Birthday Zelrune’s profile

Hello! I am Zelrune! I like to play story driven games like RPG’s and VN’s but sometimes I stray to other genres if the game looks interesting enough.
I have four dogs and one fish!
My curator group is here.

Fun fact: I fostered a lost sun conure for a week and it was traumatising for both of us.
(He was happily returned home.)

Joined on 04/03/2017 but didn’t start seriously working on my backlog until COVID.
https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/b9XQO/extraordinary-backlog-assassins-wanted-apply-here-blaeo-thread/search?page=23#kIN3ZRM


January - February 2023 Progress Report

Hello! Due to my new, new years resolutions to just enjoy myself and not set a limit on how many games I play every month, I largely just spent most of my time in the first month of January reading, seriously, I finished 23-ish novels. I was busy! Due to that, I only really finished two games, and didn’t feel like writing a post for so little, so I’ve opted to merge it and my February post!

I had a bunch of fun this month, Stray lived up to it’s hype and was indeed a fantastic way to start off 2023! Hopefully this year is better than the past couple, but so far I’ve been pretty optimistic. I also finished Gas Station simulator, but I’ve had no interest to quickly review it so I’ll add it onto the next post. The next months games are looking pretty positive, and 2-50+hrs long, so, lets see how this year goes!

Games added to backlog: 2
Games 100%: 5

63% (280/441)
13% (59/441)
12% (52/441)
11% (48/441)
0% (2/441)
19.5 hours
Has a dedicated Meow button!

So you wanna be a kitty in a cyberpunk city?
Jump, leap, and platform your way across the forgotten, derelict, gorgeous City 99; originally a haven from the polluted outside world, now a prison to the few that call it home. Make friends with the tiny robot B-12 as you both work your way across and up the city and end the lockdown, but beware, many old security measures are still in place, and the disease inside the city has taken on a life of its own. The Zerks are a hostile species born from bacteria come to life, literally; after many years they have gained their own intelligence, and with it, a new hunger that sees anything, robot or living, as prey.

cat

5-10 hours to complete, I absolutely loved playing Stray! I saved it to be the very first game of 2023, and it did not disappoint. With a dedicated meow button, gorgeous areas to explore, fun questlines and side quests, once you finish playing, don’t be surprised if you feel like starting over to do it again! There are plenty of optional collectables and an incredible number of things to interact with, including random paper bags on the streets, and everything that looked climbable, was! I do want to note that it’s literally impossible to fall from any height, and while you can jump down quite a ways, you are given a promt (which you can disable in settings) to do so.

cat2


Half-Life 2
Good game, good combat, exploration made me hungry.

Dusk Diver 酉閃町

8/10
29.0 hours
38 of 38 achievements

Yang Yumo is a perfectly normal high school girl until she falls into a dimensional rift into the Phantom World; a darker mirror world of Ximending city, but full of dangerous Chaos beasts hellbent on merging your world and theirs together. Rescued by convenience store worker and mystical beast Leo, work part time in a convenience store, team up with the Kunlunians, eat at a huge variety of restaurants, and unleash your spiritual power to save the city!

Seamonster

Dusk Diver is a 10-20hr “beat-em’-up” game with plenty of chain attacks, combos, skills, buffs, and tactics; but if that’s not your style button mashing does just fine! 11 re-playable chapters and small/large open world areas including the main hub, Ximending, which has plenty of fun Gatcha machines ranging from character art to outfit cosmetics, to eat-in restaurants, some of which will be surprisingly familiar, or stalls with actual menus with mouthwatering food and photo descriptions! Collect Dragon Vein Stones and restore harmony to the city!

Dessert

Dusk Diver really is a fun game and I’ve only noticed two bugs, one is when you enter a friend event but the npc is wearing one of the special outfits, but since they are not wearing their default outfit for the cutscene the game crashes and you get a “Fatal Error” report; this is easily fixed by switching them back to their normal outfit; and the other was when I was fighting a boss and I did something which caused my character model to break and enter T-pose mode, which I was unable to get out of for a bit. Still, it’s a fun game and I definitely recommend it! A bit tedious to 100%, but not difficult.

Lookcool

Half-Life 2
No longer available on Steam. ):

HITOTSU NO MORI

7/10
4.3 hours
no achievements

Shuka is an adopted girl living peacefully in Ikkaku Village who was blessed to be able to speak with animals and purge evil from her surroundings, but new visitors to the village bring some terrible news; demons sealed long, long ago on the island have broken free of their bindings and are causing destruction! Set off on a short adventure to banish or re-seal these demons!

40 min to 5 hours, Hitotsu no mori is a cute game that that’s unfortunately no longer available on Steam. With watercolor backgrounds, explorable areas, cute and animated sprites, a fun combat system, 5 routes and endings to play it’s a fairly solid game. There are no difficult battles, but enemies don’t respawn so exp, or “purity points” is limited but technically unnecessary unless you plan on being overpowered. There are 5 routes and 5 endings, and while the game is short there are many visual novel segments and it never felt like the game was lacking. You pick your route about halfway through the game, and can make a save point so re-playability is high.

Half-Life 2
Always streaming "Live"... Always previously recorded.

Grow: Song of the Evertree

2/10
34.2 hours
22 of 22 achievements

The once beautiful and bountiful land of Alaria has been laid to ruins, the previous residents having ignored The Evertree’s - the guardian tree of this land - warnings of overusing The Song and draining the land of Myora; and so The Withering grew with a vengeance. Huge, destructive, and thorny vines constantly pulsating, growing, and bringing with it, a purple fiery wind that has forced every living thing to run for their lives and abandon this land… except for you; the last Everheart Alchemist. Take on the task of becoming the Evertree’s caretaker, growing seeds on its branches to push back The Withering; retake lost districts and rebuild the towns, and find the Song Fragments that were either stolen or lost to restore what never should have been broken.

I liked playing Grow: Song of the Evertree, but I absolutely refuse to give it a positive review. First of all, this game is abandoned, second, it has so many bugs it should still be in Early Access; and third, it’s unfinished. I went through so much trouble just trying to play the game I purchased I cannot in good conscious let you go without at least a warning; this game was literally unplayable for me. 4-ish hours in I ran into a bug, which I assume was cause by a duplicating dialogue box right before the issue, in which I would start the next day completely unable to move my character. I did everything, uninstalling, reinstalling, verifying my files, updating my drivers, bug reporting, emailing the publishers (who were EXTREMELY UNHELPFUL and basically told me since it was abandoned I was SOL), and even making an entirely new game to no avail. I had to ask, a complete stranger, to share a early save file with me just so I could play the game I bought. THAT IS NOT OK.

Also, growing worlds and caring for them is one of the big draws about buying this game, you can craft as many as you like and they are all different.. except they aren’t? All worlds with a similar type look the same with a different generated name and similar generated animals, such as Icy worlds all have the same trees and bushes; and every world, regardless of type, has the exact same fruits and rocks available, except they are recolored and have a new name. All the animals are similar, either medium dog shaped or large mammoth, and they only variety they have is what color they are; and it gets old fast! By the fourth world I no longer had any interest in doing anything, because I’ve seen it all before! Even bugs and fish are not an exception.

You cannot adopt anything in game without it crashing! You can’t even accept any rewards related to adopting without the game absolutely freaking out; the critter center is broken. There are also other specific rewards that cause your game to fail, I found it’s better to ignore any completion reward entirely, or save your game before you accept any. There are invisible chests, missing items and functions, and even an entire storefront. The Community Gardens, which I suspect is where you were supposed to be able to purchase housing decorations like flower boxes and mailboxes for your community, is inaccessible. There are things that look like they should function, like the Juke Box in the diner, that don’t, and there are missing items or unfinished idle animations. NPC’s use invisible items, eat invisible food, and some dialogue boxes, don’t have any dialogue? It’s genuinely a mess. Please don’t play this unless the developers rise from the grave and miraculously fix everything.

Also a small gripe, inventory management, please? Rocks, fish, wood, bugs, and plants all go in the same inventory and they are not organized by type, rarity, nor is it possible to fix it yourself. What determines their place is what you obtained first, so it’s just, a huge mess! And what, you can buy things for Myora but you can’t sell anything?? I thought Myora was the currency but according to the wiki, “It’s the source of all life” so how am I even using this to buy anything…

December 2022 Progress Report

2022 Resolutions complete!!

I’ve beaten my 2022 new year resolutions! I have completed 22 more games than I’ve added to my library and beaten 80 games this year! I did a short library cleanout for the new year and with that, comes new resolutions. I’m not setting a number of games to beat this time because quite frankly, to meet that 80 game criteria I ended up playing a bunch of games I originally would never have taken a second glance at (Looking at you, 100 hidden games.) and avoided playing some games solely that I could fit 6+ games in a month.

My 2023 resolutions are:
1.) Beat 20 more games than I add to my library!
2.) Beat all SG wins within 2 months of obtaining them!
3.) Have fun.

Happy new year y’all. :)

63% (278/442)
13% (57/442)
12% (51/442)
12% (55/442)
0% (1/442)
5.2 hours
A fantastic game to end the year

It’s the start of Summer and already there is an ongoing mystery in the tiny town of Beacon Pines; Luka’s mother vanished a couple months ago and now that school is out, Luka and best friend Rolo can both really start investigating! But Gathering clues and trespassing into unknown territory leads to a few unsettling truths, and Luka and friends must stealthily make their way down this rabbit hole before someone who wants the towns secrets left buried really, really starts to take notice. If things lasted forever, they might not feel as special, and change is always needed to grow.

5+ hours to complete with branching routes, this creepy cute game has some adorable artwork and incredible writing! Collect charmed words to change the storyline and reach different endings to collect more words to find a true ending! I loved the characters and character art more than expected and while I was originally hesitant to play because of the multiple story routes, I can safely say, it’s not a problem. It was shockingly easy to play the entirety of this game in one sitting, and without saying any spoilers, you’ll like it!


Half-Life 2
Play as a cute fox who eradicates a plague.

Spirit of the North

8/10
7.5 hours
24 of 24 achievements

Taking shelter from the snow, stumble upon an icy cavern to take cover inside! Make friends with the slumbering spirit of the north that lives here and go on a curious adventure to eradicate the plague that has taken root while the spirit slept! Channel mystical powers to destroy plague tethers, return what was lost to the deceased, find the source of the infection and bring peace back to the devastated area! Also; you’re a fox.

cute

6+ hours to complete, 8 chapters, 7 cosmetic skins which are rewarded to you based off your collectable completion. Spirit of the North is an absolutely gorgeous game with a bit of a confusing story; it’s very good vs evil with your character using blue energy and blue Spirit Blossoms to vanquish the red Plague Tethers and red energy; but the ending and actual source of the enemy is a bit unclear. There are a few puzzles, but they are generally very simple and used to assist you in learning a new ability that you gained, and while collectables can be missed in the initial playthrough there is nothing you can permanently skip.

Half-Life 2
A cute photography game!

