Baba is Puzzle

After my usual early year boost, playing of new games has slowed down significantly again. So it is no surprise that from two games I have completed in the last three months, two of them have been started far earlier. And all three are in a wider sense puzzle games.

• After Hours
  

  12 hours playtime

  10 of 10 achievements

• Baba Is You
  

  122 hours playtime

  18 of 18 achievements

• The Excavation of Hob's Barrow
  

  7 hours playtime

  40 of 40 achievements

After Hours: After Hours is a puzzle game where you are on a computer and need to unlock research data saved on the device. So, at the beginning you only have access to only a few folder and files and you try to access more and more of them subsequently. Sounds easy enough, however the game is an ARG. What does this mean? In order to progress in the game, you need to search information outside of the game and even access websites only created for the game. You are permanently jumping between the game and internet to search for the relevant information all while trying not randomly landing in a game guide telling you the solution. This is cool when it works and you find that specific “real” item, helping you to get further in the game. The issue with this approach is that the amount of potential information is far more than what the game delivers. And you are not sure if you are stuck because you have overlooked something in the game or if you just didn’t get stuff you have already seen. For the most part, it was a nice experience and I managed to make it close to the end. Generally, there are two “routes”, you can progress at the beginning leading both to information, you have to combine to get access to the mail programm. Afterwards, you get two new routes. Issue is that one of the routes was so obscure that I didnt even notice it, meaning I was stuck at a point and couldn’t find out what to do. So, I had to look up that specific information and I really don’t like using guides in puzzle games. Also, one of the websites, you need to access has some issues, so that depending on how you type the adress, it will result in an error, making you think that you can’t solve it anymore. Overall, the concept is interesting but there is to much “openess” making the experience frustrating at times. There is also no guarantee if the external websites will be available in the future. If you are interested anyway, check it out yourself. The game is free to play.

Baba is You: This should be one of the better known games. Baba is You is a puzzle game where you can change the rules of the field. You have a visual aspect of the game showing you the levels and then you have the rules shown on the field. The goal for each level is to get the object with the “you” property on the object with the “win” property. Usually, the rules are small codes with blocks of three (or more). For example, “Baba is You” tells you that the visual Baba piece is the “player” and “Flag if Win” tells you to get the Baba figure on the flag. However, these rules can change from level to level and even in one level. In this way, the game is messing with your mind as it quickly steps out of set pieces you are accustomed to from other games. An easy example would be that all early levels introduce you the concept that walls or other objects stop your movement by the “object is stop” code. And then you start in a small room surrounded by walls. And you run around, trying to solve the level but being unable to do so. Until you notice that you can pass through the walls because there is no code making it that way. You just assumed that the walls do that. To win each level, you have therefore accustom to the existing rules and bend them in a way that allows you to win. The game introduces new code pieces each few levels and makes sure that they work the same everytime although there might be specific interactions which will only become able in later level. For this reason, Baba is You is one of the most complex puzzle games I have ever played. But it is also one of the best designed puzzle game. Everything you need is depicted on one screen, and nearly all the time the levels are designed in a way that makes sure you know which codes you have to take as fixed and which codes you can play around with. Nearly all pieces and areas are designed so that if something seems unnecessary for the solution you approach then your solution is probably wrong. Nearly everything has a purpose. This counts even more when you reach the meta puzzles in the game.
Overall, a very recommendable game that I started three years ago and got stuck in a level and didn’t want to use a guide. Recently, I tried to get back and solved the level in question within a few approaches, firing me up to go for the rest. And I have been quite successful and managed to finish the game. However, to my shame I had to look up two puzzles at the end of the game in order to complete some earlier optional parts (to get all achievements). To be fair, I also didn’t solve everything myself before, as I have played the game in parts with a friend. And Baba is You makes actually for an interesting co-op experience where you can discuss possible solutions and ideas. And when both of you are having a controller, you can both move the player. So, when one of you is exhausted, another one can try some things out on their own. If you are looking for a puzzle game then Baba is You should be at the top of your list. There are very few puzzle games as well designed as this. And after completing the game, there are even more workshop puzzles also by the developer himself. Although, he introduces a lot of new code pieces which makes level more gimmickly and even more complex. So, the main game is in my opinion the better experience.

The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow: And here the last “puzzle” game. In this case, it is a point and click game and plays as such. You are Thomasina Bateman, an excavator being invited to Bewlay in order to excavate Hob’s Barrow. However, the person that invited you is nowhere to be found and the people in the village are partially not to welcoming. So, you run around from location to location, pick up what is lying around, talk to people and solve puzzle. There are no multiple solutions to puzzle and while there are sometimes dialog choices none of them influence the game (some are for achievements) and the ending. The puzzles are for the most part also very easy and if you press space you can see every object you can interact with, so no pixel hunting. With the game being on the easy side, it has to be carried mostly by its story. And I think it did manage that to a certain degree. However, you should know that the game has a horror tag and there are at least a dozen threads in the forum discussing the ending of the game :P It is a good game but there are better options for point and click games.

And with this, the entry is at its end. I noticed I didnt talk much about achievements today. But for After Hours you’ll get them by completing the game. For Baba is You, you basically need to solve every of the 231 levels in the main game (and sometimes even more because not all levels are obvious as a level) and for Hob’s Barrow it is PnC typically a mixture out of story achievements and specific interactions.
And now back to my usual puzzle: What to play next. The next Wizordum update probably still takes some time. Maybe, I will try making some more Crystal Caves maps. It has been some times since I managed to do so. Or finally back to Resident Evil and Resident Evil likes? Maybe I activate some of the games from the puzzle games bundle. Patrick’s Parabox looked interesting.

