesn't make any sense or point to a completely different solution than is required. And both of that can pretty much spoil the fun of the puzzles.
The game sadly has yet another frustrating problem - it can crush on you so save often! Luckily there are only three places where it can happen (at least for me). Two times during a bigger puzzle, which you have to complete under a certain number of moves to prevent the crush, and finally during the credits so if you wish for a corresponding achievement you need to switch the language to French and you are clear to go.
Sounds horrible I suppose, but even with all that was said I still recommend it to lovers of good adventure games, the story is powerful and emotional, the graphics are rather good and the puzzles are challenging and mostly fun. Be wary of the flaws though and don't hesitate to use the hints!
Beaten during July, report will follow once we complete other endings.
June 2023 report
During June we played even fewer games. I have planned to start some new games (like Spiritfarer), but I just wasn’t in the right mood I guess. Instead, I came back to Witcher 2 again. I still need to complete Roche’s line, but I rather hate him, so before continuing with him I started Iorweth’s line on hard. Also, we participated in the Reus 2 playtest. ^_^
Enough of small talks and now to the actual assassinations! Good luck in the new month and enjoy your games!
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. ;)
May 2023 report
Nothing much was going on during May. We slowed down a little in gaming and played mostly shorter casual games. We also came back to Dead Hungry Diner after many years and it was still fun, but playing it five more times was a little bit tedious so we were taking turns in it. ^^
Enough of small talks and now to the actual assassinations! Good luck in the new month and enjoy your games!
LEGO Batman is one of the oldest games, next to LEGO Star Wars and LEGO Indiana Jones, in the series of LEGO adaptations of famous movie franchises. Its age is obviously apparent, but in no way prevents you from fully enjoying it! :D
The story doesn't follow that of any specific movie and it's more like a compilation of short events. The whole game is divided into three parts each with its own main villains and your goal as Batman (and Robin) is to prevent them from carrying out their evil plans thus protecting the good citizens of Gotham City! There are no voices, but even without words, it's pretty clear what's going on.
Even if older, LEGO Batman still works the same way as the other LEGO games. After completing story mode you can replay every mission in free mode with any hero or villain you'd like, you are then given a limited pool of characters that have suitable skills for the said mission and from them you can pick. This pool is randomized, except for the first character you pick before starting the mission.
Also, once you complete each story arc, you can then switch to Arkham Asylum and play through the whole story as villains! The layout of hero and villain missions isn't the same, which is refreshing.
Yet again you collect studs, minikits, red bricks and save poor citizens from burglary. For studs you can buy suit upgrades for Batman and Robin, some new characters and open facts about the Batman universe. There are no additional items to wear, but that's okay as many of the characters are already equipped with silly things. XD Red bricks and suit upgrades (took us a while to realize!) have to be set each time you come back to the game, don't forget about that. There isn't a split-screen so you have to stay close to each other or you risk pushing your sidekick to a ravine or poisonous gas and killing him. Camera angles can cause some headaches as always, especially during jumps. ^^
LEGO games are best in co-op and Batman isn't an exception. We had so much fun and went for 100% even if there are no achievements! Can only recommend it. :D
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.
All endings opened and every collectible was found! It took some time, but it was really enjoyable. It's a great game, can only recommend it, more in my review.
Another playthrough done, my soulmate achieved the highest rank using the Lust Commandment. Next we will try playing on hard difficulty. :)
Gift. :3 Thank you so much! <3
Other
April 2023 report
In March I received Someday You’ll Return: Director’s Cut for free as the owner of the original. I thought it would be a good idea to try and complete it before playing the new updated version so I jumped right on it. With 53 hours on it, my most played game wasn’t Onmyoji for the first time in a few months. ^_^
Also, I have started Assassin’s Creed II on Uplay and I have really enjoyed it. I am currently in Venice.
Enough of small talks and now to the actual assassinations! Good luck in the new month and enjoy your games!
Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight is simply a gem and it quickly became one of our favorite games! I am not familiar with any other game from the series (which will be corrected soon) and even though this game is fourth in the Momodora series (serves as a prequel) no prior knowledge of the events is required for full enjoyment. The 45 hours equal to 8 complete playthroughs (we played both)! :D
The story is simple. Evil is spreading through the country and slowly corrupts everything. Kaho, a young priestess from the village of Lun, arrives in the city of Karst to seek an audience with the Queen. Unfortunately, right on the outskirts of the city, Kaho learns that meeting the Queen isn't going to be easy because the corruption is particularly heavy here and the way leading to her is sealed off. Without any other option than pursuing her goal, Kaho needs to navigate through the different city locations to collect four parts of the city crest that have the power to break the seal. The streets are, thanks to the evil in the air, far from safe though and Kaho needs to stay vigilant as many enemies are lurking around and one small mistake can doom her and with her the whole country.
