Beaten and completed

Even though in Enigmatis: The Ghosts of Maple Creek I disliked the fact that I couldn’t teleport from the map (so I had to manually go from scene to scene) and I encountered a bug that wouldn’t let me progress (so I had to restart), its age makes it somewhat more acceptable and I consider myself to be rather patient so I considered the story to make up for it. Although it wasn’t one of the best HOGs I’ve ever played, I’m still looking forward to play the sequels. I also finally managed to get the third one :D

I finally understand why everyone says that Pony Island is an amazing game that should be experienced without having read much about it. It’s absolutely nothing that I expected, but it’s definitely one of my favorite indie games ever and I would wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone.

The Beginner’s Guide is also a game I didn’t know much about for the same reason as Pony Island, and it made me feel things I didn’t know games could make me feel. While Pony Island was a “playable” game, The Beginner’s Guide is more of a walking simulator, with a few things to do every now and then. Certain parts of the story struck so close to home that I had to take a break at one point, only to dive back in it later and almost start crying. It didn’t take a lot of time to complete, so even if you don’t like walking simulators, I’d still suggest giving it a try.

aMAZE is basically a disappointment. I feel a bit bad talking about it like that because it’s an SG win but it’s so bad that I played it solely for the easy achievements. Theoretically, it shouldn’t be hard to make an acceptable maze game, but there were 2 major things that bothered me: one, the background + ball colors change every level, but not only do they not match, but they are also ridiculously straining for the eyes; two, I suck at games like these, but despite the levels being separated in 3 different difficulties, the only difference that I felt was the actual size of the maze - from easy to medium - but after that, everything else is the same.

Unfortunately, hack_me is also a disappointment. I wanted to play this so I could get to hack_me 2, which is another SG win of mine. This was very short, which I wouldn’t mind if it would actually be interesting, but the story is very simple and bland. The game itself was boring from start to finish; all you have to do to “hack” the sites/accounts/whatever they give you is type in things that they give you and.. wait. You literally have to look at the screen and wait minutes without doing anything. Not only is it annoying, but it’s not interesting at all; it’s like you’re just pressing buttons that they tell you to press just to get to the end of the game - no puzzles and no challenge whatsoever. There are also sections where you have to literally press random buttons until your character finishes writing a “virus” and one of them in particular was ridiculously long and unnecessary. I’m still wondering why this has mostly positive reviews.

I am SO conflicted about Solitairica.. It’s the reason it took me so long to update, I had finished the other ones more than a week before finishing this. First of all, I absolutely love solitaire-based games, and I was really happy to find this because it’s different from the other ones I’ve played; I liked that the idea was “defeat the enemy” rather than “pass the level”, that the enemies could fight back and that there were lots of spells rather than just your basic 4-5 skills (like wildcards, shuffling or whatever). It starts off nicely, being enjoyable and casual even though it is roguelite, and you have to beat the main boss with a few different decks - won’t go too much into detail because I want to keep it short, but basically every deck gives you different possibilities, advantages, spells etc. This is where it goes wrong. The decks have increasing difficulty levels, but I felt like a deck in the middle was the easiest one because of the overpowered starting spells, and I finished the second-to-last deck in literally one try, even though all the other ones took me at least 3-4 tries to finally get to the last boss. Oh, right, the last boss. That last boss is probably the second easiest to defeat, after the first monster in each “journey”. I’ve literally lost once to one of those trying to get an achievement, but never failed at that boss. However, the worst thing about this game was the last deck, which felt absolutely unfair compared to the other ones (why bother having difficulty levels if you’re going to randomize them anyway?), took me at least 7-8 tries just to actually start finding the starting spells useful, and probably 5-6 more to actually finish it. I hate that I absolutely loved it and now it just kind of leaves a bitter taste. Might be trying to get a couple of easy achievements though, since I got this far.

Up next

I’ve already started playing a bit of Ryse: Son of Rome, and although I’m usually not into any games that are set so back in the past (except Assassin’s Creed I guess), I’m kind of enjoying it. I wanted to play it because I heard it has a lot of QTEs and, well, it does not disappoint there. Unfortunately, as expected, the story isn’t very interesting to me, but the gameplay is good enough to keep me hooked.

Regency Solitaire is another game that I’ve already started playing; like I said, I really like solitaire-based games and I noticed I won it on SG, so I made it a priority. It’s a bit simplistic and playing it right after Solitairica makes it feel a bit plain, but I’m still enjoying it.

hack_me 2 and Clockwork Tales: Of Glass and Ink are also both SG wins, and even though I didn’t really like the first hack_me, I’m still hoping for the best for the next one. As for Clockwork Tales, I have a lot of unplayed HOGs and I didn’t even know I won this one on SG until recently T_T I’m also going to try to finish the Enigmatis series since I finally got the third one too :D Darkarta: A Broken Heart’s Quest seems to be praised a lot and I want to find out by myself if it’s worth it ^^

I’ve had Mirror’s Edge for PS3 for years now, but for some reason had some issues with my controller that made it unplayable back then, which was pretty disappointing, but hey, I got it on Steam in the meantime. It might be a pretty big goal considering my high school graduation is next week, but at least it’s a goal for later ;-;

I didn’t even know I had This War of Mine until I saw a bit of gameplay somewhere and wanted to wishlist it.. I’m really bad at tracking my own games, to be honest. It seemed very different from what I thought it’d be like just from the screenshots, so I’m curious what it’s going to turn out like.

Dark Angels: Masquerade of Shadows is my most recent SG win and it’s (surprise!) another HOG! I don’t remember much about this one because I think I’ve had it on my wishlist for a while, but it looks like a nice little goal for the next few weeks that are going to be hectic ;-;