Monsters, Guilt, Nostalgia

Sometimes, so much time passes between my updates that I already forget about half of these games ^^’ Well, main reason I give an update today is Monstronomy anyway. Here is my progress.

• Monstronomy
  

  26 hours playtime

  17 of 17 achievements

• GYLT
  

  10 hours playtime

  29 of 29 achievements

• The Pedestrian
  

  5 hours playtime

  10 of 10 achievements

• Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri™ Planetary Pack
  

  105 hours playtime

  no achievements

Monstronomy: The focus of this update will be on Monstronomy. I will try to keep the rest shorter. So, here is a 1:1 copy of my review (beware lots of text :P):
“What happened to you mom?”

If you consider buying Monstronomy expecting a monster-tamer game you are right. And you are wrong at the same time. The game has a lot of things, you will be familiar with. And at the same time, Monstronomy throws a lot of strange at you, right from the beginning. In order to showcase this, I will give you a summarization of the first 5-10 minutes. You start at a desktop. Files & folders are there, you can click through. Most important are the controls-file as well as the Downloads-Folder where you find and can start the actual game you expected. So you start the Monstronomy file inside Monstronomy. You wake up in your room and go downstairs where your mother tells you to feed your monster. You go to a chest in the garden where you can choose your starter. You have the choice between an Order-, Chaos- or Demon-type monster. You return to the house, your mother lying on the gorund, blood everywhere. Dead. You leave the house, dead people and monster everywhere and your first fight against a cultist. Here starts your quest for revenge.

The monster-tamer game is quite solid. I absolutely love the different monsters and their design. The choice of two final evolution forms for every monster is a really neet idea and later on, you can even switch constantly between the two. The strengths and weaknesses are well balanced as well as the whole game. You level fast, and in each fight, the whole group gains experiences. Overall balance is also okay. The game isn’t really difficult but you have to pay a bit attention or go back healing. You can catch new monsters with chests and in the end-game there are even “legendaries”. The attack-design I would consider on the weaker part though. You do not have move limitations but stronger attacks have lower accuracy trying to cancel it out. Overall, the gameplay is not as complex or deep as the most well-known competitor but it is functional and shines especially in the monster design.

Though, weird as it is - the game and the situation - Monstronomy shines the most in the moments it isn’t a monster-tamer game. The story alone is already unusual. But it only gets weirder and at one point you find yourself intrigued. Trying to understand what is really happening here. Inside the Monstronomy game world a lot of - let’s say disturbing - videos are scattered around. Often you find them on TVs, sometimes on random objects and sometimes they are unavidable during story events. Aside from the videos, you notice that NPCs start behaving weirder and weirder and across the game world, you have green and sometimes even red texts. Certain names reappear over and over again. Progressing in the story, also unlocks new files on the Desktop (where you start the game) although locked by passwords. All of this creates a great mystery, you might want to solve. I wouldn’t call Monstronomy a horror game but disturbing on certain levels. And in the end-game I would call Monstronomy even a puzzle game where you try to solve the games puzzles & mysteries. You will try to find the “legendaries”, trying to figure out the real story, trying to unlock the desktop files. All of this comes together in one fulminant ARG, leading you temporarily even outside the game. And while there exists a guide, telling you how to solve most of it, I would implore you dear potential buyer, to try figuring out all of this stuff by yourself first as it makes for a far better experience.

The games also has music which I am undecided on. It is only a few tracks and most of the time, you hear this happy-to-lucky overworld tune which doesn’t really fit. On the other hand this discrepancy may be well intended. From the technical side, I don’t think I have encountered any bugs but the game’s movement feels kinda choppy. The game has also achievements which need you to solve most of the game’s mysteries. The main story itself probably takes around 6-10 hours. If you go for the post-game endgame content, you can add another 5-10 hours if you try it for yourself. Less if you use a lot of help.

If all of this sounds interesting to you then apply for Project Dreamcatcher today consider buying the game. If you have more questions, leave a comment and I’ll try to come back to it.

Gylt: Gylt describes the story of Sally on the search for her cousin Emily. While being chased by bullies, Sally takes the cable car but somehow ends up in a different version of her hometown, one full of nightmarish monsters. Unluckily, this is also where Emily has been “hiding” for the last month. Gylt is a 3d adventure with an emphasis on stealth and avoding monsters. Though, you get early on a flashlight and kill pretty much every shadow creature you encounter. And they do not respawn. You run around, looking for ways into the school, towards Emily, unlocking new areas and items. All areas can be revisitted which is helpful as there are a lot of icollectibles and sometimes you actually need items gained later to get these collectibles. Over the course of the story, you find out the reasons why Emily landed here and also what Sally had to do with it. There are also three endings, depending on your effort. The atmosphere is good and the story okay (though I didn’t understand the part with the second city completely). Achievement-wise, a lot can be gained even at the end of the game. But there are a pair of missables, though you can get them in a few hours if your replay the game. Overall, Gylt is a good game with mostly easy stealth gameplay.

