Issue #9-10
September-October Report
______________________________________A Tale of busy times and Halloween
Hey everybody, how are you?
Once again, a double report. Because I was lazy, and busy. And for most of September I was not in the mood of playing! Instead, among other things, I had some good time with some tv series. The second season of The Boys was pretty similar to the first one, and that’s good. There was also some evolution of the characters, but not as much as it could. Butcher is a magnificent psycho. And then, some easy fun and relax with two lovely old series, Scrubs and The Office . They’re always good for health. They will always make you feel better.
But in the end I got back to my usual hobby, and was able to play some games linked to the October themes. State of Mind was indeed a great experience, even if it was more of an interactive movie than a game, but the atmosphere and the idea were very interesting. I spent some time in Gotham city, too, with the second chapter of the Arkham trilogy, pretty entertaining too, it’s always good to meet all the Batman enemies, even if Scarecrow was missing. On the other hand, I didn’t explore much the itch.io megabundle in this couple of months. Then I focused on the October theme, and played quite some Halloween-ish games, from various platforms. I was particularly satisfied of completing Dead Space , a great game, but it took me some years to finally get back to it: it made me too much uncomfortable.
* as shown by GOG Galaxy 2.0
A nice Batman adventure, good sequel to Arkham Asylum, that makes it better in every aspect. A large place to explore, and quite a number of side missions useful to meet many classic villains. A lot of additional content, that offers some knowledge about the Gotham universe. The main story isn't bad, even if it could be far better. And you can play as Catwoman.
Played on Steam.
Death Coming 
A funny, small game, inspired by the Final Destination movies. You are the assistant of the Grim Reaper, and what you have to do is causing mortal accidents to peeps, by interacting with the environment. Some accidents are really straightforward to cause, while others require some investigation of the area and include some quick puzzle dynamics. And some are really stupid and funny. There is also a dependence on weather, so that there are pretty much many ways to do it. It was a nice job. However, it could become repetitive pretty fast - luckily, the game is very short, less than 10 scenarios.
Played on Epic.
A nice piece of art. As well as the first game, but I have to admit that I liked that one more. Here the devs decide to change something from the first game, and choose a precise theme for the puzzles, inspired by Alice in Wonderland creepy atmosphere. The game mechanics is the same of the first game, so you have to recombine jigsaw puzzles. They're made of glass, and they're visually pretty nice. But they are too confused. At least half of the times, even at the end of the puzzle I couldn't understand what I was looking at. Sometimes it took several seconds to understand it; some other times it wasn't even enough. From this point of view, a far worse experience than the first chapter. On the positive side, the music was great, and contributed to an overall relaxing experience.
Played on Steam.
Feud 
Pretty neat, small game. It's more or less a simplified chess game, with some custom rules for the different kind of pawns.
Played on Itch.io.
September: Unfinished Business
Nope, september was a no month for gaming.
October: Pick Your Poison
Yeah, I played a couple of games fitting the Halloween theme! I also played another couple of games with similar atmosphere, like Glass Masquerade 2: Illusions and Death Coming , but they don't seem to have the correct tag on Steam. Well, it was nice anyway.
Dead Space 
I don't like horror games. Thus I couldn't really enjoy much this one. Too scary for me, I had a lot of anxiety, after some chapters, when I heard the screams of the mosters, and I knew that I would have to fight them again. And that's why I can really say that this is a good game. The story, the idea, the setting, the atmosphere: they were all well studied to make the player scared. And without any need for jumpscares! On the gameplay side, the game was nice, too. There's some place for gdr-style improving of the character and its weapons, and there's a good use of the environment - space - so we have zero-gravity parts, zero-oxygen parts, and so on. And the graphics is pretty good, for a 15yo game.
Played on Origin.
Gameplay-wise, a walking simulator. Open door - jumpscare - repeat. But the setting is pretty well-finished and characterised. While you walk around rooms of this old house full of pieces of art, you explore the mind and the problematic story of a painter and his family, and you go deep inside his insanity. You can collect memories, that will give you insights of what happened and, in the end, change your outcome. The horror atmosphere is well created - even if the jumpscares are just too many, and sometimes it gets just boring opening one door after another - and the anxiety is alive for most of the game. Except the final situation, when you don't really understand what's going on, and the noises and stuff are just annoying, not scary.
Played on Steam.
September: The Art of Procrastination
This time is a no.
October: Trick or Treat
Cool, it seems this has the Dark tag. A great experience of a game, I'm pretty happy to have won this.
Honestly, this is not a game. It's more of an interactive movie. But it's a great experience anyway, if you like science-fiction and stories about the relationship between humans and technology. Set in a distopic future, this game is clearly inspired by books like "I, robot" and movies like "Matrix" for the story. It offers a phylosophical reflection about transhumanism, but it is left in the background of a more thriller - investigation story. The only game parts are small and simple puzzles. There are some technical issues with the movement of the characters: they feel extremely heavy, when changing direction. The not-too-low-poly art is linked to the phylosophical story, but I didn't like it much.
Played on Steam.
November is coming.
I actually don’t remember Layers of Fear having this many jump scares. I would rephrase your summary to “open door - good build up to nowhere - repeat”. I felt like nothing happened in the end lol. Good atmosphere and building tension but it was always nothing in the end.
Actually, I think you’re pretty right about the nothingness, I also felt like that. About the jumpscares: I don’t like horror games, and I’m pretty easy to be scared. The game was very good in creating the scary atmosphere. Mixing this up, every time there was something suddenly appearing with a strong noise, or something abruptly and noisy moving when you got close to it - that was a jumpscare to me. And yeah, not in every room, but it happened at least once every 4-5 rooms or corridors, and that means pretty often in a walking sim where everything you keep doing is opening doors and entering new rooms.
Yeah maybe I don’t remember them that well because they haven’t affected me. One other problem I also had with this was for example, that some scary noise was suddenly playing but I must have looked in other direction because nothing was happening on my screen.
May be :)