TOEM

8/10
8.3 hours
48 of 48 achievements

Go on an adventure to experience TOEM, a strange, magical phenomenon that occurs only on the far-off mountaintop of Kiiruberg’s Peak; It’s a long journey, but your Nana has done it before, and has highlighted several tourist spots along the way. Armed with only a camera and an empty photo album, explore 7 main locations, assist residents for stamps to get free bus rides and apparel, and take photos of memorable things on the way to Kiiruberg to make the greatest memory of this voyage yet!

Cute

3-8 hours to complete, TOEM is a photographic exploration game where you set off on a journey to experience the phenomenon called TOEM while photographing and filling your album with snapshots of your adventure. Hand drawn in black and white, the game was surprisingly beautiful and fun to explore; looking around with your camera can let you catch things you will have otherwise missed, and helping other people rewards you with plenty of apparel items. There is a fair bit of optional content, such as taking photos of all the animals you see for achievements, and yes, you can pet the dogs.

Half-Life 2
I'm not mad, I'm just dissapo- no, actually, I'm still upset.

Destiny's Princess: A War Story, A Love Story

2/10
9.7 hours
13 of 13 achievements

Fire burns around you, the castle is being attacked by monstrous demons from a fantasy; your mother, brother, father, fiancé, and a multitude of servants and close vassals have already died and now, cornered by fiend and flame, you make a wish with a devil to return to how things were before the attack, and you do. In exchange for this new world, your own has been stolen away along with your memories. Alas, even a devil is unable to resurrect the dead, and 5 heroes from other worlds are pulled in to replace your family, their memories locked away and replaced with the deceased. If they remember who they were, they can return to their original worlds. Prevent this from happening, at the very least, for the castle and servants who still stand behind you, and the demons who fight to slaughter you all.

10+ hours to complete, I don’t understand how Destiny’s Princess has such positive reviews. With no voice acting, no auto read, what I’m pretty sure was the exact same three background music tracks playing on repeat, the multitude of bad ends disguised as good ends, and quite frankly, terrible route options, it doesn’t have much to stand on. Way too many “good” endings are either, you die, he dies, you both die, or it’s bittersweet with a total of 4 (out of 10) endings being either good or ok, there is a lot of disappointment including the princess you play as. In every single route, except one, you are regulated to doing laundry and stitching while the guys go off and advance the plot, and she’s so spineless, helpless, and such a stereotypical lovesick maiden it’s a bit of a cringy read.

Yikes.

I played in the order of Hanbei –> Kotarou –> Yukimura –> Masamune –> Oda Nobunaga. The only routes I would recommend you play, if you even opt to do so, is Kotaru, Masamune, then Nobunaga. !Hanbei, your “fiancé”, is living garbage whose route is the entire definition of sexual assault; Yukimura is just, incest while also not being that; Kotaro is actually cute and I liked his route but the endings are “bad ends”; Masamune is a good guy who encourages you to use a bow and protects you with some nice endings; and Oda is… Oda. Despite his ridiculous personality flaws, his route is the only one where you grow a spine. Instead of hiding away in the castle with your handmaidens during the story’s climax you fight and are strong enough to make killing blows against the demons. His endings are the best in the entire game, and the most interesting since in Oda’s route you learn what’s actually going on in this storyline, and you heavily reaping the benefits of learning to become a competent ruler from him.\

Since I started this route.

Overall, I don’t recommend Destiny’s Princess. I can’t. It was a terrible VN I wasted my time on, it’s missing too many features, the storyline is weird, the guys are mostly dislikeable, and even reaching an ending just had me thankful that it was over. There are many other games you could play instead, like Hakuoki: Kyoto Winds and its sequel, or just anything else that won’t feel like you wasted 10 hours on something you’re going to forget about in a week. Skip it?

TLDR; No voice acting, no auto-read, basic storyline with a dislikeable spineless protagonist and even more repulsive dating options. Sexual assault, multiple bad ends disguised as good ends where you die, he dies, you both die, or slightly bittersweet. A total of, maybe 4 good endings with repetitive background scenery and music tracks.

Half-Life 2
You look for 100 hidden dogs.

100 hidden dogs

7/10
0.2 hours
100 of 100 achievements

10+min to complete, find 100 Hidden Dogs in this hand-drawn HOG with catchy music. This HOG features animals from other hidden object games made by this developer, and a few animations.
Press “N” for nightmode, or “Del” and “Esc” to reset all achievements.

Half-Life 2
A point and click adventure

Cleo - a pirate's tale

8/10
5.7 hours
24 of 24 achievements

Cleo is 14 years old and is absolutely done with working at her father’s bar; she wants adventure, thrills, excitement, treasure! But all her dad wants is for her to grow up! Enchanted by the multitude of books about the legendary pirate Captain Cabeca and his amazing adventures out at sea and wanting to leave this disgusting bar of fishermen and drunks behind, she’s dying for her own quest to begin; but when something fantastical actually happens, she quickly realizes she might be in over her head. A severed hand holding a logbook, an almost-death at sea, Cleo would like to go home now, please.
Set sail in search of a treasure even the mightiest pirate captain could never find – The Treasure of Eternal Memory.

4-6+ hours to complete, Cleo - a pirate's tale is a point and click adventure game with logic puzzles, remarkable voice acting, and bit of a dark story as there are multiple character deaths. Don’t let that put you off from playing; the game itself is pretty fun but the optional achievements are a bit tedious and I seriously recommend following a guide if you intend to 100% it, but if not, go right ahead and enjoy this absolute gem!

Half-Life 2
One of the few HOG's I can say I actually liked.

King's Heir: Rise to the Throne

7/10
4.9 hours
18 of 18 achievements

The Ulmer brothers are the fraternal twins of the King’s advisor in the Kingdom of Griffinvale; and largely play a similar role as their father did growing up, which is, assisting and advising the king. An avid hunter, the king was coming back on one such trip with his guards and the brothers when the drawbridge leading to the kingdom was raised, and all the guards vanished! The Ulmer brothers make their way across to see a terrible and gruesome sight, only to return to the king and find much the same. The King is dead, murdered, the brothers framed; and they must clear their name while preventing a new and unjust queen from stealing the throne! Where is a legitimate prince when you need one?

5+ hours to complete, King’s Heir: Rise to the Throne was completely nonsensical and honestly pretty great. True to HOG logic, there were many silly obstacles in your path while also being fairly fun to play with an interesting and engaging storyline. Two chapters, but the first one is the main game, with the second being an extra that takes place after the storyline. The extra I didn’t particularly like, but that’s because I got stuck at a point where I was looking for an adhesive, and the game was being absolutely ridiculous and essentially told me to look in a paper wasps nest to gather honey to use as glue. First of all, wasps don’t make honey, second, and I will die on this hill, honey cannot be used as an adhesive! It may be sticky but you try to glue anything together with it!!!!

November 2022 Progress Report

I’m late! Again! It was for a good reason though! I wanted to put more time (and screenshots) into my Horizon Zero Dawn review! I found out Steam is cruel and reasonable so, I could only post three there. :c

Anyway! This month was pretty great. I found multiple cats, played the prettiest game of 2022, knocked a bunch off my backlog and my autumn sale haul, and I’m closer than ever to my new years resolution completion! Nothing else really happened honestly. Boring month was boring; I set up my Christmas tree, tossed some ornaments on it, put some lights in front of the house, and had thanksgiving with my tiny family that I can hang out around with it getting difficult. Looking forward to Next month! I have some D games picked out for the PAGYWOSG theme and I’ll be buying myself Stray since I’ve been good this year; honest!

Games added to backlog: 8
Games 100%: 8

61% (270/441)
15% (66/441)
11% (50/441)
12% (54/441)
0% (1/441)
88.1 hours
Best game of 2022

Aloy is an outcast in her own clan. Motherless and raised by a man named Rost on the outskirts of The Embrace; a protected environment and colony of humans established to defend themselves against a post-apocalyptic world currently ruled by machines. Yearning to join the tribe, she trained for years to join The Proving, a ceremony that would allow outcasts to re-join the tribe with first place winning a boon of choice. Aloy was determined to win this advantage, and discover her origins; but what she learned, set her path further away from The Embrace than she ever could have imagined.

Small note: None of these screenshots are edited except for when I chose to add the watermark.

60-85 hours to complete, Horizon Zero Dawn is absolutely stunning; easily the prettiest game I’ve played in 2022. I’ve taken about 200 screenshots and saved around 70 of them to my steam profile. There is a photo mode in which you can take and edit screenshots and adjust Aloys pose for more dynamic works. The world is absolutely gorgeous and I loved running around different environments, from high mountaintops, deserts, canyons, forests and frosty wildernesses! The snow physics in particular are incredibly fun to play with, I love the crunching sounds, and looking back to see paths you made in the dense snowfall, as someone from Texas who rarely sees such, is pretty impressive!!

The actual gameplay and combat is fairly remarkable as well, I found myself using a lot of stealth tactics to ambush bigger machines such as using a tripcaster to set elemental traps along pathways, or the various bows and arrows to knock armor off before using piercing arrows to hit something vulnerable. Humans set fire fairly easily, so I always recommend having a hunter bow; a short to medium ranged weapon with a quick reload and firing time, with full fire upgrades to get rid of bandits quickly! For bad situations when you find yourself overwhelmed, you can use a slingshot to throw AOE freeze bombs or do some serious explosive damage! Alternatively, you can mount some machines after overriding them and charge into battle, fighting on their back or dismounting and letting them take care of some enemies for you.

Despite how much I love Horizon Zero Dawn, it does have its cons.

The pathfinding is terrible. Setting a waypoint almost anywhere was counterproductive because it takes you the long way, following marked pathways instead of cutting through the forests, and the pathways aren’t any safer than the wilderness! Machines move around too! Climbing anything is also pretty hard. I like to Bethesda my way up to higher vantage points for a surprise attack or to get a better view, and if you’re not jumping up a mountain or marked climbing spots, everything else just, gets incredibly slippery and it’s impossible to find your footing; and even worse, if you do manage to get to an excellent spot, if the machines are too far away, your arrow either hits an invisible wall or vanishes in flight! Maybe I was just spoiled with Skyrim? Don’t get me started on whistling! You can’t whistle whenever you please, it’s used to lure curious enemies to tall grass to prepare for an ambush, but if they get further away than 10ft from you, it becomes physically impossible to do! The game literally will not let you.

And perhaps the biggest con of all… you can’t ride a Sawtooth.
Sawtooths are very dangerous, very cute catlike machines that move quickly! They are fun to fight and heck, just looking at it makes you wanna ride it into battle! The first time I managed to override one, I was so, incredibly excited to ride it; only to be disappointed learning it’s not an option.

But regardless of all Horizon Zero Dawn’s faults.. I still absolutely recommend it. It’s genuinely gorgeous, the storyline was absolutely amazing and blind sighted me, I love every single character in this game and their backstories; the combat was actually, really, really fun and I would get into fights with Thunderjaws for the heck of it. 80 hours was too short; it’s a fantastic game and I’m excitedly looking forward to playing Horizon Forbidden West!!!


Half-Life 2
600+ randomized cats. What more do you want?