The Pedestrian: The Pedestrian is a puzzle game, where you play a stick figure on traffic signs and similar. Main gadget of the game is the re-arrangement of the signs, allowing you to connect the different doors and ladders, creating new ways. In this manner, you have to find the correct arrangement, as there is often (always?) just one correct solution to progress further. While new mechanics have been introduced, the game never felt really different and personally I found it often more tedious than fun. Which is a shame because it is a solid puzzle game. It just didn’t click with me. I never really felt clever like other excellent puzzle games outside of the final puzzle which was a combination of a late game introduction of 3d movement and the signs puzzle. While clever, I am glad that there haven’t been more puzzles like this. Because this as well felt more tedious. The story is kept very abstract. Read something here and there but I don’t think it is much to talk about. Achievement-wise I think you get everything just by playing. While there are a few secret areas where you can get hats, they are not mandatory for the achievements. As a mirror of the whole game, these secret areas also don’t need clever solutions of the puzzle but rather a keen eye to see hidden ladders. A solid puzzle-game. Just not for me.

Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri: Why is this “only” beaten? Because you never complete Alpha Centauri. To keep it short, Alpha Centauri is basically Civilizaiotn 2. Just in space. With better gameplay. With memorable quotes. Interesting faction leaders and personalities. A murderous planet. And humanity’s attempt to survive in this cruel new world. Luckily, the game has no achievements. Because that could have been a major pain. As they were missing, I didn’t hesitate long to buy it as soon as I saw this unexpected wave of old school “EA” games. If you are looking for a turn-based game with some interesting mechanics, this is it? Really good game. Although, for strategy fans it might be a bit to easy. Even I can play easily and dominate on the 4th of 6 difficulty levels. Sure, I could go higher but I am not here for the challenge :P

And that’s it. Now back to my favourite game: What to play next? Maybe I can finally make some more Crystal Caves maps. Also, the next Wizordum update (see my last post) is around the corner. Other than that, maybe I return to Resident Evil 1 and my other Resident-Evil like games. Or I activate something new from my shadow backlog.

Space Magic

Another entry this year before I go to slumber as I play mostly the same games over and over again currently ^^’ So here’s the small update:

• The Polynomial
  

  7 hours playtime

  14 of 14 achievements

• Wizordum
  

  41 hours playtime

  20 of 23 achievements

The Polynomial: The Polynomial is a music visualizer. And I heard there is a game somewhere in there as well. Well, the polynomial is a 3d space flight simulator. Although, it really is mostly about visualizing your music which can be imported quite easily. Then afterwards, you can chose your setting between a multitude of maps and different visualizers like waves, fractals, lines etc. All of this is very pretty to look at and it is a very visually pleasing game. The space shooter mechanics though are a bit underdeveloped. You can shoot, there are some Langolier-like enemies and allies (called ghosts). If you don’t pay attention, you die quite easily and have to wait anew until more enemies spawn again. Wouldn’t it be for the achievements, I don’t think many people would temper with the shooting elements and would just listen to music while flying through the space. Talking about achievements: Half of them are quite easy, the latter half though? Extremely difficult because time-constrained and tied to very specific conditions. In the past I used a script to get the kill 500 enemies achievement. But I wasn’t able to get the save 100 allies in 5 minutes achievement. For the longest time I thought this is not possible until I did the normal thing and checked for a guide. In there, a simple procedure is described which worked on the third try. All you have to do is ignoring enemies for 12 minutes and avoiding them. And then, you go in blazing, hoping that you survive long enough. You and your pc because the process is quite taxing and my framerate dropped to 1 FPS. But ….. I got the job done and was able to move another game to the completed section which has been sitting for 5+ years in the unfinished section. As said, the visualization of the music is beautiful. The shooter is meh.

Wizordum: The second game is what I would consider an oddity as it is one of the few games I report, not only not completed but even unfinished. The reasons for this are simple. Wizordum is in Early Acess and until the end of year I wont be able to complete it anyway. Why not wait? Because the developer is a pretty nice guy and I use the chance to make some advertisement for him.
The game itself is a shooter similar to the old doom games though a lot more casual. It is set in a colourful fantasy world where you have to fight the forces of evil as a wizard. Hereby, you are wielding an arsenal of different weapons: A mace, fireball shooting fire rings, a penetrating gun, a rapid-firing and freezing frost staff, a aoe fire explosion and a magic orb (grenade). Most of this can be acquired early on and then be used throughout the rest of the game. Aside from killing enemies, the main purpose of the game is score-hunting as well as intensive wall-hugging in order to find the very well hidden secrets to get …. mostly more score. So far Episode 1 of 3 is done (although it will be rebalanced and polished). The colours are quite nice and not as dark as most boomer shooters and the secret hunting is annoying and fun at the same time. There are six maps at the moment in the episode and one bugged final boss fight. All levels are hereby adressing a different topic and feel quite diverse. You start in the Outskirts, enter the outer castle, go through the sewers and the graveyard, reaching a harbour and go from there into the burning city. Aside from two more episodes, a spell system is intended to be designed to replace the currently lacking items. And a second character is planned. And of course more polish, lore etc.
The game also has a map editor and very recently had it first Map Jam, resulting in some actually very good and interesting maps. Playthrough videos of these maps can be found online. So, aside from the campaign there are also multiple custom maps increasing content. And if the developer can keep the interest high enough, there should come a few more. Achievements are at the moment a bit bugged, so 100 % is not possible though a patch for this shall be released in February. Then again, the further development most likely adds not achievements anyway. So if you want to help a nice developer, you can buy the game now (it is planned to increase base price when adding new content) and also visit his Discord where you can discuss with him directly.

