Rather nice Matching 3 game with an ancient Japan setting. Story is simple, you have to help geisha and samurai with rebuilding a destroyed village and protecting its citizens. Visual are nicely colorful and music sets the right relaxing atmosphere.
There are 100 levels in total, nicely varied and with different shapes. You can play in three different styles - classic swap, chain and pop. To win the level you have to collect the acquired number of items, when playing in challenge mode you have to make it in a set number of steps. To make it harder there are a lot of obstacles to break through like boxes, stones, chains or ice. Luckily you have at your disposal four kinds of power ups that can help you with a stalemate. You can also shuffle the board and even rotate it, which proved to be pretty helpful.

My only complaint goes to the "Complete 200 levels!" achievement, as it's tedious to obtain. You have to play through the whole game again… the only change is that you can select a different playing style. I have come back for the achievement after 5 years, so it wasn't that bad, but doing it right after the first playthrough must be tiring. Otherwise it's a pretty and very relaxing game.

Finally a closure to the Secret Order series or I at least hope so. XD

Standard hidden object game with nice visuals and story full of loopholes. Puzzles were nice and of good difficulty, just the hidden object scenes were lacking as they were mostly consisting of collecting items by shapes and not standard searching by names, which I missed to be honest.
Good for killing some time.

Rather short hidden object game with a darker visuals and almost horror story - ship that disappeared many years ago returns mysteriously back to the port, but without any signs of the crew or the cargo. During our investigation we are gonna uncover dark secrets and an old curse!

Story was okay, sometimes I felt a little lost in it though… pretty common with HOGs, I know. Some of the scenes rather surprised me as it's not common for HOGs to be so brutal. Puzzles and hidden object scenes were okay with a good difficulty. There were parts that required some backtracking though. Good for casual gaming.

Simple looking disappearance of a foreign manservant leads Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson deep into darkness where old mysteries far beyond human imagination are lurking. Search for answers will lead our brave duo through London's docks, Switzerland Asylum, swamps in the New world and an old abandoned lighthouse. Would Sherlock's bright mind be powerful enough to overcome the growing insanity?

Sherlock meets with Cthulhu created by H.P. Lovecraft and it's a rather good experience, although some problems are still present. Visuals are old, but otherwise okay. Most of the graphic bugs of its predecessor are corrected or at least not so disturbing. Music is fine, but sometimes a dramatic music was playing in otherwise calm situations. Overall atmosphere is unsettling and creepy, which works well. Voice acting is again quite varied from pretty good to pretty bad.
This time we have two different points-of-view to choose from - first person and 3rd person. I have mostly played in the first person view as I found it more convenient, but the 3rd person view was good when searching for some missing interactions. Big help was the ability to highlight such interaction as some of the items are barely visible and without it we would be left with just the popular pixel hunting. We will spent most of the time in the shoes of our dear Sherlock, but Watson will also shine in some story parts.

Same as with the previous game (The Secret of the Silver Earring) we have at our disposal Sherlock's diary full of important information - dialogs, books, letters, observations… one big flaw though is that we can't consult it when it is most needed. Sometimes Sherlock asks Watson a question about the story (like where to proceed etc.) and we are required to actually write down the answer. Although I really liked this aspect it can turn to be a little frustrating… I am not a native English speaker and even with the subtitles it was sometimes hard to catch all of the information as Sherlock talks rather quickly, so you are left just with your memory, intuition, guessing or walkthrough. Not the best design.
Another important accessories of our great detective are tweezers, magnifying glass and meter. With them we can take a closer look at some of the evidence. This really suits the game.

It wouldn't be a detective adventure game without proper logical puzzles. Sadly their difficulty varies from easy / normal towards ridiculously hard. I have to admit, yet again, that I am not as clever as our greatest detective of them all and need some kind of help. Usually it would be in the form of a book or some hint (I love Nancy Drew)… no, we have a book that tells us that to keep away hungry mosquitos we have to use a lemon… really? REALLY? For that we get advice and for a horribly long sequence of numbers all we get is Sherlock's statement that it's easy to solve… no it isn't when I don't have the slightest clue on how to even begin!!! Argh.
Also I have found myself quite lost and uncertain of what to do next more often than I would like. We are yet again closed in the location until we find all things needed there, but sometimes I wasn't sure what else exactly he wanted. Another problem for me was that Sherlock often stated that something is uninteresting, so I ignored it, just for him to later need it without any obvious connection.

I can recommend Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened to lovers of adventure games with mysterious almost horror stories. Just be prepared for some unbalanced difficulty and few bad game design choices.

United States of America is making a standard military drill when it turns out into unexpected defensive mission. The year is 1983 and the enemy is appearing right next to them. The Soviet army is the first that comes to their mind, but it’s soon revealed that the truth is more difficult as the attackers are "Americans", just from a different universe! Their push is desperate and pretty aggressive. To stand a chance the Americans have to pass the barrier and enter enemy's reality, but they are gonna find there another enemy even more dangerous than the alternate army.

I really liked the graphic design and interface, it's rather simple, but it suits the overall atmosphere of the game. Although it's true that the individual maps could be a little more varied. I enjoyed the visuals of the units, be it on the map or in the closer look in the interface, but sometimes they could be hard to distinguish among themselves and especially at the beginning I choose the wrong unit because of it (always pay a proper attention to description).
Between missions are cutscenes that uncover little about the story, but mostly shows the mood of the soldiers. The voice acting is top notch! Overall the cutscenes do a great job in setting the right mood. The story is somewhat uncertain though.

