Amitte

Progress report: November ‘22 (a.k.a. Choice Paralysis!)

This title technically doesn’t quite relate to November’s progress, but… maybe it’s because Christmas (and New Year’s) is coming up, but man, there is just so much to do! I just keep. ending up. doing nothing! That’s also why this post is so damn late, I just couldn’t get myself to get it out in time! Sigh…

Anyway, here’s to what I got done to November (with another shoutout to my boyfriend, he’s a treasure):

100 hidden cats - I’m not even gonna try and excuse myself anymore.

As Dusk Falls - 1998, Arizona. A family, on the way to their new home. Suddenly, their car is passed by another one, full of teenage boys. However, they’re no ordinary teenage boys and soon, their paths would cross again…
This game is amazing. It’s a game-ified crime and drama show/documentary, not unlike one I would imagine my mom watching; the first episode will grip you tightly and you won’t be able to break free until the last one closes out. There’s an interesting dichotomy to the artstyle; on one hand, it looks as if it was based on previously recorded footage (not rotoscoped), which supports the feeling of a live action show playing out in front of your eyes, yet the fact that it has a distinct, painting-like look, with no inbetweens, brings those cheap, choose-your-own-adventure games to mind. I think this game also deserves praise for the immense amount of technicalities that are being supported, from the amount of graphics quality and language options, through ways to play (I initially figured I would be using a controller to play, but weirdly enough, it turned out that using my phone was the most comfortable choice), all the way down to appropriate trigger warnings. Turns out it can really make a game stand out, when just about any and all boxes you can imagine are being ticked. Highly recommended for a few evenings with friends, family or on your own, however you roll.
(Update: It won the Games for Impact award at the 2022 Game Awards! If that’s not your call to play it, I don’t know what is!)

Cat Burglar: A Tail of Purrsuit - In this free stealth platformer, you control a certain kitty cat, who has three simple tasks: collect gems, collect keys, don’t get caught by dogs (or cameras, later on). There’s 7 levels, all available in three different modes (Standard, Gem Jam, DOGO) for a total of 21 levels. The game looks good for a F2P title and charity support is always a plus, but unfortunately, the mouse-controlled camera and lack of semi-transparent textures (as in, if you’re standing behind a wall, you can’t tell where you are unless you turn the camera around) on top of the later levels having some tighter spots than the earlier ones make this a “meh” on the recommendation scale. Still, if you love cats, are a fan of stealth or intend to support the promoted charities, this is the game for you.

Coffee Talk - Welcome to AU Seattle, where werewolves, vampires, orcs and all kinds of other species live alongside humans. You are but a barista, serving drinks at the titular Coffee Talk, a cafe open only at night, to the folk in need of a pick-me-up for all kinds of reasons. Coffee Talk is a barista simulator, but it also focuses on the stories your customers have to tell; so much so that this game is a visual novel hybrid. There is an endless mode, but assuming you’d care enough to memorize all of the qualities of each ingredient/drink, I don’t suppose you could have a lot of fun with that. The story is concise, all of the customers’ problems are resolved in due time and they all go on living their lives. The short stories available as a side read and aren’t related to the main plot contain some interesting and amusing hypotheticals, but were a bit of a harder read to me, personally, with some of the musings that came about inside. Everything would have been fine and dandy, if not for the cliffhanger at the very end of the game… which is to say, I am really looking forward to the sequel’s release.

Coloring Game: Pixel - Just some time ago, I would have sworn I’ll never buy this game… but then it started being an intrusive thought and I had to. That was one long-ass night… If you’ve played any of the other Coloring Game titles, there’s nothing new to see here; if anything, coming back from the later installments, this one felt weirdly choppy.

Cyrano Story - Frankly, I have no earthly idea what this is. ARGs are one of my least favorite things ever and I wasn’t at all interested in the games that were being given away through this one, so I suppose I played through this one just for the achievements. I got through the bulk of it last year, but I only completed it now mostly because of the two achievements I got last - “play the game on Halloween” and “complete the game in 79 seconds” (yes, my boyfriend helped with that last one).

