January Updates:

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Kicking off the year to a good start, even though I had a week or so when I had company at home and didn’t play anything much. :D

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• Evening Surprise
  

  2 hours playtime

  4 of 4 achievements

• Six Days of Snow
  

  4 hours playtime

  7 of 7 achievements

• A Date in the Park
  

  2 hours playtime

  9 of 9 achievements

• My Lady
  

  59 minutes playtime

  9 of 9 achievements

• Letter Quest: Grimm's Journey Remastered
  

  52 hours playtime

  60 of 60 achievements

• LiEat
  

  10 hours playtime

  30 of 30 achievements

• Labyronia RPG
  

  22 hours playtime

  6 of 6 achievements

• Labyronia RPG 2
  

  24 hours playtime

  6 of 6 achievements

• Anime Studio Simulator
  

  13 hours playtime

  8 of 9 achievements

• Legend of Mysteria
  

  9 hours playtime

  6 of 6 achievements

• Valiant: Resurrection
  

  15 hours playtime

  13 of 13 achievements

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Evening Surprise [01/02]: ★★★★★✰✰✰✰✰
Short and full of translation errors but readable, and while it has shortcomings you can tell it was made with heart. It’s all in the surprise, lol. I’d give it even more stars if it had been written in a way that was totally plausible and not in any way oddly worded once you do know the reveal. It got me though, and I laughed quite a bit once I got my surprise.

Six Days of Snow [01/04]: ★★★★★★★★✰✰
A very real, somber, no fantasy story that tackles a very realistic but uncomfortable plot. The notes you can read after the epilog really make the author’s thoughts and inspirations known, and I think she really hit the mark. It could have been seen as something less savory than what was intended if left to the imagination, especially as topics like this are sadly not uncommon in the VN world as a whole (and presented poorly as well). Knowing the extra bit of detail and reasoning behind the story easily pushed this into an 8 star experience.

A Date in the Park [01/04]: ★★★★★★★✰✰✰
Okay, so. Uh, wow. I can’t say anything really except my joy over seeing the cute ducks at the beginning went south fast. At first this game might seem really strange once you get to the ending, but the nuances of the story’s meaning is all in the mythology references you get breadcrumb hints about along the way. If you know ahead of time (or look up afterwards) the mythological characters mentioned on the statues in the park, you can see there’s a symbolic reason or point behind it all that’s more than just “point and click nonsense plot”.

My Lady [01/04]: ★★★★★✰✰✰✰✰
I like the fact you can name the main character and her love interest, and the fact all the characters are faceless shadows is an interesting design choice too. The writing is also really well done. However… there’s just not enough of it! I don’t mind short games at all, and there was a lot of nice variety in the endings, but I would have gladly paid double the price for double the length. It was at the point where you could just start feeling pulled into the story, then it ends.

Letter Quest: Grimm’s Journey Remastered [01/08]: ★★★★★★★★✰✰
There’s honestly not a lot to be said that I didn’t already say about the original version I 100%ed last year. However there are some improvements, more achievements, a new soundtrack, some additions — and it’s a completely separate game in my steam library so I finally decided to complete it as well. I’ve played it a lot over a long period of time but I got the last 50% or so of the achievements in 2018. It’s a really fun word game, and if you’re familiar with Bookworm Adventures it’s mostly the same premise (with a silly story).

LiEat [01/15]: ★★★★★★★✰✰✰
A nice little game, pretty pixel graphics, good enough story with a really interesting premise and a lot of nice ideas thrown in. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon. I might have set my expectations a bit too high, but I didn’t regret the time spent playing LiEat. A lot of the story concepts in general in this game felt really interesting and fresh. I’d love to see some more content in this unusual dragon world.

(Note: The Labyronia Series: I think I got this games in a bundle actually on steam, for next to nothing, while I still had well under 100 games in my inventory — and somehow I just now got around to playing them. …Best .09 to .49 cents a piece (lol I don’t remember) I ever spent. I really wished I’d played these sooner.)

Labyronia [01/17]: ★★★★★★★★✰✰
Anyway, I’m kinda stunned. It starts off like most games of its type do, and while it was fun at first it really did exceed all my expectations — especially for a mostly one man solo dev project — even if it is an RPGMaker creation. I loved playing it, I loved the story and the ending (and the final events leading up to it, even when I thought I saw it all coming) had a greater impact than I thought it would.