Ever Seen A Cat?

10/10
1.0 hours
22 of 22 achievements

1+ hours to complete, 10 levels, and 611 various cats to find in randomized locations, Ever Seen A Cat was honestly a huge and pleasant surprise to me; as once you complete 9 levels, you have an option to go back and find special cat variants. The background color and vibrancy is completely adjustable in the setting with a color bar, and the music was honestly pretty fantastic, the guitar strumming is my favorite!
Compared to other Hidden Object Games I came into this not expecting much, click the cats and within 10 minutes the game is done; but that definitely wasn’t the case here and Ever Seen A Cat is easily one of the best HOG games I’ve ever played.

Half-Life 2
This one actually has 700+ cats. I don't think it's possible-

Ever Seen A Cat? 2

10/10
0.7 hours
22 of 22 achievements

1+ hours to complete, 9 levels, and 736 unique cats that are randomized throughout these cozy scenes, such as comfortable cafes, sunny beaches, a cushy cottage, and a greenhouse. The background color and vividness is completely adjustable and the music fits well to the theme. For a HOG, I didn’t expect to like this series as much as I did and playing was rather pleasant surprise.

Half-Life 2
My god.

Ever Seen A Cat? 3

10/10
1.0 hours
22 of 22 achievements

1+ hours to complete, 9 levels, and over 600 cats that are randomized throughout this fairytale themed Hidden Object Game; unlike the series previous games, Ever Seen A Cat? 3’s gameplay is based around tales such as Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, Rapunzel, Golidlocks, and Jack and the Beanstalk to name a few. Notably, there is a color adjustable background and vibrancy slider; the music fits well with the themes.

Half-Life 2
Short and absolutely adorable!

The Adventure of NAYU

10/10
4.4 hours
48 of 48 achievements

Nayu shows up to participate in the Doki Doki Adventure Tour; run by the fairy Lugh; to become an adventurer and explore the nearby forest with totally-not set up situations! Unfortunately, or fortunately, an actual situation – specifically a bear, shows up and derails the whole tour! Completely lost and wandering the forest, they stumble upon and rescue Suzu, a cheesemonger, and start a real adventure!

1+ hours to beat, I honestly had a pretty great time playing The Adventure of Nayu. The art is incredibly cute, I love the music, and the main storyline is pretty enjoyable although I tried to keep it a bit vague in the paragraph above. It sells itself as a clicker game but even that’s optional, there is an auto attack and playing this game requires no actual effort on your part. There are 7 costumes you can purchase with Star Shards, a currency you collect by defeating monsters, which you can also use to buy information to increase your strength, speed, and luck; completing the main game unlocks an endless mode which I whole-heartedly recommend and the minigame, The Path to Cheese!

Half-Life 2
This one is actually pretty gay. Some nice CG's in here.

My Dangerous Life

8/10
5.5 hours
19 of 19 achievements

Following their dreams to go to America and learn in one of their universities, Hinata learns that their apartment and identity was stolen by an evil doppelganger. With no housing but determined to get to the bottom of this mess, three cute and handsome guys offer their assistance! You learn a bit too late that none of these men are people you should be hanging out with; and that your stolen identity is part of a significantly bigger plan.

2-6+ hours to complete, 3 routes and 6 endings. Mostly voice acted and with pretty graphics, I had a fairly enjoyable time playing My Dangerous Life. There are a couple things that could be improved such as more character expressions, a longer VN length, as a lot of the story felt cut down as you sort of teleported from one scene to the next, and the music selection. The background music was honestly a bit jarring and I ended up muting it and listening to something else, and if you play and don’t like the title screen music, I highly suggest doing the same. Despite having the tags for “Nudity, Mature, and Horror” there wasn’t much of that and the story really doesn’t take itself seriously. (Deflecting a gun with a playing card, etc.) Yet despite the negative aspects, it’s still a fairly enjoyable game to play and most of the CG’s were pretty nice! The story felt like it was supposed to be longer but overall, My Dangerous Life is still worth checking out if you like the LGBTQ+ genre.

Half-Life 2
Also gay! Less CG's but nicer overall artwork.

Synergia

8/10
3.6 hours
9 of 9 achievements

Cila is depressed, tired, and absolutely alone in her tiny apartment despite having an android housekeeper, and life feels like it’s on pause indefinitely until Cila’s android breaks down. Stressed at the thought of a further solitary life, Cila speaks to her friend Yoko who runs a higher-end shop specializing in different companion models, but Yoko offers something… different. A high-end 5th generation android named Mara, for free, with a request to not look too deep into its history and not ask her any questions.
Cila never could keep her nose out of things.

3-5+ hours to complete with two endings, Synergia is a yuri thriller cyberpunk visual novel set in a dystopian world. Translated into three languages, English, Spanish, and Chinese with accessibility features such as text-to-speech and Opendyslexic font designed to mitigate common reading errors caused by Dyslexia. (Hitting “A” on the keyboard opens this setting option.)
With that out of the way, Synergia is a pretty enjoyable game with a lot of backgrounds, CG’s, and an interesting storyline. I particularly loved the art style and how there were multiple re-occurring characters with actual backstory, the world-building is pretty well done! My only real fault is that it’s very government conspiracy-y at the end and there are a couple holes you can poke in the story, but Synergia was still worth playing and if you want a short Yuri cyberpunk story; I think you will like this too!

Half-Life 2
I think this was honestly my first refund of 2022.

Hidden Cats in Paris

1/10
0.2 hours
21 of 21 achievements

This review is tentatively negative.

15 minutes to complete, look for 106 cats in Paris. Hidden Cats in Paris is an OK game, definitely not terrible but I wouldn’t recommend it due to the high amount of copy/pasting in gameplay. I would have liked to see more cat variety (fluffy, big, small, etc…) and colors, because every cat looked the exact same but in 5 different poses. A lot of the backgrounds have no variety, one window, house, plant, rooftop looks just like the next one and the only real effort any art went into was the main street.
The background music is extremely forgettable; despite writing this review a couple minutes after playing I honestly can’t recall it; and despite the “watercolor” art when finding a cat, the only colors are slight variations of blue. Irritatingly, when you discovered a cat there is only one cat sound effect, so I had to listen to the exact same “meow” 106 times in 15 minutes.

I did encounter two minor bugs, one upon starting it already counted two cats in the bottom left corner and at the very end when I had three or four cats left to find, it automatically took me to the congratulations ending page for finding all the cats and just gave me the last achievement.

October 2022 Progress Report

Happy late halloween! I meant to post this yesterday but at the time I hadn’t finished writing all my reviews so…
I had a pretty good time beating games this month, I finally, finally finished Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch after a couple months of me attempting to force myself to complete it, and the rest of the games were, really good picks. Go me! I bought a healthy amount of games from the Halloween sale, The Room 3 and 4 and replayed the entire series since it’s worth being replayed, I also bought The Gardens Between and The Last Campfire since I’ve wanted to play those for a long while; as well as a couple games I’ll be finishing next month I’m excited to talk about!

Halloween was good, I passed out candy dressed up like a pirate. It was a bit disappointing because I only really saw, maybe 7-10-ish kids in costumes and everyone else just, either didn’t bother or just wore a mask. It ended fairly quickly as well, so I ended up having some unwanted leftover sweets. My pumpkin also went missing; but I’ll still do it again next year because I like to dress up and it’s good fun for the kids.
Hope everyone had a fun time this month!

Games added to backlog: 8
Games 100%: 9

57% (264/460)
20% (92/460)
11% (50/460)
12% (53/460)
0% (1/460)
4.1 hours
A fun puzzle game series!

2+ hours to complete with 5 chapters and areas, The Room is honestly a pretty great interactive puzzle game. You start off getting an invitation to check out the attic of an abandoned house, and you go, because of course you do, and inside there is a rather fun looking puzzle box. The first chapter consists of a tutorial where you learn and get introduced to some mechanisms, and the rest of the game builds off that. At no point is anything terribly difficult and I was able to figure out nearly everything (except a gem puzzle in the last chapter) by looking at it or poking around.

Beautiful graphics, smooth mechanics, fun puzzles and an interesting story with an ending good enough to make you consider getting The Room 2, for $4.99? I say go for it!


Half-Life 2
The second in the series!

The Room Two

10/10
2.9 hours
7 of 7 achievements

3+ hours to complete, The Room 2 continues from the first game, trapped in a forgotten crypt. Your mysterious ally is now sympathetic to your plight, considering that you are just as trapped as they are in this strange, mysterious world. The atmosphere and theme is more darker and Lovecraftian than the first game, increasing in intensity as you move through the seven chapters; the puzzles have also expanded to the entire room than just a table. I wouldn’t classify it as a horror because nothing is particularly scary; there is a rather minor jumpscare in chapter 6, but The Room 2 is an excellent continuation and I wouldn’t bother waiting for a sale to play, as it’s an excellent game.

Half-Life 2
Third in the trilogy! Also the last.

The Room Three

10/10
5.8 hours
10 of 10 achievements

After freeing yourself from being trapped in the manor, once again investigate The Null. After hitting wall after wall on finding a lead to this mysterious power, a note is slipped into your jacket; with a location circled on some far away exotic island and notes on the thing you seek. Taking a train the next morning, a puzzle box appears in front of you. It might be harder to leave than first anticipated.

6+ hours to complete with 5 chapters, The Room 3 is a continuation of 2, and this is the last in the trilogy! There are 4 endings. Puzzles are now multiple rooms that interact with each other and even if you are not good at puzzles, they have similar mechanics as 1 +2 with some new stuff. Chapters 1 and 2 are the tutorial chapters and can be breezed by in 30 minutes, after that, the real fun begins! I had an absolute blast playing and while I’m a bit saddened that the journey is over, the multiple endings ensure everyone can pick their favorite one. If you get stuck or want to change your fate, ask Maggie!

Note: There is The Room 4, but there are different characters and storyline.

Half-Life 2
New characters and storyline!

The Room 4: Old Sins

10/10
4.5 hours
9 of 9 achievements

Investigate the disappearance of a couple in London, one of whom was reportedly working with something dangerous right before both vanishing in their home. Police have searched the area and have noted nothing of importance, but you and your employers are convinced that something is there they just cannot see or understand. Explore the house, locate the missing object, find the residents, and pray you do not become one of the lost yourself.

4+ hours to complete, 9 rooms to explore, The Room 4: Old Sins is a hidden-object puzzle mystery game that can be played separately from 1-3 as it is not part of the trilogy. Unlike the other games, these puzzles expand to the entire house and is not separated by chapters, but by rooms completed. Like the previous games, the puzzles are extremely fun to play and absolutely gorgeous! Lore is heavier here and the story is very well written, the ending especially surprised me! While you can start from The Room 4, I suggest 1-3 first as it will let the story make more sense; even if you are poor at puzzle games, you will definitely find yourself enjoying everything The Room has to offer! I sincerely look forward to playing any more of this series.

Half-Life 2
An ok time waster.

