February 2025 Progress Report
February was a solid month, a rough start and a good end. Naturally, I somehow stumbled into one of the most uninteresting VN’s in my library, which burned me out for about two weeks, and then it was only solid short games from there. I won Boxes from SteamGifts! I tried not to beat it all in a day, but alas, I am a sucker for puzzles and ended up really enjoying it even though the review is so short. I managed to work through more of my Secret Santa gifts. OneShot was amazing; I genuinely don’t understand how people make a game with those sorts of puzzles, but I enjoyed it immensely. I was planning on making Imposter Factory the headline title for this month, but OneShot was so special that I don’t think I’m going to play a game like that again for many years.
Next month I have yet another VN planned. The last two long VN’s I picked to play were kinda terrible so I’m wondering if Togainu no Chi is going to break the streak or make it longer. I’m also playing Death End Re;quest this March, though I’m not sure how I feel about it looking at reviews.
Dog News: Everyone is still ok, and no one is turning yellow from liver failure yet. I check her eyes daily so I’ve been feeling pretty optimistic. Half of me wants to keep saying everything is fine and the other half is waiting for her sudden degradation. Next month is my birthday.
Not feeling good about it.
Total games added to backlog: 2
Total completed: 4
Niko wakes up in an unfamiliar, dark home with no recollection of how they got there. With a voice in their head only Niko can hear and the world's residents recognizing Niko and the light they hold on sight due to a remarkably detailed prophecy – Replace the sun, restore the world, and somehow, make it back home.
4-7+ hours to complete, OneShot is a shockingly amazing puzzle game that blurs the lines between the virtual game and the real world. You, as the player guiding Niko, are known to the residents and Niko themself, significantly changing your usual function to actively participating in the world, instead of using a medium, a character. The immersion is delightful, as are the puzzles! While I consider them challenging, the puzzles are not all that difficult; just exceptionally clever. OneShot is highly recommended and well deserves their rating of 98% Overwhelmingly Positive reviews.
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Impostor Factory
Invited to a very fancy mansion out in the middle of nowhere for a party, Quincy opts to go, because the letter had his name on it, so it wasn’t a mistake, and it’s an outrageously lavish house party. They might have wagyu beef! Little sausages! Expensive drinks! Quincy is a man of ACTION. So what if the manor looks.. honestly super haunted. It’s fine! Everything is going to be ok… right?
3 – 4 hours to complete, Imposter Factory is a linear Lovecraftian murder mystery with exceptional storytelling. Third in a series but can be played as a stand alone title, the previous games in order being To The Moon and Finding Paradise. Quality wise, it’s pretty on par for these developers – High! Excellent storytelling, a solid narrative, delightful humor, and a bit of internal introspection. It’s a funny, bittersweet game that I highly recommend.
Boxes
Boxes is a 3-4 hours point-and-click puzzle game where you solve dozens of beautiful and intricately designed puzzle boxes. Each box has its own unique theme inspired by various mythologies and stories, and opening a box rewards you with a fragment, collecting four fragments grants you access to the next chapter, of which there are five in total. Overall, I had a wonderful experience and fans who played and liked The Room series will also find this game just as interesting. My personal favorite was the murder mystery box, but there are so many to love.
Psychedelica of the Ashen Hawk
30-40+ hours to complete, Psychedelia of the Ashen Hawk is an otome visual novel with four romance routes, full voice acting, and a flowchart that makes backtracking and keeping the game to a single save file a breeze. A sequel to Psychedelia of the Black Butterfly with reoccurring characters, so it’s essential to read Black Butterfly first to avoid significant story spoilers. Overall, Ashen Hawk is well-written with exceptionally gorgeous artwork but with significant flaws – it’s boring as hell. If you are playing on auto-read to enjoy the voice acting, it will take nearly twenty hours to start interacting with the plot, which is unacceptable. The game is completely bloated with required side stories to read involving conversations with random townspeople and it’s a ridiculous slog to read them all so you can get points and unlock endings.
The female lead is an idiot. The only possible reason she could have made it to adulthood must have been divine intervention, as she actively makes harmful choices to herself throughout the entire novel and only seeks short-term solutions to long-term problems. She has no critical thinking or survival skills to speak of despite being a handyman other than basic cooking. She has a sword and cannot use it. She is a witch and has no magic. Everyone in town, who I’m convinced is a cult, is looking to kill her to stop a curse and she chooses to tell other people she’s a witch when actual innocent people are being murdered just for being suspected of one. She doesn’t like keeping secrets, even when that secret is the only reason she’s alive.
The worst thing about this novel is that despite the story being centered around the female lead, she often feels like a passive observer. While she is present during events, she rarely participates in them. She mainly serves as a stand-in for the player, receiving most of the key information from other NPCs. Instead of uncovering the mysteries of the town herself, the answers are simply handed to you, leaving no room to come to your own conclusions and nothing to investigate. All of the NPCs, except one, can be taken at face value and it’s almost distressingly boring. None of the romance was convincing and after reading every ending, I genuinely got the impression that the only good ending was the true ending where ironically, you avoid all the male lead routes to get to.
a little thought for your dog, i hope everything will be ok !
So far so good, but liver cirrhosis is irreversible.
I’m fortunate enough that this is happening late-stage in her life, and not when she was just a pup or teen. Thank you for your thoughts! If you have a pet, please give them a hug.
Boxes has gotten up some ranks in my to play list, your review made me more interested than before, thanks !
No problem! It was pretty enjoyable. I think The Room series was more complicated but it was still fun to puzzle out the solutions.
Congratulations! I hadn’t heard about OneShot, and you make it sound very tempting. A couple of friends and I are becoming real suckers for the best puzzle games out there. Will look it up!
It’s worth it!!! Play it and have something to brag about. It was super impressive, I didn’t think you could do that in a game.
Very solid month. I’ve heard a lot of good things about OneShot.
February was a pretty good month! My mood was pretty low and Ashen Hawk was mind-numbing, but the short games made up for it. I’m hoping march goes well, but I’m enjoying my pop picks so far, so fingers crossed!
Hellz yeah. I’m sure some fun ones will get played.
I’ve heard so many good things about OneShot. And got even more excited after reading your review. ^^
It’s definitely worth playing as soon as you can get your hands on it. I didn’t quite realize it was THAT good when I was just aware of it.
Don’t look up any playthroughs if you can.
It’s one of the very few short games left in my hand so I’m keeping it for a certain occasion but now that I hear this I might even play it in one sit when it’s the time. And that might be close now. Seems like a perfect way to pass time.
I wouldn’t spoil a puzzle game this good but thanks for the warning. I saw the similar warning for Obra Dinn where everyone was saying never look any playthroughs or even guides.