And that’s it for today. On my to-do-list is another map for Crystal Caves and then I have to check what to play next. RE1? Lenna’s Inception? Sunless Sea? Or one of the puzzle games from the recent bundle? Need more focus. But first, I need to finish the photobook :P

If you have questions concerning Wizordum feel free to ask.

First post 2024

Happy New Year, even when a week late. New post is quite a bit faster than i anticipated but I still have vacation and got more time to play. Was also at home, so I had a chance to play some co-op with a friend.

• OneShot
  

  9 hours playtime

  11 of 11 achievements

• Untitled Goose Game
  

  6 hours playtime

  25 of 25 achievements

• What Lies in the Multiverse
  

  12 hours playtime

  43 of 43 achievements

Oneshot: Oneshot is different. In a good way. And if you don’t know the game be warned that some sort of spoilers will probably be part in the following text. And if you intend to play the game, the less you know the better it probably is. Oneshot is the story of a dying world. The sun has shattered and the world is suffering. But the arrival of a savior has been foretold by the prophet(bot). And this savior comes in the form of Niko which is guided by the player. Oneshot plays like a normal adventure where you talk to other characters/robots, collect items and use/combine them to progress in the story.
So, what makes Oneshot different? For one, the game is “aware” of the player. You are “god” helping Niko in his quest to return the sun (a lightbulb) back to the Tower in order to save the dying world. And not is only the game aware of it but the characters as well. Secondly, there are certain parts in the game where you have to think outside of the “box”. Literally, which is also the reason why the game suggests to you, being played in windowed mode. And certain parts here have been really clever. Thirdly, the game name is mostly sticking to its meaning. You have just this one shot to save the world. You have no additional save slots, you can not restart and the game saves automatically at each step. And at the end the game asks for a grueling choice. All of this combined leaves you with an unique experience where the story mixes different meta levels and awareness dimensions. And the game asks of you to make decisions with different actors aside of god and Niko having motives of their own.
Achievement-wise, you will most likely miss many of them on your playthrough (unless using a guide which in this case is even more unsuggested). Nothing to complicated but they need some specific steps which can be overlooked and then are missed as there is no way to return to earlier regions. Though, it is not an issue. Because if you manage to reach the final of the game, you can “replay” it and do achievements then. And if you know what to do, it shouldnt take longer than two hours to get all of them. So, play through the game blind first. Just do it. Special mention: The game goes even the extra meter to not make you feel to bad about the achievment hunt. Because narrative-wise, the game can not be “replayed”. So formally, the second playthrough is just a “memory”. Overall, OneShot is a special experience which you should play through blind to get the best experience out of it. And enjoy some clever usage of “out of the box” thinking. \~

Untitled Goose Game: So, this has been my co-op game, I played at home. A refreshing experience, as there is no greater story or things to think about. It is just the story about a goose being mischievous. You control the goose - or in co-op the geese - and walk around a small town. The town is divided in different parts which you unlock step by step. When arriving in a new part, you get a list of deeds you have to do to progress which consists mostly of annoying the humans living there. You have to steal vegetables, steal keys, destroy vases, terrorize children and break stuff. For this, you have the awesome number of four moves: running, quacking, lowering your head and flapping your wings. If you complete most of the list, the humans usually search some kind of “Geese not welcome” sign, unlocking the next area.
In addition to the normal area tasks, there also exist bonus tasks. These usually are based on interaction of different areas and are a bit more complex. At the beginning, this list is hidden but the tasks can still be completed by chance. After playing through the game, the list becomes visible though.
Achievement-wise, you get achievements for fully completing an area as well as each bonus task. Also, each area has a speedrun time which can be tried by “resetting” this specific area. So, nothing is missible.
Overall, the game is some silly fun, especially in co-op.

What Lies in the Multiverse: WlitM is a puzzle platformer with a story jumping between silly and serious. The puzzles are easy to very easy with a hint of tedious. You play through 8 chapters (+ Prolog and Epilog) where in most chapters you can switch between your current and a pre-determined parallel dimension. With the nature of the parallel dimension the gameplay changes slightly with one dimension being frozen, another having inverse gravity and yet another one being poisonous, etc …. But overall, the puzzles stay mostly the same. Nothing to interesting there.
The story is …. it is okay, I guess and has some nice moments. But the different tones of the elements are clashing violently, leaving the player behind a bit irritated. The characters can not stay serious for more than ten seconds but the story has serious tones and the parralel universe are portraying even more gruesome scenes. I think in the case of Everett, this mixture of sillyness and seriousness is “justified” and the point of the game. But for the rest of the case, it seems distracting. Probably, it is better to take this more as a light-hearted adventure and not think to much about it. It is also irritating that the main cast is jumping between dimensions all the time but somehow never ever encountering their alternative counter parts.
Achievement-wise, the game is a bit tedious. Lots of the achievements, you will get by simply playing. However, there are some collectibles and while most of them are easy to find, some are better hidden. So you most lilkely have to replay levels which goes fast from gameplay but you can not skip cutscenes, making it again tedious. Also, one of the collectibles is not tracked by any system, so you better remember it yourself. There also seems to be a bug with the hidden memories which adds yet another tediousness. Overall, the game is good but it has its flaws.
~~

