#2 - June Games
June's theme got me all excited, since there's nothing else I love to play more than HOGs. I quickly started to make a list of HOGs that I would like to play and I kept adding and adding to it until it became rather big (30 games). I was fully aware that I wouldn't have time to play even half of these, but I kept the list as it was for future reference and for providing an overview of what my top picks were. At the beginning of the month, I set my target to complete 6-7 of these. In the end, turns out that my approximation was quite right, since I managed to complete only 8 of the 30 listed initially.
I find it difficult to review HOGs, even if it's only a 2-senteces review, concisely describing the game. Most of them have pretty much the same puzzles, wrapped in different graphics though. "Same meat, different gravy"...
Nevertheless, I've noticed over years that the style changed a lot - the games are now more story-oriented, collectibles have been added and the HOG scenes have been largely diversified. They remain for me the games I enjoy playing the most - because of their casual and relaxed nature (although I must admit that collectibles stress me out a bit - but that's only because I want to go for 100% in each HOG I play).
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Agent Walker: Secret Journey
4 hours playtime
16 of 16 achievements
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Ghost Files: The Face of Guilt
9 hours playtime
22 of 22 achievements
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Clockwork Tales: Of Glass and Ink
6 hours playtime
19 of 19 achievements
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GRAVEN The Purple Moon Prophecy
5 hours playtime
19 of 19 achievements
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Lost Grimoires 2: Shard of Mystery
7 hours playtime
12 of 12 achievements
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The Dreamatorium of Dr. Magnus 2
2 hours playtime
15 of 15 achievements
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Vampire Legends: The True Story of Kisilova
4 hours playtime
10 of 10 achievements
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Scarlett Mysteries: Cursed Child
6 hours playtime
13 of 13 achievements
Ghost Files: The Face of Guilt (Artifex Mundi) - The story is centered around a detective who tracks down a murder suspect. You are equipped with a forensic kit that you can use to compare samples or fingerprints from the crime scenes. Quite nice, but not extraordinary. I'm always happy to play a HOG in which non-collected collectibles are in some way indicated on the screen. I wish more HOGs would have this feature. Or would that make them even more easy and casual as they are?
GRAVEN The Purple Moon Prophecy (Orchid Games) - Maaan, that was a huge lot of collectibles! 70 main collectibles plus 40 shards to gather, the latter needed for the story progress. I'm always stressed that I will miss one of them for the achievements (it happened several times with other games, which meant that I had to do an extra playthrough). The Steam guide (praise the person that created it) mentions only the main 70 ones. For the other 40, I had to double check the locations. I'm not enirely sure if I managed to find them all, but at some point a NPC popped in front of me and handed me in the missing ones. Pretty cool, but I still wonder if that was scripted or not... How many did you manage to find? I think I got around 26 or 27 of the required 40...
Scarlett Mysteries: Cursed Child (Artifex Mundi) - One of the shortest and the easiest HOGs I've encountered so far. The reviews praise the story, but for me it represented the least interesting part of the game. Maybe because it's a ghost story - a child is haunted by the ghost of her mother - and I don't dig ghosts, especially ones that have a diformed shape (head).
Vampire Legends: The True Story of Kisilova (Artifex Mundi) - Despite the positive reviews, I didn't enjoy it that much. However, it's the first HOG I played that had 2 possible endings. The idea is nice, but the implementation rather bad. There is a choice at the ending scene, but no option to save before it so that you see both of the endings. Also, nothing from the whole gameplay affects the ending (it's not a 'choices matter' kind of game).
Lost Grimoires 2 (Artifex Mundi) - The novelty that the series brings is the alchemy process - you have a grimoire of alchemy recipes and you are required to collect all the ingredients needed for crafting a recipe. The crafting itself is done through a 'connect adjacent gems' kind of game that has to be completed in a certain amount of moves. Lost Grimoires 2 is very similar in design with it's predecessors, both of them being good HOGs :)
Agent Walker: Secret Journey (Artifex Mundi) - The game setting is not something that appeals to me - WW2; despite that, playing the game was an enjoyable experience. As Agent Walker, you are tasked to find and destroy an ancient relic - the mythical Spear of Destiny - before a supernatural enemy gets hold of it and uses it to rule the world.
The Dreamatorium of Dr. Magnus 2 (Two Desperados) - After Lost Grimoires 2, this was the HOG that I enjoyed the most this month. The story was interesting enough - you must collect 5 crystals in order to help an inventor find and rescue his kidnapped girlfirend. However, I don't think I've ever encountered a worse voice acting as the perfomance of the main character. Listening to her annoyed me to bits, until i decided to turn off the volume and play without sound.
Clockwork Tales: Of Glass and Ink (Artifex Mundi) - I don't know if this was inspired by Syberia games (which I loved a lot), but it sure brings up memories of playing them. The story is very different, but you still have to deal with all sorts of mechanisms and automatons in solving the bunzzles, which is rather fun.