Despite the ever-present evil taint the city isn't completely abandoned and Kaho can meet a few individuals who are searching for their loved ones, answers, protection or they are just simply trying to survive - not that everyone is going to be so lucky.
Kaho isn't defenseless against the monsters and as a priestess, she has skills both in archery and swordplay… with a slight detail that she uses a Leaf for it. Yep, you read it right. XD Oh, I love this picture…
Jokes aside, as you progress you collect items with active or passive powers that will make you stronger in the long run and that's always a good thing. After defeating a boss you obtain upgrades for your bow or new ability; when you do especially well and manage to surpass the boss without a hit you receive a sweet item, which you can't get any other way. You can find other items in secret places or buy them from the few sellers that are still in the city. You can equip only three active and two passive items though, but you are free to change them anytime you wish even in the middle of the fight, which can be pretty useful! Active items, like the healing bellflower, have only a limited quantity of uses but do not worry, every usable item gets restored to its full numbers at every checkpoint, like your health. ;)
Fighting in Momodora is challenging, quick paced and extremely fun! The controls are responsive and don't hold you back. Except for one secret boss you have to fight them all and you need to learn their attack patterns well as a simple head-on tactic isn't enough for some of them even on lower difficulties! Every mistake you make gets quickly punished, but it doesn't turn into a frustrating chore. If you die you get transported to the last visited checkpoint, but nothing else, you keep your items and all money. As for the checkpoints, they are distributed across the map very reasonably and there are no too-long paths that you need to re-do in case you fail (except for the finale and that's because it's the finale). I also like the way you can save - you pray at the bell to open a menu or you just hit the bell with your weapon and it saves, neat!
I love the pixel graphics of both characters and backgrounds. The music is also exceptional, especially during boss fights. All of it creates a great atmosphere and in some moments I had goosebumps and my heart ached (oh, the fight with Pardoner Fennel felt almost like fighting the Pure Vessel in the Hollow Knight). All of the characters are introduced only for a brief time, which is a shame on one hand as I would love to know more about them, but on the other hand, it works well thanks to the shorter length of the game.
Aside from fighting various enemies, you have to overcome many obstacles in the form of traps that kill you in just one hit. Platforming is done nicely with a few truly challenging stages. But overall I didn't feel like being punished by it (like in Indivisible).
Momodora isn't anyhow long and you can get to the end in a few hours, there are two endings and getting the true one will open New Game+! Achievements are there to push you further through the rabbit hole and test your masochist's limits, so beware. ^_^
So what I am trying to say here is that Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight is an excellent game with beautiful visuals and music, great gameplay and atmospheric and memorable fights. And have I mentioned that you get to play as a cat? =^.^= If you are a fan of the Metroidvania genre you won't be disappointed!
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.
Thank you for my win. :3
March 2023 report
Back on Sherlock’s wave after two months’ pause and even in a big style! Also except for Momodora everything we started in March we have completed, pretty productive month. :3
Enough of small talks and now to the actual assassinations! Good luck in a new month and enjoy your games!
Oh boy, I have enjoyed this game, one of the best in the series for sure!
In Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments we don't follow one specific storyline, like we are used to from the previous games, instead we solve six independent mysterious cases that require the expertise of our dear Sherlock and his friend Doctor Watson. The murders are nicely varied and the crime scenes take us to different places around London (even outside of it) - the change of scenery and mood in every chapter is a nice touch. Uncovering the true culprit(s) can be challenging and even though few of the cases are pretty clear right from the beginning it didn't spoil the fun of deducting every possible scenario.
Previous games in the series were (more or less) standard adventure games, this one though is heavily concentrated on Sherlock's detective skills - mainly observation and deduction. Your main goal is to thoroughly search every crime scene for anything that could help with solving the crime. What may seem like a random item at the beginning can turn into important evidence during the investigation. Observing your opponents during conversations is also very important, like that you can learn many things about them which can then shed more light on the mysterious events. Try to not overlook anything as everything you find influences the deduction board where you build your conclusions - to find the true one you have to dig deep to uncover all the hidden secrets and also correctly connect all the dots!
Aside from searching for evidence and questioning anyone with ties to the dead persons you need to further analyze some of the items with the help of Sherlock's chemical table or search in his archives for more information. Sherlock's disguise talent will also shine as you have to pick him the right suit for some occasions. There are not many puzzles, they consist mostly of lockpicking and event reconstruction.