The next update will most likely take some more time as I return to work this week. And I have to check what to play next. Maybe activating that other Fanatical key (just two left there) and complete the game. Or I will return to some of my “Never Played” list games and try getting them done. Or I make some more maps for Crystal Caves :P

Last post for this year

Not that it is surprising with just two more days left ^^’:

• Teslagrad 2
  

  8 hours playtime

  no achievements

• Resident Evil 4
  

  97 hours playtime

  46 of 46 achievements

Teslagrad 2: So after having “replayed” the remastered version of the first Teslagrad in my last post, I was now up to the task of Teslagrad 2. Same as the first game, it is puzzle platformer. Though, the game areal is a lot larger, more complex. And the movement is more fluid. Right from the beginning, you have the Lightning Step and you get a lot more abilities to move fast which is quite nice. The main puzzles aren’t that difficult and the surrounding ones aren’t that difficult either. Exploration is interesting because right from the beginning, there are some branch-off ways you can look into although you get stuck pretty fast because of missing abilities. Story-wise it is as abstract as the first game mostly told visually and supported by scrolls you can collect. In contrats to Teslagrad 1, the Teslamancer are not shown as a “noble” force alone anymore but also with their issues. The game also relies a bit on the third game from the publisher (I think they share the same protagonist).
The game doesn’t come without issues though. Movement is not always as precise as I would like for a platforming game. Bosses are often annoying. And there are moments, I wasn’t sure what I had to do. And whole exploring is interesting, you often face a missing abilities wall which makes you think that you should play through the game first before going for the bonus stuff. However, the best movement ability - the double jump - is hidden behind a bonus section, so that you only get it late into the game and just for the bonus things which is ….. a bit wasted.
What I liked though was the “quick travel” system which uses steel wires, you can move along as lightning bolt. You can find harpoons across the map, creating new wires, to reach the spot again. Though, even this is a bit annoying as it means you have to travel around certain points. Especially, since not all places are easy to get back even with the wire system. If you are searching for things without guide, this means a lot of backtracking. Achievement-wise, there are some story-achievements. But most of them are tied to finding the bonus abilities and the scrolls. I did it without guide and managed to find, I think about 80 of 81 scrolls and 3 of 4 bonus abilites. The last one I had to look up. It would be nice if the game gives you the position of the bonus abilities after clearing the game once. Because after getting all four you get the secret map, showing the position of the scrolls. Would have been helpful earlier. Overall, still a good and interesting game. Better than the first Teslagrad in my opinion, despite its faults.
Also, I have no idea why achievements are not found by BLAEO O.o They game definetely has them.

Resident Evil 4: The remake one, I think in my old posts I still have the comment about the original I replayed some years ago. So, I got lucky and won this game. Otherwise, I wouldn’t play it in release year. I think, most people know the game, so I don’t have to comment much on that one. Overall, the remake is done well. Even if some design and story decisions are a bit weird. For the most part, it felt the same. To me at least. Level design has been improved (although it still has old weird aspects) and there are some bonus sections to explore.
Achievement-wise, the game demands a lot from you. Replaying the game several times is a must like for most Resident Evil games (RE0 and RE1 have partially the very same achievements): Play through with no healing, not talking to the vendor, only using knifes and pistols, play on the highest difficulty, play on the highest difficulty on New Game and with only a few saves ….. Most of this is built into the game design though. So for some achievements, you can use your NG+ save, meaning all equipment from end of game, making for a rather easy experience. For the most difficult achievement, you are allowed to use bonus weapons which can be upgraded mid-game to unlimited ammo when doing enough sidequests. So, the difficulty is getting to that point. And for the main game, this seemed reasonable. For the DLC - Separate Ways which I bought this sale (although not on sale since still fresh) - though it is a bit different. Not sure if the three weeks between main game and DLC where I didn’t played made the difference. But Separate Ways felt a lot more difficult to me. I got all achievements from the DLC normally, outside of the last one. Getting S+ rank on Professional. The game has a lot of narrow spaces where you can die quite fast and the bosses are simple ammo eaters (more so than the main game). So, I came to the El Gigante fight and hadnt enough ammo to kill him. And since I didnt want to waste more ammo, I had to replay the factory with two chainsaw villagers over and over again. The game also did not drop any submachine gun ammo for me at all, even replaying the section ten times. In the end I gave in and just bought the Upgrade Ticket DLC, allowing me to get the infinita ammo on the Chicago Sweeper two chapters earlier. Then, I could finish the game easily. Luckily, while there are in-game challenges for no healing/only knifes&pistol runs, Capcom was nice enough to not make them an achievement. Appreciated, because I think I had enough RE4. I will probably deinstall pretty soon unless I hear they intend to do another DLC for it. Overall a very good game with a good atmosphere. But achievement-wise a bit exhausting even if multiple replays are baked in the system. In my “defense”, I played the game with controller, as such my aim is not as stable as with K&M. This might be the reason why I ran out of ammo more easily in the Separate Ways DLC :P

And now back to my favourite game. Deciding what to play next. Probably make another map for Crystal Caves, playing through One-Shot I also bought in the sale. Maybe I will buy something else or start working down those everlasting games in my unplayed section. Maybe take another look at my shadow-backlog. Want to try some more shorter games 2024 since my Steam review confirmed that I played less different games this year.

