March 2024 Progress Report
It’s my birthday! I purchased The Painscreek Killings and Cats of the Ming Dynasty earlier this month for myself and finished both this month. Samwise recommended The Painscreek Killings and it’s hard not to if you love walking around ghost towns and investigating things - there were a lot of places I’m surprised the game let me get into. Ru kindly(?) gifted me Koi Farm once they noticed I was almost done with my backlog, and it was very chill. I finished SAO: Hollow Realization; just working on the DLC now, and I made a fair effort at Ori and the Will of the Wisps, but hard mode is way harder than the original game’s hard mode and one boss in particular is tough as nails.
This month, I’ve already started on BG3, and I’ve made two critical failures in a row, so it’s going swimmingly. I plan on playing Cardinal Cross, The Confines of the Crown, Assassins Creed 3, Moonlighter, and whatever I end up buying for myself today or tomorrow!!
Total games added to backlog: 2
Total completed: 5
Janet Kelly is a journalist taking on an assignment on behalf of her co-worker to investigate a cold case in a ghost town that's soon to be auctioned off and re-developed. Before any evidence is lost for good, Janet makes way to Painscreek to try and solve the mystery of why, Vivian, the wife of the former mayor, was butchered in her own driveway. Things go downhill when she comes to a bone-chilling realization; news doesn’t get very far from town – and there is far more to this murder than it initially appears.
8-10 Hours to Complete, The Painscreek Killings is an Investigation walking sim where you slowly explore a ghost town to solve a murder. An semi open-world with many explorable areas, investigate people around the victim by exploring their homes and workplaces; reading newspapers, articles, journals, and notebooks left behind and take photos for evidence. Break into cars and investigate the hospital, there are a lot of places I’m surprised the game let me get into. There is one jumpscare at the hospital when the electricity suddenly cuts out (no enemies, and you can turn it back on.) and another at the end of the game, but otherwise, it’s very relaxing and go-at-your-own-pace. You can continue playing the game after you beat it, so backtracking is an option if you missed anything. I'm surprised at how much I loved playing The Painscreek Killings, and I hope to find and play similar games in the future.
Koi Farm
8-13 hours to complete, Koi Farm is a casual puzzle deckbuilding game in which you crossbreed different colors and patterns of Koi to fulfill book collection objectives. The atmosphere is very relaxing and it's very nice watching fish swim around in the stream and in your ponds. There is a weather system, and occasionally it will rain or storm and special koi will appear; admittingly I enjoyed this simple game more than anticipated.
All Koi have their own Koi code, a red, orange, and yellow circle made of triangles that you can share with your friends so that they can add your koi to their game. It’s a pretty neat feature you can test out yourself. In the “About This Game” section on the Koi Farm’s Steam page, there is a lovely white, red, and black Koi Code you can use. Drag the code.png image to your desktop, and with the game open, drag the image to your game window, and it will appear as a card at the bottom of the screen
Cats of the Ming Dynasty
1+ hours to complete, Cats of the Ming Dynasty is a Hidden object game with 600 cats over 6 levels. Impressively, no cat is copy/pasted and I did not note any duplicates. They purr when your mouse brushes them, clicking them gifts you with a wide variation of meows, and with multiple sizes, shapes, poses, and types of cats, it’s difficult to feel bored – especially once you realize the entire game takes place on a famous variation of the 1085-1145 CE, 5.25 meter (17ft) long painting “Ming Dynasty along the River During the Qingming Festival”, essentially meaning you are playing a Cat HOG on what is basically considered China’s version of the Mona Lisa in high definition.
Yes, the reason this game needs 4GB of space on your computer is because someone scanned the entire 17ft long silk painting in such high quality you can see the texture of the fabric it’s made on, digitally touched it up and meticulously hid 600 cats in it, then sold it on the Steam store for less than 1 USD. Clicking on the title screen in-game grants you access to the entire original scanned painting that you can zoom in and out of, without the cats. This game is absolutely worth the purchase price.
