Progress report: September ‘21 (a.k.a. First Post Away From Home!)
If you’ve read last month’s post, you may know that I’ve officially moved out for uni. I’m currently living in a share house with four other people (of which I’ve met three so far, and they all seem nice enough to not have any trouble communicating in regards to doing stuff around the house), within walking distance to my uni. I’d like to think I’ve settled in, but time will tell, as I’m going back to school in a few days…
…but before that, my assassinations!
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A Short Hike
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Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons
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Draw_Love
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Hex-Up
1.6 hours playtime
no achievements
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Neverending Nightmares
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Over The Phone
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Remember When
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Ripple
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Tell Me Why
A Short Hike - It really feels like everyone and their grandma’s played this by now, and I’m the only one late to the party. A Short Hike follows Claire, a young bird looking for phone reception on an island full of lush greens and flowing rivers. You can run, jump, fly and glide to get around the island. You’ll also find a whole bunch of characters - some more, some less local - to talk to and make friends with (some call it Animal Crossing lite and despite never having played AC, I can believe that). It’s a small, neat game that I absolutely loved for those exact reasons. Also, the quirky pixelated art style. Also also, how the BGM and weather dynamically changes based on your location. I realise it’s hard for me to write comprehensively about things I like, but I really can’t think of a single bad thing about this game. If you’re looking to unwind in a virtual world, I wholeheartedly recommend A Short Hike.
Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons - If you want to talk games that require a controller (and I know I did, before moving out), this one has to be the most recognizeable for that alone. As the title suggests, Brothers follows two… brothers… yeah. They’re color-coded, the big brother being blue and the little brother - orange. (Never explicitly named anywhere, but I’d really like to call the younger brother Na(y)i and the older Na(i/y)a, as that’s what they seem to refer to each other as.) Brothers is a puzzle game, its main gimmick being “single player co-op” a.k.a. having one player assume control of both characters using the controller’s sticks. I found the puzzles straight-forward and relatively easy, which is no complaint, considering I usually bullshit my way through pure puzzle games anyway. I do think, however, that the auto-jumping and invisible walls feel like the game’s holding your hand… but then again, the devs could have made the death sound less jarring. I’m also not big on fantasy settings, but this game managed to keep me interested. All in all, a pretty swift, 4 hour-ish (I fumbled my way around trying - and potentially messing myself up - to get a certain achievement; if you know, you know) romp through the high and low, more and less mysterious parts of this unnamed (?) virtual land.
Draw_Love - See Lovers’ Smiles.
Hex-Up - Now this is one puzzle game I didn’t cheat at! Maybe cause it was straight-forward enough, but still. In Hex-Up, your task is to move around a level made of tiles in a way that will let you cover all of them. Everything about this game - the design, the UI, the SFX and BGM - is minimalistic, so there’s really nothing more to say, nor do I have any complaints.
Neverending Nightmares - About halfway through the game I realized this is a little early for Spooktober… oh well, it’s done now! Neverending Nightmares calls itself a psychological horror, taking inspiration from the creator’s struggles with depression and OCD. Whether or not you yourself have been battling either of those disorders (I know I felt the scenes where the protagonist hurt himself spiritually, despite never imagining anything quite as gory), I think the only psychological horror here stems from doors. Yes, you read that right. Doors are the thing you will be interacting with the most often in this game, and a lot of them don’t even lead you where you’re meant to go. The game’s lack of direction and “black-and-white, with a chance of red” art style only serve to make the experience worse in the long run - although it’s not scary, but rather exhausting. Some of the levels have enemies, which may look scary at first, but as soon as you figure out how to avoid them, they become no more than another nuisance. There are a few story branches, but I found none of them or the endings that came out of them were really satisfying - all the endings were abrupt and served to explain nothing. At the very least, it seems some Japanese players really enjoyed it, having published a manga adaptation over on pixiv. I believe I must have gotten my copy of the game from some bundle or other, because otherwise I would not have bought it. I completed the game in a little under 3 hours, and even that is because I started browsing the game’s discussion threads in the insanity of trying to navigate the huge mess of multiple same-y looking rooms. And so, as I’m sure countless people have said before me, I think the $15 price tag is outrageous. If you ever feel like you want to experience this game, grab it in a bundle or during a sale - otherwise, you’re much better off spending on some other game you want more.
