Activities
Today
Progress report: April ‘26 (a.k.a. Am I… Changing?)
…or do I just not have as much time as I used to? It’s taken me so long to get this out, I started considering doing away with write-ups again. Hard to figure yourself out when you’re mentally going ⤵️.
A puzzle game with a simple premise: examine a setup of blocks (or "bars") and remove a preset amount to ensure they'll stand still afterwards.
It's as minimalistic as it gets: the levels randomly cycle through a few muted, pastel palettes, the background is empty, evoking the feel of playing in a void and the BGM, though limited, further enhances the dreamlike quality. However, were it a dream, it wouldn't be a particularly good one.
Some levels stumped me, but that's probably because I don't know my physics. (Though because full guides are available, I never truly got stuck on a level.) In stark contrast to the BGM, the level fail sound is jarring. When launching the game, the first thing that pops up is a command panel window… and then it stays open for as long as the game is. Now that's puzzling.
When a game is as sluggish as this one from the moment it opens up, my first instinct is to lower the graphical settings; lo and behold, the options menu here is extremely limited. The only thing I could actually do was going from fullscreen to windowed mode… and then, the resolution it launched in had black bars at the side of the screen. Reading the (negative) reviews, apparently it was on me to fix that one by simply resizing the window. Most modern games just don't have this problem, so that's not on my mental troubleshooting list, I suppose. Heck, this game won't even tell you what resolution it changed to. (unless that showed up on the control panel, I didn't think to check)
All in all, it… well, it's certainly a game. If you have any experience with Blender, though, it seems you could run simulations like these for yourself without paying for it. I randomly decided to redeem this key from an old bundle that was rotting somewhere deep on a list and I'm sure I would not have stumbled upon it otherwise.
This one is huge, though for good reason. These cats really are hidden in a genuine painting from the Song Dynasty. That's not just some random concept to justify pushing out a dozen of these games at once.
And when I say the cats are hidden, they really are hidden. Some of them straight up blend in with the background. …YMMV on that one, I suppose. I do, also, enjoy the variety of cat sounds in use here.
I've previously played Plants Huddled Together from the same dev and I like knowing that they still put out F2P games from time to time. Will keep on keeping an eye on their stuff.
Bought Humble's Sekai Project 2026 bundle, so I'm back at it again.
This one is a prequel to the prequel to the original game and, much like vol. 0, a collection of vignettes of the Minazuki family spending their time together. Although there's no romance or sex happening here, watching Shigure talk about "catpanions" to Chocola and Vanilla feels like being privy to the start of a grooming process (and not the animal kind). I know this game is 8 years old by now, but really, is there still nobody on the dev team who can tell how bad this really looks? At least I got to enjoy Azuki being her regular self.
Night Book follows Loralyn, an English <-> French interpreter working the night shift remotely while pregnant and caring for her mentally ill father. It would've been a shift like any other, if not for the titular book being in her clients' possesion. Besides English and French, Loralyn also knows the fictional language of Kannar, which, by her own admission, makes her very employable. She's persuaded to read a part of the book and ends up summoning a demonic entity. Depending on your choices, she can convince her clients to help her seal the curse or fail, letting herself and/or others become possessed.
This was created in lockdown and boy, does that come through. Much like Five Dates and Who Pressed Mute on Uncle Marcus?, Night Book is a series of video calls, so that no two characters are ever physically in the same room. Smart as this may seem, I think it hurt the story in the long run. I understand now why the playthrough I've seen a few years back never had a completionist-type follow-up. It's just all so… nothing.
It's really short, the choices don't give you much variety and nothing feels like it's happening as a direct result of whatever you chose, all the way down to the end. Whichever ending you get first, treat it as the right one and get out while you can. Julie Dray was great as Loralyn and this may well have been the first second game I ever played with a pregnant protagonist, but even if that's your sole criteria, there's still better games to choose from.
YOU DON'T KNOW JACK TELEVISION
I barely watch modern TV - not to mention retro - so I didn't stand a chance against these questions. I "earned" -$29.500 in the 21 question game (might have gone better if I had picked one of the other Jack Attack clues) and -$7.500 in the 7 question game. Only a couple of these left to go now.
See you…? …next month?
May 21 2026
May Assassination #6 (Backlog / Snowball)
Please consider liking my review on Steam - it means a lot to me!