Anyway, for a better and great 2024! See you next year.

The year slowly coming to an end

The time has come. I have completed Resident Evil 0 ^^’:

• Resident Evil 0
  

  38 hours playtime

  47 of 47 achievements

• Wildfire
  

  22 hours playtime

  60 of 60 achievements

• Horizon Zero Dawn™ Complete Edition
  

  102 hours playtime

  79 of 79 achievements

• Teslagrad Remastered
  

  5 hours playtime

  36 of 36 achievements

Resident Evil 0: …… so I finally did it. After letting the game rot for years(?) in my library having played roughly half of a first playthrough, I finally managed to tackle the game once again. I considered starting a new but managed somehow to beat it from the confusing mid-point I was at. It is a Resident Evil game, more with the classic formular of fixed cameras and limited saves (which I believe to like). Ressource management is important, even more so as there are some differences to the classic Resident Evil. One is the buddy system, meaning you have to manage two people and their inventory at once (but not being able to play co-op). The second one that there was no item box. While you can drop any item anywhere, the drawback is that you have to make ressource runs as soon as you reach new areas. And sometimes new enemies appears which made this quite annoying. Story-wise it was an okay game, although the RE lore would not miss this entry at all. But I liked having Rebecca as main characters as she has rarely the spotlight. Otherwise, atmosphere and tension was good, as you would expect it.
Achievement-wise, it was also typical Resident Evil stuff. Meaning that there are story-achievements, some special trigger achievements and LOTS of replay achievements like no healing, no saving or speedrun achievements. Basically, Resident Evil relies on you knowing the game inside out to be able to plan out the best route and rush through it. Time-consuming but not as difficult as it sounds. Part of this, that most Resident Evil games have these replays in mind (as you can see in the achievements) and there are ways to unlock stronger or even unlimed ammo weapons for subsequent replays.

Wildfire: Wildfire is a fire simulator. Well, actually not. You are an inhibitant of a small village and one day you see a meteor falling down. Investigating the object then gives you the power to control fire to a certain extent, followed by you being hunted by the empress and her knights. There are several different regions and each time - for reasons - you learn a new element, so that at the end you can control fire, earth and water with a lot of fun interactions and ways to tackle the separate levels. One of the main criticism people had for the game was that you have to replay levels over and over again to unlock the points you need for upgrades as some of the point conditions are contradicting (like speedrunning them or staying undetected). That said, since there is no way to respec your abilities, the game has to be (and is) designed in a way that you can beat each and every level with any upgrades at all. As such, replaying levels is only something you need to do if you want to get more points or if you are going for achievements. Achievements are also quite fun to get but need the multiple replay of leves and even twice the game (though you keep your upgrades from the first playthrough, making it quicker). This is time-consuming and can be very repetitive. Then again, I played the first time through the game in local co-op. And as a coop game this title is just wonderful. Making plans with each other and seeing how they crumble because you accidently started a wildfire or startled a guard to jump into his own death is hilarious.

Horizon Zero Dawn™ Complete Edition: So, I don’t like open world games, no sandbox games and I certainly don’t see me ever playing a single Assasin’s Creed game. That said, I have only good things to say about Horizon Zero Dawn. The game is an interesting journey centering around the Outcast Aloy playing in some post-apocalyptic world where different tribes are fighting for their survival against nature and recently ill-turned machine animals. On this journey, you not only are given an actual convincing reason why Aloy is the only person to be able to be the protagonist, why she was outcast and also what the apocalypse caused. All this, supported with some interesting side characters and each tribe having its own culture, believes and religions. The world-building and story are certainly the strongest point of the games and make curious for the sequels. The gameplay itself with the fighting, collecting, platforming is good enough to not ruin this experience. The story still has some minor convenience points but overall, it is among the better and more solid ones that I have encountered in game.
Achievement-wise, again a long haul as you need to collect all collectibles, make most side-quests and some grinding here and there. And I think there was a necessary NG+ as well (like most of the games I present today O.o). But the game is good. So good that I didn’t mind it. Also did it on my Steam Deck while in China. Because at least the gaming part of Steam is something which is not censored or blocked there >.< If you are craving for a RPG with a good story, let Horizon Zero Dawn recommanded to you.

Teslagrad Remastered: Not much to say about this one. It is a puzzle platformer centering around the usage of electro-magnetic powers. For the most part on the easier side with an okay story (though only told by theaters and scrolls). I think I wrote more about the original. Only bought the remaster in preparation for Teslagrad 2. Achievement-wise also on the easier side as all of them are tied to the hidden scrolls which needs some more advanced platforming. In a manner of fair game design, you gain at the very end of the game, the knowledge of the location of all scrolls although figuring out how to get them is still necessary on yourself.

