Two guys who don't know each other happened to have no more clean clothes to wear at the same time, so they go to a laundromat late at night. There's not an employee in sight and only one washing machine is in order… it's looking to be a slow one. But if that's not enough, at some point the power goes out, which locks the front door. Now you have to help them find a way out.
The gameplay is reminiscent of the old "escape the room"-type browser games - move between screens and interact with hotspots to find usable items and try to progress. The translation was okay, nothing of note there. I like pixel art and thought the BGM was pretty cool; this is doubly cool considering the whole game is a solo project.
If I had to change anything, I'd probably get rid of the Nintendo-style speaking sounds. I've got nothing against them usually, but I was zoning out while playing this one and they didn't help.
There is also an achievement for finding small, decorative stars around the place, which is entirely missable if you're not one for meticulously combing through each and every screen, because there's no visual indication for where any of them are.
This is supposedly related to another game from the same dev, which remains untranslated for reasons unknown. According to them, you can play the games in either order, but I would say that after my nearly 40 minutes with BLUE NIGHT LAUNDROMAT, I did not feel attached to the characters nor did I think there was any reasonable explanation for everything that happened. No strong feelings about it either way. I might play that other game one day, though.

BLUE NIGHT LAUNDROMAT is Playable on Steam Deck. Use the touchscreen, R2 or R3 to advance text and L2 to hide textbox/UI. Right touchpad is active.

Enter Paris, where Y/N lives and works as a journalist. They also have a roommate, Roselle, who is currently studying to become a vet. Right away, it's implied that Roselle is depressed - she does her best to stay on top of her studies, but she never leaves the house and her sleeping schedule seems to be irregular. As Y/N, you can almost always suggest something to get her out of her slump when talking to her and I found it relatable that Y/N never pushes anything after she declines.
Y/N's daily schedule consists of going to work in the evening (they work night shifts exclusively, for some reason), swinging by their favorite bakery in the morning, then taking a walk in the park in the afternoon. Each of these scenarios leads them to encounter a different stray cat.
Roselle loves cats, so Y/N comes up with the idea of taking photos to cheer her up and your job is to help them make a good first impression on the cat. The second time they come across each cat, they have to name it - it's Roselle's way, or so I understand. Naturally, I was amused by nobody caring that I gave all the cats the dumbest names ever.
If they do a good enough job by the third encounter, Y/N (and by extension, Roselle) may get to keep the cat. The amount of cats they end up fostering influences the ending you'll get to see. If you got to keep no, one or two cats, Roselle will suggest that she's on her way out of the slump (these endings are pretty much the same, they just seem marginally better the more cats you get), but if you took in all of them, you'll get the one and only ending where Roselle no longer looks disheveled and isn't wearing her pajamas anymore, announces that she passed her finals and goes out with Y/N to celebrate. And then, you come across yet another stray cat, which she suggests should be named Cateau.
Yeah, so… this was made in Unity, which means it would have to try really had not to make me hate it. It doesn't have any options which would be readily available in a VN engine - no quick saving/loading, no text skipping, no backlog, no rollback… There is a "skip" button, but it only forces the current textbox to appear. If you press it again after that, it just goes to the next textbox as if you've just clicked to advance text. There's also a "rewind" button, but instead of rolling back, it goes back to the start of the scene you're on? Okay??
At least the artwork is great - the character sprites, the backgrounds, the UI, it all looked great.
Oh, and shoutout to this amazing review that somehow missed the fact that the writing is gender-neutral on purpose.

Cateau is Playable on Steam Deck, because the mouse cursor shows up and you have to open up the keyboard manually. Use the touchscreen, A, R2 or R3 to advance text. Right touchpad is active.

You and your friend Judy go out to a Halloween party together, but she's acting a bit weird. After a while, you walk out of the venue, she gives you a seemingly normal necklace, and then… you wake up trapped in an unfamiliar place, having to face the fact that Judy is not who you thought she was. As it turns out, she's merely a servant to Mara, the woman who's working on creating her perfect world.
The character and UI art is great, the music gets a plus for being original rather than royalty-free (though I personally found it distracting), it's nice that you can choose to play as a guy or a girl (but only the guy flirts with Judy at the start, what's up with that?), but in the end, I just didn't like it.
From the moment you wake up in a cage, you have to stroke Mara's ego and depending on how well you do that, you'll get one of the available endings. Problem is, I didn't find much value in all that. I somehow managed not to understand (or retain, I'm writing this one very late) any of the info that was dumped and I found the official walkthrough counterintuitive, grouping requirements for some endings together in a way that made me think I should be making the wrong set of choices and I ended up losing a good bit of time on that. I don't want to spoil anything (or rather, I can't), but if any of it catches your eye, I won't dissuade you from playing.

Goblet of Mercy is Playable on Steam Deck. Use the touchscreen, A or R2 to advance text, Y to hide textbox, B or Menu to open save menu, L1, L2 or View to rollback.

I've already played this one back in November 2023 on a Game Boy emulator and thus didn't care to jot down my thoughts about it, but since it is available on Steam, I figured I might as well play it again someday. It's a deeply personal game, so it feels wrong to judge it too harshly, but personally, I need more context to understand stories like these. There are a few points where the story jumps from one train of thought to another and I'm not exactly sure how they connect. Some things are left hanging as the dev deems them to be boring and not worth exploring, because the game may not get released otherwise.
The title catches one's eye, yes, but the fact that so many people seem to be finding it "funny" says a lot about how many Gamers™️ there still are.
I've been dipping my toes into retro games ever so slightly and I'm glad to see there's still so much love for them that people choose to make games meant to be played on the Game Boy; I'm sure I would be even more excited about it if I were old enough for the Game Boy to be nostalgic to me.
This one looks great, but unfortunately, it's just not for my brain to "enjoy".

