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#430
#40 of 2026
August 24, 2026
August Assassination #5 (Backlog)
Please consider liking my review on Steam - it means a lot to me!
I played it for 8 minutes and felt it was more than enough. But it's free so really you can't go wrong
Aug 22 2026
Report #433: Escape Simulator
Nice co-op challenge
Technically the game is not yet completed. But from a statistics perspective it has all done. We took our time to play the different escape rooms of the base game, also did the extra ones. Now what is left is playing through the remaining rooms of DLCs, but there is not an achievement for that. So playtime will slowly increase over the next weeks.
Really recommended, if you like puzzle solving with a mate
Progress report: June & July ‘26 (a.k.a. I’m Quitting Writing!)
Yep. My backlog has been growing at a rapid pace and I figured I don’t care for wasting time not tackling it because I’m procrastinating on writing down my thoughts for the three games I’ve already completed. I’m gonna push through August, since I already started, and then… I guess I’m gonna switch to just posting a list of games I completed the past month. Saying goodbye to having thoughts and opinions (lol)
Man, I didn’t even realize it would feel this bittersweet until I started writing… it’s been almost 10 years since I first signed up for BLAEO. I always thought of writing about the games I played as a “creative exercise”, too. Did I get any better over the years? I don’t know that I could say myself.
I made my own thread for this same thing on a PS-adjacent forum back in the day, then naturally fell out of updating it. Then, I enjoyed the fact that I can at least play console games without having to write about them. Now… I dunno, I’m just too old for it? Or something?
Not to mention that, on top of my digital backlog, I’ve also been building a nice physical collection… and I’d like to get to it sooner rather than later.
I’ll still be here and still be happy to talk about the games I have played (self-soothing), but… yeah, I think this is it.
As for the assassinations, though… here we go:
June:
I like that I got to look for something else than cats for once, but, man… if I somehow thought to check beforehand and learned that this has speedrun achievements, I never would have touched it.
I'll just let this review take it from here, since it's done a perfect job with all the complaints I also have about this game.
A spin-off for one of my favorite franchises in which nothing bad happens? …well, that's not exactly true, but still, count me in!
It's Sachiko's birthday and the joy clears her heart enough to stop the usual carnage for an entire day. Everyone who's been trapped in Heavenly Host up until now, though, has to go along with her ridiculous ideas for how to celebrate. Old or new, everyone gets played like a fiddle; it's an unstoppable barrage of comedy.
As some reviewers have put it (and I agree), this game is best ignored if you found the mainline titles just "okay". The sense of humor remains the same and now that it's been over a decade since Hysteric Birthday first released, the "2010s anime"-type comedy is clearly identifiable as something even Japan has moved on from. Personally, I'm irked by the double standard of having three separate female characters be obsessed with their besties to the point of lesbianism, but as soon as two guys are alone in a room together, the joke is that it's "disgusting" or otherwise "unspeakable".
Next up, Blood Drive!
Removed from the store for reasons unknown, HeartFinder is… ah, well, you all know what it is. You get to click'a the thing it says in the title and enjoy the achievement(s). Cute enough for what it is, with a map that unlocks piece by piece as you complete minor tasks and a hint option that doesn't have a cooldown. I needed a pick-me-up after that Naomi disaster.
July:
Same old, same old.
There's no "drag to color" option, only a bucket fill. You have to remember to toggle it for every single image. There's also no option to mute SFX, so even if you mute the music, you're stuck listening to the annoying clicking and popping from the game while your audio of choice plays in the background. I'd rather pick real cross-stitching back up again.
When I first learned was reminded that my favorite VA was doing the JP narration for this one, I knew I had to pick it up the next chance I got.
I like the occasional hack-and-slash, but I can't pretend like I'm any good at them, so I'm glad that the meta aspect took precedence over the intricacies of the gameplay (quite a long-winded way of saying I played on Easy). Still, I feel I've come out having gotten little to no understanding of the story at hand.
I think a more complete experience would come naturally to players with an interest in the Cthulhu Mythos and/or mining a game for easter eggs and hidden data after having explored the surface. Me, I just had a good time toying with the narrator's feelings.
This puzzle game spin-off of two (as of yet) unlocalized Frontwing titles - Pure Girl and Innocent Girl - lets you hang out with the heroines from both games and seduce them with your puzzle skills. Buyers beware, they are anything but pure or innocent…
Also, please disregard all the negative reviews from people who came in expecting HuniePop; that's not it! It's not even remotely trying to be HuniePop! If you think of it as more akin to Puyo Puyo, you'll be far less disappointed.
I don't even think I'm good at games like this, but it provided a decent challenge and I'm proud to say I completed it without ever lowering the difficulty or downloading the "easy mode" patch. Now, I wonder if this experience will actually translate to Puyo Puyo…
Some kinda steampunk VN, I guess? It spent an hour introducing a bunch of characters and then cut off right as the story would be taking off. There's a second chapter, but judging by the reviews for that one, there's not much more to it, so I think it's safe to assume this one never arrived at its conclusion.
As is par for the course for games made by Sapphire Dragon Productions, this one is a solid 2/10. Had I known it was that short, I definitely would have played it earlier.
Now that I have, though, I'm pleased to say there's nothing more left for me to play from this dev in my backlog. Whether or not the last few games make their way into my library at some point remains to be seen.
Finished the 21 question game with -$43.000 and the 7 question game with -$5.000. I do not know shit about sports.