And with this, I have to decide what to play next. Right now, I have finished the RE4 remake minus Separate Ways. So, I have to consider if i buy the DLC now or in the Winter Sale hoping it might get a discount. Then again, I have won the game, so even if i buy the DLC at full price - which is only 10 € for content a third of the original game or more - I have not paid to much. Or I will play Teslagrad 2 first. Maybe try making some more Crystal Caves HD maps. Or maybe ….. maybe completing Resident Evil 1 which is my new Resident Evil 0 :P

Three months later, still gaming

Some more games finished and making space for new ones:

• Behind the Frame: The Finest Scenery
  

  2 hours playtime

  19 of 19 achievements

• CrossCode
  

  113 hours playtime

  86 of 86 achievements

• The Darkside Detective: A Fumble in the Dark
  

  14 hours playtime

  30 of 30 achievements

Behind the Frame: The Finest Scenery: How to describe behind the Frame? It is a game about painting pictures I guess? It is more on the story-side with some minor puzzle elements and painting mini-game mixed in. You play as Amber, trying to get her work for the art competition done. But each day (chapter) she needs a new colour which somehow is hidden somewhere in the apartment. On the other side of a small alley lives an old man who paints as well. And so, you are completing the painting, while having some memory flashbacks each chapter and how the protagonist (Amber) and her neighbor (Jack) are connected. Towards the end it also gets shortly a bit darker. The story is a “bit” confusing. As far as I understood, the main game tells “inside” a painting with Amber being the painting. It is basically a story about painting function as a memory keepsake. That the story does not depict reality, can be seen by the date on the calendar never changing or at the end when you learn that Jack and Amber have been friends roughly the same age. There is also a DLC which panicked me a bit for a moment because it has achievements. But the DLC is actually a side-story from the perspective of Jack in the past which is automatically part of the game unlocked after finishing the main game. So no new purchase needed. I would even argue if this counts as DLC because you can’t get the game without it. Side-story is also more straightforward as it is a direct retelling of past events although it (obviously) still centers around the theme how paintings keep memories alive.
The graphic of the game is handdrawn? Either way, it is very pleasing on the eyes and nice to look at. Soundtrack is also nice and calming and the game makes for an interesting and short experience. Achievement-wise, the most is very fair and while there are about five achievements which you probably won’t find without a guide, it is not an issue as the game has a chapter select. So each missed achievement can easily be gained within a few minutes (exception for the DLC which takes a bit longer as there is no select, but the whole DLC is just 30-60 minutes first time, much faster if you just click through).

CrossCode: Well, well, well. What to say about CrossCode. CrossCode tells the story about Lea, a woman supposedly in coma with missing memories. Though it is known that she played a mmo game before actually plays on a real existing “playground” on another planet. And so, her offline helper Sergey smuggles her back into the game for Lea to regain her memory by playing through the MMO. While this does sound confusing it is not so bad when you playthrough. But the story has multiple layers of past and present and game and reality and how it is connected. Overall, the story (including the DLC) is actually very interesting and also tackles some issue which might become a topic in the future ( and is also shown in other media like the movie “Free Guy”). So, the story is on the strong side.
Gameplay-wise you have a character which can dash, shoot and melee and you learn new elements and active skills by playing through the story and unlocking them in the temples and your circuits boards. You can switch between elements with one button press and if you focus on melee or range is mostly dependent on your preferred playstyle alhtough you should and will mixing more at one point. And as you play a MMO, you regularly complete quests for people. You can also see a lot of extremely well-thought design decisions. Should it be the balancing or the versatility of choice for your combat, the dashing and blocking which add layers to it. Or you basically can not get a game-over in the game. A death just warps you back to the beginning of the scree, but removes all experience and items you got but also gives you consumption items back you used. So, the game never wastes your time. On the other side, this means the game can easily place enemies on the stronger side and make it more challenging as you never really lose anything. And on top, it has two difficulty sliders to even tone it down, if you can’t manage the intended difficulty. There is also the point of the terrain being multilayerd where you can find ways to the off-path needed for the sidequest and chests. And the terrain is designed in such a well manner that you don’t even notice these additional ways, the first time you go through because it looks just that natural. Nearly all available quests per area can be seen in the specific town’s quest hub so you can never miss them. And even in-game they are marked with a large exclamation mark while running around. There is also a strong post-game at the end (and per area) where you can farm items for stronger equipment and an arena for more challenging fights if the story ones were not enough. As said, this game has been planned through, you see it.
So what it is this anxiety your hear subtly in my text? Well, there is one point in the game which soured me strongly. But I can’t really blame the game but more myself for not checking better. The game is puzzle-HEAVY. And I play(ed) a lot of puzzle games games and enjoyed them. And the puzzles for the most part are ALSO designed very well. However, it is simply to much. Each temple, I could have lived with actually just half the amount of puzzles they have used. You want this to finish but it just never stops. A really annoying example is at the end of the game. I was in the final dungeon and it was 1am and I said: “Okay, just get the final boss done and go to sleep”. Long story short I had to break inbetween because the game throws another one hour of complex puzzles at you, delaying the final part. And don’t get me started on the DLC temple which tortures you with two hours+ puzzles in a row. Note, that I solved everything myself. With a guide or replaying it will be a bit faster. Though, I stay with my word that HALF of the puzzles would still have been more than enough.
Achievement-wise, there is a lot of grind. However, everything needed for it is tracked and can be done at nearly any point of the game. So strong plus there as well. Though, there are two missable achievements which (if you didnt pay attention) first time, need a bit of replay. Though they can be made in NG+ with all of your equipment and levels from the previous round. You can even give you hex powers one-shotting everything to speed up further. Also, another special plus for the NG+ as characters react to your items and levels which you should not have at that point in the game. It is very funny. Also, you don’t need the DLC for getting all achievements but i would recommand it for the story nonetheless.
So all in all, CrossCode is a really good game with a lot of very strong designs and design decisions. A heart-warming story, strong gameplay, interesting topics, grindy but mostly fair achievements. But damn, this insane amount of puzzles T_T

