86maylin

2024 July update

Most Enjoyable

Most Looking Forward To Buying

Spirit City: Lofi Sessions

27.6 hours of playtime, 24 of 27 achievements
Personal rating: 5.5/10, Date of finish: July/9
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I think I can call this beaten since I got all the spirits. :3 This is a productivity "game" featuring a bunch of lofi music, and you can also put various background sounds on top of the music like rain, thunder, fire crackling etc. In this you can make your avatar do various things like reading or knitting in places in the room. And by doing specific things in specific locations and waiting for a while, you have a chance to find spirits that can become your companion. Everything is purely cosmetic tho and the only "gamey" part is you have levels and xp, and also currency(from leveling up/daily missions) to buy cosmetic.

I quite like this game purely because it's chill and cute, and also because I've made my avatar into the character I simp for and it melts my heart every time I see him just hang around the room doing casual stuff. :D However in terms of actual tools that the game offers, it's quite lacking compared to the productivity apps I've used before. You have a todo list with checkboxes but there's no sub-todo under a big-todo which would be extremely helpful, so you just have to divide your tasks down with multiple entries. A habit tracker with only daily check-boxes and no way to set x times per week, and repeatable timer with break time in between which is nice. Tho for me the time's up SFX is too quiet so I would often miss it if I'm not paying attention. lol There's also a journal that I didn't use since I already have a journal app I use on my phone, but it's one with a handful of topics to select from, and then just a place to write stuff, not much else. I think the only unique/great thing about this game is the adding background sounds and also how you can adjust how loud each sound is on a slider, everything else is a tad lackluster.

The devs are planning on updating the game further in the future including productivity app improvements, but they're focusing on cosmetics first which...idk. xD I also don't particularly like the fact that the game is not in early access and yet it seems like it's treated as such. Despite all that, I still like it! Might've be because I got it from a bundle? If I bought it I probably would be disappointed.

Outpath

28.6 hours of playtime, 89 of 89 achievements
Personal rating: 9.5/10, Date of finish: July/15
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This game is scary man. The first day I started it after dinner at 7PM, the next time I checked the clock it was 12AM and I was just like "What, where am I, how did the time pass so quickly??". The next day when I played it, I just can't seem to put it down and kept being like "Just a bit more, just gonna play a bit more." and well....I basically pulled an all-nighter playing it. lol Barely made myself stop when sunlight shined through the curtain at 5AM and I just scrambled to bed for 3 hours before having to wake up for work.

I feel like this game is perfectly engineered to tickle my monkey brain and I loved it. xD You always have something to do whether crafting things, clicking on resources or collect items from collectors. You always have something to work towards whether it's expanding a new island, researching new tech, crafting new equipments or fullfilling bundle items. And the thing I love the most is the movement. You start with the ability to wall climb anything which is awesome, and then later on you will unlock multiple jumps, a dash ability and jumping rings that boost your height greatly, and it all just goes hand in hand smoothly that zooming between islands is actually so fun. The vague story actually scarily fits into the fact that I got addicted to the game so much, which is really fun. :P There's also accessibility settings like hold to click or even auto-click option which helped tremendously. Highly recommend. :3

Time Mysteries 2: The Ancient Spectres

2.9 hours of playtime, 11 of 11 achievements
Personal rating: 2/10, Date of finish: July/20
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It's a HOG, a bad one at that. Bad voice acting(protagonist actually sounds very robotic), boring story and bad gameplay. The worst is there's some HOG scenes that have the items behind other items that are barely visible, or in one case it's behind an one-time interactible so it's just totally not visible. Had to look up a video guide for that one, which is just a big no-no for HOGs, having an object be like that. Did not enjoy this one, and idk why I decided to stay up and finish this in one setting but I did. lol

Assemble with Care

1.8 hours of playtime, 14 of 14 achievements
Personal rating: 9/10, Date of finish: July/20
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Discovered this game thanks to damianea103's post and bought it during summer sale. It's such a charming and cute game with an endearing story that got me emotional quite a few times, thanks to the voice actor's wonderful performances! Also, even tho it's kinda inappropriate for me to think that given what happened to Joseph's wife, but he's a hot dilf. xDDD His voice is just so deep and voice that I swoon for him whenever I see him. *huehue*

During the restoration gameplay, every gives a satisfying sound and it comes together well. The only things I don't like are the forced perspective change when you unscrew some of the screws which is particularly annoying on the music box stage, and some hitbox problems since sometimes I'll try to rotate the piece yet accidentally unattach something/put the piece down.

Blush Blush

167 hours of playtime, 19 of 19 achievements
Personal rating: 4.5/10, Date of finish: July/21
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Finally completed the game. :3 Completed as in "got all achievements" not "exhausted everything there is" since that would take years. This is basically Crush Crush but with man, and idk, I didn't like it as much as Crush Crush? Which I feel like mostly is because I'm a bit over idle/clicker games. :P Maybe cuz I got older and felt they're a waste of time with little return. Compared to Crush Crush this one actually has a QOL feature that's bundled with a guy, so I spent some money to get that which I'd say improved the soft reset quite a lot. But still, it takes a long long to do stuff and it's really boring...