Gameplay wise it's a tactical turn-based strategy game where you have to meet certain winning conditions - capture all points in order, capture all points (indifferently of order) or escort mission. The difficulty is slowly rising, but sometimes there are hardcore spikes which end up with multiple mission restarts; on the other hand there also rather easy levels even in the last chapter.
Every level begins with a selection of your units. You have limited points for them so you have to choose wisely, most of the time you can after a certain number of turns call for reinforcements and that can be what saves you in the end… or not. Each unit has a different movement speed and some of them even require a setting up before taking an action. Also most of the units can't move and fire in the same turn. This is crucial as you can get destroyed even before properly positioning yourself against the enemy.
When I started I was worried for my soldiers and even restarted the level if I lost someone. I have quickly realized that this isn't going to work in the long run as the enemy has a larger force against me and also quite an unfair advantage… The enemy always plays as second so it is you who has to move into the unknown. You can't scout ahead safely, because once you move you can't turn back and most of the time you end up right before an enemy unit which is gonna destroy you in the next turn. As you are mostly required to capture points in a certain order, you can't leave them unprotected as the enemy will push on you pretty hard… once you leave some route open be sure to get invaded by it. So the offensive approach is a no go then. Okay, you learn from this and prepare a trap for him. You position yourself carefully and create a protected perimeter and he just stands right on the border to never cross it, because he knows that you are gonna destroy him. He will cross it only under one condition - he is certain that he will overpower you and destroy you instead. And in most cases the luck works in his favor. Oh and don't forget his mortar that is set up on the other end of the map and can hit you anywhere where his troops are… and even though you know from where he is shooting exactly as it shows up on the map, you can't attack him with your mortar because he is hidden by a fog of war!!! So he is slowly killing you and you can't do anything against it… except for a suicidal mission.
This is all so stupid, because you can't create any proper tactic, he is always one step ahead. You are then left with sacrificing your units in a hope of luring him to your trap and gaining some breaking point by it. I also forgot to say that soldiers and vehicles can only attack just some of the units - like simple infantry can attack other infantry and not armored vehicles; infantry carrying anti-tanks missiles can attack even armored vehicles, but they have limited shots and so on and on. Now imagine yourself creating a trap against tanks when an enemy helicopter comes in and starts to kill your units one by one, because you have nothing to fend it off… Another thing that pretty much didn't make any sense for me was the inability of the infantry to move and shoot in the same turn, because like this they turn into sitting ducks (to add salt into my wounds - enemy has an infantry unit that can move and attack). Even more absurd is that they can't perform any action after leaving from a transport vehicle… really?

In addition to a strategy game there are two other mini games - cribbage solitaire and signals intelligence puzzle. This was my first time playing cribbage solitaire so it took me a little while to get accustomed to it, but it's quite enjoyable. Although the 100 wins achievement is simply ridiculous. In the intelligence puzzle you have to hack the radio console by connecting circuit. Some of them were pretty hard, but I have really liked it!

Even though I'm grumbling about Möbius I have enjoyed the whole game. It was challenging, hard, mind breaking, but also pretty satisfying upon the victory. Some of the elements could be more balanced and developed, but it wasn't a disappointment. If you are not afraid of being pushed over your limits then feel free to cross over the Möbius front.

Fat, lazy Wum is kicked out from his room in Wumhouse because of his unhealthy love for ice cream. He keeps ordering it to his room, but as the transport tubes get clogged because of it, he needs to pick it up himself down in the lobby. As Wums hold items on their heads he leaves a huge mess behind him! That's enough for the Wumhouse manager and our little hero is thrown out from his balcony! Out in the wilderness begins his search for a new home. And maybe he will even solve a few mysteries from the past and save the world before an unexpected destruction.

Wuppo is a charming game full of funny characters and silly moments. Both hand-drawn graphics and catchy soundtrack suit the game well. Wearing items on your head is a great feature and I have enjoyed changing my appearance through the game. The items are also nicely varied (purely cosmetic, weapons, food, for stealth…) and it was fun to try them out. Lore of the world is interesting and you can uncover it even more by collecting filmstrips which record the most important historic events, basic information about the world or some mysterious writings from the long forgotten past.
Gameplay wise it's a metroidvania. There are no basic enemies, except for some pests in one location, but a lot of bosses! Some of them are mandatory for a story progression, others are optional. Few of them are rather hard even on lower difficulty, but luckily there is no penalisation for dying, you just start the fight again. Playing on hardest was quite a challenge, but still fun.
Whole game can be experienced in co-op as the second player can assume the role of our sidekick, a talkative bird Denksnavel. Sadly his possibilities are quite limited - he can fly around and attack (some of the enemies can't be hurt by him, but he can at least protect our Wum by blocking some of the projectiles - that was pretty handy actually). And that’s all for the second player. Also he is bound to us as there is no split screen - he can't leave the screen on his own. This part is lacking, would be even a lot more fun if there could be two Wums together. Quite disappointing is the fact that your friend can't help you in Boss rush… yeah, I suck in it on my own. XP
All in all we have rather enjoyed the Wuppo and can recommend it.

Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson are both invited to big reception organized by Melvyn Bromsby, a rich fellow, who is about to make an important statement concerning his daughter. But just at the moment he is about to announce it he dies of a gunshot right before everyone's eyes. Finding the culprit among the big audience will be a challenge and the case is gonna get more complicated on the way, but there is nothing that Sherlock wouldn't solve!

Sherlock Holmes: The Secret of the Silver Earring isn't a bad game per se, but it suffers from a horrible game design. The overall graphics look fine, especially the rooms are very detailed, but there are a lot of graphical bugs that break the immersion and bring a lot of unintended laughing moments. The most common problems are characters falling through furniture, levitating or growing so big they can't get into a door (check my screenshots)… I understand the problem with the perspective of a moving character, but I don't understand why they didn't correct the positions of the static characters… Well, maybe it's because the game was made on a certain screen resolution? Those are mostly cosmetic problems, but there is one stealth part where you have to stay out of the sight of a guard with two dogs which is almost impossible to do without a walkthrough and even with it it took me a few tries as it requires a precise and quick action. I blame the bad perspective as one of the dogs is completely out of the screen therefore out of your sight and there is no way to tell where he is until it's late… This was a rather frustrating part.
The soundtrack is classical with few looping melodies, it was louder than the voices in some scenes. Also dramatic music was sometimes played in completely normal situations. Voice acting is okay for Sherlock, mediocre and even bad for others.