Have to say that this game is very pretty. Both the scenery and characters look very lively, it's a joy to look at it. Music is very fitting. Voice acting is pretty good. Doctor Watson has a new actor and even though it was a little shocking at first, I quickly found him appealing. Sherlock is once again voiced by Kerry Shale </em > who is just amazing! I find him truly fitting Sherlock's character and it's a joy to listen to him (little side note: he is also voicing main protagonist in Someday you'll return). As you play through the game you open new suits for Sherlock which you can then wear (like the casual look which suits him very much). Aside from playing as the great detective you will turn into the four-legged helpful companion, Toby.
The pace of the game is very good and you won't have time to feel bored. After you play through each chapter you can then select whichever one you wish and replay it - the game will still remember the results of your other cases. My only complaint goes to the "long" loading screen during traveling. Sometimes you need to often change the locations and this intermezzo slightly disrupts the atmosphere. At least you get to look at Sherlock and his companions. ;)
I can totally recommend Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments to the lovers of good detective stories and adventure games! It was very enjoyable experience. <3
Indivisible is hard to rate because it does few things right… but on the other hand many things about it is wrong, so wrong that I can't recommend it… or at least with a warning. I tried to like it and I even did, for the first part, but then it turned into hate. It's really a shame as the game had such a big potential.
So, in the game we follow young, hot-headed girl Ajna on a quest for vengeance which turns into a quest for self redemption. And of course to save the world from a complete destruction. On her journey she meets a wide variety of people (20 in total) with their own problems and every one of them will (un)willingly join our heroine on her quest. With them she will travel around the "world", visit different cities and wreak havoc… ehm sorry, save them from any danger that may befall them, meanwhile uncover hidden mysteries about her past and embark on a path towards becoming a better person… ugh.
I have liked the colorful anime visuals (especially the intro) and the soundtrack which is really good (made by Hiruki Kikuta) and creates throughout the game a fitting atmosphere. Characters are "fully" voiced, meaning they talk only in some important story moments or during fights, and most of them corresponded nicely with their voices. I have also mainly enjoyed the fights, which are rather very hectic (as they happen in real-time) and turn into simple mash the buttons tactic, but can still be fun. I have found few of the characters likeable, but they don't have any opportunity to grow over their unimportant Incarnations status. Story is nothing extra, quite standard and it felt like I had seen it already somewhere.
Now for the things I didn't like.
- Weak characters - as I said there are 20 playable characters (there were plans for even more), which is a pretty high number and because of it none of them get a proper space to shine. We basically know next to nothing about them. Their relationship with Ajna (or with each other) doesn't progress anywhere and remains only on the starting line. Later in the game you can receive quest from them which is closely connected to their troubles. You then go and fight one battle with them in the group and voila! everyone is happy.
I would have appreciated much, much more if they focused on limited number of them and brought us some serious character development. - Inner realm - your companions are traveling inside your mind and you can visit them anytime, there you can talk with them… throughout the whole game they will offer like four/five different lines, depends on how long you are with them… wow, what a number. Like that you can easily bond with them - yes, I mean it as a sarcasm.
- Platforming - aside from the fights main aspect of the game. Some of the platforming sequences are very hard and I felt very, VERY much frustrated by them. It wouldn't be a problem if those paths were optional (to collectable, secret, etc.), but the most difficult ones are on the route that is mandatory for story progression… like this it's just a torture. Also the feeling of frustration was omnipresent because I knew I would need to do them repeatedly. The unresponsive controls during jumps and huge amount of possible combos you are required to perform in a quick succession didn't helped much with it.
- Exploration - the world is out there and you can go everywhere you want if you have the needed weapon. As with every Metroidvania game you can get somewhere you shouldn't and that means revisiting that place in the near future again. That would be fine, if you didn't have to re-do the locations again and again and again and again… even though you open short-cuts or the new weapon skills provide you an easier progression it doesn't offer any relief. The layout of the map, or more like of the story, is so badly made that you often stumble upon empty space which then much longer hold some quest which means that you have to yet again navigate through the horrible platforming and there is no way in avoiding it.
- Companion's quests - not sure if there is some pattern, but they open for you when you are after half of the game (most like three quarters of the game). Most stupid choice. You are then done with exploring the maps and you have been almost everywhere. That means that you have to go through the same area yet without any change only to find that one fight, win it and go back the same way you came. Rise and repeat 20 times.
