Activities
Today
How am i to discern the whereabouts of yon biscuits?
If there's one thing Felvidek undeniably has, it's character. It's a character that hangs over the whole production, from its pixel-y art style, to its acoustic synth-y music tracks, to its delicious, humorous writing. I came away feeling like i had just enjoyed a lovely evening at a friendly stranger's house, where things seem unfamiliar, but no less warm and welcoming
Coincidentally i watched the movie Sinners recently, and its themes of cultural heritage, and the human "soul" of art, made me think about Felvidek in those terms. You can feel the cultural influence so well, that it's almost like having glimpses of that time period. It definitely awoke a hunger in me to experience more, but i'll settle for just more "like this"
A short game you could probably finish in a day, i would recommend anyone to try it out
Yesterday
Update #4: June 2025
I’m getting too many games lately, so the progress is going backwards, lol. . This month’s choice from “Won on SteamGifts” was “Frog Detective 1: The Haunted Island”, very short but very funny, I’m curious about the next ones in the series. I’ve been playing REPO with my friends a lot too. I’m having such a great time!
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════
Completed
-
Frog Detective 1: The Haunted Island
-
Trash Bomber
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════
Played
| Dorfromantik | 1 hour | 9 of 85 achievements |
| PictoQuest | 1 hour | 11 of 26 achievements |
| REPO | 10 hours | No achievements |
| Sudocats | 4,5 hours | 14 of 15 achievements |
| The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles | 8,9 hours | 12 of 30 achievements |
| What the Golf? | 2,5 hours | 16 of 63 achievements |
Jul 07 2025
So consistency is clearly not a thing for me but did a few games recently
Overall a pretty average Sudoku game. The cat twist is fun but honestly made my brain hurt a bit, but fortunately, there is an option to set it to all numbers instead!… so basically I just played regular Sudoku. There's some QOL in here that I think could be added that other Sudoku games I've played had, but overall, very chill and simple.
Another super cute game by DevCats! Very similar to A Building Full of Cats 1, wherein you mostly hunt for cats but have other objects to hunt down as well. The 'story' was quite barren but honestly, that wasn't what I was here for. A few achievements can be a little buggy and require you to go into already completed rooms to get the achievement, but an easy fix. A few of the mini games can be a little hard to notice as well, but overall, very fun!
The Last Campfire is a beautiful game with a heartwarming story. You play as a lost ember, searching for meaning and trying to find a way home. Along the way, you encounter wanderers - other embers - and forgotten - those who have lost their way, their very meaning.
I was drawn to this game by the art style and the promise of puzzles, but the story - though parts may be vague - was what stayed with me after. The puzzles were, for the most part, very simplistic, but not to the point of being boring. Just nothing that left me absolutely stumped, though some did take some trial and error.
The achievements can all be gained fairly easily - you don't actually need to 100% the game. I only found about half of the Wanderer's Journal. All you need to do to get all the achievements is to help all of the lost souls find their way to the campfires.
While I can understand maybe not wanting to get this game at full price (though the devs deserve the support, in my opinion, as this was an amazing game), it frequently drops on sale for only $1.50 and is MORE than worth that price.
Just help her get the milk, man, don't be mean :c
This game is. An experience. Man, the name makes you think it's gonna be such a goof, but o o f those 13 minutes are gonna stick with me. There's really not much to be said about the game, because you really need to just see it for yourself.
I am not sure what I just experienced but I sure did Experience It.
A lot of what I’ve been playing lately is mostly vibe, take 8000 years to ‘beat’ games, but hopefully I’ll be back sooner next time!
-
Dying Light
115 hours playtime
78 of 78 achievements
Report #414: Dying Light
Do not play solo
What a ride this game has been. In 2015 I first started to play this alone. Did not have too much fun with it, but recently a friend and me decided to jump into the game in 2-player coop and we really enjoyed that. So for the last 10 months we played it 1-2 times per week and today finished the last achievement in the last DLC.
During that journey we discovered a lot of annoying bugs and frustrating time runs, but it was worth the time at the end.
Now installed Dying Light 2 and we will start playing that soonish.
And since I started playing that in 2015, this kinda puts at least some progress to the long forgotten 20/22 challenge
July Assassination #2
Consider liking my review on Steam - it means a lot to me!
While I thought Golden Light was a first-person shooter, it's more apt to describe it as a first-person tactical espionage survival roguelite. Moment to moment gameplay here is mostly scouring the floor you're in, looking for keys which will give you access to the next floor, while avoiding traps and enemies (and combat), and collecting resources that can all be used in multiple ways. Got a consumable? You can either eat it or throw it at enemies to trigger status effects. Got a new weapon? You can either use it (with very poor control and damage in general), throw it (for status effects) or eat it (?) as well. Managing these resources while deciding when to engage in combat is the core to the game, and it took me almost four hours to really understand it, since it's a very obtuse game (and unashamedly so).
So, if you want a run and gun game, this is not it. This is a much more cerebral and cautious kind of game. Buyer beware.
Outside of the 'dungeon floors' you have a hub world that is as weird as the levels, and even after beating the game I'm still confused as to how to navigate it. There's certainly a proper way, an optimal path, but I have absolutely no idea what it is.
Now, I didn't love the gameplay, and hence is why I wouldn't recommend the game. But one thing that it gets absolutely right are the vibes. Visual design, sound design, enemies, environments, loading screens and transitions, everything is super well alligned to the vibe the game wants to convey, and there's something really satisfying to see gel together. Unfortunately I couldn't get over the gameplay jank so it's still a no-go for me, but if you know exactly what you're getting into this could be your game.