Crime Scene Cleaner: Prologue

1.2 hours of playtime, no achievements
Personal rating: 9/10, Date of finish: July/22
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Seen this game from a stream and it looks just like Viscera Cleanup Detail which I looooooove, and it's a free demo so decided to play it myself, turns out I was exactly right. It's basically Viscera Cleanup Detail plus a little bit of Thief Simulator where you can steal cash and jewelry from the crime scene, and it's awesome! I enjoyed going through the place methodically cleaning out every bit of blood, picking up all the garbage and putting back all the furniture. It even has QOL features that Viscera didn't have, like bulk picking up trash and highlighting dirty spots, while it added different forms of cleaning depending on surfaces. I will definitely be buying it when it comes out, and I recommend everyone to play the demo and see if you like it~It's free, so why not? :3

Grow a Carrot

54.3 hours of playtime, 12 of 12 achievements
Personal rating: 4/10, Date of finish: July/30
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Won this recently and decided to play it on a whim. It's an idler with the currency of carrots and there's a bunch of rabbit people. xD I kinda like it honestly, cuz it doesn't take too much to "play" it. The only thing(well, 2 things) is the platforming section is very frustrating(why's there a platforming section in an idler game and ughhh the controls suck), and also it's those type of "idle to get drops" game.

Time played 204 hours 34 minutes
Achievements gotten 220
Games 100% completed 7
Games discontinued 3

Oh hey I actually made a monthly post. :3 Let’s see how long I can persist. xD Also, this month I regrettably threw PowerWash Simulator into the “Discontinued” pile which is the biggest disappointment I’ve had in ages with my purchases(the last one was Ori 2). I thought it’d give me chill and relaxing vibe like Viscera Cleanup Detail or Hardspace: Shipbreaker, but no, it’s just so damn boring. lol I guess I require a bit more stimulation than “hold down left mouse button and move around”, not to mention it actually makes me a bit motion sick after playing for a while and I don’t get motion sick easily. A shame.

Amitte

As a PowerWash Simulator lover, I’ll fight for it. Have you tried locking the camera with the C key while playing? I would imagine that helps with motion sickness. As for additional stimulation, putting on a podcast, audiobook or music album of choice is the way to go :D

86maylin

I did put on my music when playing it as with most of these games. :3 Don’t really have a habit of listening to podcast or audiobooks. I’m curious, do you play with keyboard/mouse or controller? Cuz I find using a mouse kinda hurts my wrist after a while so switched to controller, but it isn’t too much better…
You’ve convinced me to give it another try tho. Maybe it just didn’t click for me yet? Might retry with one of the free maps like Alice Wonderland since career maps are kinda boring. We’ll see! c:

Amitte

Keyboard/mouse for sure, I could just tell it would be a nightmare to play with a controller. My wrist does hurt too, though. That’s why I feel like locking the camera with C is a valuable piece of advice; you get to focus on a select part of the map, piece by piece, instead of whipping your head around the whole place all the time.

Oh wow, the Alice in Wonderland maps are free? I play through Game Pass and I had to pay for them. Can’t recommend them enough though, I love just about anything Wonderland-themed :3

86maylin

I’ll certainly try that, hope it makes it better. Doesn’t help that I sit in front of the computer all day because of my job so my wrist is already regularly wearing down. ^^;

I thought it’s free? It gave me a pop-up when I got into the game telling me there’s a new seasonal map added or something and I vaguely read the “free” word, so I thought it is. lol Or maybe I read wrong.

Amitte

Looking forward to hear if it helped!

Okay, I checked and the Alice in Wonderland maps are paid on Steam as well. Seems there’s a free seasonal content update, though!

86maylin

It helped a lot! Really made it much less dizzy and actually kinda fun to clear the visible area around you, and seeing the casted “shadow” of dirty areas you couldn’t clean cuz of objects just make me giggle for some reason. x3 I tried the game again during an online meeting(an advantage I say, since anything is better than doing nothing but listen in a meeting lol) and played the Christmas map, and I actually got into the groove and had a lot of fun, even played more after the meeting(the benefit of work from home).
I also have to tell myself to move my mouse in big wide movements instead of small ones, because micro movements are what kills my wrist actually. Shifting the pressure from wrist to arm is more acceptable I feel like.
Thanks for convincing me to try it again. <3

Amitte

Praise be to multitasking! :D I’m super glad to hear it worked! <3

OC/DC

the biggest disappointment I’ve had in ages with my purchases(the last one was Ori 2)

Was Ori 2 a disappointment? That’s not good news… what made it disappointing?

86maylin

It was a disappointment to me because I loved Ori 1 too much. ^^; They kept the escape sequences and the visual art style as 1, but besides those, what I love most about Ori 1 is the movement and particularly the save system. The combat system in 1 also helps to center the focus on platforming instead of splitting the attention of the player’s attention.

For 2, I had trouble with the movement since it felt too floaty to me instead of the swift but still has weight feeling in 1. I really dislike the auto-save system since it would either put me way back which is annoying and tedious(the wolf fight is most egregious), or put me very close making me just not care about dying and I’d just rush head first and cheese the next checkpoint, and there’s no accomplishment.

And the combat is just, ugh, not great. Because of the art style, the hitbox of the enemy is not clear at all, and there’s also contact damage, so….you can imagine it gets annoying when you didn’t hit a guy, but then gets contact damage by him. It is especially annoying in the fight where there’s a pond underneath(keeping it low spoiler here lol), since that boss’ hitbox just keeps moving and so hard to hit. And they have a bandage fix to the problem: A hold to heal ability. Unlike Hollow Knight where you earn heals with hits, you equip a heal ability in Ori 2, and you can only equip 3 abilities including your attacks! So basically there’s always 1 basic attack that’s either sword or hammer, heal which is pretty much mandatory, so that leaves only 1 spare. It limits build options and heavily incentivized me to experiment with other abilities. I didn’t like the story as much as the first either. It just didn’t grip me and I didn’t grow to care the owl as much as Naru.

If you want my full thoughts on the game I wrote a lengthy one here: https://www.backlog-assassins.net/posts/wbwnk3b in the April section, there are spoilers tho. I really wouldn’t say it’s a bad game, as I’ve heard a lot of people say it’s better than Ori 1 and they liked it more. But for me, I expected too much and they changed too much of what I loved. ;-;