To make it worse you don't get access to all of the quests in the same moment, so even if some characters have it on the same map you can't do it at once and like that save yourself from yet another platforming sequence. - Fights - mostly fun, at the beginning rather unbalanced, later fights are not much of a challenge. Separate cases are boss fights which have three phases and contain additional challenges between each phase. Oh, and whoever thought that adding a platforming challenge without a save point in the middle of a boss fight is an unbelievable idiot! The last phase of the ultimate boss fight is focused only on your ability to perfectly block an attack, which isn't an easy thing to do once let alone repeatedly for a longer time.
- Story - feels very rushed and undeveloped with a few inconsistencies (at the beginning of the story Ajna's father looked like he was in his late twenties, sixteen years later he looked like he was almost eighty; also his whole figure is completely different). There is one moment in the story that made me most unwilling of continuing in the game. That one moment can't be prevented or altered… that one moment destroyed every positive feeling I had for the game and the remaining playing time wasn't as enjoyable as before. Even though I understand why it happened, the delivery of the situation, the overall timing and mood was completely wrong! After completing Indivisible I felt nothing. The epic closure that happened meant nothing for me, because the whole story and it's characters were shallow even though the creators tried hard to hide it behind extensive gestures and emotional phrases.
The main price for Indivisible is 39,99€ - definitely NOT worth it, also don't forget the fact that the game was released without many promised features (some of them are shown in the official promos). I got it as a gift and still feel a little bit ripped off… If you are interested in it, grab it during a huge sale.
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. :)
Win from Moony. <3
Free
My Lifetime Challenge
Daerphen’s challenge Life of Daerphen really inspired me (thank you!) and I spent whole day going through my Steam and GoG libraries to find suitable entries for my own little challenge! :D As I always struggle to find room for games from GoG this is an excellent opportunity to put them more in the spotlight. <3
I have sorted out my Steam games via the same tool as Daerphen. As for GoG games, I checked every game and made a sheet of years they were released in (color marks corresponds with BLAEO sorting). After that we (with my soulmate) picked one for each year! Some were quite limited with only one game, others on the other hand had almost too much to pick from. ;)
I will be reasonable so I don’t assume that we would complete the challenge this year. I just hope that we are gonna be a little bit quicker than in the ABC challenge from 2019. ^^
February 2023 report
Joined the Cj’s challenge on Steamgifts so we played quite a lot of new games! Also still working on my old ABC challenge so we can move on already. XD
Enough of small talks and now to the actual assassinations! Good luck in a new month and enjoy your games!
Heaven's Vault is a very specific game and definitely not for everyone. As I am a historian and archeology lover I will give it a thumbs up, because there aren't many games where you can truly feel the secrets of the past slowly uncovering before you and the history becoming clearer with every artifact you excavate. On the other hand the game suffers from many bad design choices which can be off putting for many casual players. I know I felt frustrated by a lot of them.
We assume the role of Aliya Elasra, a rather unsympathetic young woman, living her life as an archeologist even though mostly no one is really interested in her findings. Not caring about the others she learns more and more about the mysterious space region Nebula, home to all. When she is tasked with searching for a lost member of the University and important friend to her stepmother her calling as an archeologist is gonna be fulfilled. Many questions will rise up during her search and answering them can influence the whole Nebula, for the better or worse.
As I said, I haven't really gotten along well with Aliya, which is bad as you are gonna be with her all the time. I am not sure what exactly, but something in her manners was making me hate her. Also her graphic appearance didn't help much, as she looks so pissed all the time. To make it worse, most of the characters you are gonna meet in the game despise Aliya and nothing you do will change it. On the store page you can read: Meet a diverse cast of characters who remember everything you say, and who's attitude to you will change with how you act. I agree with the remembering part, but the other one is not true. No matter how I acted, their overall attitude towards Aliya hasn't changed. Sometimes there were glimpses of some change, but they quickly disappeared. Simply put, if they liked or hated Aliya right from the start, they stayed that way no matter what you did.
Most of the game you will spend accompanied by a robot sidekick named Six. They talk together a lot about the findings, history events and other things you will stumble upon. Their talks have a great dynamic and are rather enjoyable.The graphic design is peculiar. I liked the environment and especially the Nebula. People on the other hand are weird. When they move their feet are invisible, don't ask me why. Their moves are not exactly fluent, which is best seen on expression changes. They just swap between them. Also I believe that the expressions are randomly generated, because sometimes they were in complete opposite to what the character was saying and not suitable to the atmosphere - when Six announced the preparations of sails and he looked like crying or wanting to murder us are great examples. It really disturbs the immersion.
