
Progress report: March ‘25 (a.k.a. Cloon… and… Refrooshed?)
Couldn’t think of anything else for the title. (lol)
I went on a cross-country trip for a (near) week-long therapy retreat! Think it’s safe to say that I wasn’t able to consciously introduce its ways into my life after coming back (I am, after all, only a weak little human bean), but at least I am now aware of the tools available!
I’m still trying to get back into the groove of things, but for now, here’s what I got done in March:
Title means it was meant to be played in March. Literally nothing insightful to say about this one. The meows sound weird to me.
This one was decently challenging. Still, an understandably hard sell due to its fetish content.
A cute little 3D puzzle game where you get to unscramble city dioramas. Relaxing rather than challenging, as all you need to do is put all the pieces in predetermined positions, which you can check up on whenever you want. Pieces in correct positions lock in, saving the player from a potential headache, especially on later levels. If you're looking for something with more emphasis on creativity, this may not be the game for you, but I enjoyed it for what it was. I tried to do some memorizing myself, but the levels quickly grew in size, making it too much trial-and-error without help. After nine or so levels, I started using the Steam guide (only bringing up the in-game hint would have been too much work, but I still needed to do it on top of checking the guide) and I'm glad I did, since what initially seemed like a two hour game ended up taking five!
I knew I'd have to play this one soon when I noticed it's being advertised as a story inspired by Nancy Meyers' movies; I just watched Something's Gotta Give for the first time last month and found it decently enjoyable. Pardon my lack of familiarity with her other movies (I'm looking forward to rectifying that in the near future), but the similarities between Love in the Glen and Something's Gotta Give are only found in the "elite" and "stylish" setting, Dr Seiji Mimura looking like Dr Julian Mercer (as much as the art style allows, I suppose) and the age gap between the main character, Zoe and her new assistant, Michael, giving her pause (if only for a split second.)
I let myself have a bit of hope for this one precisely due to this comparison, but really, it's all standard Sapphire Dragon Productions proceedings.
Everything is small talk, which means no character gets any substantial development, but you're better off not wishing for development anyway because things always happen unusually fast. No character has their own distinct voice; they all say "cool" or "awesome" if they don't have anything else to contribute to their conversation partner, as if just changing the subject would imply they left them hanging. Still, there are some things that come out of nowhere, like Michael's confession about his preference for "cougars" (unprofessional at best, harassment at worst) or even the fact that, if you don't pursue him, he always ends up dead from a drunk driving accident. Speaking of romantic pursuit, if you don't feel like the game gives Zoe's initial relationship time to breathe, you definitely will not find any of the available paths to be satisfying, either. Everything just happens because the devs decided it's a romance, so it must.
Even though reading Sapphire Dragon Productions' VNs always reminds me why I'm not a writer in my own right, I have to ask… if you watched Something's Gotta Give and still can't figure out how to write a character at least half as charming as Dr Julian Mercer… what are we doing here?
Oh, and I guess there's also a dumb little match-3 minigame that simulates working. I can't even be mad about it, it practically plays itself half the time. I was more confused by the fact that too much skipping dimmed all the backgrounds, for some reason.
Only one more game from Sapphire Dragon Productions left to go in my backlog.
An old gift from my dear friend Saku; so old, in fact, that it has since been removed from the store and republished (I don't know whether anything has been changed in the republished version or not, as I own the original one.)
This is the story of You - no, not you as in you, the player - You, the thirty-year-old, perpetually sleep-deprived workaholic with a penchant for caffeine. It's not a Japanese name, either; he really is named "You", like the pronoun, and no one really questions it over the course of the game. It's an interesting enough premise, but as I've come to realize, sooner rather than later, it serves no real purpose. If you're European, male, in your thirties, a workaholic, a caffeine lover and often find yourself sleep-deprived, perhaps you'll find it easy to see yourself within You; of the qualities I listed, only one applies to me, and so if naming the main character You was supposed to be a point of confusion, to make me feel as if our identities are blending together… suffice it to say, it didn't work at all.
You's story is short, a mere three work days before his well-deserved vacation, but the truth about his life is spread across fourteen (!) different endings. Well, "the truth" is a stretch… he's sleep-deprived due to being a lucid dreamer, which would explain some of the inconsistencies within the story. He's also said to have some sort of a chronic illness, which is implied to be the reason for his miserable and stressed-out way of being. In one of the endings, it's revealed to have been misdiagnosed as physical, when it is actually mental, with the distress regarding You's condition being its main cause, which I found satisfactory, though I would have appreciated another ending where it remains physical and light is shed on what it is… but maybe that's just because I wanted to relate more.
Visually, My Name is You is very nice, emulating the look of an old silent movie (though I fail to see how that relates to the story.) The game is fully voiced in both Russian and English. I can't speak for the Russian voiceover, but the English VA has a pleasant voice and modulates his voice well enough to act out each and every character.
In the end, to me, the story of You remains confusing and unfinished… but the dev's later works have gotten more praise, so I'm looking forward to checking them out in the future.
Exactly What It Says On The Tin™️; after a drunken night out, you wake up in a stranger's bed and have to figure out the right way to proceed. By simply looking around her bedroom, you can figure out just enough to make her like you or too much for her to let you stay any longer than you already have. It's just one of those little games where referencing any particular event would be spoiling the fun. I don't know why, but the environmental storytelling does it for me in this game. I also love the rotoscoped animation (even if it does make skipping through previously seen text sluggish.) Looking forward to trying the dev's second game sometime in the future.
Travel to 1978, Italy and step into the shoes of Lella, a woman who one day decides to leave Rome and drive down the roads of the famous Via Aurelia. In this narrative adventure/driving game mashup, every playthrough lasts about 15-25 minutes and with sixteen different endings, there's a lot to see.
…but really, now. After my initial playthrough lasting, let's say, 25 minutes, each next one would be significantly shorter because I've already seen most of it. Heck, some playthroughs would last less than 10 minutes. To add insult to injury, if you get any new achievements at the end of a run, you have to quit the game altogether for the unlocks to trigger.
Eventually, it's not so much about the choices you make while talking as it is about your driving skills when it comes to unlocking the last few achievements. 15 minutes might not sound like a long time, but it's a painfully long amount of time to spend on a run that might not even come out right because you didn't drive the car fast enough. I'm nope-ing out for now because all that's left to do is stuff that can be failed way too easily.
(EDIT: I have now unlocked all of the achievements. Patience is key; feel free to ignore all the dialogue prompts and never let go of Space/Enter. Still wish dialogue choices were more important.)
I see the vision and the soundtrack slaps, but at the end of the day, I can't vouch for Wheels of Aurelia.
See you next month! :)
Ah congratz and shit for Wheels of Aurelia, i thought it was a game like Jalopy !
I’ve never had an interest in Jalopy, but I just checked out the store page and yeah, they’re nothing alike. I definitely wasn’t into Wheels of Aurelia for the driving, haha.
I realize my write-up doesn’t say much about what the game looks like, but in my book, it could be “fixed” by including more endings that depend on your dialogue choices (but not as strict as Ending H) and/or making the narrative portion more interesting; as it stands, all characters (including Lella herself) feel disposable, for lack of a better word, especially when triggering an event can cut a conversation short, leaving it unfinished. Also, the achievement unlock thing; normally I wouldn’t mind it, but having to close the game and open it again every 15 minutes is annoying.
TL;DR: If you’re interested in driving/racing games, there’s not nearly enough of that here. (I don’t have any recommendations for these genres… ^^;;) And if you’re interested in narrative games with light gameplay… just pick up a Telltale game. :)