July 2024 Progress Report
Hello again! I hope everyone had a good July, it went pretty well for me although I got derailed from my plans, I got super into one of my Summer Sale purchases, Dave the Diver, and it’s big enough I didn’t have time for much else after finished The Divine Speaker, a 20+ LGBTQ+ VN. On one hand, I did not get much done, on the other hand, still got a +1 on my backlog and knocked out two big games.
Next month! I’m gonna be super serious! Promise! Planning on ATRI, Hashihime of the Old Book Town, and AI: The Somnium Files. Not really liking AI, I meant to finish it this month but the protagonist is a huge creep and the comedy does not make amends. I started with the intent to finish it but after watching a grown man start sobbing over a porn mag and after some.. issues.. with the storyline, I just wanted to play something I actually liked. Hopefully, it gets better! but right now, I’m genuinely not sure how this man has a job as a police officer of all things.
Total games added to backlog: 2
Total completed: 3
24-46+ hours to complete, Dave the Diver is a single-player RPG where you dive for fresh fish in the Blue Hole by day and serve your catches by night in a restaurant-style management sim. Hire employees, farm fresh ingredients, prepare the menu, and get rewarded by having customers upload photos of their orders online to increase your rankings! Surprisingly roguelike, the areas you dive in randomly change, and fish vary based on night or day diving. Weapons and support items are randomized, aside from the firearms you build and bring with you. There are boss fights! All are pretty fun and have different mechanics, my deepest regret is that I can only cook them once.
As an extra tidbit, I highly suggest picking up the free Godzilla DLC before the licensing expires on November 23rd, 2024 as well as the free DREDGE DLC. As strange as it sounds, it’s not intrusive to the overall Dave the Diver gameplay and both DLCs have a pretty amazing amount of content and fun menu additions to add to your restaurant. Don’t miss out! There is an accessibility setting to automate button tapping for most of the QTEs.
The Divine Speaker
Raen is one of the orphans of Aurelia Cavella, a town protected by the gods and led by the Divine speaker; a man who chooses a child’s destiny and path in life from the day they are born, to who they marry, to the day they die. Surrounded by an endless forest of death and monsters, this town is the only place with human life; it’s been this way for thousands of years until Raen turns 18. Preparing to enter adulthood and get matched up to have children, mysterious markings appear on Raen’s arm and he is exiled from Aurelia Cavella. Here, in the forest, he meets an impossible hermit who speaks incomprehensible truths – his entire life was a lie. It’s time to make a new one.
17-35+ hours to complete, The Divine Speaker is a fantasy LGBTQ+ uncensored VN with multiple endings and three love interests. It's fully voice-acted with options in the settings to turn off individual characters' voices. It is super high quality, I highly recommend playing it as it’s a fantastic experience! My biggest complaint is that the ending is unsatisfactory due to the unresolved questions, loose ends, and the cliffhanger it ends on clearly setting up a Divine Speaker 2, which concerns me as I don’t see any news of a second game at the time of this review, more than two years after the Divine Speaker was released. (The Divine Speaker: The Sun and the Moon is a prequel, not the sequel.)
Aka
A retired soldier from war, Aka leaves the battlefield with his war friend Thom to one of the islands in the east, in search of a peaceful life of farming and blissful normalcy. Make new friends, visit the city on occasion, go hiking, cloud watch on beaches, play some music, and find a place to settle down. Just don’t let the ghosts of your past haunt you too much.
5-7+ hours to complete, Aka is a hand-drawn casual farming sim where you play as a war veteran. There are four islands to explore and one city, with two houses you can move into - one being your starter home that’s already furnished. Farming is simple and only really needed for quest progression at the least, the scale of what you want to grow is up to you. Overall, it’s a nice casual sim with optional minigames as well as its own card game. There are plenty of fun things to do while short enough to not be grindy. The only cons I can think of is unlike most farming games, your fully grown crop plants rot if you don’t collect them, but any planted flowers stay.
I highly suggest picking up the free Godzilla DLC before the licensing expires on November 23rd, 2024
Damn, now i’ll be nervously watching for a sale before time runs out. Thanks for the tip though.
Also well done on your completions, even a +1 is at least positive. I think i’ve been on the negative slope for a few months now
You can do it! I believe!
Something someone else did was buy the game -> add the DLC -> request a refund
and I think that might work? Either way, Dave the diver is pretty great for it’s pricetag.
Dave the Diver ftw!
I really need to play this sooner than later.
Do it!! Do ittt!!!! All the cool kids are playing Dave the Diver.
It is the proper season to be swimming around for sure.
Oh nice a positive for your backlog! Wait divine speaker ends on a cliffhanger well that sucks but I guess there are sequels out at least not like other cliffhangers where surprise many years later there is still no answers
Shh! don’t jinx it. I’m hoping a second game announcement comes out this year. It was a really, really nice VN though, so.