DEEEER Simulator - This is one of those “haha omg Japan is so weird!11!” games, without a doubt. DEEEER Simulator, or, more specifically, DEEEER Simulator: Your Average Everyday Deer Game, is a game in which you will get to simulate a deer… except nothing is really “average” or “everyday” about this deer. You’ll get to cause mayhem by ramming into trees, repeatedly punching buildings, riding cows into the sky, rooting runs rat rolice rofficers and so, so much more! There’s also still somewhat of a story on top of all this (a method to the madness, if you will), at the end of the day; however, the weird structure of the game makes it so that it’s nigh-impossible to progress without a guide, at least in my opinion. I’ve played through half, maybe less on my own, then got my boyfriend to finish it up.

Frog Detective: The Entire Mystery - Since this series is now officially complete (and available on Game Pass), I figured I might as well jump into it again. I’ve had yet to play the third and final game on Steam, but boy, was it worth it. The humor is… still as PG yet nonsensical as ever, but at the end of the day, it brought a smile to my face and I guess that’s what really matters.

NO THING - Somewhat of an endless runner, NO THING is a game that hinges entirely on your reflex. The concept is simple: walk along a path, turning left or right along with it. However, your speed will increase with every turn you make, the screen will keep changing colors every few turns, as well as pretend to glitch every once in a while, all of which only serves to make the experience more frustrating, because the moment you fall, it’s all over and you have to start again from the beginning of the level. Unsurprisingly, I only managed to pass one level on my own, but my boyfriend had nerves of steel and persevered until the very end. I will say, without shame, that we cheated to get the achievements for point count, but I mean, come on, that’s a pretty tall ask considering the difficulty of the game.

PARADISE CLEANING -pregnant ogre- - See game from the same series in this post. (The game this is based on is now also slated to release in the future, what a shocker.)

Pathfinders: Mini Words - Another game from the Mini Words series; this one aims to teach English learners (more specifically, children) some basic vocabulary. Gameplay is the same as the rest of the series, this time there’s even a voice reading each and every word out loud after you find it… but I’m confused as to how this is supposed to work as a learning game, when the vocabulary is all over the place - long words mixed with short ones, none of them sorted by any specific theme. It might work as a cheap supplement, but only that; please teach your children vocabulary in a well-constructed manner.

Pickers - Lucky update on a game that had been featured in the past! As I mentioned in my previous post, this HOG-meets-Pawn Stars still had a few achievements left to unlock. Well, I got my boyfriend to step up to the challenge, and he knocked it out of the park! He didn’t seem to find it hard, mostly wishing the items could belong to more than one category, which I fully agree with (being non-native speakers, we had a hell of a time trying to guess what constitutes “kitchenware” or “appliance”).

PIXASSO - I guess I couldn’t just wait for the new Coloring Pixels pack to drop and this was discounted for the umpteenth time, so I caved in and got it. PIXASSO almost feels like one of those games for people who just want achievements because of how they pop when you start a level, not when you complete it. There’s an option to mute the BGM, but not the coloring SFX, which is… certainly a design choice that totally hasn’t led me to muting the whole thing externally. /s All the images are small and simple, but weirdly enough, they don’t complete themselves - when you think you’re done, you have to click a button to then have the result checked by the game, which is… weird? Not to mention the one drawing that clearly has an error in it, leading to some confusion on my part. All the images are shaded in different ways, so as to help you fill in the blanks, besides the preview image to the right of the playing area… but oddly enough, it feels somewhat condescending, like you were tasked to do someone’s job, and not have your fun, like with Coloring Pixels… unless that’s just me being conditioned into feeling that way. Oh well. Despite not being a fan of this game, you’ll probably see me buying the sequels whenever I have some cash on hand, or, at the very least, whenever I start thinking about them compulsively.

Pretty Girls Mahjong Solitaire [BLUE] - Bought this one thinking it was going to be just another one of those casual games where I get to match some tiles and look at some cute girls… well, it technically was that, but then again, I really wasn’t a fan of how blatantly the gameplay was being padded. Simply put, the game has no shuffle button (pretty much always found in mahjong games), which means that every time you can’t clear a board, you have to try doing it again from the beginning. That alone made the game go from what I would gauge to cap at 2-3 hours to a whopping 9 hours… Every now and then, there will be a lucky break, but I sort of noticed a pattern when I started struggling, where the board will, in some cases, finally appear solvable after about 30-ish minutes of play… I’m not saying anything for certain, but just, you know… I might start hesitating more when it comes to buying the next mahjong game.