July Assassination #1
Yeah, no big review here. The game is basically multiplayer only, and I played a mix of online matches with folks (not many active players from what I could see) and offline matches with bots (decent for the most time).
I have no clue why I entered this GA (well, most GAs are like that hahaha) but overall, Goat of Duty is fun-ish. The game modes I played have a great Unreal-arena style feel to it. Matches are hectic, with you respawning and immediately running around looking for a better gun than your pea-shooter. It's a bit hard to get used to the goat's models for headshots and stuff, but it's not a massive deal. One of the most unique mechanics here are the ramming charges, which can be used as either movement options (to cross gaps) or offensive tools (to send enemies flying and drop them off ledges). Speaking of ledges, most levels are built around endless pits incentivizing you to throw your enemies from them.
While good fun, it's not a game I see myself playing for long or in the future. It's fine, but I think we are finished here hehe
Ninglors Log 401
June Progress:
8
PPU monthly:
done
June Additions:
18
July Progress:
1
PPU monthly:
done
July Additions:
Games finished this week:
Beacon Pines
8 hours, 11 of 11 achievements
Wuppo: Definitive Edition 
11 hours, 3 of 23 achievements
Present from 2024
Won/Gifted Games:
Bought Games:
Currently playing:
So much from me :3
Have a lovely week!
Queen Ninglor
Jul 05 2025
June 2025
A younger me played the demo of this back on the Xbox Live Arcade and, despite having an adoration for the first game, could not justify buying this entry. It felt kind of superficial, watered down, and lacking that special flavor I had tasted when playing Alan Wake. Though I wouldn’t say it is nearly as bad as I made it sound, I’m not entirely off the mark. Sure, it has the general combat and gameplay but it’s just a bit more bare. For instance, in the original you could let your flashlight recharge and still flashlight enemies without focusing on them. For some reason that is gone. It’s not game changing by any means, but an odd choice. Dodging also often felt off where it would randomly just not work as intended. Instead of having static document pages, you now get autoscrolling cutscenes which can make it a bit more annoying to read despite Wake narrating it. What credit I can give to it is solely on the introduction of a variety of new enemies for refreshing combat. Not only do they have unique actions but even react differently to your real weapon, light. There are also some new weapons but nothing ever felt particularly outstanding.
The issues above are relatively minor but probably the worst offense is the story and content. From the jump you are thrown into what feels like the middle of a new story but without any of the context provided (and no I don’t mean anything from the first game). You’ll interact with brand new characters as if you’ve known them for years (also why were they all women?). Granted part of the story seems to suggest some things later on but I don’t think it quite justifies such a cold entry. Though the general plot device is neat, there is just so little content within the story that you might wonder if any of it really mattered or expanded upon anything. Despite that, I did enjoy the videos with a live action Mr. Scratch as it never felt we got to experience him much before this.
At the end of the day the story was an afterthought as the majority of the content is within the arcade mode. These are various maps where you have to survive wave after wave of the Taken trying to get the highest score before the sun rises. You gain score via killing enemies which also increases your score multiplier along with successful dodges.The first problem you will face is how slow the enemies trickle in. Waves don’t start until the last wave is completely done and all of the normal levels start with only a few enemies at the beginning and take a long time to get rolling. On the other hand the Nightmare variants never stop coming almost to a fault where you won’t have much time to fight back especially with the limited ammo. Be warned that even if you survive the night, your eyes likely won’t due to the blinding flashbang that is the sun. It’s light will not only burn away the remaining Taken but also your retinas as it is incandescent white that bursts on screen and stays throughout the summary. Needless to say, it’s overkill.
Recommend? What little story elements that exist are nice, but it does fail to capture the feel the series should have. Perhaps only for those who are truly invested in everything Wake.
Alone in the Dark 3
Another DosBox adventure with a Western theme. This entry sits at an awkward spot between the action focus of the 2nd game and the mystique/charm of the first. It excels at neither and it’s puzzles are by far the worst. I’ve seen more sensible solutions in your average point-and-click adventure than I have of this while being far more clumsy. So, while you are pacing around either missing the pixel to pick up an item, softlocking yourself due to missing the item entirely, or find yourself pacing around a solution that not even the greatest creatives can find… you have to suffer the music. I’m certain there is only like 3 tracks and one of them is a constant alternation between banjo and a spring to drive you insane as you fail to solve a puzzle. What’s more is I’ve had more than a few times where doing the correct solution didn’t trigger the next step. Even when you are right, the game tells you that you are wrong. There were a few neat ideas here and there, but they were VERY few and far inbetween.
Recommend? Absolutely not. Between the controls, the music, uninteresting story, terrible puzzles, and often game breaking sequences… this is a hard pass.
A surprisingly good Castlevania-like with a relatively unique portrait art style. Gameplay is relatively polished with solid combat, well designed levels with classic themes, and challenging bosses. The game can get pretty easy with how fast you level up though it may depend on how you assign your stat points.Though the portrait and scene art is fantastic, most scenes are pretty short and lack a much needed climax point as they are on fairly short loops without much progression. It’s kind of surprising in that the first scene shows a lot of potential but then most scenes feel fairly tame in comparison. Still the varying scenes are nice, but this is far better as a traditional Castlevania-like than a lewd game.
Recommend? Genuinely, yes. It’s just really solid at it’s core gameplay wise.