Working as a courtesan in a tavern, Grace lives a very satisfying life with her long line of lovers and piles of books to peruse when a particular stranger comes to the bar. A Half dragon decked out with a fancy pirate hat and coat barely has enough time to start a conversation and sit down before they toss their fancy clothing and hat at Grace and darting away – the Navy hot on her tail. Suddenly finding herself in possession of a flying ship with crew, Grace sets out on a romantic, treasure-filled adventure she’s only read about before in her novels.
6-9 hours to complete, Mutiny!! Is a NSFW LGBTQ+ VN with 5 routes, 2 being DLC. There is an uncensored patch available. Routes are chosen by who you pick as your First Mate, and endings are determined by puzzle completions and how well you deal with enemy pirate attacks; there is no harem route. None of the puzzles or text changes regardless of who you pick for your First Mate, it only influences what scenes you get at story points giving the game low replayability. I will warn you that the developers have 3 unfinished games, and that’s reflected in Mutiny!! As well. Two crew members are not romanceable, and Elizabeth’s DLC route has no CGs. I have the strong impression that there was supposed to be more to the storyline as well, as many places you visit to loot only have the word count of a single modest paragraph before moving on to another area. I suggest picking up Mutiny!! only if it’s on sale.
Root Double -Before Crime * After Days- Xtend Edition
Watase Kasasagi is the Captain of the Fire Department’s special elite rescue squad ‘Sirius’ on their way to LAMBO, a nuclear facility on the verge of a complete meltdown. At the same time, Natsuhiko Tenkawa, a high schooler with ESP and his friends sneak in during the ensuing panic to stop a terrorist plot – only to find themselves trapped in an increasingly dangerous situation with no way out. Every security system in place has failed; the radiation is getting stronger, the phones and radios are dead, the elevators aren’t working, exits are locked down, fires breaking out in multiple areas and the sprinkler system is offline. Both groups must work together in this desperate situation to escape, but there are more than just environmental threats when it quickly becomes clear the scientists Sirius was meant to rescue are already dead; a killer is trapped in the facility with them.
30-50+ hours to complete, Root Double is a supernatural horror VN about surviving a terrible situation where everything that could go wrong does in spectacular ways. Two protagonists, both unreliable narrators; plus time travel, supernatural powers, multiple endings, graphic murder, and gore. Unlike most VNs where you have a dialogue choice option, there is a much more complicated Senses Sympathy System, or SSS, where you adjust your general feelings of dislike and goodwill towards characters. These values need to be adjusted frequently or you will often hit bad ends. There is no flowchart, and you will need multiple save files to backtrack if you intend to reach any good ending. Regarding this, I highly suggest following a guide, otherwise, your playthrough might reach 70+ hours as you can lock yourself out of endings and not realize that until hours later without knowing where it went wrong.
Route A, or After, should be played before Route B, Before, to avoid story spoilers and major plot points. Route C, Current, is a recap, and Route D, Double, holds the True End and the resolution to the storyline. The pacing is pretty terrible, as Route A is fast-paced survival and B is slice-of-life, and aside from the strong start, the longer you play the weaker the story gets. Additional cons buyers should be aware of is that Root Double likes to spoon-feed you information and tell you plot points beforehand while the protagonists are painfully unaware of it; there are so many recaps and flashbacks to conversations you had 30 seconds ago and it gets genuinely frustrating! There is a noticeable amount of obvious or pointless plot twists; many of the issues in-game are caused by misunderstandings and sheer high schooler stupidity. There is little room for logical deductive reasoning, as the game throws in multiple supernatural aspects leading to confusing conclusions and incredibly unlikely scenarios, even for a VN. I highly suggest spending your time elsewhere.
Happy birthday!!!
Thank you!!! Bought a Filet mignon as a treat for myself, too much meat though so I ended up putting it away and cutting some off for a midnight salad. Still leftovers in the fridge… It was a big hunk.
That’s the best kind of meal. One you can enjoy once as is and then some more as leftovers.