Progress report: April 2019

Check the progress on my ABC Challenges here: General, Hidden Object Games, Point and Clicks, Visual Novels

• 4 Elements
  

  9.0 hours playtime

  14 of 14 achievements

• 9 Clues: The Secret of Serpent Creek
  

  3.8 hours playtime

  19 of 19 achievements

• Aozora Meikyuu
  

  2.4 hours playtime

  1 of 1 achievements

• Coloring Game
  

  11.9 hours playtime

  15 of 15 achievements

• Cursed
  

  2.4 hours playtime

  12 of 12 achievements

• Deponia
  

  10.2 hours playtime

  19 of 19 achievements

• Enigmatis: The Ghosts of Maple Creek
  

  8.9 hours playtime

  11 of 11 achievements

• Hatoful Boyfriend
  

  15.0 hours playtime

  16 of 16 achievements

• Keyhole Spy: Frozen Hotties
  

  4.9 hours playtime

  30 of 30 achievements

• Pixel Puzzles 2: Anime
  

  13.8 hours playtime

  27 of 27 achievements

• Refunct
  

  3.3 hours playtime

  10 of 10 achievements

• Samantha Swift and the Hidden Roses of Athena
  

  3.0 hours playtime

  no achievements

• Snow White Solitaire. Charmed Kingdom
  

  8.9 hours playtime

  14 of 14 achievements

• The Cat Lady
  

  13.8 hours playtime

  25 of 25 achievements

4 Elements - I’ve been stalling this game for almost two years, that’s how bored I got with it. It’s one of the many games I discovered through Big Fish Games and thought they were cool back, like, 5 years ago or so… which lead me to believe this one was still gonna be cool, and, ultimately, buying it. To start off, 4 Elements is a simple game, although it’s hard for me to describe its main mechanics - the Steam Store page says “match-3”, but… eh, not really? Anyway, the story in this game is that some kingdom has lost the power of all the elements (which has been keeping it alive) and you, the player (assisted by a fairy) have to bring it back. Your task in each level is to clear the pathway for the energy, so it can reach what I assume would be the core. Each element has its book, each book has four creatures corresponding to it and each creature takes four levels to be unlocked, so you can do the math. The only things that stray away from the general concept are finding keys to unlock each book (HOG scenes) and the final step of restoring each creature’s entry in the book (spot the difference). I suppose the reason I’ve been stalling this game is because it got more and more tedious as levels went on. I kid you not, near the endgame I’ve had to replay multiple levels due to running out of time simply because there weren’t enough good combinations on the board, even to charge up the super powers. That, and it’s got its years, so it doesn’t look the best (fullscreened, at least). Also, fuck time-based achievements. Whoever thinks those up should turn around and walk away (not to get any meaner, but seriously, fuck time-based achievements).

9 Clues: The Secret of Serpent Creek - What on earth happened here? So glad I got another SG win done! And this one was a perfect fit for my ABC HOG challenge, too! I liked how the style of this one was more cartoonish than, let’s say, Enigmatis 1 - and here, the fast travel function worked too! The HOG scenes were… amazingly easy, for the most part. The voice acting was okay - I feel like one of the guys voiced two, if not three characters, and it was very easy to hear. The only reason I spent nearly 4 hours on this game (instead of the estimate, which would be 2 hours) was, again, achievements. Why, why, why, Artifex Mundi? I get that achievements make or break the deal for some, but putting them in HOG games is just… ugh… they’re either no-brainers or so strict you have to replay the game just to get them, which, again, was the case with this one for me, and honestly, that’s the only reason I don’t feel as good as I normally would about their HOGs. But at the end of the day, Artifex Mundi are my nationals and I wanna support them, so I’ll play all I have!

Aozora Meikyuu - The first commercial, as well as the first English-language release from an otherwise German studio by the name of Yume Creations. Aozora Meikyuu is the story of Aoi Takamatsu, a seemingly normal guy who dropped out of high school after the girl he confessed his love to rejected him, and became a hikikomori - living this way for three years, until one day, a mysterious, naked girl fell from the sky… and landed right on him. At first I had no idea how the confession part, having happened so much earlier than the rest of the story, would have any impact, or meaning, even, but trust me when I say it does. The protagonist is hard to sympathize with and the heroine is pretty much an expy of another heroine (looks-wise, at least) of a way more popular VN (hint hint: it’s Japanese). However, there’s one thing I don’t think I’ve seen done in any other VNs so far - whenever a character’s expression would change, the sprite representing that would slide onto the screen and replace the previous one, instead of… flickering. Some might find this annoying, but it wasn’t too bad in my opinion - rather, that way you’re sure you didn’t miss a sprite change. There’s still the discrepancy between the sprites of the heroine and the way she appears in CGs - her hair is either more pink or more orange, respectively - and neither version really corresponds to an in-game description saying that her hair is of “cherry blossom” color, as I see it. Other than that, the music is good, although a little too repetitive, the backgrounds are surprisingly good, the story becomes more and more obvious as you read on and there’s really no need for all the choices to be timed other than that the developers thinking it’s a good way to trigger a slightly different ending. And last, but not least, the “uncensor patch” is, for the most part, unnecessary.