He Fucked the Girl Out of Me is Verified on Steam Deck, matching my experience as of 23/12/24. Use B to advance text and the D-pad to move.

After the end of WWI, Errol has returned home, ready to enjoy his new peaceful life. Too bad for him though, he drank himself stupid and got hit by a train so hard he died. Heaven and Hell both tried taking him on their respective terms, but he wouldn't go either way. He's still a virgin, after all! He didn't go and survive all of WWI just to get hit by a train and die maidenless right after!
Fast forward to the next century, he's now known as The Horny Ghost of Apartment 69. He's also the reason why said apartment isn't seeing much use, as every new tenant who doesn't meet his standards (read: isn't a hot, bangable girl) is presumably getting spooked into moving out. Errol's quest to lose his virginity picks up some steam when the apartment is cheap enough for a certain Vivienne to move in.
The story is kind of a funny concept, with the lecherousness being mostly on the okay side as far as my personal tastes go. Still, I feel like Errol's war veteran backstory is too heavy to be brushed off as "just the setup" (the juxtaposition of the war veteran and the sex pest is nothing but emotional whiplash) and too serious to be the setup in the first place (even if there ever has been a war veteran who thinks they've survived because they daydreamed about all the sex they'd get to have after war ends, they should probably keep it to themselves.)
The art is delightfully cartoonish, exactly what I would expect from a small porn game such as this (Errol having classic meme faces in multiple scenes definitely deserves a mention.) The devs seem to take pride in not using generative AI and they're absolutely right to do so. There's even a short animated scene!
The only thing that fails is the sound (or rather, the lack of it.) The available tracks are generic royalty-free music, which is par for the course, but most of the game plays out in complete silence, which is a shame.
I also wasn't a fan of the fourth wall break that implied the devs would like you to give them money for more sexual content. I know I'd like to see all the sex that was said to have happened, but this game doesn't even have a paid version! Talk about weird.
Errol's story has sort of an ambiguous ending, so I wonder if he'll come back in future games.

Interview with the Horny Ghost is Playable on Steam Deck because the mouse cursor shows up on screen. Use the touchscreen, L1, R2 or R3 to advance text, A to hide textbox, R1 to rollback. Right touchpad is active.

A kinetic novel set in ye olde times, Juniper's Knot tells the story of a demoness, sealed away in the ruins of a mansion and the boy who comes across her on his way home. It's been a while since she's had anyone to talk to, so she gladly engages him and convinces him to stay with her longer.
But what are her true intentions? And will the boy get back home in the end?
This is one of those games that's nostalgic in a weird way - I've been meaning to play it since 2016, if not earlier, so I've never quite forgotten about its existence. Was it good enough for me to have thought about it for so long? Eh… it was okay.
The writing is unusual; both characters are from a nondescript point in the past and thus their speech fits the times. I did like that the boy had to explain some of the ways in which the world had advanced since the demoness had gotten sealed, and in turn, the demoness gave him the "back in my times…!" talk. The painterly art style is nice, the UI is sleek and minimalistic and the BGM is great.
The trend I've seen across the VNs I've been reading recently is that the music seems to be consistently given the least attention. Juniper's Knot avoids becoming part of this trend by having an original OST and knowing when to use it. The story is entirely about these two characters and whenever there's a transitional period in their conversation, there's silence. But when something to focus on is said, a new track will start playing. It may not be a big thing, but I found that pretty neat.

Juniper's Knot is Playable on Steam Deck. Use the touchscreen, A or R2 to advance text, Y to hide textbox, Menu to bring up save menu. L1, L2 and View also seem to do something, but I'm unclear as to what, exactly. They seem to have rolled me back to the very start of the game, so you might want to hold off on pressing any of them if you haven't saved your progress.

On a harsh Winter night, Chester, a 47-year-old surveyor, gets sent out by his boss to inspect a property that's missing from the registry. He drives all the way out to where it's supposed to be and sure enough, it's a mystery how a castle that big is not on the registry. But that's not all - as it goes with spooky castles and mansions, the front door opens on its own and from there it doesn't take long for Chester to meet the owners and realize - they're vampires!
For a VN that took just a little over two hours to read, this one really had me hooked. As far as this challenge goes, it might only have come second to Reborn a Zombie!. It's not often you get to play as a middle-aged man, and especially not one quite like Chester. Add to that not one but two vampires, both of whom can take a romantic interest in him, as well as relatable backstories for each of them and you've got a surprisingly good story on your hands. I'll definitely be on the lookout for other VNs from Kristi Jimenez.

Panicked and Surrounded by Hot Vampires is Playable on Steam Deck, with the disclaimer for some kind of inconsequential compatibility warning popping up on launch. I didn't get one, so I think it's safe to say this game could use a change of status. Use the touchscreen, A, R2 or R3 to advance text, L2 or Menu to bring up save menu, R1 to rollback, View to skip, left stick left to bring up accessibility options, left stick down to take screenshot.