100 hidden aliens

7/10
0.1 hours
100 of 100 achievements

100 Hidden Aliens is a 7-minute hand-drawn hidden object game where you look for aliens; each one looks different and many pretend to be other things, so while simple, it may be tricky enough that you would need to look twice! The music is very upbeat, and matches well with the theme.
This game also offers a nightmode by hitting the “N” key, as well as an option to reset all achievements with “Del” and “Esc.”

Half-Life 2
Cute, short, fun, not lacking in story! Worth playing.

The Last Campfire

10/10
6.1 hours
22 of 22 achievements

6+ hours to complete, The Last Campfire is an honestly cute and heartwarming adventure, exploration, and puzzle game. There are three areas, each with a cold campfire to rekindle and Forlorn to rescue before you move on to the next chapter; Forlorn are like you! Lost souls who found themselves stuck here, a place between places, but gave up, lost their ember, and turned to stone. Touch them to delve into their mindscape and find their fire that was so deeply buried; and bring them back so that they may continue their journey with you! The road is long, but don’t give up hope!

Half-Life 2
I have many regrets in my life. This is one of them.

Ni no Kuni Wrath of the White Witch™ Remastered

2/10
102.0 hours
33 of 33 achievements

Ni no Kuni Wrath of the White Witch is colorful, charming, and incredibly shallow. While absolutely gorgeous, it’s not very fun to play and has some rather significant flaws, most notably the pacing and combat. Random difficulty spikes, bosses thrown at you with no warning or consecutively, and a terrible party AI makes for some frustrating gameplay and frequent grinding for levels. In battle, party members collide with each other and are unable to attack, and occasionally despawn their familiars and attack monsters themselves, meaning they do 1 damage and have basically no defense to speak of; to fix this you need to take over their character and force them to summon something so they don’t die in seconds. Occasionally a monster or boss shows a warning when doing an AOE, and since your group can’t block on time, you may be tempted to use the “All Out Defense” button; but all it does is makes them stop attacking and stand there instead of defending, meaning they always take the most damage. I find it depressing and amusing that if you look at the global achievement status, 40% of players dropped out sometime between fighting the first boss and merely collecting 20 familiars; and only 12.6% have actually completed the main storyline.

Other issues are the familiars themselves; they are not created equal. Characters are more effective with specific familiars, and most are straight up not worth using while others are deliberately overpowered. In a monster catching game, all should be viable options for the end-game bosses when you care and level them, not just a handful. For quests, every single side quest is either an extermination or fetch quest; and many of the fetch quests have a unique function. “Take Heart” and “Give Heart” are special to Ni no kuni; if someone has too much confidence, boundless enthusiasm, and overflowing kindness, you can ask and take a piece of their heart to give to someone who is broken hearted and needs it; but you need to ask. You can only carry one type of heart, and you don’t know which piece they have, and if the npc has a type of heart you are already carrying? That’s right! You get scolded. For being greedy. This is completely unnecessary.

I do however, love and recommend the sequel, Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom, but there are some parts of Wrath of the White Witch you really need to know before playing! I suggest you watch all the cutscenes on Youtube and then read the wiki on The Conductor before diving into Revenant Kingdom, it’s a completely different game and significantly better in every way than this one.

Half-Life 2
A cute story about two childhood friends.

The Gardens Between

8/10
3.4 hours
17 of 17 achievements

2+ hours to complete, The Gardens Between is a memorable puzzle adventure game about Arina and Frendt; two childhood friends. Explore about 20 islands created by their childhood memories together, from when they first met to some rather fantastic adventures. The goal is to carry a lantern to the end of the islands, with Arina having the ability to carry and use the lantern to dispel fog, and Frendt being able to clear the way of obstacles by moving them forwards or backwards in time.

A very charming experience and well deserving of its reviews, The Gardens Between is an easy game to love and an even easier game to recommend.

Half-Life 2
Good! If a bit overhyped.

Doki Doki Literature Club Plus!

7/10
12.3 hours
19 of 19 achievements

Reluctantly joining the schools Literature club after selling your soul for a cupcake with your childhood friend Sayori; become friends and read Manga with Natsuki, intricate and sprawling fantasy books with Yuri, and write poems for Monika! Just Monika. With the upcoming festival, work hard with everyone to get your club set up making banners, baking cupcakes, and practicing poems! Everyone wants to spend more time with you, and you might want to spend more time with one person than another! It’s important to be friends with everyone equally! Or just be friends with Monika. Just Monika.
Welcome to the Literature club!

4-14 hours to complete, Doki Doki Literature Club slowly turns from a dating sim to a psychological horror; and with multiple endings, there is a lot of replayability and side stories to explore! While this is an excellent game, most of the story’s enjoyment comes from the plot points, and the less you know walking into this, the more enjoyment you receive. If you’ve been spoiled some or most aspects of the storyline… I’m not sure you will like this very much, since it’s admittingly a bit boring in the beginning and you already know what’s coming. Doki Doki is an incredible VN, a bit definitely overhyped, but still a solid read.

September 2022 Progress Report

So this month was a thing. :)

First of all, huge thank you to Adam1224 for telling me what jump scares were in Draugen without spoilers so I could actually get my nerves together to actually play it instead of constantly putting it off! Jump scares are either easier or worse depending on what they are and if you know it’s coming, but in this case it was significantly easier. Also knowing there were no chase scenes. That’s nice. Also; it turns out I really, really dislike Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch? Playing it is just generally an unpleasant experience, the constant bosses, phase 2 bosses, and oh- whoops! It’s phase 3 now! with random pacing issues leading to grinding is, a bit irritating, so I set it aside and put 40 hours into Skyrim before jumping straight into Cyberpunk 2077! Because I deserve nice things.

Cyberpunk 2077 so far is a pretty intimidating experience, so far a lot of the quests have been anti-stealth, which is unfortunate because that’s typically what I end up defaulting to, but it’s a very, very gorgeous game so I’m more forgiving at the moment. I really didn’t do great this month. I was sick for the first two weeks and bought The Companion at 1-2am-ish because I sure as heck couldn’t sleep and breathe at the same time. My lungs and my nose was generally pretty gross leading to a bit of sleep exhaustion but things worked out and I never lost my sense of smell so I’m fairly certain it wasn’t COVID! Yay!

Other than Finishing up Doki Doki Literature Club, working on Cyberpunk, and dungeon diving/book collecting in Skyrim, I have no plans for October, except that Halloween sale and passing out popcorn balls to whoever shows up at my door while I look like a pirate.

Games added to backlog: 2
Games 100%: 6

57% (256/452)
20% (92/452)
11% (51/452)
12% (52/452)
0% (1/452)
10.0 hours
A greatly anticipated and very much enjoyed game.

Time is forever frozen at 6:07am, June 6th 1984, in the village of Shropshire. Cigar smoke still lingers in the air, cars and bikes abandoned on the roads and parking spaces, but the town is utterly and completely empty; the only life that still exists are the plants and insects that flit about; and well, you. Follow the Remnants, the Lights that re-enact discussions, previous events, and last moments of the people who lived here; wander in their houses, follow them on old pathways, and walk with these memories step by step to learn what happened here, everyone’s final days on earth.

4 – 10 hours to complete, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture is a gorgeous walking sim that follows six characters, Jeremy, Wendy, Frank, Stephen, Elizabeth, and Dr. Katherine; each having their own section of the game where their story and what they know about their rapture is told. There are multiple collectables and radios to listen to while wandering, and there are a lot of little things, like swing sets, benches, and working light switches to enhance the general atmosphere and gameplay. This game does suffer from having a terrible framerate, but it’s fixable by following a guide. The only thing I would say that needs improvement is a save/load system instead of an autosave feature.
Many negative reviews complain about the lack of a run button, but after playing, something like that would disrupt the gameplay and would make the player skip sections instead of exploring them. If this bothers you, maybe rethink of what the tag “Walking sim” means?


Half-Life 2
Almost picked a negative review due to the terrible endings, that were played one after another.

The Companion

5/10
6.4 hours
9 of 9 achievements

Lovingly stalk a family of 5 as they take a work-vacation to a dense and isolated forest; find out the reason they are there and follow them back home.

6+ hours, an open-world exploration walking sim with collectables. 7 areas, 7 chapters, 91 collectables (Runic Stones) and sort-of multiple endings. The graphics, voice actors, story, and music were really good! Interacting with a Runic Stone releases a spirit animal to wander around the map, and the more Runic Stones you interacted with the more abilities gained such as Sit, Lay Down, and Become Corporeal. The spirit animal you play as isn’t visible to humans in the beginning, so it makes for some fun reactions.

My only real complaint is the endings; in which they play one after another once the game ends, like the developers didn’t know how to end the game so they tacked all of them on at the same time; and some clearly had cut content because they made absolutely no sense, and almost dragged this review down to a negative. The Chapter 7 area is very linear, but it was definitely rushed. Buildings were missing walls, roofs, sides, but not in a “This building is destroyed or dilapidated” way, like it was straight up unfinished. There also were, quite a few loose ends never wrapped up, some story elements introduced and never expanded upon. I do want to make it clear; that this was a really, really good game that was genuinely fun to play until this point in the story, and I still hesitantly recommend The Companion.

Half-Life 2
Fantastic game, the only downside is how short it is and the small explorable areas.

Draugen

8/10
6.4 hours
13 of 13 achievements

Play as Edward searching for his sister in an old costal village nestled in a Fjord; formerly a mining town turned fishing called Graavik, the only way in and out is by boat. Your young and energetic ward Lissie has come along with you on this grand adventure, but arriving at this cozy seaside area, it’s immediately notable that something is amiss; every person has mysteriously vanished including the inviting hosts for your supposedly short stay. Search for clues, look at evidence, and draw conclusions as to why so many people are missing, and look for traces of your sister among them.

Set in 1920’s Norway, Draugen is a pretty entertaining 3+ hour exploration and walking sim with some dark themes. There are mentions and depictions of suicides, murder, and severe mental illness; and two sort-of mild jump scares in the game, with one being a figure backlight by lightning, and another a crow in the mines when you peek through a hole to look into a room. Visually stunning, it’s a bit regrettable that Draugen takes place in such a small explorable village -It would have been nice to see and enter more houses. The ending is open, there are dialogue choices and while they don’t change any gameplay or the ending, it changes how your character perceives things. Overall, for a three-hour game, it’s pretty good and worth checking out even if you don’t like games with darker tones.

Half-Life 2
Click 100 hares in a hand drawn area. Not difficult.

100 hidden hares

7/10
0.1 hours
100 of 100 achievements

100 Hidden Hares is an incredibly easy 10-minute Hidden Object Game in which you look for hares in a hand drawn background which, upon a closer look, resembles a lovely winter village that was bombarded unmercifully with furry fluffballs and presents. Clicking each hare results in an achievement; and it’s satisfyingly simple to finish this game with it’s interesting music and cute animations.
Pressing “N” turns the game into night mode for easier viewing, and “Delete” then “Esc” to reset all the achievements so you could earn them again if that’s something you wanted to do.

Half-Life 2
More than 50% of the book is in the store video, when I say it's short, it's short! This thing is $8!