Gameplay wise it's a point and click adventure game where we go through different locations in a search for evidence and clues to our case. Sometimes it turns into horrible pixel hunting as the items are hidden very well and you can’t highlight them. Also we can’t leave the location until all is done there, which is good on one hand as we know that we miss something, on the other hand we can spend time by going in circles in frustration as we miss that last little pixel to move on. Some of the found items we can later analyze with the help of Sherlock's chemical table and the results will shed more light on our suspects.
As we are the greatest detective of them all we are equipped with a great journal which holds every information we meet with be it dialogs, notes, evidence or Sherlock's own conclusions. At the end of each chapter a little quiz is prepared for us and we have to assign the right answers to every question. Sherlock will state if there is a mistake, but will not tell which one it is so it can turn into a little trial and error method. Some of the questions are rather vague and even though I wasn't able to connect all of the murders at the end, I have enjoyed connecting all the dots.
Being in the shoes of an ingenious detective can be pretty challenging in some moments. Especially if we don't receive any outside help… We are required to open a safe, Sherlock just states that it should be easy and that's all. All we see are just some lines of numbers and that's it. No book on safe cracking to read for us or some starting hint as from where to begin… this was frustrating for me. I tried to solve it on my own, but I am not as clever as our Sherlock star so I had to check the walkthrough. There I have learnt that I was completely off with my assumptions… I really like Nancy Drew games as there we always have something that will tell us how we should proceed with the puzzle. That way I can learn something new and be happy that I managed to solve it on my own.
Another part I really hated was a time-limited sequence in woods, where we have to extinguish a fire which threatens to destroy important evidence (Sherlock is pretty adamant about it). After a horrid navigation through the maze of trees, we quench the fire to only learn that all of it is destroyed… amazing, if you fail it’s a bad end mind you. Garh.

If you decide to go for it, be prepared for some unbalanced difficulty, buggy graphics and nonsensical development.

Richard Nolan awakens in a hospital bed after a car accident… or was he actually in a building that got sabotaged by a bomb explosion? Quick check up doesn't reveal any serious injuries except for a slight memory loss and confusion so he is released to home. There he searches for his wife and son. At first he believes they are at his wife's parents place, but as they don't come back the next day, he begins to truly worry. Where are they? What happened to them? Are they safe? His search for his family will lead him through a rabbit hole where he's gonna face unpleasant memories and facts about his life so far. To make things worse he finds himself in the middle of struggle for power over the future world between the global tech corporation and the regime's opponents / terrorists.

I don't want to spoil the story much, but the fitting description would be a futuristic slice of life - the topics are serious as the whole atmosphere, dystopia and utopia clashes against each other in an extreme depiction of both opposites. First playthrough of State of Mind was really intriguing and I wanted to know more as the story twisted with its progression and there were a lot of questions laid down before us. The tension of what is exactly going to happen was built well, even though you can guess some of the story development soon. The final climax though was rather weak and without a proper closure. Also neither of the two endings is a happy end, which was pretty sad as you are left without some kind of optimism. I don't know, but I expected something more from it.

I liked the graphic design of the game as it really suited it, and the soundtrack was also fitting. Except for our main hero, Richard, you are gonna play as four other characters and see the present, past or future world from their perspective. It works well for creating your own opinion of the world, sadly you can't influence / change it much. All you can do is select how you are gonna react in conversations which will influence what achievements you are gonna open, but the end will remain the same (except for the two three choices on which depends what kind of ending you get). This influencing impossibility is best seen on our main protagonist Richard. I have once said that the main character of Someday You'll Return is the most unappealing hero I have ever seen. Well, Richard actually wins the prize. The worst part about him is that he doesn't undergo any real development even if you willingly try for it. Nothing moves with him and it was hard to connect with him because of it. Playing as Richard wasn't very enjoyable...

State of Mind has interesting design and is dealing with difficult moral questions concerning the future of humankind. Although it can lose its breath in some moments, the story is interesting till the end. I recommend it to fans of sci-fi, dystopian / utopian stories with a touch of existentialism.

In Jotun we assume the role of Thora, a Viking warrior, who lost her life when her ship got sunken during a stormy night. As this was an inglorious death unworthy of a warrior, she is given a second chance to prove herself to the Gods and earn her place in Valhalla. From Ginnungagap, the Void, she has to venture into five different worlds and collect their respective Runes. Each Rune is protected by a mighty Jotun though and fights with them will put her fighting skills to some serious test. If she wishes to stand before Odin himself she has to endure and fight bravely to the end!

Even though Jotun is basically a game about fighting with Bosses filled with short intermezzos of exploration and story, it can be quite enjoyable. Each world offers a different setting (snow, grassland, magma etc.) with specific challenges to overcome on our search for the runes. The route isn't always straightforward and we are required to perform certain actions to open it. As we explore the surroundings we can stumble upon God shrines - bestow godly powers on Thora, trees bearing Ithunn's Apples - permanently boost Thora's life, Mimir's Wells - refreshes health and skills, or uncover secrets from Norse mythology.