Coloring Game - Quickly, before it stops counting as Completed again! This seems to be a statement from L. Stotch - lewd games are not the only thing he’s about! Coloring Game is, essentially, the same thing as Coloring Pixels, and thus, it will be compared in its entirety to ToastieLabs’ creation. First off, I’m glad L. Stotch used some words in the instructions for Coloring Game - lord knows stuff takes time to figure out if you only show pictures (just like putting together furniture!). The biggest issue I found in-game was the ability to invalidate colors - say you’re filling in number 3 after having filled in number 1, but those numbers are pretty much next to each other, so if you drag too far, you end up erasing number 1… who even thought of that. On the other hand, I like the fact that when picking a number, only the boxes with that number react to your input. To be fair, the update that came in while I was busy coloring the demo images, added the much needed color lock function… but removed movement with WASD keys - what the hell, dev?! “People have reported trouble”, my ass! First it was better than Coloring Pixels in that regard (since I play it on the laptop, apparently it doesn’t seem to think I have a mouse wheel, thus leaving me to navigate around images using the arrow keys, eternally), and then it just made itself worse in one update. It seems the game doesn’t recognize my mouse movement (or I’m too stupid to understand the new mechanic, with this guy’s games it could be either, really), so if it wasn’t for the smaller copy of the image letting me navigate I might not have been able to finish the base game. (Update: as of now, the movement mechanics have been modified again, this time for better, if I recall correctly… not too bothered to check.) Speaking of that part, it’s kinda cool to see yourself fill in the image, bit by bit, but on some images the colors just blend in too much, making it sort of useless. The bigger images were just a pain in the ass in general, too. All being said, I colored all the free images, but I don’t suppose I’ll be buying the DLC when it comes out.

Cursed - My first experience with Jetdogs Studios’ games. Frankly, I thought this was supposed to be a HOG… until I played it. It’s kind of a fusion between a HOG (in terms of how the story is told and what the game looks like) and a point-and-click (as the game doesn’t contain any HOG scenes, you just go back and forth finding stuff and using it). I really liked the availability of a fast travel mechanic, which, for some reason still isn’t a thing in all the other games (grits teeth looking at you, Enigmatis) and the fact that I could either have the inventory reacting to hovering the cursor over it or have it stay on the screen at all times (both options had their pros and cons). The cutscenes didn’t differ too much from the rest of the game (again, Artifex Mundi, I only played, like, two, maybe three of your games, but it seems you’ve never bothered to get better?) and the 3D animations looked pretty good (aside from the character animation, good god they looked horrible, opening their mouths in one and the same motion when “talking”). Speaking of characters… the voiceover was terrible, aside from the protagonist, who was voiced by Amber Lee Connors - it was really good listening to her. And it seems I have remembered her voice well already - she also acted as Beli Lapran in HuniePop! Uhm… anyway. The story wasn’t really profound, but that’s not something I personally expect from games like Cursed. And that being said, if you don’t mind the flaws I mentioned, then I suggest you pick up Cursed for yourself. I’m eager to see what else this studio has for me in store, I have quite a bunch of their other games still waiting in my backlog.

Deponia - Went back to get the remaining achievements. Thankfully, Daedalic, for some reason, has a separate page on their website for save states from different parts of the game, so this wasn’t too troubling (only took me about 2 hours, I’d say, including my laptop dying at one point, so that’s cool). Needless to say, I didn’t play the whole game again in Droggeljug mode - guess I’m just too lazy, lol. Anyway, I’ll be seeing this game again whenever I decide to tackle The Complete Journey, so this entry can go into the Completed pile now.

Enigmatis: The Ghosts of Maple Creek - My first Artifex Mundi game. I’ve beaten this one back in 2017, but decided to complete it only now. The one thing I want to say to myself is: let’s try not to beat HOGs, but actually complete them instead… The achievements I was missing basically forced me to replay the whole game. As for Enigmatis itself, it was… good. The HOG scenes balanced the ratio of items you can see straight away and the ones you have to really look for, some riddles actually took me a while to solve. The music was great, the story… didn’t conclude itself. The voice acting was okay by itself, but when paired with visuals - the voices didn’t really match the characters in my opinion. The animated cutscenes were also of bad quality when compared to the rest of the game, but a quick glance at the options made me realize I couldn’t change that in any way… welp. All in all, I wish I didn’t have to spend those extra three (four, even!) hours on completing this one.

Hatoful Boyfriend - Wow… this was an amazing ride. Hatoful Boyfriend is the one VN that people who don’t know call “the pigeon dating simulator”, and the people who do say there’s much more to it. Sure enough, after repetition, repetition, repetition… if you stick around until then, you’ll get to the dark underbelly, as I like to call it. Just be prepared, it’s a read longer than any of the routes by themselves. Not to mention, while the character routes are amazingly easy and light reading, the BBL route brings out the big guns - expect a story that is more or less half confirming the info you’ll be fed piece by piece before you get to it and adding more info on top of that. That is not to say I didn’t enjoy Hatoful Boyfriend for what it is - a story that has since been confirmed by its creator to lack polish. One thing I personally wish would happen to this title to make it better is script editing - there’s enough errors to warrant a patch at best. Letter swaps, word repetition, missing words and even excess use of ellipsis - they got it all here and it definitely catches attention. Even so, I think this VN was worth the close-to-15-hours that I spent with it. (I actually accidentally idled this one for about 2 hours, I’m so mad at myself, grrr) And since on the surface it’s an otome game, I have to say - Yuuya is best birb. It’s unusual for me (I sure do like flirty guys the least), but he took my breath away when I first saw his human form - I mean - glasses and hairpins? I must be dreamin’, y’all.