Conversations are specific and you can't start them whenever you like. There are two types - a more classical approach with a static camera and choices to pick from and some “free talk”. The other happens mostly with Six - sometimes circle(s) would flash in the lower part of the screen, if you'd managed to hit it in time a conversation would start with the difference that you could still be moving around freely. I highly advise against moving around when you talk, because you can get close to some important story spot which will start an auto sequence which will lead to your inability to continue in the previous conversation as it won't repeat again. A few times the circle flashed so quickly that I completely missed the opportunity to start the talk… I am not a fan of such a design.
There is no voice acting (except for a few lines) and the talks happen automatically, so you have to pay really good attention. You can set the speed of messages that shows up to your liking, but this design comes with additional problems. When it goes too quickly you don't have time to sort all of the information inside your head and can easily miss an information when you think about something that was said. When it goes slowly you are gonna suffer from it, which is most visible in the second run. When we consider the huge scale of the game it's not in your power to remember everything that was said in the first playthrough, so you can't say for certain what is new or different. So you are going through the same stuff and you can't safely skip through it in any way. The few new lines you are gonna learn on any subsequent runs can't justify suffering through the whole game again and again.Main and most important aspect of the game is exploring the vast Nebula. Landing on different moons, inhabited or long ago deserted, in search for artifacts and of course our dear missing scientist's whereabouts. What I truly hated was the fact that once you landed it took Six like 10 steps for him to state that there is obviously nothing here and we should leave. If you happen to agree with him on that by a mistake or a wrong assumption that he is right, you will leave and in 99% cases you are unable to return. Yes, you can't revisit the sites. That's just… stupid.
On the store page you can read that it's not your usual linear adventure game. In one thread the developers basically said that you have to go with the flow and once you do something it's done. Okay, even if we agreed with this idea, why the hell can't we return back at our will? If any historian or archeologist visited any historical site only once we wouldn't learn much about our history.On your travels through Nebula you will find many artifacts, most of them with inscription which will require your translation. Some of them are only a few words, some of them are complex sentences. I have really liked the translation and was always happy to find something new. The more artifacts you find the more words you learn, also it helps you specify an unknown location for you to explore next.
You can then give the artifacts to curators at the University, exchange them with an antique seller on Elboreth or just keep them (some can be used in a few situations). As I really wanted to learn more about the history of the Nebula, I have decided to give the artifacts away as you will get new ones in return, which will give you new sentences and new words to learn. Let me tell you that it was an unbelievable ordeal! If you are thorough on your travels you can even in one visit acquire dozens of new artifacts. On Elboreth I was able to trade 3 to 5 items at once, at the University 3. After that you have to leave and return which is extremely time consuming and in the long run very annoying.You can travel around the Nebula on your own in a ship similar to those you can see in Atlantis and like that you can uncover ruins and find artifacts. Or you can pass it to the Six, which is basically a fast travel, but that way you won't uncover any ruins. I have enjoyed exploring the Nebula, it was quite relaxing and pleasant to the eye.
Now for the not linear adventure game, the store page states: Progress through the game in any order you choose - the game's fully adaptive narrative remembers every choice you make, every discovery and every action you take, influencing what happens next. Yes, you can go whenever you want to go. At the beginning you are quite limited (two choices), but as you uncover more artifacts more places become available. In my second run I have held off from visiting an important story wise place as long as I could and sadly it showed off that the adaptive narrative wasn't working that well. In this case Aliya was making an assumption based on knowledge she couldn't have had yet as I haven't visited that specific place and acquired the needed item from which she stated the facts.
I realize that it must be a tremendous amount of work to connect all the possible dots through all the different scenarios that the player can take, but it certainly doesn't leave a good impression if the game apparently knows more than the player.You can see three different endings and let me tell you that all of them are extremely underwhelming. I wished for some after credits scene or summary of the events… nada.
Because I like exploring and uncovering secrets in games my first run in Haven's Vault took me around 32 hours. I have been on every moon possible in the Nebula. I also got pretty difficult translation lines later in the game as I had already learned many words (in the new game+ you are supposed to get more complex lines, well no change in that for me). And I have to say that the way the game is made, that you can see everything in one go, is a bad choice. Maybe I shouldn't have played it like that, but nothing was stopping me. Once you have seen it all, what is there for you to uncover? Few different lines aren't going to save it. As I said there is so much information that you can't possibly hold on to them in the next runs. I quickly became lost of what I have seen already, what I have learned through my translations and were just my assumptions, what was new… I believe that if you were allowed to explore little at the beginning and with the found artifacts you would open new routes for you to take in New game+ it would have been much better, because the lore, the history of the Nebula is interesting and deserves to be uncovered.