After playing Technobabylon, a game I enjoyed a lot, I made a point of trying to play every Wadjet Eye games I could get my hands on, and Blackwell Legacy was the first one that I was able to. Well …. I'm certainly less excited about their back catalog now, let's put it that way.
First of all, Blackwell Legacy offers an experience that is much more akin to old school point & click games. Luckily the runtime is quite short, and there are few moon logic cases (I found two during my playthrough, which I won't spoil here but one involves Ouija Board connections and the other involves telephone shenanigans), but considering Technobabylon had none, this is a bit frustrating. It's an open world-ish game (to the P&C standards at least), meaning you could be stuck in a certain point with only possible option of what to do to advance the game, with no idea of where to go, what to do, who to talk to, what to say, what items to combine with what or to use where. Technobabylon solved it by 'locking' you in a small area with only items that are required in that area, reducing the amount of permutations possible. This is a great design choice that unfortunately the Blackwell Legacy lacks. This game still relies a lot on slow-traveling all over the place, some pixel-hunting, and trying everything everywhere if you get stuck, just in case.
While that's a low, some of the other things that made Technobabylon great are still on display here. You've got strong writing, superb voice acting, charming pixel art, and a well-realized world, albeit the one on display here is more mundane and less exciting/unique when compared to Technobabylon. Also, the pacing is a bit off, the game ended before it really got going, it feels there's very little in the way of a climax to the story, and that the credits roll before you have done what you were supposed to do. I don't know, it's weird.
If you're a hardcore point-and-click fan, you will probably like this one, but if you're casual about them maybe you better avoid it. General consensus is that the series picks up pace from here so I think I'll still try them, but it's very hard to really recommend this one as it is.
May 19 2026
#407
#17 of 2026
May 19, 2026
Completed Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
One of the best games I’ve ever played. This will stay with me for a very long time.
May 18 2026
May Assassination #5 (Backlog)
Please consider liking my review on Steam - it means a lot to me!
Every Metroidvania's fan wet dream. Proof that PICO-8 is a freaking powerhouse in the hands of skilled developers
May Assassination #4 (Backlog / PoP Pick)
Please consider liking my review on Steam - it means a lot to me!
It's everything everyone has said before. I struggle to say something original or unique about Disco Elysium, but it is a great game if you enjoy reading and roleplaying, which can easily be compromised if you decide to save scum or become a completionist. You walk around, you decide how you want to behave in this world starting from a shell of a former character, and you basically exist while also trying to solve a murder case. The whole gameplay is dialogue, and deciding which thoughts and skills to invest your hard-earned points on for the chance to unlock different conversation paths.
And it is incredible at that. The writing is of course the highlight, but I could not forget the voice acting, which is probably the best I've seen in a videogame, or at least in the Top 3. I literally cannot get EGG HEAD yelling HARD-CORE from my head
Instead of focusing on the highlights, I'll just point out two things I thought worked pretty poorly. The first is the Skill Check Lock system, which prevented me from experiencing two storylines I was invested into. Basically if you fail a White Check, you can retry it after investing points on your skill. I failed a 97% Suggestion with Lilienne and already had reached my 6-point cap in that skill, making it impossible to progress in that storyline. Maybe I could have forgotten old Thoughts, learned a new one, and increased my cap, but I could not know which one until I've done so and I didn't have so much free time and points around. A similar thing happened when doing the nightclub quest, where I failed the Physical Instrument check to open the fridge and had already hit my learning cap, effectively locking me out of a very interesting quest. I was still able to beat the game, but it left me a sour taste that the game softlocked me out of these quests - either give me alternative routes to progress, or give me a permanent fail state, but don't give me this partial failure that I'm unable to act on.
The other poor thing was the whole clothing system. Dressing HDB was lots of fun, and the reaction I got from some NPCs with my outfit was always solid, but it felt really time-consuming and unfun to stop conversation with White Checks in order to browse through my entire outfit to find that one or two pieces of clothing that will give me a boost. It was a waste of time and a break in immersion. It would be much better to leave clothing only for self-expression and flavor dialogue, and instead, have stat boosts linked to items that were always on, and that could be pawned for cash (which could then be used to buy other items with other always on boosts). That requires some balancing, but of course, the clothing system also needed some, it was just poorly implemented.
