• Epistory - Typing Chronicles
  

  9 hours playtime

  45 of 55 achievements

• City of Chains
  

  13 hours playtime

  33 of 52 achievements

• Wanda
  

  3 hours playtime

  11 of 12 achievements

• The Lion's Song
  

  76 minutes playtime

  11 of 41 achievements

• Mandagon
  

  80 minutes playtime

  5 of 5 achievements

I've been on a little indie kick lately. Indies are nice because they're usually pretty short, so it doesn't take a HUGE commitment to play them. Plus, a lot of them are actually really fun. The past couple weeks, I managed to finish three games I won from SG. Three! Plus, 2 free games* I found out about from the queue during the winter sale.

*well one of them is only sort of free...

Epistory: Typing Chronicles

This game is so beautiful and imaginative. I'm just in love with it. You ride around on a 3 tailed fox, unfolding an origami world, exploring forests, mountains, caves, mysterious cities, and more, while using your amazing (or not so amazing...) typing skills to fight off various creepy monsters with fire, ice, lightning, and wind magic. I got so wrapped up in this lovely little world that I would keep playing even when I was tired and my fingers flailed around the keyboard like an idiot. =P I guess that's a good thing, but I don't think I improved my typing at all, lol. I'm not so much in love with the actual game mechanics but the world and the story. I don't want to spoil anything, but the ending made me cry. It was beautiful. If you have this game in your backlog, I totally recommend giving it a try.

City of Chains

This is a unique little dystopian RPGmaker game. It has a few things going for it like being able to make choices that affect the story and using different tactics to complete the game. For example, you can choose to fight everyone, or you can try to sneak around by picking locks, hacking terminals, or using grenades to take out enemies before they get to you. The game has 3 different ending paths that you can choose toward the end of the game, and I think little aspects of the endings can change depending on your decisions throughout the game. If you keep lots of save files, it's not too hard to get them all. I did two of the three. My only complaint really is this game is either poorly translated or written by someone who doesn't speak English or write very well. The dialogue is not great and has grammatical errors all over the place, but I still enjoyed it for what it was.

Wanda

Mmmmm... yeah, this is definitely a different game. I won it on SG, and I was so excited to pick up a wishlist game, that I played it right away. Thing is... it's REALLY slow, like slogging through a pool of molasses slow. The game is kind of a blend of cinematic scenes, puzzles, and exploring. The problem with the cinematic scenes is sometimes you're supposed to press a button to continue and sometimes you aren't, so at the times when you try to make it continue but it won't... and you just have to wait and wait and wait... omg... that makes the game really annoying. Other than that, it's a kinda cute game with an interesting twist. The robots speak their own language, so you can't understand anything they say. You just have to rely on emotions and expressions to get an idea. It's kind of a sweet/bittersweet story, but I was just too frustrated by being covered in molasses from trying to slog through this game and figuring out the puzzles to enjoy this. Oh well.

The Lion's Song: Episode 1

If you like music, art, and theater, you're going to love this. It's a free game but with a catch. It's actually just the first episode that's free. There's currently a second episode and 2 or 3 more coming out in the future. I'm not really sure whether I can say I finished this game because I don't own the non-free parts. Anyway, episode 1 is about a struggling violinist and composer that's trying to write her next big masterpiece but struggling to do so. The game sends her out to a cottage in the woods where you have to find inspiration to write your song from various influences like poetry, nature, and human experience. I think your performance at the end can change depending on what you find, but I don't know for sure. I played this game the same day that I went to the theater downtown to watch a performance, and I felt SO high brow. The only things I didn't like about this game were the unnecessary and cringe-worthy "romance" that was actually just swooning and the weird and creepy dream scenes, but overall it was still a lot of fun. Episode 2 is about an artist, but I probably won't pick it up unless it goes on sale so... guess this is unfinished. @.@.

Mandagon

This one is totally free. If you like platformers, spirituality, and exploring exotic locales, you'll probably like this game. It just kind of plops you in a Tibetan temple without telling you what to do or why, so that's a little weird, but basically you have to look for tablets to unlock the main doors and find little spiritual words of wisdom along the way to unlock the story. I got lost SO many times in this game. That's probably the only reason I managed to get all 5 achievements. Because I literally explored everything! Probably 5 times over! But yeah, it's a neat little game, it's free, and it's a lot different from pretty much any game I've ever played, so it definitely has that going for it.

Games I'm playing right now: Regency Solitaire (still slowly!), Lumino City, Catlateral Damage (^^) and Fifa 17

Next up: Yeah I wanna spoil myself pretty soon with the games I got for myself for the holidays, so I'm thinking Rise of the Tomb Raiders dlcs, Oxenfree or Ori and the Blind Forest, and Shantae when I pick it up from the humble bundle soon after resigning myself to not winning a copy. ^^