All of this is wrapped in beautiful hand-drawn graphics and accompanied by a fitting soundtrack. Icelandic voices create an awesome atmosphere and listening to them was absolutely amazing. Jotun also does a great job in portraying Thora's smallness and overall insignificance as everything around her is so big (especially bosses), that she is sometimes even barely visible. ^^
Biggest flaw of the game is sadly in the fights. Thora moves around rather slowly, which is intensified even more by her smallness. There is no run option (only with a God skill and only for a moment), the illusion of a quicker movement offers a dodge roll. Sadly it's not very useful even during fighting. After the roll Thora doesn't continue in her movement (even if you hold the button), instead she stops for a tiny moment, which is enough to get hit. Also, when she rolls, she just pushes the enemies before her instead of smashing them around. So when she is getting up then the enemy is free to attack her. Not very helpful. Thora has only one weapon, her trustworthy axe, with two kinds of attacks - basic and powerful. Both of them feel slow and the powerful will even hold Thora on the spot until she releases it. Sooner or later one will get used to it… my biggest issue was with godly powers. There are six of them and they have limited charges, which is fine. What isn't fine, is that they are all set on (basically) one key! You scroll through them with Q and E, from the front or from the behind. In the heat of battle it can get pretty confusing and I have selected the wrong skill like that many times. When I was trying for the timed or no hit achievements it felt almost like a typing game as I have prepared a clear sequence to navigate through the skills.

Playing through the game doesn't take long (it depends heavily on your skills), so luckily those small problems don't overgrow into a bigger frustration. It was rather fun. Some of the achievements are pretty crazy, so kudos to all who manage to get them.

Little Nightmares is what would Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi by Hayao Miyazaki look like if Tim Burton decided to film it.
That's how I feel about it. I didn't know much about Little Nightmares when I started and after finishing it I still don't know much.

The visual design is truly creepy and unsettling. Similarly soundtrack helps to create the right atmosphere, which is really well done in the game. You spent your time crawling around or running away from your chasers and that can get pretty intense. Controls were okay, in some moments a little clunky, but worse was the camera angle in some jumping parts - I just couldn't see if I was in the line or not, so I usually died. This can be a problem when doing the no death run.
The game uses an autosave and only in certain locations, so it's better to leave the game after you are certain it was saved (I have sometimes mistaken flashing icon for save when it was just for a found collectible). When you die in a chase or you are caught when sneaking you are usually respawned right before that part, but when you leave and come back you can find yourself at the start of the area. The game isn't long and the chases are mostly doable on the first try, even though some parts require pretty tight timing for succeeding. Luckily re-doing my failures didn't turn into a chore and I have quite enjoyed it.

Story is… well there is something. Not really clear though. I still miss the DLC's, so I don't know if there is something more said about it, but I highly doubt it. I have read through official materials, different player's thoughts and many hypotheses, but nothing from it creates the right image (for me).

Short and rather cute HOG played from a perspective of tiny humans living in a small kingdom hidden deep in the forest. Whole country is being endangered by a spreading drought and ruthless king's tax collectors… but not everything is as it seems. Old grudges from the past are resurfacing and threatening the lives of the kingdom's peaceful citizens. And here we come to save the day!

Really nice HOG with good puzzles and hidden object scenes. There were few moments where I wasn't sure what to do next, but nothing too frustrating. One of the few HOGs where we get to play as man instead of woman.

This was a weird experience. As it would be complicated to describe the story I will just leave a developer summarization here if someone would be interested in it. Or try looking at other reviews on Steam, few are very thorough.

If the author took it a little bit more seriously and created a more consistent world it could be a pretty interesting game. There are some good ideas and apt comments, but most of the time I don't have a clue about what's going on. I like searching for secrets in games and breaking their 4th walls, but I am not fond of constant "insults" pointed at players… the first time it could be laughable, but not again and again.
There are also bugs, almost non-existent menu or settings. You can't save, so if you fail you have to redo the whole chapter - luckily, they are not long and if you don't enjoy exploring the surroundings you can rush quickly through them.

I don't want to totally disgrace it, because it has/had some potential, but for me it's not polished enough.

Final chapter in our hunt for a dangerous cultist who wants to summon ancient demon to our world. This time we are following him to a snowy peaks of Himalaya.

An okay HOG with nice colorful graphics and good puzzles (although one or two were re-used a lot for my taste). As a detective we still have to collect clues for our little deduction mini game, which is nice, just don't expect any deep insights from it. Story is pretty much standard for an Artifex Mundi HOG. Good for casual gaming.

Really short hidden object game where we have to save the world from an evil ruler of the clouds. And as our family blood is filled with magic even our strictly scientific brother will uncover hidden powers! I have enjoyed the first two games in the series, but not so much this one, the story just felt pretty much stupid.

The visuals are yet again nice and colorful. Puzzles and hidden object scenes are very easy and don't offer any challenge. But for killing some time it’s fine, I suppose.

Emily Crandall, owner of the Lilac Inn, needs help from our amateur detective Nancy Drew as inexplicable phenomena are surrounding Emily and she seems to be slowly losing her mind. To help her keep her sanity and the ownership of the inn Nancy has to solve riddles left behind by a wealthy patron who supposedly bequeathed some money for Emily's family in his last will…

We have standard Nancy game here with really clever puzzles requiring a lot of thinking and funny mini games, some of them also challenging (I enjoy making notes on puzzles and Nancy never disappoint me in this). This time we can aslo ride in a car around the city. We have to drive carefully or risk a damage to the car, which then needs costly repairs. Don't forget about fueling the tank regularly. For all of this we need money which can be earned by running errands in the city. They can be done indefinitely, which serves as protection from getting broke. The showdown with the villain happens in the car which was fun! Can recommend. :)

Lori Girard, wealthy and spoiled daughter of a prominent figure, invites bright minds in mystery solving (among them the Hardy boys and Nancy) to a haunted train. We will take the same route as the late owner of the train to hopefully end up in his secret golden mine. But the existence of the mine is believed to be a myth and its location remains to be unknown, but Lori hopes that some of the clever minds could find the map leading to it on the train. Not a difficult task for our Nancy!