Even though I feel that my experience with Heaven's Vault was a little bit painful, I think it deserves my recommendation. If you find enjoyment in history, archeology, old dead languages you may find it appealing.
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.

Beaten during February, reports will follow once we complete them or do more playthroughs.
January 2023 report
During January we mostly worked on some beaten games to get them completed, but started even some new ones. To my surprise I was able to 100% Wolfenstein and it was a lot of fun! My library grew some more too. ^^
Enough of small talks and now to the actual assassinations! Good luck in a new month and enjoy your games!
Charming game about little Carto that gets separated in a storm from her granny and has to navigate through a vast world to find her way back. On her journey she will visit different lands and meet the people living there. From them she will learn about their culture, traditions and wishes. And even though Carto herself needs help, she is always ready to help others in need and with them she will experience one big adventure!
Gameplay wise it's a puzzle game where you have to rotate map pieces to create new paths for yourself, but as you can't stand on the piece you wish to rotate it can take some shuffling for you to find the right way. Sometimes you can even uncover some secrets! The puzzles are mostly straightforward, but some are pretty hard (especially the icebergs), so younger audience might require some help with it. I have really enjoyed them, it felt nice to see the world uncovering before you. The game has really cute colorful graphics and charming music. Overall experience is very relaxing and once you reach the end you will be filled with heartwarming feeling. <3 I can totally recommend it!
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.
Finally completed! As I said in my review the amount of solitaire wins is ridiculous. Now I want to play the classic one, but I am not sure if I would be able to look at it without mentally searching for the right order and counting to 31. XD
December 2022 report
Although we were quite busy during December (as per usual) with all the cooking, baking, cleaning and decorating, we got to play (and complete) quite a lot of games and it was fun! :)
My yearly summary can be found here…
Enough of small talks and now to the actual assassinations! Good luck in a new month and enjoy your games!
Before I start my adoration for Spellcaster University I should probably say that I have backed it on the Kickstarter, so I can be somehow biased in my opinion, but I am quite satisfied with the overall results. Also, it’s made by a small indie studio as you can clearly see, but they care for their game very much and put a lot of work into it! Have to say that this is one of the best Kickstarter campaigns I have backed.
As the unexpected return of the Lord of Evil (blame the calendar) threatens the peaceful world yet again you are tasked with building a magic Academy from scratch where new prosperous students can become our salvation in the upcoming fight! You have only limited time for maintaining your Academy at each location though, the evil army seeks your destruction and marches forward slowly, but steadily. When your current Academy is destroyed you get to select benefits and curses (based on your performance) for your next location. Choose wisely, especially the curses can be problematic. Also, in the campaign all of the stats are combined, which gives you a great boost in the long run.
In Spellcaster University you are the headmaster and have influence only over what rooms you are gonna build, what magic classrooms are gonna be in your school and who is gonna study in them. And of course we can’t forget about making decisions in the events. Everything else is basically out of your hands, but it’s so much fun and rather addicting!
Your goal is to create an effective Academy and for that you have to properly lay out the whole building. Students should have their classes near the bedrooms and dining rooms otherwise they take too long going between them, also you have to mind the numbers of students and their respective rooms - when their capacity is full students would leave to town to satisfy their needs and so they would spent less time on their studies which would generate you less mana which would then hinder your building progress! It's all connected. Also don’t forget about the teachers and their needs, as they will leave for the city too without a proper place to rest and eat and that means no classes for students, and again no mana for you.
There are five magic schools to choose from: nature, shadow, light, alchemy and arcana. Each magic school has three specializations which have corresponding classrooms where students learn only that exact specialization, and one classroom that teaches all of it. You are not limited on how many magic schools you can have in the Academy. If you want, you can build all five, just beware that it's pretty challenging to layout the space properly. Also, every location has different advantages (like large buildable area, slower evil progression) and disadvantages (like small buildable area, long distance to town), so you should always adapt your strategy accordingly.
Students enroll to the Academy regularly and you can also draw their cards from packages or events. They have traits that can make class selection easier for you. Some are good and some are bad, the bad usually mean that their learning progression will be slowed down and you will get a low amount of mana. Getting rid of those bad traits is always advisable (especially with teachers!). You can order your students which classes they should visit, for good results it’s best to not have more than three magic schools for each hall. Once the students end their studies you will see what their futures are - if they will be Archmages or just simple peasants or even end up dead! You can re-roll the future, but it can be for the worse, so choose carefully. Each graduation has different bonus - some are immediate like cards, some are beneficial in the long run (% raises in learning etc.).