It’s great, but not as amazing as people make it out to be. Taking place in the self-coined “Remedy-verse” you are a newly appointed director of the FBC (Federal Bureau of Control). Your job is take control of the FBC main building “The Oldest House” from the invading hiss. The oldest house and pretty much everything in it is a paranatural phenomena and thus nothing ever stays “normal”. Armed with your service weapon and various paranatural abilities you can take down the hiss and maybe find your brother. The opening of the game, though keys you in slightly to weird ongoings, feels kind of too obscure. Genuinely took a while to understand what my character was doing here or what any of this was about. Granted that’s part of the mystery but I would have liked a little bit more of an introduction before diving into the adventure. Yet, sometime through the general premise did start to click and I was much more involved. That being said the concepts and world of Control were far more interesting than the gameplay loop itself. I found myself far more invested in the various AWEs, OOPs, and various lore explanations within it. Coming into a room and seeing an object within a containment cell made me wonder what could this object possibly be there for, what is it’s past, and what could happen to me if I were to interact with it.
Despite all the lore implications, this is where the disappointment begins to seep in like dirty water from a puddle you stepped in. The gameplay loop. Many of your interactions and side missions, as exciting as their setup implies, often just boils down to the usual arena gun fight oftentimes with little to no special effects. Maybe 10% or less follow through with some interesting setups but most of the time it is just the same recycled gameplay. With as interesting concepts as the various paranatural objects you encounter, you would think you’d find crazier and varied gameplay… but that often just isn’t the case. When you’re not taking care of these rooms of enemies you are just doing clean up duty or typical mundane game tasks. It just starts to feel like a job… which is maybe the point(?) but not a very good point if that. Don’t get me wrong, the general gameplay is nice. You shoot and do weird paranatural abilities, but it isn’t all the new or outstanding. In fact, it kind of reminds me a lot of Quantum break. It’s not a bad thing by any means, but maybe don’t rely so heavily on this for the entire game without some palette cleansing change of pace mixed in.
Remedy is fairly known for their strong narrative and world building and this game is not excluded from that. Plenty of files and story beats to expand and flesh everything out. It becomes a problem, however, when every room seems to hold 3+ files, audo recordings, tapes, etc. You’re quite literally tripping on them and having to constantly pause your game to read each and every one. It’s too much and since a lot of it is very business/federal documents they lack the same charm as say an Alan Wake narrated story page. Don’t get me wrong, I want the general lore media… but maybe at a reduced amount. At some point my eyes just glaze over and continue on with my day. That’s not a great feeling. Still, the visual media like movies/video recordings are all fantastic particularly the ones featuring Dr. Darling or the tv show the FBC made.
By far the biggest disappointment is the exploration. It’s one thing to be travelling around a mostly gray federal building. It’s another for your rewards for exploration, outside of lore documents, to be chests full of randomly generated mod gear. These mod gear drops either enhance your weapons with various stats or yourself with mostly small changes to how you use your abilities. A lot of these stats are pretty underwhelming and since its random drops there’s not much excitement in finding them. This loops back to the issue that the gameplay loop is not interesting enough to solely rely on. There’s a few standout mods I received in DLCs but I’m fairly certain both were mission rewards which makes the actual drops and finds all the more useless. Further expanding on the repetitive gameplay loop, the game introduces randomly generated challenges and alert missions for even more drops… I didn’t bother with a single one as, once again, the rewards just don’t justify the continued and over relied on gameplay loop.
AWE
AWE is one of the major DLC expansion included in Ultimate Edition. It focuses on Alan Wake, who we know is an author from his self titled game. I very much enjoyed how they tried to implement the darkness into the gameplay and even gave this section a bit of a horror edge. Since this game (along with most other Remedy Games) are all set in the same universe it is nice to read documents that fully address Alan’s existence and how the FBC explain everything that happened in Bright Falls. Though I enjoyed the general crossover, hearing more narration from Matthew Porretta, and the antagonist you face throughout… it doesn’t quite do as much as I had hoped (much like most of the side content within the game). It fell a bit short, particularly on content, and introduces no new abilities or changes to bring back to the base game.
FOUNDATION
Another major DLC that focuses on a threat from the astral plane with the Oldest House. I won’t divulge into too many details but surprisingly I liked this a bit more than AWE. Largely due to the fact that you get more abilities to play with, though they are sadly restricted to the DLC area due to how they function. Still, the new abilities are fun and the scenery is a bit more varied than the usual grayness you face with most of the game. However, maybe the one thing AWE did far better than this is that the final battle was not nearly as climactic or as strong.
Achievements Note: The game isn’t terrible difficult to complete though you may need some guides. It should be noted that some of the achievements don’t trigger until after completing the objective AND then killing an enemy in an encounter. It’s not something I completely noticed at first because I was regularly going through the game so it just seemed like the achievement was generally late. However, when trying to mop up the last few I noticed they weren’t triggering until I invested in an enemy encounter. Also, because enemy spawns are somewhat random… take care of the generated challenges as you go… and not last. You’ll thank me.
Recommend? Despite being fairly critical this is still a very solid game with a great premise and gameplay… it just could have been a little more varied and a little less drowned in documents.
Beaten during June, final achievements gained July 4th
The Black Dawn DLC
Solid DLC that expands the base content with expanding a pre-existing character's story as well as weaving the few new characters in. Each character looks great and their scenes even more so. However, since this is baked in content you'll likely have to replay through the story a few times to experience it fully. This wouldn't be so bad if the game had a dialogue skip option and so many menus didn't take a few seconds to transition. My only wish past that is for there to be more interactions with some of the new characters for more variety of scenes. Additionally, endings involving more of the characters (as well as post ending scenes) would be nice too. Last note is that these new characters have some of my favorite mastery skins of the bunch but could use some additional seasonal skins as well.