Keyhole Spy: Frozen Hotties - I’ve actually made the mistake of playing this one on my boyfriend’s PC. He hated me playing it so much that even I questioned my gaming choices (lol). The interesting thing about this installment is the “Battle” mode; the sliding puzzles are a joke and the match-3 is as annoying as ever.

Pixel Puzzles 2: Anime - Goood daaamn, I finally finished another one! I sure like to torture myself with those puzzle games, don’t I…? sigh Anyway, this one, as the name suggests, was full of pictures drawn in anime style (although in some cases they seemed to border on being fanart for series I know, I feel like). It also had a fairy that, thankfully, doesn’t fly around the whole screen (like the astronaut would jump in Pixel Puzzles 2: Space), but her voice is so annoying I’ve muted her almost instantly. She’s there to charge the hints - you can make her disappear, but for some reason that will also render you unable to use hints, which is just straight up BS. (I mean, if I can even see her peeking at the image in zoom mode, I’m gonna want to remove her, right? Or can it get even more annoying than that?) The last puzzle took me over 2 hours to complete and at that point I was just so done with the game… and that’s pretty much all I could say about this one. Puzzles looked nice, the difficulty was alright, the thing this one had to make the itself seem more lively (aka the fairy) was annoying as always and I still can’t believe those puzzle games take that much time.

Refunct - Finally got my boyfriend to complete it! (I don’t know how all of you dating assasins complete tough games together - me, I just feel like I’m a mega sadist asking him to do the tedious stuff…) Refunct is, at heart, a speedrunner’s game, and the dev knows that well, so aside from the collectible-based achievements, there are also three achievements pertaining to that. My thoughts on the game aside (it’s a really pretty and atmospheric parkour game for an extremely low price), it was interesting to watch boyfriend memorize the whole game to complete it and I was rooting for him immensely each time. That being said… this is the last update about you, Refunct. See you in the Completed tab.

Samantha Swift and the Hidden Roses of Athena - At the beginning, Samantha Swift felt nostalgic, being one of many games I first came into contact with through Big Fish Games, but then I realized it’s… actually not that cool. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either. Samantha Swift is, to put it bluntly, a game for kids. Sure, names of some of the objects you have to find are probably unknown to children, but then again, come on! The art style is so cartoony and half (if not all) of the items in any HOG scene literally stand out! Not to mention Samantha’s scanner, which can show you the outline of any given item, and even the abundance of hints! HOG logic is also at play - a blowtorch working underwater? Can’t imagine that happening.

Snow White Solitaire. Charmed Kingdom - This game was charming and I don’t mind having spent 8 whole hours on it. It’s waaay better than the solitaire game I finished last month. In Snow White you have to help… well, Snow White restore her kingdom using your amazing solitaire skills and abilities of the friends she meets along the way. The difficulty is reasonable - at first I was struggling immensely, since I didn’t have any abilities, but when nearing the end of the game, I was pretty much kicking solitaire ass, using wild cards and character abilities interchangeably. There are a few things you have to note - there’s a limit of four wild cards, so if you pick up another one, it’s going to be used immediately; one of the abilities seems like it’s bugged, so if you use it on the last card of the level, watch out or you’ll end up using it on the first card of the next one too; and last, but not least, there are options that allow you to customize cards, which I only changed after finishing the game and wasn’t too satisfied with either way. Oh, and I can’t forget to mention that while it’s a solitaire game, Snow White introduces HOG scenes and puzzles at times - both of which are child’s play. Personally, I enjoyed Snow White, and so far, I think it might become my benchmark when it comes to custom solitaire games.

The Cat Lady - The Cat Lady tells the story of Susan Ashworth, a woman in her 40s, who doesn’t see a point to her life anymore and tries to commit suicide. Failing to do so, she receives an offer that might just turn her life around… saying any more would spoil the fun. The Cat Lady’s charm is definitely in its grittiness - most of the game is presented in black and white, the sprites look half-painted, half-pixelated, the UI is somewhat clunky, the music adds to the atmosphere wonderfully… but in the middle of all that, The Cat Lady is a grim tale of health issues, violence and death, among other things, so sadly, it might not be for everyone. Those who remain unfazed by this description; I strongly recommend you play it and tell others about it.

Aaand… that’s it from me for April! If you read all of that (or skipped through, I guess I don’t mind… too much), tell me: do you like monthly update posts? Or do you prefer weekly? Game-by-game? I’ve recently been thinking about trying something else and I’d like some feedback. :)