Yet again standard Nancy Drew game with many logical puzzles and varied mini games. We have few train wagons to explore and later we will visit old train station and maybe even a gold mine. ;P Working with Hardy boys in person was fun, we usually just call them over the phone. I have felt a little bit lost on the train though as sometimes I knew what I should do, but I didn't have the things required for it - they are hidden pretty well.

In this game we assume the role of a young lady bored to death by her daily routine. To change it she quits her job and moves to a quieter city called Greyfox. It's actually a retirement place for all of the bitter, crazy and hateful old people you can find. First exploration gets her in touch with some of them and shows us their great hospitality. Not discouraged by it at all she rents a room in the hotel and visits a local pub where she meets a mysterious women who ask her what if she could live their lives?
This sets things into motion as we are going to influence the last day in the lives of four miserable old citizens of Greyfox. They all have their own storylines filled with serious problems that haunts many families over the world. We are presented with moral choices which will shape our own life for the better or worse.

So, not really sure what to say about it. It's rather short, you can rush through it in under two hours for sure. I like to explore and click on everything I see, so I took my time. There are many things you can play with, which I liked, because I usually miss it in other RPG maker games. Your "playground" is only the city with a few houses and local buildings - pub, hospital, grocery shop, funeral home, retirement house and hotel. Not all of these places are accessible right away, some will open only in certain stories. Graphics is average, mostly standard RPG maker assets. The story is linear without any deeper development, you can only slightly change the ending outcome. Also we know nothing about our heroine, can’t connect to her properly then (thought it was a guy to be honest).

The idea is interesting, but it needs to get developed some more. I don't know what the message of the game was - that lives are not black and white, that people should talk to each other more, that we should value what we have and enjoy our lives? With some additional work it could be a rather good game, right now it's just like some demo or a teaser for a bigger game.

So this game is basically a younger sibling of Merchants of Kaidan and, even though it was released a year later, there are a lot of its features missing in 16bit Trader, which is strange and sad. I have played Merchants of Kaidan in 2019 and have rather enjoyed it, here is my final report.
The story is pretty much similar to Merchants, your father gets scammed by his trading partner and ends up dead. As you are stripped of money and status you have to slowly rise in ranks to be finally able to exact a revenge on him.

I will first mention the positive things. The visuals are nicely colorful, they are also simplified in comparison to Merchants (which is not a bad thing per se). The music is also very charming. And that's probably it, all other things about the game are bad or very bad.

16bit Trader is a trading game (surprise). You have to ride through the cities and sell low bought stuff for the highest price. But it's almost impossible. You will barely make any profit as the prices are rising with your travels… example: city A - you buy food for 10 coins, you will be able to sell the food for profit in city K, all the other cities in between had the price of the food constantly rising. It works even the other way around, when the prices are dropping they are dropping in line, so for you to make profit of a higher valued stuff you have to travel far far away. Here comes another problem though - you have to pay for your travels. You can't just ride around the map to wait for a good price as you would just go bankrupt. Solution is to not concentrate on trading as your main income in 16bit Trader. This wasn't a problem in Merchants really, each city or village had a different price set and although the prices were developing over the time, you had no problems sustaining your income with trading. Also you could see the price history 7 days back.

Your main income in 16bit Trader is going to be diamonds which you are going to find in old mines. For you to be able to find more than one diamond you need a map. And a lot of mercenaries. You can find both in larger cities. In the tavern you have to find the right guy and buy him a drink, he will then sell you the map (I have noticed that usually only the guy in white had the map for sale, so if he wasn't there upon my arrival I would have just reloaded my save). Mercenaries influence your diamond income, other than that they are good for nothing in comparison to Merchants. So, if you have a map and a lot of mercenaries you can find a true fortune in the mines. It's also random based so you can try your luck with reloading. There is no limit to the number of mercenaries you can have. Only limit is your money, as you pay much more for travels when you have a bigger squad. As the mercenaries are useless and only good for mine searching, it's advisable to hire them in the city before the mine, travel with them there and then kick them out. Important note, you can buy and kick out 5 of them at once, so it's a lot of clicking. Really, a lot of. Also, when I realized that I need only diamonds I thought about going to mine, back to the city and then back to the mine. But even though you spent days on your travels the mine wasn't restored and upon my return nothing was found. You have to be constantly moving and visit different mines regularly.

In Merchants you could enter the mines and let your mercenaries fight with the monsters hiding there, if you were successful, you reestablished the mine and had a stable income. Another possibility was turning an old ruin into a winery, again for a stable profit. Oh and mercenaries were not useless, they were also protecting you on your travels against thieves or angry animals. In 16bit Trader you don't have any protection, even if you have thousands of them, you will still get robbed. The thieves are pretty greedy and when you make some nice profit they will jump on you on your next move, only protection is to load up your previous save until your road is clear.

Another possibility to make some income are side quests, which you can obtain from characters in larger cities. They consist mostly of “go there”, “grab something” and “come back”. Your reward isn't that high though so you can't win the game by doing only the quests. Also, on your travels a lot of things can happen and you can be delayed on your route. The good thing is that the merchandise is not deteriorating so you can go around with the same food you bought on your first day. There are only bad things that can happen to you in 16bit Trader. On the other hand in Merchants there were a lot of good things too, like you could compete or bargain for high valued merchandise and this way you could make a fortune. There was also a luck system which influenced what kind of situations will most likely happen to you.