Over The Phone - Seeing as this is free now, I would have kept it for another free game month, but I couldn’t resist. In Over The Phone, you’re Jake, a photographer who meets a nice girl while on a call with his internet service provider. Much like a visual novel, your interaction is boiled down to making choices when prompted. I’m glad this game went free to play, having played it now - it could be considered a step-up from the dev’s previous game, Drinks With Abbey, but it also feels really barebones, seeing how easily the most important part of the plot is fully left to the player’s imagination. That being said, it looks very good, it features voice acting and again, it’s free! …so take that how you will.
Remember When - Remember When is a short point-and-click-esque game about Noah and Sarah, a married couple taking a trip down the ol’ memory lane while on a phone call. Interacting with certain objects at suggested times will show you memories of certain events. I liked the art style and found the voice acting solid, but the way the text is displayed could use a fix - instead of showing whole sentences all at once, the game will reveal them as if they’re being written out when the characters say them (wow, that’s harder to explain than I thought it would be), which, with how the dialogue is progressing, makes it flashy and hard to read. I originally meant to play this one back in June, for the free game special, but I was convinced I got stuck before I could really interact with anything - there have been a bunch of complaints in regards to that in the game’s discussions. If that happens to you, don’t get discouraged, just try again - even despite the text being hard on the eyes, it’s worth it.
Ripple - A pretty simple puzzle game… or so I would be authorized to say if I had actually figured it out on my own. If you’ve read any of my other posts, you know I quickly give up on these types of puzzle games and look for a walkthrough to copy the solutions off of. Ripple was no different. It’s built upon a basic concept: you’re presented with a figure made up of dark tiles and by clicking around on them, you need to light all of them up. What I don’t like about this game are its time-related achievements; to get them all, you need to play the game for at least two hours. Totally doable if you’re adamant on solving all the puzzles yourself, but the way I did it, I still had almost half an hour left to idle. It’s painfully obvious that those were put into the game to stop people from refunding it…
Tell Me Why - Alyson and Tyler, twins born in the fictional town of Delos Crossing, Alaska, have been separated for ten years. At 21, they have the chance to finally reunite and take care of family matters. Tell Me Why is a walking simulator, not unlike DONTNOD’s other titles, but it also features other mechanics, such as memory recall, which plays an important part in some of the decisions you can make, as well as an inner voice the twins can use to communicate with each other. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed exploring the remote Delos Crossing, seemingly stuck in an eternal winter (the epilogue plays out in May, yet it still feels cold) and solving riddles here and there, to get down to the truth of Alyson and Tyler’s family. The voice acting is fantastic, the UI is beautiful and the sound design - highly believable! Some of the sounds, like the forest animal calls or the random plane you can hear flying overhead (and it doesn’t distract from the story!) really made me think of home. A small personal gripe would be contradicting achievements, but 1) if you’re not a completionist, this won’t bother you and 2) DONTNOD know players don’t have time to sit around and watch all the cinematics again, so there’s a skip option - might seem cruel, but it gets the job done. I normally don’t talk about this, but this time around, I feel like I should mention that Tell Me Why features a transgender character and deals with family loss. While the latter is the focal point of the story, personally I’m glad the former didn’t take away from it or shift focus, as wrong as this may sound. As someone who can’t relate to the subject, I can’t say much more than that, as well as that I believe the developers’ statement on the matter. Last, but not least, Tell Me Why (particularly Alyson’s epilogue) really made me feel confident about my desire to live in my childhood home later in life. Despite having played it at home, I felt distant, yet close to it at the same time. The game has been free-to-claim throughout June for Pride Month, so if you’ve wanted to play it before, you most likely have added it to your account, but if for some reason you didn’t know about it or missed it - I’d say it’s worth it, as long as the content doesn’t put you off.
See yooou next month… 8D
Congrats on getting settled in (for the most part) and your assassinations! I loved A Short Hike! When I get around to re-playing some games it’s going to be one of them!
Thank you so much! Somehow I knew you’d end up replying to my post :D
A Short Hike was so dang lovely, it’s a shame I played it all pretty much in one sitting. I need more of it in my life ;w;