Overall, not bad for it's price to an already solid game but it is a bit of a slog to go through the story a few times just to experience it all.
-Steam Deck
What’s great about Guacamelee 2 is that it is just more Guacamelee 1. After all, once you have a great dish, why mess with the recipe? That’s not to knock any games that experiment and innovate, but sometimes it’s nice to have something familiar. Don’t get it confused though, this is a brand new adventure and there’s plenty of improvements and new additions to keep things exciting. As per usual it’s a nice mix of pop culture/gaming references, great music with dead world alternates, lucha combat, and plenty of jokes that are more than bound to hit (trust that even some made me laugh aloud). One of my favorite changes to the game is that you not only need currency to buy upgrades but require doing certain actions to get them. It just feels more organic and forces you to use each one more. Of course, the best improvement is more pollo power giving the best chicken experience out there. Possibly the only negative this game really has is that game in general (particularly the final battle) is easier. Not by a great margin and it even has some of the most difficult side content in the game, but just something to note.
Recommend? All in all, completely on par with Guacamelee 1 and that is to say they are both fantastic.
A pretty underdeveloped deckbuilder as outside of losing and restarting your journey you don’t really get that many chances to manage your deck. This is largely due to the limited number of encounters and not being able to repeat encounters (unless defeated). The combo potential also feels lacking as there isn’t much synergy between cards and often some of the enemies mechanics tend to override them anyways later in the game. In fact, some of the enemies mechanics are downright brutal and may even take some luck depending on the run you get. Scenes are pretty quality between simple animations and decent voice work. Though the scenes all focus on a forced theme, the main character is quickly won over but it’s still something to note. The overall story isn’t particularly present and more of a “getting to the next step” sort of deal. What’s really annoying is to unlock all the scenes you’ll have to lose 3 times to each encounter which means each 3 losses will require you to start the whole game over to get to the next set of scenes.
Recommend? Kinda. The gameplay is a big let down though the scene quality is pretty nice. However, I’d much more recommend the likes of X-Angels which does everything entirely better with an enjoyable gameplay loop.
Silent Hill: Homecoming
What is already a subpar entry in the series is only further brought down by performance issues and what is generally just a terrible port. We miss a lot of the nuances and mystery of what makes Silent Hill what it is. Endings are tied to a mere few and fairly obvious choices. There is very limited exploration in each location which are all pretty small and self-contained. It really lacks the mystery and feel of Silent Hill right down to a lack of identifiable music or sound design. Some of the story is pretty alright and does address some genuine conflicts a person may face, but it often feels a bit messy along with the fact that the endings are pretty abrupt.
Possibly due to your military training the game features a bit more in-depth combat than previous entries. You can now combo melee attacks and even charge a heavy attack to better take down the horrors within the fog. This comes with an issue as many bosses and enemies almost seem to exclusively take damage from melee making guns often feel less useful. Even then, melee combos can suddenly miss as the enemies seem to be get pushed out of the way by an invisible force before your final hit. This is only more infuriating when you fight enemies that seem to block every hit without some specific timing and even then it is variable. We also get a dodge mechanic that is… not great. Often times the dodge will rarely be to your benefit or instead you'll just end up blocking which does even less for your positional advantage. In many cases it is better just to get out of stance and run than it is to dodge.
What turns a subpar game into a dumpster fire? Performance. This game does everything in it's power to try and stop you from playing. It will periodically freeze either randomly or during interactions for several seconds before either resuming or crashing. Even when just booting the game up it can just sometimes crash or not run all together. Using a controller, and even with binding keys, you'll very quickly find that the game not only displays the incorrect prompt in QTEs, but seems to be inconsistent on top of that. So, if you have to mash out of a potential death, either mash everything because it won't be the same button that is displayed or even the same button it was for the previous attempt OR switch to keyboard and mouse for those sections. Visual glitches tend to be less frequent but you can sometimes see your character phase through objects, missing lighting in textures like eyes, and even have cutscenes misaligned with audio.
Recommend? What would have been a 4 or 5 out of 10 game is easily a 2/10 due to performance issues alone. Had these issues not been prominent this could have been a lukewarm recommend, but honestly just avoid at all costs.
Waifu Fighter
-Steam Deck
It’s opening graphics depicting a steam deck might make one think it works for controllers on PC… it didn’t for me. It works great on the Steam Deck, but when I tried to play it on my computer the controller just would not be recognized. Keyboard and mouse did not appear to be an option either. The premise revolves around a world where women’s bodies have advanced far past male capability and have become the strongest fighters while men became “domesticated”(?). Your goal is to enter the tournament and break the gap with your secret mountain techniques. Honestly… the premise is kind of sexist but it’s put in such a ridiculous way that I don’t think you’re supposed to take it anywhere near seriously and some of the later interactions come across as a bit more reasonable.
During fights you will take the POV of the main character and have to react to the directionals shown on screen in time depending on their mechanics. So, it plays like a more straightforward punch out. However, with the limited characters and progression it lacks a bit of variety. Furthermore later characters just adapt the mechanics of previous fighters instead of creating entirely new experiences (i.e. it made sense for one character to heal the way they do, but the character after should not have had that same ability in my opinion).