As you can see you have to save a lot, because the luck based chance is working mostly against you here. There are only four save slots (have seen some discussion that only two of them are working, but I have used all four without any problems). You can save whenever you want, but beware that the game automatically saves your progress on your city (or village, mine, ruins) arrival. The game saves it on your last selected save slot. So, if you don't relocate your save slot, you can't load it up after being robbed, because it will be saved after it. What you have to do is to always save two times in the city you are leaving. One will be your safe spot which you will load up when things turn out badly. The other one will be rewritten upon your arrival to the next city. And like this you have to do it the whole game if you want to win. You could work it out with just two spots, but I found it safer with four, because like this you can try for bigger income from mines. ;)
There are achievements, all of them working. Some are tricky, also beware that if you raise enough money to win the game in one attempt, you will skip all related achievements for rising in ranks. You will then need to reload your progress and make smaller profits (you can't divide your diamonds, so if you have thousands of them you will sell them all. Wait for their lowest price and pray you don't overcome the 1 million mark, that's what I did anyway) or start again.

All in all, 16bit Trader is missing so much content of it's older sibling that one has to wonder why it exists exactly. There are no season changes, no helpers or advisors that can raise your stats, no artifacts or other items you can sell for profit. Story is rushed without any proper progress. There is no point in trading as you can't make any money from it and you can exploit the mines for diamonds…
Merchants of Kaidan is definitely a better choice, because even if it's not perfect, it's not punishing you on your every step and it was rather enjoyable.

Have to say that I was rather disappointed by Shadwen, although the game isn't per se bad. My expectation is to be blamed for it, because I thought it will be something more like my favorite Thief… only similarity is that your main objective is to remain unseen.

Most distinctive part of the game is the time control, when you are able to rewind all your actions. More precisely you are required to use this feature, because you will get in tight spots sooner than later and the only way out of them is gonna be the rewind. Also the time is frozen when you stop moving, if you are waiting for the guard to go away you have to hold a button to make the time run or you need to move. Like this you can freeze even in the air. Ledges too far away from each other for you to jump on them? No worries, just jump, freeze the time and then pull yourself forward with your rope. Need some adjusting to this system as the constant motionless can be somehow frustrating.

Game begins with a little girl Lily making her way through a city full of guards towards an old cemetery where she finally finds something to eat. As she stuffs a few apples inside her pockets she gets accused of thievery by a grumpy guard. Before something terrible can happen to Lily, a mysterious woman rescues her. She has a mission, a vendetta against the king, which now gets more complicated as little Lily decides to accompany her.

So, the game is divided into 15 stages and your main goal is to get to the end of each stage with both of the girls without raising any alarms. You can control only Shadwen, Lily will act on her own. You can select Lily's behavior in the main menu - she will stay on the spot until you command her to move or she will follow you all the time (could be problematic if you aim for everyone dead without letting Lily know). This doesn't have any particular disadvantages, because only Shadwen's presence can make guards suspicious. If some guard gets in Lily's way, she just turns around and runs back to the nearest safe spot, so you don't have to be overprotective of her.
As Shadwen you can sneak around on the ground, hiding behind barrels or staying basically invisible in haystacks or bushes even if the guard is almost standing on your toes. Most sneaking games make hiding rather ridiculous, but this is just too much, see my screenshot. But the best approach is from above, like this you can easily observe moving patterns of the guards and wreak an havoc among them.
You are gonna meet only two types of enemy - a simple unit with the same look all the time and an armored one. Shadwen has two possible ways of dealing with them - kill or let live. Guards can be killed directly only from behind or above. You can also push some boxes on their heads or lure them near an explosive barrel. The other way is more complicated as you can't just stun them, you have to lure them away by making a noise or moving some boxes in their field of view. After their suspicion calms down they return to their previous spot, that means that you can move with Lily only by short sections as she wouldn't be able to run for so long uninterrupted.
Shadwen has only a dagger for her protection and rope with a grapple with which she can attach to any wooden surfaces, like that she can get above guards or use items for distraction. You are able to build deadly traps or decoys from items you find in chests hidden around in each stage, if you want to spice things up. Truth is that I haven't used it, not even once. If you are making a peaceful run most of the things will be useless, when on a killing spree I found it quicker to just jump or drop something on them. There are also no achievements for trap kills that would inspire you to play with them a little… and as you have to make two full playthroughs, which are completely the same… I just wanted it to be quickly over.

As for the story… there is some. There are short spoken intermezzos between each stage, also the guards talk among themselves about the events that were leading towards this night, but it's not enough. Later in the game they also repeat quite a lot. I thought that there would be hidden messages or some lore that we would uncover, sadly not. We won't properly learn Shadwen's background story too, it's all said only in hints. For me it wasn’t really satisfying.

All in all, the game isn't really bad and I liked the scenery, there is just a lot of wasted potential. You basically have 15 logic puzzles of getting an object from point A to point B with the same mechanic all the time. There is no real cooperation between Shadwen and Lily besides the necessity of being together at level checkpoints, where you need to open the door together (only twice will Lily actually help you to progress as she can squeeze through small spaces), this could have been developed so much better. Enemies don’t offer any proper challenge and they move horribly slowly. There are no extra challenges or time limits, no hidden secrets or collectibles, the story is rather shallow. If you aim for 100% achievements you have to play it one more time without any difference except for the fate of the guards. Same stages, same tactic… sadly it can quickly turn into a chore instead of fun.

As Roseangela Blackwell scatters the ashes of her recently deceased aunt Lauren and says her last goodbye, her life loses one of the few certainties she has. She returns to her home, unrecognized by most of her neighbors, where just the broken television and plastic plant are waiting for her. Her mourning has a short duration as she gets commissioned by her chief editor to write an article about a young student who jumped to her death from a dormitory roof. Even though she tries to be strong, all the stressful events of the day resurface as a painful headache. Instead of a well deserved rest upon her home return she is greeted by a ghost. His name is Joey Mallone and he is a spiritual guide of her family.
As Joey isn't going anywhere and is deeply connected to Rosa, she has to quickly find solid ground and start cooperating with him, because there is maybe something more to the suicide of the young girl… and as a medium she has the ability, and duty, to help lost souls to move on.