It’s a little tough and slightly grindy in all the right ways without ever overstaying its welcome. The cues premise for skill learning is pretty cool, and different since its more about exploring than straight out leveling for upgrades. The mazes are kind of hellish so I did look up a map/directions for the desert and snow lands (and I’d recommend anyone else doing the same). I never had any of the problems I saw people discussing on steam like it being just impossible, maybe it’s because things like hidden (but still slightly obvious) hidden paths, proper counterability gear and elements use, and hellishly maze-y dungeons are just things I’m used to from the good old nes and snes days. Anyway, I went in expecting a meh experience and enjoyed it completely. There were some minor English errors (usually in the optional-to-read books), but nothing at all deal breaking or impossible to understand — Its the occasional awkwardness of English not being the native language of the dev rather than flat out translation errors. Wording was sometimes a little strange but always got the point across. And did I say I loved the story?

Labyronia 2 [01/20]: ★★★★★★★★★✰
I’m just letting the end theme play while I write this. I just beat the final boss. I’m emotionally compromised.

It built on the first game, continued from the first game, threw me into a bleak, dark, hazy and hopeless world and. Just. Arres. Ugh Arres.

So okay, there are a lot of language errors in the first town for some reason and that kinda worried me at first but there’s probably more there in that starting location than the rest of the game combined and like before, it was never to the point you couldn’t understand what was meant.

And yeah. A familiar but totally different world, expanded on and rearranged and all messed up.

Just like my heart. :/ (lol)

Legend of Mysteria [01/24]: ★★★★★★✰✰✰✰
A mixed bag. I wish I liked it more than I did. The premise was great and it really should be played after Labyronia 1 (and probably 2 as well). It’s a good supplement to the story and world building, though the gameplay is more like a point and click adventure game.

The reason I can’t give this one a higher rating is that while I get the intent, some parts of it are so archaic and frustrating that I can’t imagine ever succeeding at this without a guide. I loved the books, notes and letters and some of the puzzles and those were hard enough since there was a lot to keep up with. My real issue is aside from even these, there were so many things I don’t understand anyone figuring out without endless trial and error.

Anime Studio Simulator [01/22]: ★★★★★✰✰✰✰✰ [SG Win]
Ugh, okay. A real mixed bag here. I liked the premise, all the main cast members were very likeable and despite only having incredibly minor knowledge of, and no interest in anime, this was still a nice slice of life VN with stat managing elements. The visuals and audio were all good. Its well made. The story gets the job done, it’s interesting and it feels good to see your tiny team succeed.

So why only 5 of 10 stars? Frustration!

Completing the game is a total slog sometimes, and doing it well was far harder than it ever should have been. The reason for this is funding. Everything else you have to manage in game is completely doable once you understand how things work, but money is the killer every single time. Even when the occasional random events land in your favor, your finances remain a huge problem every time, and I believe the flow of funding is far more fickle than it should be in a game that’s supposed to be relaxing. The achievements are a problem too. I ended up having a very hard time getting some of them to unlock even when I knew I did what was required. In the end I had to redo it with skip over and over again to 100% it, long after I’d experienced all the dialog. A little balance and polish would bump this game up but as it stands now all I can say is “meh”.

Valiant: Resurrection [01/26]: ★★★★✰✰✰✰✰✰
I really enjoyed this one — to a point, and then it became a great disappointment, sadly. I loved the premise and the story was really good at first. One of the things I really enjoyed was the protagonist. He was really likable and fleshed out as a character, and despite the traumatic reasons for his quest he was actually empathetic and kind! — subverting the silent protagonist and stoic hero tropes.

There was a lot of nice build up and the other characters were enjoyable too, and I was easily able to overlook a small error here and there… but then about halfway through everything tanked. The dialog became rushed, shallow and riddled with spelling errors (sometimes 3-4 per sentence!) like “somethign” and “strenght”… things even the most rudimentary spellcheck would have caught. After this mess started the entire story fell flat, and all the resolutions were handled so briefly and shallowly that it was hardly worth it. I don’t know why the second half or so, was so terribly rushed but it ruined what could have been a really nice game. Meh.