The Lonesome Fog

2/10
0.1 hours
no achievements

Four sibling cubs are playing a game called “Wolf”; the eldest cub doesn’t like this game because she is afraid of many, many things and consults her mother; who proceeds to make things worse by saying if she is afraid of something The Lonesome Fog will come and get her. Very, very afraid now, she blindly runs away when it gets foggy and must overcome her fears to see her family again.

6-10 minutes long, The Lonesome Fog is absolutely not worth $8; but it does occasionally go on sale for $0.99 so I would, maybe, recommend it then. There is an interactive grab and click feature that’s essentially useless, you can’t take any screenshots, and the store video and photos are 50% of the entire book. I assume this is for children, however the way it’s written makes me think an adult is supposed to read this out loud unless their kid can read and understand full written paragraphs.
Also; the fact that you need to buy this to 100% Meadow irritates me.

Half-Life 2
While short, there are 9 stories told and shown with watercolor art.

Fables from the Den

5/10
0.2 hours
no achievements

This review is neutral.
15+ min to complete, Fables from the Den has 9 short stories with two art styles, watercolor and the pattered style Might and Delight is known for. Each story has a moral and is told by a different animal, with others commenting on it after it’s finished. While cute, it doesn’t have enough content to justify a $7 price tag, so get it on sale.

August 2022 Progress Report

Welp, this month absolutely got away from me. I meant to only play 5 games, but then I got a SG win, bought the HB monthly, and got some rather fantastic trades, and gave into a Horizon Zero Dawn sale. I had to stop playing Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch just to keep up with my backlog since I already had two bigger VN’s I started, so, next month? Aside from Klonoa, nearly every game was “just ok” so it was a sorta boring month for me since nothing I played really stood out as worth replaying.

September is looking pretty good though, I plan on finishing Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, and playing Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, Draugen, Doki Doki Literature Club+, and hopefully Hitotsu no Mori or My Dangerous Life; and then I can finally check out Cyberpunk2077 in October. Plans rarely go well, but fingers crossed!

Games added to backlog: 7
Games 100%: 8

56% (252/450)
20% (90/450)
11% (49/450)
13% (58/450)
0% (1/450)
18.2 hours
Easily the best game played this month!

Summoned to another world, Klonoa the “Dream Traveler” is faced with the difficult task of restoring harmony and preventing nightmares and discord from plaguing the dream world of Phantomile and Lunatea! Team up with new friends, fight multiple bosses, free the residents and collect all the Momett Dolls to unlock special visions to learn more about these beautiful realms.

A 2D sidecroller in a 3D world, Klonoa Phantasy Reverie contains two Klonoa games, Door of Phantomile and Lunatea’s Veil; there are 51 Levels, called Visions, in total and takes 15+ hours to complete. Phantomile should be played first and features a young Klonoa, with Lunatea featuring an older more mature one. The games do not reference each other, but both have similar enemies as well as challenges. The puzzles are excellent and the boss fights are fairly easy, with each one having unique strategies to defeat. Each game has their own collectables which unlock extra content, freeing the residents in Phantomile and collecting all the Momett Dolls in Lunatea.

I will say while both games are very enjoyable, I loved the second game, the dream world of Lunatea, more because of the hoverboard levels were well designed and incredibly fun. The puzzles in both games were pretty good and I enjoyed the boss fights more than I was expecting. The only real negative I have is that sometimes, cutscenes would skip without your permission if you hit the tab key on a keyboard, which you use to move through menus, which would also turn on/off the scenes which typically lead me to reload every other level. I will definitely keep an eye out for a third game if another is made! I also want to note that the Klonoa games also have their own unique language, and there is an entire song called “Stepping Wind” you might want to check out if that interests you.


Half-Life 2
Very meh, but overall decent.

Saku Saku: Love Blooms with the Cherry Blossoms

6/10
31.3 hours
no achievements

Asaba Yuma is a handsome boy who, quite frankly, isn’t interested in love or romance; it’s pointless, and typically both parties involved have their heart broken by the end; but he likes to make people smile. With a growing popularity amongst the girls in his academy and working as an assistant in the nurse’s office, his hours are regularly misused as girls often come to him with their romantic troubles; but the more he hears about other’s failing relationships, the less he’s interested in having one himself. A “Love Fairy” takes interest in his personal life and approaches him, insisting that she can help him get a girlfriend to make him happy.
The conspicuous Reaper’s Scythe in her hands makes him skeptical.

Saku Saku: Love Blooms with the Cherry Blossoms is a 17-50 hour 18+ adult VN with full voice acting. Slow-paced and mostly slice-of-life, everything is pretty basic except for the fantasy elements. There are 4 routes with 1 hidden route, and plenty of CG’s. There is an incest route which is fortunately skippable, and is unnecessary to complete to unlock the hidden route. Overall, Saku Saku is a fairly decent romance Visual Novel that has plenty of content, and it’s worth checking out if you’re interested.

Half-Life 2
I regret picking up the game, spelling errors everywhere and a really confusing storyline & character design.

Fortissimo FA INTL Ver

2/10
15.8 hours
no achievements

Returning to Tsukuyomi Island after training in martial arts for four years, Reiji returns to his adopted family to transfer into High School and see his sister Sayuki again; only to be pulled into some terrible starry dimension and forced to take part in a survival game with 12 others. Every time someone is pulled into this beautiful dimension, one person must be sacrificed or killed to exit it, if no one dies within 13 hours, all life on the Island will be destroyed, including Reiji’s precious people. Everyone is granted a special power dependent on their personality, and the survivor will have a wish granted by Odin; Reiji’s power is to summon a girl named Sakura, a “living weapon”; survive, and end the game.

15-60+ hours to complete, Fortissimo FA INTL Ver is definitely… something. Full voice acting and a rather interesting story, I can definitely see why it has so many positive reviews; but it also has its issues. You can’t take any screenshots, spelling errors and confusing sentences are a common sight; but overall the VN is still understandable. Character design is cute but mostly leans toward odd; everyone has a different school uniform for some reason and hair styles are strange; one girl has what looks to be a… bag(?) on her head with a gigantic safety pin, one has her hair cut at 5 different lengths, and another tied her hair together in front that resembles a beard; to name just a few. The story is interesting, but very, very convoluted and I ended up glancing at a wiki to get some information straight. Play it if you want?

Half-Life 2
Cute, fun, short, hand-drawn, cats. Easy to love and play.

A Building Full of Cats

10/10
1.9 hours
21 of 21 achievements

Recently hired to look after a building full of cats after all the residents decided to travel for the holidays; it’s your job to make sure none of the cats are missing! Some are very skittish and will hide, so seek them out while seeing what a sneaky cat named Fofino wants from you.

40+ min to complete, 6 floors to explore with some relaxing music, A Building Full of Cats is a rather nice hidden object game. There are bonus cats hidden in the menu’s for extra achievements and despite it being short, there is a story with a satisfying ending.

Half-Life 2
Short, cute, fun, good storyline and smooth gameplay.

Omno

8/10
3.9 hours
21 of 21 achievements

Waking up utterly alone in a marsh with no recollection on how you got there except a memory of a civilization making a sacred pilgrimage to the golden door that leads to paradise; start your own journey to find your people and see what exactly is behind this door that no one ever returns from. Make an unlikely friend, and find your own definition of utopia.

4+ hours to complete, 5 chapters, one really good ending. An atmospheric adventure game with simple puzzles, the gameplay is pretty smooth; I didn’t experience any errors or bugs. You learn a couple skills to make exploration more fun and gain access to bigger maps, Float, Surf, Teleport, and Navigate. In each area, you need a minimum of 3 “energy sources” to move to the next map, with achievements for getting all of them. A lot of the story is told through “Memory cubes” of a previous pilgrim making the same journey. I enjoyed Omno more than I was initially expecting, the skills were fun to use, especially surf, and the ending was honestly very surprising and I loved it! Omno is an easy game to play and an even easier game to recommend.

Half-Life 2
Act 1 was fun, Act 2 and *that* ending? No.

Broken Age

6/10
17.9 hours
45 of 45 achievements

Vella Tartine and Shay Volta are two people who live in separate worlds and yet somehow inexplicably connected. Vella is a baker who lives in the Badlands in the small but delicious town of Sugar Bunting; chosen as a sacrifice for a terrible monster that appears every 14 years from behind The Plague Wall and eats young girls from various towns in a ritual called “The Maiden’s Feast;” while Shay is the only passenger on the spaceship, the Bassinostra, looking for a suitable world to live in since his home planet of Loruna is dying. With two AI parent’s, MOM & DAD, who keep him safe from anything and everything at all times, Shay is wanting a real adventure! Fortunately, there seems to be a strange stowaway who needs his help “rescuing” innocent creatures from evil forces.
Let’s get this good time over with!

5-10+ hours to complete with 2 chapters, Broken age is a point and click adventure game with excellent writing, voice acting, and difficult puzzles. Act 1 is fairly simple and straightforward, but for Act 2 I recommend following a guide. Broken Age was made by the creators of Grand Fandango, another fun game with notoriously tough puzzles; and it shows. Solutions are not obvious and even if you are a creative thinker, some of these will leave you confused. Despite the drawbacks; I still have to recommend Broken Age for its fun storytelling, writing, and voice actors, but beware, there is a speedrun achievement and while you can save/load sections to shave off time, it’s still not super fun to do.

Half-Life 2
Reviews for this game are mixed but I'm not sure why; no bugs and I had a good time.

The Deer God

8/10
11.2 hours
30 of 30 achievements

You start as a hunter, staying up late and looking for a deer to shoot for an easy meal; two come along, a big stag and a young fawn, and you line up your shot! Unfortunately for you, wolves attack and lightning strikes you at the same time and the baby fawn is shot instead. You definitely died; but the next time your eyes open it’s directly into the floating form of The Deer God, and they look pretty miffed. Appalled by your accidental cruelty, they reincarnate you as a baby deer and the only way to become human again is to redeem yourself. Good luck?

3-7 hour pixel platform side-scrolling adventure game where you play as a deer. Start as a baby and stumble your way to adulthood, complete easy push puzzles to gain various power ups; and use them and your platforming skills to beat some simple bosses. There is a karma system in place, if you’re good other deer will assist you in fights and follow you, but if you murder too many bunny rabbits you get reincarnated as one next time you die. I didn’t experience any bugs, and while the game is pretty easy, you could still die in a moment of carelessness. The only thing “unbalanced” is the Hail skill, where you have a Hail AOE that lasts a couple seconds you can actually stack/spam; I recommend it against one of the last flying bosses. Overall, The Deer God is a fantastic game and I don’t understand why the current reviews are mixed.

Half-Life 2
Loved it and hated it, worth getting on one of their frequent $3.99 sales though if you like VN's.

Our World Is Ended.