The Blackwell Legacy is an adventure game focusing on investigation and combination of clues more than on simple item using (there still is some). Rosa makes notes about important facts in the case and to proceed you have to correctly combine these notes which will then open new talking options. Sometimes you can get stuck, because you tried to combine them too soon and later you didn't think about it again. In the end it works the same way as in any other point-and-click adventure when you get stuck - talk with everyone and try everything on everything. ;)
If you want you can learn more about Rosa's family from Joey. He won't share much though, as he has some painful memories on them too. His silence arouses my curiosity even more. :)

Highlights of the game are the well written characters, especially our main duo. I love how Rosa is an introvert, unsocial and somewhat lost when dealing with others. Her little smile when trying to play it nicely is just precious. Joey is more complicated and shows us the many sides of his personality, even the unpleasant one and I have to say that in some moments he gets rather scary. The voice acting is perfect and brings the characters to life.

The game won't take you long to finish, for 100% you have to play it once more with a commentary though. Totally recommend playing it after, because you can spoil yourself (surprise, right?). The commentary was also great fun, especially how the author apologized for many things in the game that he would do now completely differently (long talking sequences without anything happening etc.). I didn't really mind any of it. The only thing that bothered me a little was the loud music at some points where the voices got muffled by it. Sadly, you can’t change it. Anyway, the commentary offers a great insight into the author's mind and shows us what kind of decisions were made in the creation of the game.
I have enjoyed it very much and can't wait to see how the story develops for Rosa and Joey.

Nairi is a small girl from an upper cast of Shirin living in seclusion from the outer world. That comes to an end as her house gets suddenly stormed by city guards and her parents are thrown into prison. For her protection she gets smuggled out of the city. Caravan taking her to a safe place is overrun by bandits though and she ends up as their hostage. As Nairi is a clever girl she manages to escape her captivity, not far mind you, but with this courageous act she earns the respect of the bandit group. They accept her among themselves and although she enjoys their company and new found friendship she is still haunted by the fate of her parents. It's decided then, Nairi has to return to the Shirin!
With the help of Rex, friend of our bandit group leader, she has to find a way back to the upper district. It won't be easy though as there are many obstacles on her way - a poor district full of gangs fighting for territory, guards searching for her, a mysterious masked man hiding in the shadows. And to spice it up some more there is also a dark prophecy about the city and mysterious powers manifesting within Nairi!

Nairi is a cute little game with charming graphics and music, well written characters and interesting lore. The city of Shirin is very lively and you are going to meet a big cast of characters, some minor and some more important. There are both humans and anthropomorphic animals (and they are really cute). It's mostly a visual novel filled with logical puzzles, hidden objects and classic item combinations. Puzzles are of a good difficulty and are pretty straightforward, yet some of them offer a good challenge too. The mood of the game is pretty much cheerful and positive, although some darker themes resurface from time to time (which honestly surprised me a little as one wouldn't expect it from such a game).

It all ends pretty much on a cliffhanger, luckily sequel should be released this year! Can't wait. ;)

It's hard to rate this game as it's definitely not for everyone. You have to be a rather empathetic, open-minded individual with a feeling for modern avant-garde art. And you also need to be on the same imagination and experience line with the creators, otherwise all of the symbolism and hidden meanings will just pass by you. As I am nothing like mentioned above, and apparently not enough clever to connect all the dots, my experience with the game turned out to be pretty much painful.

Whole game is divided into 5 chapters with 4 interludes and an epilogue. Your main goal is to help Conway make a delivery on a mysterious address which isn't showing on any maps. Only way to get there is by Zero, a hidden route running somewhere beneath Kentucky. At first he has only his truck and an old dog accompanying him, but as the story goes on he will join with other strangers searching for Zero. Their route wouldn't be without any problems and a lot of the events will uncover hidden secrets of their past. Nevertheless they have to keep moving on and persevere, after all there is a delivery to be done.

Kentucky Route Zero is basically a text game and there is a lot of it. Really a huge amount and every bit of it is filled with philosophical, rhetorical, hypothetical and existentialist talks that don't offer any kind of outcome. Even though most of the main ideas of the game could have been said clearly and straightforwardly, they are all instead wrapped in tons of meaningless words. All of the mysticism and eerie feeling in the game that fills you at the beginning gets drowned by it and all that remains is the aftertaste of pathos.
Another problem of the game is that these texts are taken out of the context, but context is rather important for you to make an opinion about the problem and then make some decisions. Here are choices tossed at you randomly under the premise of freedom and false player ability to shape the heroes. You are walking on a predefined line and the outcome of your choices is mostly cosmetic and doesn't carry any deep impact. Kentucky Route Zero is most likely meant to be played a few more times as you can select different characters and view some situations from their perspective. But, honestly, I can't imagine playing through it a few more times (it was enough to play the fourth chapter again). After the first chapter it quickly becomes boring and tedious. To tell the truth I don't care about the other characters, I don't even properly know why they are there… it wouldn't make much difference without them there. I was truly interested in Conway and his story, but all you get is a disappointment.

So, the graphic design is pretty interesting and I really liked how they worked with the lights and shadows. Images were also intertwined in some scenes and it was truly imposing. There are few songs and they are pretty good, but most of the time you get silence or static sounds. You can drive your truck on the map and find some events there, the only problem is they don't add anything to the story, so if you miss them you don't lose anything… you actually save some time. In the last chapter you get to play as a cat and she is truly adorable, so I have enjoyed that.
But other than that it was just full of long and painfully boring uninteresting stuff to read. Interludes are also pretty weird and only managed to raise my stress. They say this game is more about you (the player) than the characters in game… if that's true it just prove that I really don't understand an experimental alternative art.