When you win fights, you not only get to progress to the next fighter, but win money as well as the first of 3 story segments for the respective fighter. Money is used to increase various stats, though some seemed to do very little, as well as buy the remaining two scenes for each character. Needless to say you are better of focusing on stats to easily farm enough money and then respect the money to buy all the scenes at once. As stated before each character gets 3 scenes. 1st and 3rd are animated while the second is purely story based. Animations are pretty decent if you can ignore some slight clipping or odd shapes and even have voice acting. Stories are pretty bare bones but the characters’ personalities are at least distinctive enough to not feel so copy and paste. Whereas each of their designs are quite diverse at the very least.
Recommend? It’s a decent enough game but does lack a bit of replay and could have used more scene variety.
Breath of Death VII
-Steam Deck
So this is the same dev who made Cthulu Saves the World and I have a distinct impression this was made before that because MAN does it feel like a downgrade. Similar to CStW, it is a fairly short RPG that prioritizes fast combat over real strategy. This game even less so. To reiterate (or just iterate if you didn’t read my other review), you control party members and after each round the enemies get 10% stronger. This means within just a few turns your party members could easily get one shot by the most basic enemies. It’s intention seems to urge you to use abilities, but with such a strength increase you are very likely to use a very select few of the multitude of spells you will gain. What’s worse is that in this you don’t even get genuine ways to regain Mana/MP. Some characters will get a lowly 5 points back after each battle, but otherwise you would have to either sleep at an Inn or go to the very rare save points. There’s not even the luxury of expensive mana potions, it’s literally just the two rest options. If this at least had the fast travel option for emergencies I could at least give it some credit but more likely than not you are just going to softlock yourself if you are not careful or just plain unlucky.
The idea of having a skeleton main player was nice and I do enjoy the that each level up you get has you choose between two choices “perk” choices even if most of the time they were pretty uninspired for most of the level ups. Unfortunately there just wasn’t much of a story, interesting characters, or even level design to win back some favor.
Recommend? No, if you were to try any of this dev’s RPG games, try Cthulu Saves the World.
A quite enjoyable SHMUP that does a lot right. Unlike a few others I have played, this has combat both in the foreground (typicall shmup gameplay) but also has you interact with enemies in the background (aoe laser targeting). This makes for a far more exciting experience as there’s actually a reason to look at the background and it’s well illustrated too. The breaker system where you can fill up your meter and unlock it for brief higher firepower is a fantastic risk/reward system while bombs are a safer secondary but usual choice. Though it might have been due to my lower difficulty it seemed pretty random on if/when I’d get the double breaker mode which requires you to fill the meter up fully during the limited breaker mode. All enemies and fights feel very fair if not incredibly challenging at times. Don’t let my playtime fool you, it can be an incredibly short game if you don’t care about Steam Cards or trying to unlock the secret final boss which requires you to beat all bosses without using a continue. Music fits very well along with the general sound design.
Recommendation? Yes, of all the SHMUPS I’ve played this month it is by far my favorite and even felt the call to continue playing to try and get that final secret boss (though I’m clearly not good enough).
Cthulhu Saves the World
-Steam Deck
Same dev as Breath of Death VII and it is a much improved but still problematic game in comparison. You play Cthulu the eldritch god stripped of his power and forced to be a good and the only way to get it back is to become a true hero. First and foremost the adventure feels a little more forefront with plenty of character interactions and present story. There is a nice variety of characters though I did end up sticking with my original 4. Each character has a better focus and Cthulu even has a neat insanity mechanic. Granted the insanity mechanic falls off hard towards the end which feels like wasted potential. Once again you get the neat level up system where you choose between two upgrades each level but these feel much more relevant with vast amounts of abilities and stat increases. That being said, the one glaring issue of BoDVII is here as well. Enemies gaining 10% power per turn is still incredibly insane and once again requires you to burn your mana like it is a fire sale. The one saving grace this time is the less turns you take in the match actually rewards you with more mana back PLUS some allies can get skills to receive a percentage of mana as well.
Recommend? It’s decent enough even though I hate the empowering mechanic and the wasted potential of the insanity status.
eXceed - Gun Bullet Children
Surprising Capcom SHMUP that isn’t particularly well executed. Backgrounds are often plain with basic repeating illustrations… if anything at all. Enemies are drip fed in making for what feels like long intervals of nothing between waves which are sometimes just 2 or 3 ships. Yet, even with so few enemies, the game suffers from FPS drops. The game struggles to run at 30 FPS which causes huge slowdown in the game, even when there’s nothing going on. Yet randomly you’ll get a momentary boost to 60 for but a few sequences. Bosses were a bit more engaging though it was often hard to tell how along in a fight you were even with what looked like a health bar. There is a story here, but the game was never translated so without solid Japanese language experience you probably won’t know what’s going on (like me). Music doesn’t particularly stand out either. The nice caveat of the game is despite it’s difficulty is that you have unlimited continues so you can easily just drown this game in your character’s blood.
Recommend? Not really, uninteresting visuals, basic combat, gods awful frames, and poor pacing along make it an easy pass. It also doesn’t help it is no longer listed on the Steam Store.
eXceed 2nd - Vampire REX
Vastly improved experience over the first and possibly my favorite of the series so far. We get translated subtitles, more engaging and well paced fights, better animations, and slightly better backgrounds though they still remain pretty generic. The key change in this is that there is a “weapon” change sytem in that you either shoot light bullets or dark bullets and the enemies also have these bullets available. The most important fact about this is that you can not take damage from the same bullet type you have equipped and in fact the same bullet type empowers you. So, if you are dark mode you can absorb dark bullets for your special but take damage from light bullets. This is a pretty fun engagement mechanic and the devs implemented it quite well.What’s more the game consistently ran at 60ish fps and didnt’ drop all that much. Difficulty seems to be a bit more modular as your rank increases the more you do without getting hit and decreases a rank for each hit you take. You also get limited continues so you’ll need to work a bit harder to get to that credits scene. Story wise, this game seems to interact with the first as a sequel but on the opposite side of the battlefield. You’ll find yourself facing several of the main characters of the first as you try to take down the church and try to appease your undead lord.