6/10
32.0 hours
40 of 40 achievements

Play as Reiji Misaki, a college guy conned into working for a hellish video game company who can only make terrible games called “Judgment 7”; and you somehow end up really liking it and the other 6 employees despite the unethical hours and absolutely abysmal pay. Everyone who works here has their own sin, ranging from Perverted, Delusional, Chaotic, Childish, Airhead, and Plain; and together, this group of misfits has delved into VR to make a brand new, trashy 18+ game with their brand new W.O.R.L.D engine that- hang on, that’s not right; this new program traps the user into a fictional world, and randomly summons characters, creatures, and evil organizations from the previous games created that are at of risk being brought into reality! Save Japan before it is overwritten and destroyed while you try to escape from this false reality!

25-40 hours, 7 routes and 8 endings, a fully voiced VN with multiple options, I have a love-hate relationship with Our World is Ended; on one hand, the art is gorgeous, the world building is incredible, and I already mentioned but- this 40 hour game is fully voice acted and frequently goes on sale for $3.99? What? I’ve only seen two spelling errors and quite frankly, that’s pretty incredible. On the other hand, you will statistically hate all the characters until they grow on you and learn more about them. They are flawed, terrible people who become more human but at the beginning it’s really irritating communicating with everyone.
All the routes are similar except for the endings, but “skipping through all read text” of a 40-hr VN isn’t easy. There really, really needs to be a “skip to next choice” button otherwise seeing all the routes and getting 100% is absolutely exhausting. I wouldn’t recommend Our World is Ended at full price but at $3.99? Absolutely.

July 2022 Progress Report

I did it! It was rough but I beat a couple games I had planned from last month and then participated in Cjcomplex’s event, so, I’ve knocked out 10 games! Woo! Time was kinda tight working on Ni No Kuni 2’s DLC but thankfully it was a Friday and Saturday, so I was able to pull through.

Working on Wrath of the White Witch for August but I don’t have any solid plans until I see the HB monthly and the new events going on. I’m soooo tempted to buy myself Stray, but I’m going to leave that as a reward for myself along with some other games when I beat my new years resolution. (Beat 80 games, complete more than I buy, etc.) I feel kinda burned out tbh because I’ve never beaten 10 games in a month before so I’ll probably re-read something I like or pick up a new book. Looking forward to next month!

Games added to backlog: 1
Games 100%: 10

56% (246/443)
20% (89/443)
11% (50/443)
13% (57/443)
0% (1/443)
112.4 hours
Excellent story, even better combat.

Evan is the young prince of Ding Dong Dell, but on the day of his coronation to become king, Roland materializes out of thin air from another world in front of him. Both are very confused and it gets even worse when Roland and Evan realize that Mausinger, the previous King’s trusted advisor, has staged a coup in an attempt for glory. Evan escapes with Roland’s assistance and vows to make his own country- A place where there is no war and everyone can be happy- and here starts this tale of a small king and his advisor building the soon to be legendary kingdom of Evermore from scratch. Recruit citizens, forge alliances with other kingdoms, uncover various schemes and create unbreakable bonds; but beware: something stirs in the background, and you, my friend, are in their way.

55+ hours to complete, Ni No Kuni 2: Revenant Kingdom is honestly kind of boring until the third chapter. Chapters 1-3 are all about setting up the story and it’s not until a couple hours in you actually get to really play and get into city-building. Once you start though? Amazing, fun, intuitive, the combat is my favorite and I would get into fights just for the fun of it. The number of items you could pick up made my little packrat heart happy; and I say this to you with all the love and experience as someone who has completed this game – Do not sell anything, ever. Especially shoes. Every item you get will be needed, either to complete a quest or to create an item. Even the pebbles; especially the pebbles.

The DLC is a must-buy; especially if you’ve played Wrath of the White Witch. The story ties in and I’m genuinely a bit salty I listened to people who said it doesn’t matter which game you play first, it does. The Labyrinth is an incredible place where you get a ton of EXP and equipment that are far better than literally anything in the base game; and while I had significant issues such as every 1 out of 4 runs crashing and the occasional exit door not spawning; it was absolutely still worth using it to level to the 150 cap. After that, the Winnower quest and Tale of a Timeless Tome, tie into White Witch and connect the stories.

TLDR; 55+hrs, city building, fun combat, amazing DLC, lots of side quests, make alliances with other kingdoms. Don’t sell anything ever; and play Wrath of the White Witch first.


Half-Life 2
Great base game, terrible DLC. I had a ton of fun playing in the underwater environments!

Maneater

8/10
21.9 hours
44 of 44 achievements

As a small shark with a traumatic entry into the world, become the greatest apex predator! Survive, evolve, and grow from a pup, teen, adult, elder, and mega shark; everything and anything is on the menu! Take your revenge on Scaly Pete, explore and become the underwater queen of the 8-9 locations on the Gulf Coast, and lure bounty hunters out in the open as you gain infamy points to unlock special perks and abilities. This world is yours!

8-12+ hours, Maneater can be played in a few different ways. Yeah, you can go all out and be super aggressive but the best moments I had were just, swimming around and enjoying the beautiful and realistic graphics. Later on, you get a perk which makes things smaller than you ignore you and swimming with the sharks is just, really fun! I went out of my way to find the albino versions of every animal and the Orcas are super cute. I named my character Ophelia and I really did have a great time. There are plenty of sea caverns and ecosystems to check out and many are just, absolutely gorgeous.

The game does have a couple cons and work-arounds I would like to mention to anyone interested in playing, the narrator is fun but can get super annoying 2+ hours in. He can be muted in the settings thankfully; but comes back in the DLC; which I actually recommend you skip. When I bought it, I thought it would just be silly but, is just, really annoying with all the conspiracy theories and ridiculous objectives. Fighting the final boss was good, but everything before then just made me thankful it was over.

Half-Life 2
An artistic reconstruction of myths and lore of The Mooseman, fun game.

The Mooseman

7/10
3.1 hours
15 of 15 achievements

Yen is the first god, father of mankind. He filled the middle worlds with spirits, animals, and men; seeded the forests with trees and filled the rivers with fish. He married and had 7 sons before leaving his wife and taking them on a long journey to become skilled hunters and slay the greatest of beasts; Vorsa. Vorsa is a legendary six-legged moose who carries Shondi’s fire, the sun, in his antlers and was created with the beginning of the world; and after a long hunt, was slain by Yen. With Vorsa’s death, the sun fell into the lower realm and Yen told his seven sons to draw lots among themselves, with each day a new son journeying to the underworld to bring a fragment of light back to the middle world so that the sun may rise again.

The Mooseman is 1+hr game that is largely an artistic reconstruction of myths and lore of the real-life Komi Permians, Komi Zyrians, Mansi, and Saami people who live in north-east European Russia around the basins of the Vychegda, Pechora, and Kama rivers. Artifacts represented in game are stored in the regional museum of Perm Krai in Russia. You play as one of the sons making their journey to the Underworld to collect a fragment of light and bringing it back to the middle world. Gameplay is very easy, simply move forward or backwards while switching between your mortal eye and spiritual to complete puzzles, progress through physical objects, and hide from the more dangerous spirits. Plenty of optional puzzles and riddles to collect secrets and artifacts.

Half-Life 2
Solve all sorts of puzzles in The House of Da Vinci.

The House of Da Vinci

7/10
7.5 hours
6 of 6 achievements

7+ hours to complete, 8 chapters; House of Da Vinci is a well-made 3D puzzle adventure game with a large variety of mechanical puzzles and fabulous inventions! Solve your way through the House of Da Vinci and find the reason behind his mysterious disappearance. In nearly every room, there is a hidden blueprint which grants you both an achievement and a collectable that can be interacted with in the achievement room.

Half-Life 2
Great game, fun boss fights and mechanics.

Pumpkin Jack

8/10
6.7 hours
33 of 33 achievements

The world is peaceful and the Devil is bored; so, he jams a troublesome soul into a carved pumpkin that’s on fire and sends them to the human world to cause as much chaos as they can. This unfortunate- or fortunate? Soul is none other than Jack; the man who became a legend after tricking The Devil on multiple occasions; has made yet another deal with the devil; In exchange for hunting down The Wizard, The Champion of Humans, Jack can then leave Hell and wander the world once more.

6+ hours to complete, 6 chapters. Playing Pumpkin Jack was really easy and satisfying; the gameplay isn’t difficult and the puzzles, boss fights, weapons and power-ups are fun. My favorite character is The Cowardly Crow, a bird companion you meet almost immediately and spends the rest of the game with you. There are collectables but none of them are missable unless you choose to not explore an area or ignore them, the gramophones and outfits especially! I didn’t note any errors or sudden difficulty spikes, but there are some parts of the game where it’s easy to get vertigo; Either way, Pumpkin Jack well deserves its positive reviews.

Half-Life 2
Lovecraftian, but not a horror. Excellent story with a twist.

Call of the Sea

10/10
7.1 hours
34 of 34 achievements

Nora Everheart sets sail on the steamboat, the S.S Caramel after her wayward husband, Harry Everheart, and crew goes missing on an expedition to a strange island 74 miles east of Otaheite. He left in search for a cure for Nora’s strange genetic illness; and after searching for clues he is convinced that somehow, this island is it. Nora arrives, and immediately feels something is… off. There is a reason sailors won’t speak of this island except to warn you away, and it’s time you find out why.

Call of the Sea was such an awesome game, 7+ hours to complete, a good and interesting story with excellent puzzles and plenty of charming characters. A walking sim with gorgeous and colorful environments, and despite the well-deserved Lovecraftian tag, not a horror! 6 replayable chapters, two endings, and a lot of fun discoveries; Call of the sea is absolutely worth playing if anything I’ve written sounded interesting to you.

Half-Life 2
Slow paced, feminine, and pastel. A few bugs but overall, I just wanted to bake more.

Calico

7/10
6.2 hours
13 of 13 achievements

Arriving at one of many islands to take over your retired aunt’s calico cat café, meet and make friends with the animals and residents of Heart Village. Complete requests and errands from the villagers to collect various furniture and 21 recipes for your shop! With numerous animals, horses, foxes, cats, dogs, crows, bears and more, have up to 10 animals living with you in your café. Carve out a space and life for yourself on this gorgeous island, and make it your home!

There is a lot to unpack here, so I’ll try to keep it short. 6+ hours to complete, slow-paces and LGBTQ+ friendly yet with no romance options; Calico is purely a pastel slice-of-life and relaxation game. Every piece of furniture and apparel is fully customizable with a huge color wheel with apparel having numerous patterns. The baking minigame is very fun and there is such a huge variety of things to do on the island you can pretty much do whatever you like; with my favorites being relaxing in the hot springs with the capybaras and running the café. The music is a bit repetitive but it’s very enjoyable and in particular I love the NPC designs and dialogue; the game is however, very feminine.

For the cons: as stated before, it’s very feminine. Making a character is supposed to be androgynous but making a male character is fairly difficult due to the body types/outfits; this game is marketed towards women. Another is at the time of this review, cake decorating as shown in the steam store video was removed due an issue and it’s not certain if it will be re-implemented. There is a bugged quest with Kai; you have the option to give her a dog or cat for her to feel more comfortable living alone at the lighthouse, and I chose to get her a dog, but going to bed resets the quest and defaults to giving her a cat instead. Riding horses is fun because of their quick speed, but dismounting them while they are running makes them continue at that speed until they hit a wall or unclimbable area. While this can be hilarious, chasing down a horse zooming across the map is just fun for the first few times it happens.