To build something in the Academy you have to choose one card from three that you pick from a corresponding package once you have generated enough mana (the required amount raises with each draw). There is also a money package from which you can build basic rooms (dormitory, refectory, staff rooms…), but as the money generation is a bit slower it can take some time before you can start building in a big scale… and usually when you accumulate enough money for picking a card some event happens and robs you of all the money. XD You can level up most of the rooms to raise the efficiency of the room or gain neat bonuses, they also change their appearance a little. You can further decorate the rooms with different items to again gain some bonuses, be it for learning or mana gain or students behavior etc. You can put animals in some of the rooms and some of them would even run around the Academy! There is really a lot to play with!
The cards you get to draw are randomly generated so it may happen that you will wait for some specific card for some time (yeah, I have waited almost half of the game), but it doesn't hold you back necessarily. There are other means on how to develop certain class skills even if slowly. Don't forget that you don't have to play the card when you don't wish to. There is no limit to cards on your hand (although it can be rather crowded if you have a lot of them). If you don't have a use for the chosen card you can sell it back for a small amount of mana or money. I should probably mention that you can't rearrange your Academy, no moving with rooms or demolishing them. Once you set it there, it's gonna stay there. Sometimes mistakes can happen and the card can fall from your hand when you are just considering the options (yep, happened to me) - well, you have to improvise then. Actually it’s what I find likeable on the game, how it “forces” me to adapt.
Beside many random events you have to develop a connection with neighbors - peasants, King, adventurers… Good relationships are always beneficial to both sides, keep that in mind. In each location you can visit up to two dungeons, it's one of the random events so you never know when they are gonna appear. The good thing about them is that they aren't time limited and you can visit them once you are ready - once you have students with at least some of the magic skills on the highest level. As the dungeons can turn pretty hard it's not advisable to go there early, but as you get pretty good loot from them it's advisable to go there before you develop your Academy to the fullest… yeah, pretty complicated. ;)
The graphics are cute, colorful and it's a joy to zoom in on the rooms and look at the running little fellows. You can recognize your students by different cloak colors which you will select when creating their halls, you can also create their coat of arms on your own! Big plus is that during holidays (Christmas and Halloween) there are respective decorations! Music is enjoyable. I have played it from the early access and the game went really far. Back there were stability issues when it crashed on me rather often, but the last 30 hours were without any issue.
Spellcaster University is a little gem that has a lot to offer. It's a sweet, casual, funny game, where you will easily lose many hours! I can wholeheartedly recommend it! :)
Citizens of London are growing restless as disfigured woman bodies are found on the streets, police is running in the circles and the killer is still free. That's when Sherlock Holmes decides to step in and follow an uncertain trail, much to inspector Abberline aversion. With the help of his trustworthy companion Doctor Watson he roams the streets of Whitechapel in a search for the mysterious and devilish Jack the Ripper.
When we compare this game with its predecessor Sherlock Holmes: Nemesis we can notice the big change in the setting. This time it's more serious, dark and crude. We are gonna examine the crime scenes and the victims in a full closeness. There is no hiding before the horrid descriptions of the mutilated bodies. The atmosphere is truly heavy and there are not many laughing moments. But I liked it! I have enjoyed our search for the famous killer. Many things said or portrayed in the game are based on real facts, I was pleasantly surprised by it. As history tells us there are several suspects and theories about them - in the game we are gonna meet with the most probable ones and one of them is the culprit!
Graphics are fine, a bit dark and dirty, but that's thanks to the story settings. Music isn't particularly distinctive, just standard Sherlock's tunes. The voice acting still varies from good to less good. You can yet again choose the point-of-view: third-person or first-person (I have played in this one). There are few puzzles to solve and to my surprise none caused me any bigger problems! I have found them clever and pretty logical, solved them without consulting the in-game help. Deduction mini-game is a mandatory part of the game and there are few of them. I have really liked those deduction boards where you need to connect the information to build a solid ground for your accusations. There isn't much space for mistakes as you can quickly see if it's wrong, so there isn't any chance of getting stuck.