In this sweet short puzzle game we follow an old man on his journey to resolve his past and maybe find a closure to some painful decisions he made during his life. Story is told through charming pictures which are portraying important life events of the old man. Although the story line isn't anyhow surprising and is rather predictable the whole execution of the game is working perfectly and in the end you get emotionally invested. I know I was.

Graphics are beautiful, each screen is filled with many colors. I have also enjoyed those little interactive things you can meet on your journey - window shutters, doors, animals… those small things bring a smile. Music was also very nice, calm and soothing, and corresponded nicely with the graphics. Gameplay wise you have to build a route from the landscape for the old man. He can't jump over the hills so you have to nicely connect them by lowering them or raising them… it's fun to see the landscape moving. Some of the puzzles required a little bit of creativity and few tries to solve them, but they are mostly pretty straightforward.

We have enjoyed it, great for casual gaming after a long day at work. Can only recommend.

In Tiny Echo we play as a little courier Emi and our main duty is to deliver all of the letters that dropped deep down from those living up. Their letters are filled with wishes for a beautiful world as their surroundings are now completely barren. We then take our trusty bag, pick up all the messages and set out on an important mission of finding each of the addressee. Finding them all will be tricky though, some are hiding from us or we first need to clear obstacles on the route to continue. Not all of them take their letter right away, instead they require some action from us first. These puzzles are rather easy (one or two weren't so clear on what to do though) and are solved on the same screen, so you won't get stuck. Also the truth is that some of the puzzles I solved unintentionally by clicking around on things I deemed interesting. XD
Anyway, if you wonder what will happen once all of the letters are delivered, go and check for yourself. ;)

Graphics of Tiny Echo are strange yet appealing, also very detailed and filled with life. Music is very nice and fits the game perfectly. Whole game has an artistic feeling to it. It's rather short and maybe even a little cryptic in storytelling, but I still found it enjoyable and very relaxing. Also it reminds me a little bit of games from Amanita design.

Gone Fireflies is a short game filled with heavy emotions, because the story it tells is sad, cruel and not fair… as our life can be.
We are following two young families at the beginning of their relationships. At some point their lives intertwine and this brief meeting will have a great impact in their future lives.

It's a RPG Maker game with Visual novel aspects, it looks really nice and you can tell that it was made with care. They use varied graphics assets and each screen is pretty detailed (in terms of items and decorations). There is not much of a gameplay to talk about, you get put in a scene where you can explore a little and then make the one thing which will progress the story - be prepared to be thrown in time as the current situation has deep roots in the past and we are going to learn about it.
Through the game you can make a few choices, they are mostly cosmetic and reflect only your approach towards the characters. I have played two times to see if the story can end in some other way, sadly not, the tragic outcome will always be the same. Only thing that can change is how our hero cope with it all… and if he can see a light at the end of a tunnel.

One of the early works from Winter Wolves, it's not perfect, but it still offer some good entertainment. I have played it years ago, it's like those B rated horror movies, you know they are silly, but you still like them. ;)

You play as Luke Black, living in a dystopian London where sun shines only in gardens made by holograms. He has a long lasting relationship with Helen, although they are now going through some problems; he has best friend Tom and he works as a lead programmer in a company that deals in nanotechnology. When a runaway bionic woman seeks shelter at Luke's door his whole life turns around. His work, his relationships, even his bare life are in danger now… can he get out of this mess? Well, there are 24 endings in total, so there are a lot of things that can happen to Luke!

As I said, it's an older visual novel and some aspects are not so great. Main hero is a jerk, the voice acting is of lower quality (but it gave me some good laughs, also you can turn it off), there are some plot holes… Graphics are alright, but no typical event CGs for you, which is a shame.
The story is somehow interesting and you just want to know what will happen next. Also it's fun to see in what ways you can make Luke perish! XD

There is something mystic about this forest, something is calling for the fox. Being too curious it runs into the forest, deep inside. There it finds a mysterious Sanctuary, with Seed awaiting to be reborn. For it to happen it needs to collect every element of the Seasons and for this it needs the help of our brave fox. Seed and fox are connected and they set on a journey through the mysterious forest. But not everything is as clear as it seems and there are secrets hidden in the wind, in the water and deep below the roots.

Season after Fall is a very beautiful 2D platformer and with just puzzles to solve it offers a great relaxing experience. The fox is sooo pretty (I love foxes) and makes cute sounds, it's also fun to just stand and watch it being idle. In the whole game you are basically alone, no other interactable characters or beings, although two voices are guiding you throughout the story. The visuals are charming, colorful and I have enjoyed the changes in each of the Seasons. Music sets a great atmosphere and is very enjoyable.

And now about the Seasons. As you collect them you can use their powers, that means that you can freely switch between them. At first you are limited as you have only one, then two, three and lastly four. To progress you have to make the right use of them. Is there a deep lake and you can't get on the high shore? Just switch to the winter and it freezes down. Do you need to get high up into trees? Switch to autumn and let the wind rise you up. Your path is filled with many "puzzles" where you need to combine the Seasons for you to progress, most of those obstacles are pretty clear although some require a little bit of out of the box thinking. Also sometimes you can get lost in all of the switching and end up in a completely different Season than you wanted. Later in the game shortcuts appear for you, so you can swiftly move through the area without the need of redoing it with the power of Seasons, which is nice.
As a collectible you can find flower patches which you can make blossom, later on when you enter a location you can see how many of them you miss. There is also a true end if you can find four secret spots. Nothing too hard and can be done without a guide.

Can only recommend this pretty game, after all we made two whole runs (it got 100% on the first run).