I really thought this was going to be just a simple slice of life story about a guy who goes on a trip with his wife and daughter… then there turned out to be a whole-ass age regression/body swap plot (depending on which route you play) for no apparent reason besides "there needs to be drama"?
Unfortunately, the writing is so bad I couldn't help but read with my eyes glazed over. The scenario writer seems to have an okay grasp on English, but is not a native speaker and it shows.
Although the sex scenes weren't any better than the rest of the story, I somehow didn't entirely dislike them. I think the fact that they're all centered around a happily married couple and MC not being so perverted it's unbelievable made them endearing, somehow.
Still, if this one's in your backlog, feel free to skip it forever. For me, it's been coming up on "games to play in Summer"-type lists for years now, so I'm glad I finally got to it.
See you, uh… in about a couple of weeks?
Aug 20 2026
#429
#39 of 2026
August 21, 2026
Aug 19 2026
Report #432: Jusant
Don’t be afraid of heights
Played it after a friend recommended it a while ago. This game is relaxing and nerve fracking at the same time. Mostly because you constantly need to have one button pressed, either on controller or mouse. Because otherwise you will fall.
Setting is very beautiful. You climb up a very tall mountain, on your way you get introduced by a couple of mechanics. Your rope length is limited, and also you need to watch your stamina while climbing.
Thanks to chapter select, collectibles can be re-collected chapter by chapter.
The end of Batch #42
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Assassin's Creed Revelations
60 hours playtime
48 of 48 achievements
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Assassin's Creed Mirage
65 hours playtime
61 of 61 achievements
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Aragami
34 hours playtime
51 of 51 achievements
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Outer Wilds
42 hours playtime
31 of 31 achievements
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Tyler: Model 005
5 hours playtime
11 of 11 achievements
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Sherlock Holmes The Awakened
14 hours playtime
28 of 28 achievements
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Bridge Constructor: The Walking Dead
8 hours playtime
13 of 13 achievements
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Vampyr
41 hours playtime
28 of 28 achievements
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Figment 2: Creed Valley
6 hours playtime
18 of 18 achievements
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Jusant
7 hours playtime
21 of 21 achievements
Aug 18 2026
August Assassination (In Progress) #4 (SG Win)
Please consider liking my review on Steam - it means a lot to me!
Been thinking a lot about whether to give it a positive or negative rating, but at the end of the day, the lack of polish and the excess of unnecessary, unfun mechanics drag the game enough to go into the red territory. Seeing that the first trailer on the Steam page is a trailer with streamers should be the only red flag I needed to avoid it, but I decided to give it a chance anyway since the core mechanic looked fun, so the blame is entirely on me.
To be fair, the core mechanic is fun. Bouncing around giant beasts as a small critter uncovering and weakening cores should be fun enough to carry the game. And yet, despite that, the game isn't fun. The first thing you'll notice and you'll be unable to ignore is how unpolished the game is. Everything is 2D - so far so good, but the sprites are usually very low resolution, the poses are few and far in between, there's little animation to transition between poses, and the menus look like something made on MS Paint. I can respect a dev who knows that art is not their main strength, but I cannot respect a dev that knows that, and yet, decides to not hire or partner with an artist and instead, releases the game with Windows 95 UI. After a few minutes, everything starts to look static and samey, and within an hour I started regretting the money I spent on this.
The main good thing I can say about the music is that it can be turned off. It's generic and repetitive, and since there's no voice acting or important sound elements involved in the gameplay, you lose nothing by muting it.
Besides the titular beast battles, the game has a 'hub' like area where you interact with other characters VN-style. The characters are flat, unidimensional, and the dialogue is usually grating and long. The plot started out strong, but there are so many small missions and forced tutorial segments and introduction of new mechanics and items and effects and side-quests that you'll spend more time in menus and dialogues than you'll spend actually playing the game, and the game forces you to always try something new every time, to an extent every battle almost feels like the first since your kit will be completely different and will require a different strategy. I like when a game gives you a bunch of fighting styles and lets you pick the one you want, and rewards you for trying different combinations -- hell, look at what Supergiant did with Transistor, where using different skill combinations unlocked lore. It's brilliant! Here, the game forces you to switch constantly weapons like it or not, otherwise it artificially caps your progression. It's lazy. It's forced. It's not fun.
And this is what you are constantly bombarded with. Like fighting beasts with swords? Forget about it, let's force you to use a hammer. Don't have a hammer? Let's force you to grind for materials to craft one. Wants to grind for items? Well we'll make you do a stupid scouting minigame before EACH FIGHT. Sick of scouting? Well you should be, and we'll force you to read piles and piles of boring dialogue before you even get to that.
It's just a game that could be so fun with its core concept, but the presentation is so haphazard and unprofessional that the whole experience is diminished by it. Given how amateurish the whole package is, I wouldn't recommend it even for free. Buyer beware
Aug 17 2026
#428
#38 of 2026
August 17, 2026
Aug 16 2026
August Assassination #3 (Backlog)
I had been looking for so long for a game that scratches the same itch as GNOG. That game is Vignettes. A wordless, character-less sandbox where you rotate objects until they transmorph into unexpected, different objects. As tactile as puzzle games go. I had to resort to a guide towards the end when the game had already beaten me, but that didn't reduce my enjoyment of the game at all. Highly recommended. Also I love how the devs communicate with the players as we uncover more and more secrets!
