Recommend? Again, not sure if this is still listed but definitely a fun challenging experience as you have to swap bullet types on the fly between patterns of attacks.
eXceed 3rd - Jade Penetrate Black Package
Returning to a more classic formula but still with it’s own changes. Instead of bullet swapping you maintain your bullet type but you get to unlock these drone-like dragons that follow you and shoot when you do.The story seems entirely separate however as you are some sort of student in a battle competition. Plus side, there's voice acting. For what reward, I do not know other than maybe prestige. The game is definitely the more challenging of the 3 as you’ll need to carefully manage your super meter and bombs to keep you safe. Dying causes you to discard all the bombs for that life with some brief invulnerability, unless you have bomb mode acted in which case a hit will use up a bomb, though you won’t get it’s effects. I mention the bombs in this review the most because it feels like there are several scenarios where you will absolutely need them if you are not completely prepared for each encounter. Bosses especially will push you to your limits as they have many phases and some can be quite challenging to downright unfair (or just annoying). At some parts even at my best I struggled to kill most or all of the enemies on screen even with bombs.
Recommend? More or less, it is fun when it can be but the annoying and maybe challenge overkill parts can be a bit too much.
Point and Click adventure that starts off with you surviving a shipwreck and trying to find the treasure on a mysterious land. You’ll guide your polygonal character across some pre-rendered backgrounds and solve puzzles galore. Oddly enough this is probably the first point-and-click that had mostly sensible solutions though they were quite straightforward and easy for the most part. Some illustration puzzles had tiles that blended in a bit too well. One of the key mechanics has you combine items. This seems regular until you realize how many items you end up having to combine… it’s a lot… almost excessively so. Even as straightforward as it was, I had more than a few times where I just could not parse where the game wanted me to go next. The game will drag on for a bit, and there is some pretty uninteresting lore to get you by. Eventually you’ll just suddenly get the treasure and the game will kind of abruptly end. The biggest note to make is that the achievements seem to be broken, at least for the Windows version. I’ve read reports that the MAC version achievements work with no issue but I did not desire to look for a fix.
Recommend? No, it’s a pretty boring experience overall with no real gratification. Plus achievements don’t work, at least on Windows.
It’s what I can only describe as a rogue-lite SHMUP. Each run has various generated enemies and bosses along with drops or power ups. The general powerups are pretty easy to understand or figure out, but most if not all of the items have no description and you kind of have to guess as to their effects. This can be frustrating as some items will just get rid of all your shields with no apparent benefit or obscure your screen without revealing any positives. Most items just generally don’t feel worth it. The generated waves don’t feel particularly equal. Sometimes you will be on the end of a constant barrage of enemies and very quickly proceed to the next level, whereas one encounter I had drip fed 1-2 enemies at a time for 10 minutes straight with some lulls in between. Bosses can also vary quite a bit. Most are fine, but some can just end your run with one attack no matter how many shields/lives you have. Of course, like plenty of rogue-lites your first successful run only unlocks more content including new end game bosses to reveal the “true end” though you get the credits much the same.The game also features a sort of hand drawn doodle cartoon aesthetic along with a CRTV visual filter if activated which might be nice for some but doesn’t do much for me.
Recommend? Not particularly. The game isn’t particularly well implemented between it’s poorly generated waves of enemies, boss designs, or item effects.
SHMUP with an interesting twist… you can rotate your axis. This will not only change the background but how you perceive enemies and bullets. This not only lets you attack enemies that may be off screen in the background along with environmentals, but also better dodge enemy attacks. For instance a spread of enemy bullets rotated 90 degrees will turn into an easy to dodge line. This interesting mechanic can be a bit much if you are like me and forget which way you rotate or rotating too frequently causing you to drive yourself into a bullet. However, once you do get a hang of this, it can be a complete game changer. Aside from basic bullets you also have access to a fairly accessible laser that bursts through the more common bullets and a more limited overdrive shot that shoots away the special glowy bullets. Bosses are pretty enjoyable if not incredibly challenging. You at least can get hit without dying as you have a health system which can be restored by repair pick ups. That being said if you die at any point you have to start from the first stage. Visually the game is a bit conflicting. With a largely just blue aesthetic it can be kind of confusing what’s going on, though the outlines and shading helps significantly.
Recommend? Generally, yes. The rotation mechanic is both unique and fun. It can be quite challenging as I’ve dropped this game multiple times wondering if I would ever beat it, but I assure you that once you master the game you will feel quite an achievement.
1
2
18
22Wave after wave I have seen plenty of controversy over this game between it’s visuals, design choices, and story beats/characterizations. I gotta say… it’s a bit blown out of proportion. Early on some lighting issues and early scenes do have some off looks, but otherwise the characters mostly look fine if not a little uncanny in their movements. Adapting certain characters to their situation for the most part made sense to me and even still felt relatively close to their past iterations. I do still loathe the MJ missions but that’s mostly because I’m playing a superhero game to play… a superhero not a normal human with unusual luck. The final general setup does feel a bit similar to the first game in how it reacts to the city i.e. it seems like everything needs to be this crazy city wide present threat rather than something a bit more focused. Having both Miles and Peter as playable characters is a nice surprise with their own moves and skill trees. Even more welcome was the huge variety of costumes and costume colors you could easily unlock though they are all purely aesthetic this time around.