In summary, great game, incredible VA, it's long but it really hooks you in, and it is a fantastique experience most gamers (and all readers) will enjoy
May 17 2026
#406
#16 of 2026
May 17, 2026
May 16 2026
#405
#15 of 2026
May 16, 2026
May 15 2026
Head to the comments and get challenged to play 5 games
For Pickers. Just copy paste and complete the data :)
* [GAME#1](http://store.steampowered.com/app/GAME#1-ID/) - HLTB Time: GAME#1-HLTBTIME
* [GAME#2](http://store.steampowered.com/app/GAME#2-ID/) - HLTB Time: GAME#2-HLTBTIME
* [GAME#3](http://store.steampowered.com/app/GAME#3-ID/) - HLTB Time: GAME#3-HLTBTIME
* [GAME#4](http://store.steampowered.com/app/GAME#4-ID/) - HLTB Time: GAME#4-HLTBTIME
* [GAME#5](http://store.steampowered.com/app/GAME#5-ID/) - HLTB Time: GAME#5-HLTBTIME
- Please make sure your games are sorted by completion before applying.
- If you so desire and you have at least 5 unplayed SG wins, the 5 games can be picked out of your SG wins (instead of only 2/5). Just note it in your application comment.
- Note in your post if you're ok playing multiplayer only games.
- Same for Early Access (I know some people want to wait for release).
- When you finish one (or more) of the games picked for you, please post an update by replying to your picker's comment.
- If the game has achievements, you can link to either the Steam or Astats page corresponding to your progress.
- If the game doesn't have achievements, please post a screenshot showing your completion.
- Finally, if you have completed all the games that were assigned to you but want another go at it, feel free to post another application.
- You can pick for/challenge up to 2 fellow assassins, please refrain to pick more so everybody who wants get a chance at it.
- You can pick for anybody who has applied and hasn't been given a list yet, unless they specified otherwise (see next point). It is recommended to signal with a "reserved" comment that you're currently picking for that person. This way it'll avoid the situation where you spend time picking games just to come back to somebody's comment 2 minutes prior.
- Please use the following criteria when picking a list for somebody.
- Pick exactly 5 games
- Length-wise: at least 2 short games (under 10h to beat) and 2 medium (under 15-20h). You can use HLTB to check the time, or more conveniently the Enhanced Steam browser extension (it shows the HLTB time directly on the game's steam page). That rule can be overridden by the bottom (i.e. pick 5 short games) but not the other way around, as not everybody has the same time to dedicate to gaming.
- Pick two SG wins unless the person specified SG wins only, in which case pick only in the applicant's SG wins list.
- Quality-wise: at least 3 of the 5 games should have a positive (or above) rating. You can use this site to quickly sort games in a user's library by ratings (thanks to JaffaCaffa for the suggestion).
- Please, respect the applicant's choice regarding multiplayer-only and Early access games, as well as other requests (exclusion of certain genre etc.).
- Please use the code below to post your comment, it's already formatted, you just have to copy/paste & complete the data.
Do I have to participate in this event?
No, this is an event to help you reduce your backlog. If you already have a plan and don't want anyone to pick games for you, you're free to ignore it.
What happens if I don’t participate in the event?
Absolutely nothing.
What happens if I play all the games picked for me this month?
Still nothing. (You might get a shiny profile badge at some later date. And you can come back for another batch.)
What if I don’t have time to play 5 games?
Don’t worry, one is enough, we’re just asking the pickers to select 5 to give the player a little choice.
One of the game picked for me won’t run on my computer for X or Y reason, what do I do?
If this happens, please notify the picker by replying his comment and ask them to pick a replacement. If the original picker don’t give you an answer within 24h, don’t panic, just leave a comment and we’ll pick one for you. Meanwhile, you could try one of the other picked games if you haven't played them all yet.
I played all 5 games that were picked for me and I want more!
If you have completed all 5 games and reported your completion to the original comment, you can make a new request for another list.
When picking for other people, can I only pick “never played” games?
Not necessarily, you can also pick games that seem to have been abandoned but haven’t been categorized as “won’t play”. No beaten or completed games, or games being currently played obviously.
Why are there so many rules for picking the games? I can’t be bothered!
We’re trying to make this enjoyable for everyone so if you decide to pick games for others, please read and follow the rules. I’ve tried to make it as easy as possible for the pickers too, but if it’s bothering you too much, remember you don’t need to pick games for others to join the challenge.
I’m new here, can I join the challenge?
Yes of course (and welcome to BLAEO). Please just be sure to have your games sorted by progress before signing up for the challenge, to make it easier for your picker.