Now to the bad side of the game. The game crashed on me right on the very first investigation screen. Can happen, no big deal, last save was a few minutes ago. So for any future crashes you wish to stay safe and save often (there is no auto-save only manual), but then after an hour without saving you realize that you can't save! That's just brilliant, apparently alt-tabbing can disable it, so don't use it! Ok, so you load your one hour lost progress and continue. Everything goes without a problem and then suddenly - no saving again! Apparently it's a pretty common problem that no-one bothered to solve. Sometimes I was able to get it to work after loading up the last save, but most of the time I had to restart the whole game. I have noticed that in some locations you couldn't save, yet in others you could, but in the end I was afraid of using the save, because I feared that if I used it too much it would stop working. As I was immersed in the story I then forgot to control my saves, so it happened that the game crushed on me RIGHT BEFORE the final intro!!! As I was tired of replaying many parts of the game already, I have decided to check it out on youtube. Let me tell you that if the game ended where it has crushed for me it would be a better ending than what is shown there! If I imagine that I would have played two hours again to see such a monstrosity… no, better no wild imaginations.
If we look aside from the saving and crushing problems it's a pretty good game with a great atmosphere. The ending is a little bit off, but overall I have really enjoyed it. I can recommend it to all lovers of good detective stories.
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.
One of my favorite games is completed thanks to my soulmate! <3 It was like a Christmas miracle, quite a surprise! ^_^
Our playtime for Bastion is a lot bigger actually as we have played through it many times before even getting it on Steam, I would say around 120 hours in total, but it never tires me out. It was fun watching my soulmate playing this again… now I want to play it too! ;)
Christmas gift. ^^
Summary of 2022
My December post will be up in a few days as I have completed three games yesterday, but my overall stats are ready!
36 games were completed and 11 games were beaten. It’s less (again) than in the previous years, because in some months I haven’t played much, but it’s still a nice progress. I have managed to complete some of the longer games. Also can’t forget that I have made an another whole run of Batman: Arkham Asylum or Prey, but that doesn’t show up in my statistics. Lot of time was invested in Onmyoji too. ^^
Steam replay stats are very nice and here you can see what I have played over the year.
I have also made small Archives on my profile, through it any of my report can be easily accessed. December is a work in the progress in the last year. ^^
January | Shadow Tactics: Aiko's Choice ~ Greyfox ~ 16bit Trader ~ Shadwen ~ The Blackwell Legacy ~ NAIRI: Tower of Shirin ~ Kentucky Route Zero |
February | |
March | Spirit of the North ~ The Last Campfire |
April | Middle-earth™: Shadow of Mordor™ ~ Enigmatis 3: The Shadow of Karkhala ~ Eventide 3: Legacy of Legends ~ Nancy Drew: Secret of the Old Clock ~ Nancy Drew: Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon |
May | Tiny Tales: Heart of the Forest ~ The Last Dogma |
June | Mad Max |
July | AER Memories of Old ~ Silence ~ Jotun: Valhalla Edition ~ Little Nightmares ~ Batman: Arkham Asylum GOTY Edition |
August | Wuppo - Definitive Edition ~ Sherlock Holmes: The Secret of the Silver Earring ~ State of Mind |
September | LEGO® The Lord of the Rings™ ~ Tales of the Orient: The Rising Sun ~ The Secret Order 8: Return to the Buried Kingdom ~ Left in the Dark: No One on Board ~ Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened (2008) ~ Möbius Front '83 |
October | Sherlock Holmes: Nemesis ~ Sherlock Holmes: The Mystery of The Persian Carpet |
November |
I was able to keep the amount of new games under 100, which is my best score in the past 5 years. >_> Although there are hundreds games that I want! Gah, but they can wait until I play my backlog a little… yeah. ^^
My only resolution for the new year is to have fun with whatever game I will choose to play. :3
Happy New Year!
Steam library
Joining stats - December 2018
December 2019
December 2020
December 2021
Current progress
Steamgifts wins
Joining stats - December 2018
December 2019
December 2020
December 2021
Current progress
GoG
I don’t usually buy much games on GoG, but I grabbed both Shadow Tactics games, so I can replay them again! ^^ Also few of the freebies.
April 2021 - the list was made
December 2021
December 2022
1249 | games |
66% | never played |
5% | unfinished |
5% | beaten |
24% | completed |
0% | won't play |
- Won on SteamGifts 170
- Have on GOG 68
- Lifetime Challenge 36
- ABC_2019 29
- Unknown 89
- Short 532
- Medium 286
- Long 153
- Very long 168
- PAGYWOSG 2023 17
- Monthly Themes 2023 16
- Multiplayer achievements 18
- 2023 66
- 2022 92
- 2021 154
- 2020 144
- 2019 154
- 2018 191
- 2017 118
- 2016 89
- 2015 51
- 2014 96
- 2013 89
- 2012 1
- 2011 1