BLAEO — Backlog Assassins Extraordinaire

HurrJackal1

Children of Silentown

7.4 hours playtime
19 of 26 achievements
GRIS

6.7 hours playtime
17 of 17 achievements
Little Orpheus

4.6 hours playtime
14 of 26 achievements
Steamworld Dig 2

19.95 hours playtime
22 of 34 achievements
GAME
PASS
Supraland

28.3 hours playtime
53 of 98 achievements
The Turing Test

5.7 hours playtime
15 of 15 achievements
Tunic

17.1 hours playtime
21 of 36 achievements
GAME
PASS

Children of Silentown: Reasonably good adventure game, with nice graphical style and some atmospheric creepiness.
GRIS: I bounced off this the first time I played it, but restarted as it was a Play or Pay pick. Graphics are lovely art nouveau meets Moebius. Difficulty is very gentle once you understand the mechanics required - there’s no death, only the potential of a little slowdown or regression. Story … well, it’s another indie puzzle platformer representing dealing with trauma. Overall I’m left feeling that it was … ok.
Little Orpheus: Essentially this is a post-Inside game (I really liked Inside). For this game, the art is great - with highly varied levels in a pulp world. The puzzles and platforming are generally subpar, and mediocre at best. There is generally excessive level to traverse vs gameplay. In between each level are long static cutscenes - fairly well written and okay with the acting. These are unskippable even on a replay, which is required for the majority of achievement completions. Even worse, the collectables I saw require no (additional) skill to get and were all on the main path - a real Feels Bad. This is the second game I’ve played from The Chinese Room (after Dear Esther) that I’ve played, and I am consequently not at all hopeful for what they will end up doing with Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines 2.
Steamworld Dig 2: A resource digger mixed with a metroidvania. Quite good, with some tricky traversal at times required, particularly for collectables.
Supraland: I partially played this 3d metroidvania before ages ago, put it down, and restarted after having completed and enjoyed Supraland: Six Inches Under. The major issues I have and had in this one are:
- the respawning enemies (which they acknowledged and fixed with the latter game) - these can be nullified, but only late in the game, and make exploration and noodling out the collectables before then more annoying than ideal. Combat in the sequel was used more as a puzzle/gate.
- keeping a mental map for area traversal. There is a player map and there are signposts for the land routes but not so much for the unlockable pipes and jumppads, and the map for those links is unlocked only after the endgame and is a static world object rather than a pickup. It does become a lot easier once you get various unlocks, and can wander on the high “out of bounds” areas
  Nonetheless, still recommended, and am looking forward to Supraworld.
The Turing Test: An unmemorable post-Portal 3d puzzle game.
Tunic: A love-letter to Zelda with some great ideas of its own (go in unspoiled – seriously). Not particularly difficult with the exception of the final boss fight, which I found Soulslike hard, failed repeatedly on and off over months, and finally came back after hearing that there was a no damage switch in the options - yeah I cheated (I’d have been happier with a lower difficulty/damage level), but it gets it out of my pile of shame/annoyance.