Overall; it’s a fantastic game. I really enjoyed playing and while I wish there was a bigger display case for pastries and sandwiches you can make, it’s a very fun 6+ hours and it would be interesting if they ever decided to add multiplayer.

TLDR; 6+hrs, LGBTQ+ friendly, a pastel slow-paced slice-of-life game where you run a cat/animal café. 21 recipes and a ton of customization for your character and furniture is available. Very feminine and relaxing.

Half-Life 2
Fantastic strategy game, I only wish the secret ending was a bit more... intuitive? more?

Timelie

9/10
7.1 hours
22 of 22 achievements

A girl wakes up alone in a strange place with floating blocks, missing walls, and a void below her. The floor crumbles as she discovers her unique abilities – The power of precognition and time manipulation; Team up with a cat to repair broken paths, open doors, and hide from the dangerous sentinels that roam the floors, and make your way home; Wherever that is, anyway.

Timelie is a very enjoyable 5-7+ hour stealth puzzle and strategy game! Absolutely worth it to get all the relics for the True Ending! My only complaint is that I wish it was longer, or a book. A bit hesitant to play at first since I’m not a huge fan of the strategy game genre, but it quickly grew on me - Time manipulation is fun to play with – and is worth checking out if you’re even slightly interested.

Half-Life 2
Hand painted, satisfyingly short. find hidden objects to progress the story and solve puzzles.

Milo and the Magpies

10/10
2.5 hours
10 of 10 achievements

Poor Milo! On his way back inside from a wonderful day of sunning on the roof, some pesky Magpies drive him away! Slightly lost but not too far from home, Milo needs to make their way back through the neighbor’s backyards and outsmart those Magpies to get back home before that storm rolls in!

1+ hours to complete, Milo and the Magpies is a hidden object point-and-click adventure with original music created by Victor Butzelaar. Hand-painted and created by the developer Johan Scherft, there is a lot of love put into this! Solve puzzles, find all the collectables, get into your neighbors’ catnip and meet some new friends on your wayward adventure.

Half-Life 2
More enjoyable than initially expected, I love walking sims and this one had unique and multiple endings.

Paradise Lost

10/10
5.8 hours
12 of 12 achievements

Szymon is a 12-year-old boy, left alone after his mother passed away. Exploring the nuclear wasteland that was Poland created from an alternate reality WWII, he stumbles upon an abandoned massive Nazi bunker that had its own city and civilization deep underneath the earth. Learn about its origins, the reason for its existence, what happened to the original occupants when it was eventually attacked and taken over by Polish rebels, and the colony they created inside from the ashes; and perhaps, make a home for yourself here too.

I had a really fun time playing Paradise Lost, I also however, love walking sims and haven’t experienced the bugs mentioned in other reviews. Aside from a visual glitch that in no way affected myself or the story, I had a great time! 3+ hours to complete with four endings and decent replay value. I highly suggest when you start the game you turn off head bobbing and severely reduce the camera sensitivity. There are no jump scares, nothing terrifying, nothing ever chases you. Fantastic game, play it if you want.

Something to note: In chapter 1 you have an option to walk through the station gates directly or take a detour through boxes and luggage – I suggest you go through the gates the first time and on your second playthrough; should you choose to do so; go through the luggage for a more fulfilling experience. (also, it makes more sense story-wise.)

A Very Late June 2022 Progress Report

umm… I have an excuse?
So lightning struck the tree 10-13ft outside my doorway, kinda traveled down from the top, sorta exploded the tree in the middle, and then hit my house; and my PC, washing machine, and fish tank heater died. I had to get a new motherboard, processor, and other good stuff so I dropped it off at a repair service to fix it, BUT, I had to travel to Arkansas at 5am on the 1st and then I just got back 6 hours ago! Still nauseous from the plane; actually. I did attempt to sleep but cece09 said cj’s event was up so… that definitely didn’t happen. Also the tree is somehow fine!

Moving on, I failed my new years resolution of not buying more than I 100%, but since it literally wasn’t my fault I’m just gonna super casually add the missing games from last month to this month; ima be busy. Despite only beating 3 games, I did put 85.3 hours into Ni No Kuni 2 and beat that but it’s not completed yet (DLC) so I’m not counting it.

Games added to backlog: 7
Games 100%: 3

3.4 hours
Fantastic, beautiful, perfect.

A new life on your last breath, don’t you wish you could go back to the very beginning and start over? Sigmund Corp grants dying wishes, for a price. Sign the contract and on your deathbed two employees will arrive to grant your stated desire; in this case, Senior memory travel agent Dr. Eva Rosaline and Technician specialist Dr. Neil Watts for patient Johnny – his wish? Go to the moon.

To the Moon is a beautiful game that’s a bit tragic, I played Finding Paradise first so I had fairly high expectations going into this and it absolutely did not disappoint. 3+ hours to complete, a fantastic and incredibly well written story backed up by its well-deserved overwhelmingly positive reviews.


Half-Life 2
Fun game, but the controls for keyboard are terrible!

Katamari Damacy REROLL

7/10
13.1 hours
21 of 21 achievements

Katamari Damacy REROLL, a 4-30 hour colorful and quirky game where you roll up objects to restore the stars in the sky. Levels are around 10 min each and the game can be completed very quickly, start from rolling up small household items, to entire towns. Create constellations, occasionally collect gifts from the king, and explore and discover new things in the world.

Warning for keyboard players, this is a lazy port and getting started is difficult enough to put you off from playing. You can skip the tutorial, which I recommend you do immediately upon starting, and then go talk to the giant bird on your planet to re-bind the keyboard to WASD so the game is actually playable.

Half-Life 2
A surprisingly in-depth and interesting story with broken English.

Flood of Light

8/10
7.9 hours
50 of 50 achievements

Play as W-02, a small girl left behind in a flooded and forsaken Hope city. Waking up in unusual circumstances with an interesting power to control and move electricity, collect wisps, repair the decommissioned robots, re-power the cities cores, and light the lanterns. Find the truth of what happened that left you alone abandoned in this lost city; and go home.

I loved Flood of Light! It’s an extremely cute game with a curious story with some rather creative and fun puzzles with a couple flaws; The text is mostly broken English and there is a fair amount of spelling errors, but the art, graphics, music, and puzzles more than make up for it. 4+ hours to complete, for the low price, it’s absolutely worth picking up and a great gift to send to a friend. Consider picking up the soundtrack as well!

May 2022 Progress Report

Well, this month was remarkably underwhelming.

I either disliked the game or it was good but had it’s issues. Going through my steam sale receipts, I’m going to try and focus on the three visuals novels I bought in the wintersale 2020 despite not really being interested in them anymore; I’m half tempted to just remove them from my library; if I end up doing that I have some summer 2021 sale games I would really like to play.
Eastshade was a clear winner this month despite the numerous bugs and how easy it was to softlock yourself out of stuff, still an absolutely gorgeous game with a good ending, I wish the developer worked on it a bit more though. It’s almost the Steam summer sale so I’m definitely ready for that, the two games I want to buy this year haven’t yet been released yet but I’m ready for them; the only game I think I’m going to be buying is the Talos Principle but I really hated The Witness so we shall see!

Games added to backlog: 3
Games 100%: 5

54% (233/434)
21% (89/434)
12% (52/434)
14% (59/434)
0% (1/434)
13.3 hours
Gorgeous game but has it's issues.

Set sail to Eastshade, an absolutely stunning island with artistic villages, the sprawling city of Nava, windy plains, dense forests, scenic beaches and howling caverns! Your reason for coming however, is not so happy. Your mother passed away; she dearly loved this island and has requested you draw four memorial paintings of her favorite places; the Tiffmoor Bluffs – a vast plain filled with windmills, The Great Shade – a gigantic tree whos branches are entwined with the sky, The Highest Peak, and the view from the top of the university in Nava. Complete her last request and return to the mainland, and perhaps create new bonds of your own with this beautiful island.

Eastshade is a gorgeous 9-13 hours exploration game that’s not quite a walking sim. Take commissions and quests from residents and explore the city of Nava; however, despite its rather magical atmosphere, it does have quite a few minor bugs. Softlocking yourself out of achievements is also fairly simple, from picking an endangered Black Thistle plant after you were warned not to, saying “no” to a quest, doing one out of order, or just missing one by not talking to the quest npc. Save your game frequently! Especially before you fast travel!
Regardless I loved painting and taking the canvases home with me to my art studio back to the mainland after the game was finished, it’s a nice touch. Doing commissions was really fun and exploring is enjoyable, my favorite location was the howling caverns and I took soooo many screenshots. Absolutely give it a chance if you are even slightly interested in Eastshade!


Half-Life 2
How do people enjoy this? The story doesn't make sense?

Fable Anniversary

3/10
26.6 hours
50 of 50 achievements

Fable is the story of a young boy whose village was burned down, his family either dead or scattered. Rescued by a mage named Maze from the Heros guild, he is taken in and taught to defend himself and take quests from the nearby town of Bowerstone. Searching for signs of his family, he sets out to rescue his sister and mother from the clutches of Jack of Blades.

Recommending Fable would be difficult for multiple reasons. Fables age aside, the keybindings are absolutely terrible and it’s recommended you either play with a controller or make some sacrifices on what you can and can’t do. Unable to key anything to the numerical keypad, (1,2,3) I gave up on blocking, dodging, flourish, and the bow to make the game more playable. The save checkpoint system in particular tends to cause quite a bit of backtracking and you need to leave the area to a new region to make a new checkpoint. Map areas you can enter are too small and numerous so loading screens are frequent; the combat is clunky and bows take too long to be drawn, there are not a lot of armor and weapon customization options, and some skills like (magic) Physical Shield are overpowered and unbalanced.

The biggest cons Fable has however are two things, the age system and the giant hole in the storyline. If you explore Fable and take your time, you’re going to be age 60+ by the end of the game while your sister still looks 20. You age so rapidly every time a day passes and you even age while learning skills in the guild. For the stoyline, it literally does not make any sense, while I suspect this is a “go and rescue your mom and sister, again” sim considering how many times they get kidnapped, it has bigger issues such as obvious solutions and character motivations not matching the storyline (spoiler text elaborating.) Bugs are absolutely rampant, the head bobbing is annoying so you need to zoom out on your character all the way, and the guildmaster is perhaps the most annoying character in the entire game. Whenever your mana is low, he tells you this via the guild emblem you are unable to toss, and whenever there is a new quest, he won’t shut up about it, especially if you are in a minigame, he repeats “Dun dun duuun! You’ve received a new quest card” until you leave it. I ended up muting the entire game and using a playlist due to the frequency of notifications.

Fable isn’t all bad however, the graphics are fairly decent, the housing system and upgrades are enjoyable, the rent system unique, and some of the minigames are actually fun. Some of the bugs in particular are my favorite, such as the item duplication bug, which sped up the game and likely saved me about 10 hours according to HLTB.