For the most part you can expect more of the same from the past Insomniac Spider-man games. I did find that most of the missions to be a little underwhelming if not having more of a purpose to setup future content. This may not be so bad if there were DLC that would have been released but will either be a spin-off or sequel which has no known announcement or release date at this time. Thus making it feel unrewarding and kinda forgettable. All in all though, I think the story does have a solid theme and approaches it well with the villains. Kraven in particular is pretty stand out though I can only wish we got more… I may be a bit bias.
Recommend? Generally yes. Though I have never been in love with Insomniac’s Spider-man games I do still think this is yet another solid entry for the series.
Well, it’s time again for my regular reminder to you all to check out the Next Fests if you aren’t already. Not only do they have dozens of free demos for games in whatever niche genre you think isn’t getting enough attention, but also, some of those demos are even good! The downside is their manufactured FOMO with some demos being removed when that specific Next Fest is over, so as usual, there were a couple I was interested in but didn’t get to play. Oh well; I still have plenty of recommendations, in no particular order:
Platformers
Solid Donkey Kong Country clone that also does a couple unique things to stand apart. Small issue is that if you don't already know from prior Donkey Kong experience that you can jump mid-air after rolling off a cliff, that one enemy in the waterfall level is absolutely not enough to teach you about it (but then again, I don't think that specific maneuver is required). Another issue is that the bramble level (unlocked after getting 100%) is WAY too much of a difficulty spike that also simultaneously requires you to learn new mechanics and pull them off with precision; I actually gave up because I was convinced a certain part of the level wasn't working right. Still, the rest of the demo was enjoyable, and the devs did promise to build up to that level of difficulty better, for what it's worth.
Once you get past the tutorial, the entire demo consists of just four very short levels, like <1 minute short (and there are some story moments like a choice that you can immediately go back and change to unlock the other path). Those levels were fine, though.
Not much platforming in this platformer at first, and it's easy to forget you can double-jump off of certain projectiles by the time you first need to do it (and lockdown/enemy-wave rooms are always a pet peeve of mine), but the demo does pick up a bit afterward. Fine for free, but not sure I'd pay for a full game of this.
This one leans a bit too far towards atmospheric hallways, but when it does have some actual platformer challenge, it's not half bad.
The game has a bad tendency to put optional items in areas you either can't reach or won't learn how to reach until later (including requiring items that aren't in the demo), but the level design is okay and the bullet-controlling gimmick is pretty fun. Side note: apparently, they redubbed the voices from the original anime, yet the voice acting here is kinda bad.
Decent platforming challenge and backtracking that is actually meaningfully different when going the other way. Only real issue is that jumping felt slightly too quick and ball-form jumping could be a bit finicky sometimes.
Enemy attacks can be iffy, but other than that, the level design is okay, even when taking account branching/looping paths when you need to look for collectibles to progress.
Despite what its description might lead you to believe, the game is actually an open-world take on the Super Meat Boy formula, and you never NEED to use the death platforms despite them being the main selling point (with the game even having a dedicated suicide button so you can make mid-air platforms). Level design also isn't too bad, though checkpoints might be a bit too far apart.
Despite only having two enemy types in the whole demo, the game still manages to have solid Metroidvania level design and fair challenges. It did bother me that enemies could only be stunned, not killed, and a couple lines of text could use some clarification, but it's still enjoyable overall.
Jumping physics feel a bit off in this Celeste clone, but it doesn't take long to get used to it. After a bit, you'll get the ability to grapple blocks, but the game never tells you it won't work on single-tile platforms, which threw me off, but overall, it's worth trying the demo since it's free.
The limited ammo/reloading mechanic and the Dark-Souls-style "hold button for long enough to use healing item" mechanic are two of my biggest pet peeves in all of gaming, but the level design is solid enough that I can recommend this free demo in spite of that. It also bothered me that this metroidvania demo blocks off content several rooms from the nearest save point, meaning when the full game comes out, you'd have to re-retraverse those rooms.
Level design is decent, but the hub you access the levels from is a very open, very empty metroidvania, with only one level per large room (and some of those levels are locked because it's a demo, so you just have to keep wandering forward until you find an unlocked one). Plus, you can't fast-travel to unbeaten levels; you can only go to designated fast-travel spots that are quite a ways away from each other. That'd be one thing if this were an actual metroidvania, but this is really just a bloated hub world. Also, I couldn't get the turn-things-pink item to work.
Oh, and the game never makes it clear which spikes you can pogo off of and which you can't. You just have to figure out on your own that some spikes can be pogo'd off of.
This fixes practically every problem I had with the first game: seesaws stop before they get too vertical (and the game won't suddenly drop a box on them to screw you over), levels have fast-travel points so you don't have to retraverse the whole stage to get a collectible you missed, bosses don't make you pointlessly wait for no reason nor do they have bloated health bars, and you have a map screen that shows exactly where each collectible is, so you have a better idea of how to reach them. My only real issues are that the map doesn't pause the game (you have to pause first and then bring up the map if you don't want to be cheap-shotted) and that using a fast-travel point doesn't bring up said map to show where you're going; you just have to go by the text description and your own memory of the level. Still though, highly recommend this one. Say hi if you read this.
The first level here is rather flat and dull, but the outer-space ship level picks things up quite a bit.