In June, I decided to dedicate myself entirely to the HOG theme and not to start anything new. After I aquired the Animality DLCs, I played a bit of the game in order to progress with the achievements, but that's pretty much it. I didn't finish it in June, but I did so right after July started.
This means that I still have the unfinished games from May and from that batch I selected a few to play in July.
Right now, I'm still trying to evaluate if I have enough time to take part in this month's theme. On the other hand, finding a game that fits the theme turned out to be a rather difficult task for me. The games I would want to play this month are under 20 hours each. Also, because of my schedule, I would be able to do longer gaming sessions only during weekends; that is, if I want to still have an immersive gaming experience.
For now, I decided to make a small list of games I would like to "attack" this month, in place of the monthly theme. Some of them are really fresh (purchased during the sale) while others are remnants of May's unfinished games.
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ANIMALITY
7 hours playtime
484 of 484 achievements
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Thimbleweed Park
6 hours playtime
4 of 33 achievements
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Clouds & Sheep 2
2 hours playtime
7 of 25 achievements
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Sweven
20 minutes playtime
0 of 6 achievements
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Sisters in hotel
0 minutes playtime
0 of 7143 achievements
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Drop Alive
0 minutes playtime
0 of 9 achievements
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Everything
3 hours playtime
13 of 36 achievements
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Lily's Day Off
0 minutes playtime
0 of 19 achievements
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Pixel Puzzles Junior
3 hours playtime
50 of 50 achievements
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Hell Girls
7 minutes playtime
0 of 92 achievements
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Deep Space Waifu
0 minutes playtime
0 of 69 achievements
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HunieCam Studio
0 minutes playtime
0 of 16 achievements
Nice Hog killing you did there :)
I totally get the part where you are stressed out by the collectibles. It’s the same for me. I sometimes use guides from the beginning to avoid missing them (although I just check if I can’t find any :D). So yeah, being stressed is not so nice while playing. But I’m happy to hear you still enjoyed the month and the games - mostly :)
Have a great month!
Happy backlog killing!
I hate using guides for collectibles, but I prefer doing that rather than missing one.
I wish AM would modify a bit the interface and and something to indicate that a location still has collectibles…
A few of the games has that. Like Demon Hunter 3 and Lost Grimoire 2 (I think?), but yeah, it would be much appreciated if more games had such an indicator :)
Yeah, collectible explosion is getting to be a bit of a thing in HOGs, it seems. Don’t they realize many of us are completionists who don’t want a high-stress experience?!? Those mistletoe sprigs are insane in GRAVEN The Purple Moon Prophecy. (I haven’t played it myself, but I peeked at the guide.)
I just bought Sweven earlier today. For 0.49 USD I couldn’t help it!
Lily’s Day Off …clearly you’ll have to play it on your next day off. :3
Ugh you guys got my to buy sweven as well xP
:D =) :)
Day = made
Sadly, my next day off will be at the end of August, one of the Gamescom days… I don’t think I have enough patience to wait until then to play the game.
I don’t have anything planned until then. But of course that can change :D
Let me know if you like Sweven! I saw a stream of it and I really loved it, it’s a short but cute game :)
You don’t have a day off until the end of August? Is that even legal?
Or maybe you just mean a “currently unscheduled free day.”
Yes, an unscheduled free day. On the other hand, we need to announce those 1 month before we take them, so basically I’m not allowed to take anything off in the next 4 weeks anyway.
Congrats on the progress!
I really enjoyed the ghost file feature signaling you there was a collectible to pick on the very page, it spared me to make a checklist with a guide not to miss one. I didn’t really enjoy Vampire Legends either, it was just very generic in my eyes. The Lost Grimoires series was quite cool with the Alchemy book mechanic though, I liked it a lot.
Good luck with your june list, and happy gaming :)
I’m happy to hear that we have common oppinions about these games!
Happy gaming in July too and best of luck with Far Cry 3!
I really hate the collectibles too. I just wanna play a HoG without worrying about checking a guide every 2 seconds to not miss a bloody collectible.
Awesome progress Lilly, congratulations :) Thank you for your reviews.
Thank you for reading :)
Collectibles are indeed a bit annoying, but on the other hand I can’t imagine a HOG without collectibles, it’s like they became a part of the genre :)
It makes perfect sense to have collectibles designed in such a way that you do have to put your hidden object finding skills to use. The real problem is having no indication of whether there is a collectible in that location or not. Having such a feature would actually stop me from using a guide for collectibles.
Ahh, Drop Alive is a game I’m looking forward to playing as well :) If you manage to get to it before me, let me know what you think!
Yep, I’m also looking forward to playing that one! I’ll let you know how it is :)