Resonance of the Ocean - A simple game, in which you control a stranger, who finds themselves on an equally mysterious island, being reached by a sound from beyond the ocean surrounding it. Your task is to find (and sometimes combine) simple items that will let you reproduce that exact sound, and thus, communicate with whoever’s responsible for creating the original one. It’s hard to say much more about it, other than that it has a specific feeling to it, one that perhaps doesn’t translate well outside of Japanese. It’s on the short side, but I recommend it, if you’re looking for something with a pretty art style and great sound design.

Serial Cleaner - Viscera Cleanup Detail meets… uh… some kind of 2D stealth game ^^;; This one was mighty fun, even though I left it all to the boyfriend because I sucked when I tried to play it. That resulted in all the dialogue inevitably getting skipped, but still, somehow I managed to glean the overarching plot from what was going on. Between twenty main levels and ten bonus ones, there’s plenty of content to keep you busy, not to mention that the game plays a tad different depending on whether you run it while it’s still bright outside or in the middle of the night. I honestly recommend it.

Sex Search - Seems this dev tried piggybacking off the “100 hidden…” series’ success; to no avail, I say. This game is infinitely more confusing and frustrating with how cluttered the levels are and unless you play it all in one sitting, I don’t think you’re going to be able to get all achievements, because you need to actively learn what you’re supposed to find; add to that the fact that sometimes, those items might appear on top of each other and… good lord, am I glad this was free. Even if you’ve finished all the “100 hidden…” games… stay away, for your own sanity.

Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe - Virtual tic-tac-toe with a few possible spins; multiple boards compiled into one and the so-called “forget” modes, which will erase your oldest moves. That being said, I just got the boyfriend to help me get all the achievements, so there wasn’t really much competition involved.

Unravel Cyndy - A spin-off of a game simply called Cyndy, Unravel Cyndy is, ah… it’s a jigsaw puzzle game with 3DCG images. There’s more than enough content for a free game, seeing as it took me almost five hours to solve all of the puzzles without any hints, but as multiple people have mentioned in the reviews and forums, it’s somewhat of a shame that there’s no animation available as a reward for solving the puzzles. I also think the UI could use some work; while it somewhat brings to mind the late 90s-early 00s era of graphic design, it’s not the easiest on the eyes. Side note: this game refused to run on my laptop (and judging by the forum discussions, I’m not the only one with that problem, which still remains unsolved as of now), so… shoutout to my boyfriend for having to deal with me playing this weird-ass-looking porn game on his PC.

Viki Spotter: Space Mission - Another one of those Viki Spotter games. As with the previous one, I muted the annoying BGM loop. It just so happened that the last differences to find sometimes seemed troublesome at first, but there’s no repercussions for using the in-game hint system.

Welcome Back to 2007 2 - Some weird freaking platformer that was given away for free during the pandemic. It’s got crude MS Paint drawings and cigarettes as power-ups, if that’s your cup of tea. I managed to beat less than half the game on my own, then I got my boyfriend to help.

Who Pressed Mute on Uncle Marcus? - Step into the shoes of Abby, just your average-looking twenty-something with perhaps the most hostile and unlikable family you could ever meet, as you indulge your mother through taking part in the yearly family quiz. What presumably already wasn’t going to be all fun and games gets worse when you learn that your dear uncle Marcus has been poisoned at the family meeting that happened just yesterday! You weren’t there, though, so now it’s up to you to try and suss out who could have done it. Who Pressed Mute on Uncle Marcus? has an interesting premise, but the whole picture comes together really fast… and if it doesn’t, you just have to keep replaying the game over and over, trying to see whether a particular family member will engage you if you push to talk about the meeting or not. What’s also worth mentioning is, no matter how the action plays out, you get an anonymous threat, which, in the end, goes nowhere every time. The acting, however, is still pretty solid; if you’re fond of any of the cast members, I suppose this is worth checking out.

See you next month! :)

almost 2 years ago 0 comments