For the story flaws (SPOILERS; obviously.): Maze was working for Jack of Blades, Jack of blades was looking for you, and Maze obviously should have taken you to him instead of the hero guild. The story explains this as, “Maze isn’t strong enough to beat him but you have a special bloodline so he wants you to do it.” But this doesn’t make sense either, as while Jack is pretty strong, so is Maze and they are of comparable strength since you end up fighting both in the storyline. Maze also has high standing and powerful friends in the guild, so it doesn’t make sense for him to not call upon Thunder, or Briar Rose, or the Guildmaster, or even Scythe. Dude has options. Your mother. Former arena champion, is frequently mentioned to be incredibly strong, and then… gets taken out by Balverines? Is this a joke? She obligingly gives out valuable information to enemies and makes it stupidly easy to capture her multiple times during the story and does not put up a fight or draw a weapon at any point in time. Jack of Blades. He is specifically, for some reason, looking for you. He needs your family’s special blood from your mother’s side to get the special sword but has your mother readily available as a captive, and lets your sister go after he blinds her. In the end, he uses your mothers’ blood to get the sword, proving he was absolutely wasting time the past 10+ years. The story says he needs a key of which your mom only knows the location, gets the key, and then it’s straight up never used or mentioned again. You don’t need a key to enter the chamber of fate, the sword is already in the chamber. The key is never shown actually doing anything, jack suddenly just has the sword.

TL;DR: Perhaps the positive reviews are from people re-living out their favorite childhood game, because from my perspective it has too many flaws to be decent. If you’re still interested in playing Fable, either use a controller or be aware of all the bugs when you start it.

Half-Life 2
Good, but gets repetitive.

ISLANDERS

6/10
9.6 hours
26 of 26 achievements

ISLANDERS is a 2-7h strategy city building game that features randomized islands, various environments, and sandbox-like qualities that will let you explore and challenge yourself. Created by a team of 3 people, for $5 it’s a solid game that you can come back to time and time again. Placing buildings gives you points which unlocks new buildings and Islands, but beware – once you leave an Island to create another, you cannot return.

I like this game, it’s very enjoyable; there really is only one issue I have with it. Placing buildings give you points, placing them next to or far away from other buildings give you even more points, and while there is a Sandbox mode, inevitably all my cities started blending together and looking the same. This was somewhat offset by the creative uses of plateaus and the randomized environments, but it’s also a notable downside. Regardless, for its price and the fun you can get out of it, it’s an easy buy even if you end up not putting a ton of hours into it.

Half-Life 2
Tedious and grindy, takes too long to finish.

Holy Potatoes! A Weapon Shop?!

2/10
36.7 hours
50 of 50 achievements

Play as Patatalata Kartoffel P. Aardappel Papa, or P.K.P.A.P! Your grandfather, Batata, has passed away leaving you, as Batata’s only grandson, to inherit his blacksmith shop! Or at least, 0.01% of it. Fortunately, another Spud, Agent 46, who is your grandfathers’ best friend who owns the rest of the shop is here to help! Agent 46 gives you a short introduction and hires you 3 smiths to get started making starch and valuable weapons to heroes across multiple worlds, good luck!

This isn’t a horrible game but I wouldn’t tell a friend to play it. When you first start out, it’s pretty boring because you can only make a couple items and it takes time to unlock new items to research, and then you get to the fun bit 3-ish hours in, unlocking new items and working through quests… and then it quickly spirals into tedious. The gameplay is too repetitive, you make weapons, enchant and sell them, send someone to explore and find more ingredients, get all the hero’s levels to max and them move on to the next world. Completing the game takes 11-27 hours and it really does start to get flat.
While Holy Potatoes does have some interesting aspects such as various crossovers and references to movies and popular myths, blacksmith shop redecoration, and neat weapon designs, it’s not entertaining enough to make you forget that it’s going to take you 16+ extra hours to get all the achievements to see all the content.

Half-Life 2
Fun! ...At least the first half is.

Aporia: Beyond The Valley

5/10
15.3 hours
41 of 41 achievements

Play as the Warden of life, Ina. Waking up after a long slumber, you find yourself completely alone in an overgrown and abandoned remnant of a broken city. Move forward an explore to see what happened to this lost civilization, using your vial of glowing light to brighten the way. Discover your own adventure and put the ghosts of the past to rest!

Aporia: Beyond The Valley is an honestly gorgeous game, 5 – 17 hours long, the puzzles are interesting and pretty fun! Despite there not being any text in this game – the story is you learning while exploring – it’s pretty intuitive. The only thing I recommend is you actually need to look around; there are a couple people who absolutely lost the plot because they never bothered to investigate the first room which the story builds on. There are 5 chapters and two endings.
If I had to complain about Aporia, it would be about the ghost. In chapters 3 & 4 you get hunted and you need to find a couple items to unlock the next area, and it really cheapens the game. Story wise from my perspective (no text, remember?) it doesn’t make sense and it’s rather annoying. If you go for 100%, beware; there are 96 collectables in chapter 4, which is a significant increase from the 20-30 in previous chapters and avoiding the ghost is pretty hard, but you need to do it without getting caught or you lose out on the Ultimate survival achievement, although you could just reload a previous save.

April 2022 Progress Report

I’ve had an amazing time this month, assassinated two (!!!) big games out of my backlog with Okami being a fond & beloved childhood game of mine; and Terraria, a game I set aside for far too long. Townscaper I’ve had my eye on for a bit so when it got bundled I had to snap it up and had a fun 2-ish hours of playtime; it’s certainly better than Islanders. Thinking of games to play next month, once again I don’t really have anything in particular I’ve picked out, I did win a new game from SG, Fable Anniversary, so I hope to play it next month! I’m a bit nervous, some of the achievements looks difficult but I’ve seen it referenced a couple times and people seem to talk about it positively.

Games added to backlog: 3
Games 100%: 5

Edit: Forgot to add my progress bar!

53% (229/430)
21% (89/430)
13% (54/430)
13% (57/430)
0% (1/430)
94.7 hours
One of the most memorable games I've ever played.

Play as the Sun goddess Amaterasu who was called forth from stone into being by Sakuya, a wood sprite and guardian of Kamiki Village, during a time of great distress; the eight-headed demon called Orochi has broken free of their 100 year seal and is smothering the beautiful land of Nippon in darkness. Demons run rampant, plague and illness decimates the city, madness taints the water, nature withers and dies under their touch. Run across the land preforming miracles with your brush and Divine instruments, restore and bloom the guardian trees, release the 13 celestial brush gods from their constellations and use their power for yourself, use your sunlight and strength to banish this darkness and restore this land to its former beauty; this world is your canvas!
“May the fresh scent of flowers protect you always!”

I cannot express my absolute love and fondness for Okami, I am admittingly biased as Okami was my first ever videogame and it introduced me to what is now a huge part of my life. Inspired by watercolors, the sumi-e art style and nature, Okami is a huge mix of several Japanese mythologies and folklore. 25+ hours to complete, while not perfect as there is a bit of issues with the camera angles in tight spaces, the story, art, gameplay, and lore has clearly been crafted with love by its developers from Clover Studio.


Half-Life 2
Incredible sandbox that's easy to sink hundreds of hours into.

Terraria

10/10
100.7 hours
104 of 104 achievements

Terraria is an absolutely huge 50-175 hour 2D sandbox survival exploration with some rather fantastic biomes, boss fights, housing, furniture, weapons, and mounts – the survival mode is optional; as starting the game on Journey Mode gives you access to time & weather changes, enemy spawn rates, item duplication, and a godmode option you can turn on and off.
Starting the game, you create a world, and you choose how large it can be, how difficult you want it, if you want the crimson or corruption, or random. After that, it’s all randomly generated with an ocean on each side, floating islands, a huge dungeon, perhaps some living trees that you can make some rather fantastic treehouses with, and of course, The Underworld. Beating bosses unlocks new content, new npcs, new weapons and mounts, more biomes, and some neat events. Much of the content is optional and I will freely admit most of my time was me building a large apartment complex that went into space; with some individual houses for my favorite npcs in their preferred environments.

While Terraria’s strong point isn’t the storyline, the sandbox aspect is honestly enough to let you roleplay your heart out and come up with your own conclusions. Between fighting off the occasional pirate invasion, flying around with rainbow wings, and occasionally fighting my favorite boss, The Empress of Light, I honestly had a fantastic time by myself without even touching the multiplayer option. Spending 100 hours in this game is easier than I expected, and it’s easy to recommend.

TL;DR – A 2D sandbox game that’s easy to sink 100 hours into, optional boss fights, a rather incredible amount of weapons and item customization, pets, mounts. Fight god, or fish the entire time. Multiplayer is optional. 50 -175 hours to complete.

Half-Life 2
Pretty fun for 1-2 hours, sometimes doors do not appear on houses.

Townscaper

8/10
2.2 hours
no achievements

Townscaper is a cute city-builder, create a town on an island in the ocean, on stilts, floating in the sky; or some odd combination of everything. Sprawling cities and gardens, cozy houses, looming castles, huge apartment complexes, build your town block by block.
Fairly enjoyable, regardless of what you build the art style is enough that you’re going to be satisfied or happy with whatever you make. Place a house; and trees, benches, grass, and other things pop up making your town look lived in. More of a toy than a game, choose colors and discover combinations by building things, building things in a specific order can create some unique areas. My only complaint is that sometimes a house does not have any doors, or the door is in an undesirable location, like the back of the house instead of the front.

Half-Life 2
A pretty ok walking sim that talks about sensitive subjects.

Bottle: Pilgrim Redux

6/10
1.5 hours
24 of 24 achievements

Warning: mentions of alcoholism, depression, gross negligence, and death.

A man seeking redemption for his past mistakes takes this pilgrimage every year, walk with him down the mountain to the oceanside and listen to the story of his wife, how she passed away young from cancer; his difficulty connecting to his daughter while they both deal with the heavy weight of grief; struggles with the bottle; and how he tries to redeem himself from an unforgiveable mistake, year after year.

Bottle: Pilgrim Redux, a lovely walking sim accompanied by decent instrumentals and some rather fantastic graphics. The game is almost completely linear and the storyline is easy to follow along, there are no parts or puzzles to sit around where you can get confused. 1-2+ hours to complete, if you’re looking for a good walking sim to spend some time in, this one isn’t bad.

Half-Life 2
A fun, easy, and short hidden object game with music and cute animations.

100 hidden fish

8/10
0.2 hours
100 of 100 achievements

Find 100 hidden fish in this rather enjoyable 10+ min hidden object game. Everything is hand drawn and you look for 100 different fish hidden in the environment with some classy upbeat music in the background. There are moving animations, such as bubbles and moving mechanical fish, making everything very entertaining to look at. “N” will give you nightmode if the screen is too bright, and you can reset all your achievements by hitting “Del” then “Esc”.

Statistics
444 games (+1 not categorized yet)
11% never played
11% unfinished
13% beaten
64% completed
0% won't play