It's been a while since I've updated my journal, so I'll try to quickly review my backlog assassinations for the last two months. Silence, a point and click adventure by Daedalic, a sequel to The Whispered world - while the promo screenshots looked very promising, the game was not as fun as I expected. The graphics was awesome, but the gameplay didn't offer any challenges (there is no inventory, for example, which makes things too easy), and the story was unpolished and too fast-paced to like or dislike any character. Don't look at my playtime - it usually takes 5-7 hours to finish the game.

A detective visual novel which takes place in a steampunk world. The art style was beautiful, it reminded me of another VN - Cinders. The game has four different endings (I'd say "ending screens") with some additional variations of characters' destinies depending on your choices in dialogues. The writing wasn't bad, but it wasn't memorable either - I can't recall any exciting moments or unexpected plot twists.

This could easily be the best game of 2017 for me. I think it's perfect in terms of graphics, music and sfx, level design, plot and gameplay mechanics. Sometimes it reminded me of Bioshock, sometimes of Alien: Isolation, at times it was a completely unique experience. One of the things I love is that devs doesn't limit you much, so you can explore and even get somewhere (or get some weapon) earlier than expected - and it wouldn't make the gameplay less fun. Also, playing as a pure engineer made me think of Team Fortress a few times - reinforced turrets are the best ally! =)

A kind of rogue-like coding puzzle game. There is a plot involving a love triangle, a government conspiracy and rebel hackers, there are four different endings, but most of the time you are left in the open without any goals or objectives. You can hack (write additional lines of code to) a door, so it would teleport you somewhere, you can code a radio (or any other object) to make someone more attractive when you turn a knob, you can acquire godlike skills - but only if you'd like to do it for yourself, to test your skills (not because it's needed for the game's progress), and actually there's not much to do in the world except that.

A third game in the series, which was initially the end of the trilogy. It is similar to the previous games, not much to add, except that I hated a number of puzzles which made absolutely no sense, and some of jokes were too inappropriate for me. But, there were also good (even dramatic) moments.

A very unusual game, a walking simulator with puzzle elements and Half-Life's industrial desolation mood. You play as an engineer who investigates town's infrastructure, and who's trying to find the reason why everything is broken or out of order. You take photos, read logs, fix what you can while travelling through semi-abandoned stations and structures. The game is very calm, static and slow-paced, so I can't recommend it to everyone, but some may find it interesting, despite a few instances of questionable gameplay mechanics and a strong accent in voice acting.

This puzzle game left me in mixed feelings. It is big, it is pretty challenging at times, it is full of interesting design decisions. But, at the same time you're basically solving one puzzle with different elements over and over again. It doesn't feel rewarding at all (in comparison to Talos Principle's puzzles, for example), because the only reward for solving puzzle are more puzzles (usually more frustrating). New rules are hardly explained to you, and sometimes you have to try many times to understand how something (like tetris puzzles) works. I solved myself about 90% of puzzles, but those 10% left, especially audio puzzles and a few final puzzles (with dizziness effect) almost made me hate this game. By the way, only 1 of 5 people beat the game, and only about 4% of players completed the additional secret level - you can imagine what to expect.

A sci-fi point and click adventure. It's not bad, especially if you knew that most of it was done by two people. It's not hard, and puzzles are mostly solved by intuition. It's not a masterpiece, but it could help you spend a few evenings - it reminded me by its atmosphere (not by the gameplay) of another classic point and click game - The Dig.

I'm trying to stay away from any platformer game, but Brothers made me really curious, and I don't regret playing it. It's short, so I recommend to play it to anyone who owns a controller. Although the characters speak in a non-existent language, the story is very good, and it's pretty sad, too. The mechanics of controlling two brothers at the same time is interesting and unusual (I haven't seen anything like this before).

Sadly, it is the worst WD season so far (at least, to me). The episodes are shorter by a half in comparison to season 1, they mostly consist of cutscenes and dialogues, the characters are not that interesting (Clem is only appearing from time to time), and their actions are glued to the story not always in a realistic way. It reminded me of Fear the Walking Dead show, even some relationships were similar. I wish Telltale would concentrate on one game rather than spreading their resources on 3-4 games at once.

Another chapter in one of my favorite VNs. It would be more interesting if I haven't seen the anime before. This time it is another point of view on a story (variation of events) which happened in episode 2.

Tyranny is the exact opposite of the new Torment in terms of my expectation - I didn't expect too much from it, but it turned out to be better than Numenera and Pillars of Eternity, so I even played it twice in a row. It has its flaws, and I wish, for example, that skills and spells systems were more complex, but the game was fun to play even as it is. The most important thing that it offers you four different paths to your victory, and it doesn't judge you for being a villain, it even allows you to be the type villain you want to be =) Nice characters, an interesting story, good combat (somehow improved from PoE) - what's more to wish for?

A retro-style cyberpunk game, closest to a visual novel genre. I didn't like the writing - the dialogues are way too long, be it an explanation or a small talk, the way your robot companion talks to you is very annoying, moreover, you can't skip texts quickly - there's always a delay in every replica. The social justice and LGBT themes seem to be very important to the creators, and their influence is strong throughout the whole game. I just wish the game was more funny and relaxed, like VA-11 Hall-A, for example.