The first, second, and fourth levels aren't too bad, but the third level has a darkness gimmick and also requires abnormal precision for getting below underwater spike pillars. Checkpoints could also stand to be closer together.
Nice little platformer, though you do get a new power every 5 levels, so I'm worried the full game will just be gimmicky and monotonous. For these short 20 levels, though, it's fine (though the last level required some tight timing).
Despite the tag, the demo doesn't really have any puzzle-solving going on, but maybe that's for the best since the action-platforming is pretty good. Only issue I had is that the lighting changes at the end, making it hard to see the ropes you need to shoot.
Controls and level design are okay, but I'm really not a fan of how you have to beat earlier levels fast enough to unlock later levels. Even for the demo, I couldn't access the boss fight at the end until I went back and shaved a minute off my previous times in the first two levels, so I'm not exactly looking forward to the full game.
It's mostly boss fights with SHMUP-inspired bullet patterns, but their attacks are varied and rather fair. The last boss in the demo was quite a difficulty spike, though.
Attacking forces your character to be completely stationary, including causing moving platforms to move out from under you. However, there's never a situation where you'd really benefit from doing this, and the rest of the game is designed fairly well.
SHMUPs
Decent SHMUP/Bullet Hell, but there's only one level, and the boss fight was pretty damage-spongy (and the dev would only "consider" reducing its HP). Also, apparently, 60% of the full game is going to be Adventure-Game-style exploration and riddle-solving, and this is not represented in the demo AT ALL; it starts at the beginning of the Bullet Hell level and ends shortly after you beat the boss. Not promising, but at least the demo itself is still fun to play.
The demo has one level that's pretty fun to go through, but it also very blatantly has a lives and credits system, so as far as the full game's concerned, you might be better off emulating the PSP port so you can use savestates to avoid being sent back to the beginning of the game on game over. I hate how so many otherwise-well-made SHMUPs have limited continues.
A twinstick-shooter where you can only move via gun recoil (and a dash move). It starts off kinda bland, but the demo does have some levels that don't make you kill all the enemies to progress, and I was having some fun by the end.
Once again, the single available level is fun, but the game has a lives system despite having zero reason for one since it already sends you back to a checkpoint when you die! Forcing progress loss beyond that is just pointlessly punitive.
Unlike the dev's previous demo, this doesn't let you play any of the levels; you only have access to a 5-minute "caravan" mode where bosses appear rather frequently. What's available is very well made and polished, though.
A rare example of an arcade-style SHMUP that saves your progress between levels! Unfortunately, enemy waves are randomly selected, so sometimes you'll breeze to the boss with no trouble, and other times you'll lose all your lives just a couple waves in (and yeah, again with the lives system, but at least you only restart the level).
You know how, when a lazy dev is tasked with converting mouse input to a controller, they'll just make it so you drag a cursor around the screen with the control stick? This game's default controls make you do that even when you're using keyboard/mouse! It's a mindbogglingly counterproductive decision, and the dev knows that many people would hate it since there's an option to switch so that the arrow keys/right stick snap your reticle between the boss's weak points instead (surprisingly no option to map it to the freaking mouse, though!). Once that option is enabled, though, the game is pretty fun with some tough bullet patterns.
A pretty fun bullet hell where you teleport through bullets and hazards to power up your own shots. Story is kinda weird, but maybe it'd be funnier if you knew about 1800s Japanese history. Only three levels in this demo, but they're well made.
Puzzle & Tactics games
Some of these were from the Block Pushing Fest instead, but still, they're worth trying
Pretty tricky puzzles, though your magic vision doesn't always show which obstacles are connected to which switches because those icons can still somehow be blocked by other stuff sometimes.
The gimmick here is that there are arrow tiles on the ground that enable/disable your ability to move in certain directions, and they even affect other blocks so you can move them on their own instead of pushing them. No music, weirdly enough.
The main levels in the demo were kinda boring, but the postgame levels were a bit tricky.
The NPC moves in the opposite direction as you, and you have to bait him to the goal. There's no undo mechanic, but at least the puzzles aren't that long.
You can pick up cards on the ground to increase your stats, but enemies can do the same thing, so you have to figure out which cards you can allow them to take and which route you need to bait them towards to kill all enemies.
More decent puzzles, though the difficulty curve is a bit off since 5-1 is harder than any level in world 6.
The puzzles are pretty easy at first since you're just clicking and dragging tiles, but they start to get a bit tricky near the end of the demo.
The entire first world is quite easy, but the six available levels for worlds 2 and 3 are fairly challenging (except 3-3; that one went back to being fairly easy).
An Advance Wars clone with some minor differences here and there, like tanks costing more or injured units still dealing 10 damage to enemy properties. I didn't like how planes couldn't attack; they can only "spot" units to decrease their defense slightly. However, I REALLY didn't like how the demo doesn't save, because it meant I lost multiple levels of progress when I went to take a break, so consider this recommendation tentative as I didn't actually finish the demo.
Jul 03 2025
June 2025 Report!
To say June was the most eventful month of the year would be an understatement. At least it’s over! Hopefully Summer will be fun.
Finally finished all Telltale’s The Walking Dead games! Final Season was a nice conclusion to Clementine’s story.
Boltgun - Words of Vengeance added achievements so did a small replay. Boltgun itself was a fun Boomer Shooter too!
Othercide is kicking my butt.
Bonus stats!
Number of games finished this month: 3
Number of games added to account: 9
-
The Walking Dead: The Final Season
-
Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun
-
Song of Farca
-
Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun - Words of Vengeance
-
Othercide
-
Astalon: Tears of the Earth
-
BLACKTAIL