The Darkside Detective: A Fumble in the Dark: The Darkside Detective is a humorous PnC adventure playing in the town of Twin Lakes where so many strange things happen that the town has it own police department for it. Or had as the department has been abolished in the second part after the protagonist lost his partner in the Darkside at the end of the first game. The game plays roughly around after the first part and has six main cases which play story-wise after each other. There are a lot of reoccuring characters between the cases and also to the first game which troubled me a bit as I nearly forgot most of it and couldnt get some references. Overall, it is still a good and fun game. Though the cases are to long for my taste and have to many screens. So, you would like to finish them faster. The size also troubled me as I often did know what or how I had to do something, randomly clicking and combining stuff (Note, I did this without guide as you should play a puzzle-game/PnC anyway). But it is not a good feeling, running around 20 minutes having no progress as you don’t know what is missing.
Achievement-wise there is a lot of hidden stuff which might be overlooked first time (though replaying episodes takes about 15 minutes per case). But nothing really unfair. All in all a good and nice game but with to big cases for my taste. It certainly did leave a less positive impression then the first part. Still a positive impression. Game is recommandable alone for the bromance between Dooley and McQueen.

New Year, New Games

Just some quick words on my latest games. In unusual manner I have not completed most of them this time for different reasons:

• Spirit of the North
  

  8 hours playtime

  24 of 24 achievements

• Cats in Time
  

  9 hours playtime

  24 of 24 achievements

• Mana Spark
  

  28 hours playtime

  19 of 20 achievements

• Giraffe and Annika
  

  15 hours playtime

  31 of 33 achievements

• Crypt of the NecroDancer
  

  182 hours playtime

  44 of 53 achievements

Spirit of the North: I saw this game a few years back on the playstation and it seemed quite nice visually. So as I saw it during the sale I thought why not. While it is a visually impressive game in terms of landscape, it is also somehow empty because on most of your journey you don’t encounter any other life outside of spirits from dead humans and a fox. Which is a bit of a shame. Gameplay self is running around in more or less linear levels, solving simple puzzles with your spirit power by activating shrines, portals and some easy platforming elements. As bonus you can search for staves and bring them to their deceased owner. All in all a relaxing experience which can be a bit boring though. As said, nice to look at and not very demanding outside of the final level where you are running around a giant map with very few pointers where to go to. Achievement-wise also on the easy side with lots of story-related achievements and each chapter can be selected afterwards to get missed stuff. Also the lost staves are shown if you found them. If you like cute foxes and need some relaxing trip in the nothern land, go for it.

Cats in Time: I had a lot of fun with this and so had my girlfriend which rarely plays something. Again, a very simple puzzle game where you objective is to find all 10 cats per level. A few cats are out there directly in the open while some others need solving of basic logic puzzles by shoving levers, pressing switches or finding and using items. Levels consist mainly of one large building which you can rotate to access all the different puzzles. There are 7 worlds with 4 levels each and 4 additional bonus levels of different themes. Very enjoyable, hardly frustrating and very cute cats.

Mana Spark: This will end up on my pile of shame of uncompleted games. The final achievement (in a neglect of research) is simply to ridiculous and I even tried it a few time. The basic game is actually quite enjoyable. A simple rogue-lite game where you can chose one of four characters (actually only one at the beginning and the others will be unlocked easily) and then have to travers multiple levels of a dungeon. Game is more on the slower side with movement being slow and attacks needing to be precise or otherwise the enemies will take you down quite easily. On your way through the dungeon you get power-ups to increase your power. The dungeons consists of separate rooms where you have to kill all enemies before proceeding to the next room. The enemies have set patterns which need to be exploited and as a bonus a few enemies can work together, creating new patterns although it doesn’t happen to often. But even with the power-ups the final boss fight is very harsh which is also bound to some bugs making it impossible to win. Although there is a clear winning strategy on all characters to beat it (which consists of stacking attack speed and getting the freezing item).
Achievement-wise most is fair game with beating the game with every character and beating each sub-dungeon without damage (annoying but doable). The missing achievement though is a pure insult. It is Spicy Burrito mode which not only takes away your base power-ups. No it removes also all in-dungeon power-ups and reduces your health to half a heart making you a one-hit wonder. Which gives you the option to chose the close!-range attack warrior, getting some easy hits; the slow shooting sitting duck hunter which doesn’t move for a second while shooting; the faster but weaker guard which can move but needs twice the hits or the tamer which runs around trying to survive while his dog does all the damage because the bumerang doesn’t. The first two sub-dungeons can be completed more or less easily. But starting with third sub-dungeon many enemies per room need a dozen or more hits with narrow navigation area and multiple enemies. I won’t even imagine doing the third boss fight, not even thinking about the final one. Yea, this is a challenge as intended but it is a bullshit one. And so far I have doubts many people have done this legit. Astats insist on five people having done this. But looking at there unlock times and total playtime I am pretty sure, they have cheated it.

Giraffe and Annika: Oh, this was enjoyable. You play Annika, a small cat-girl in a 3d platformer, exploring the island on the search for Lisa. All this is done while getting help a fried called Giraffe. There is a lot to explore, some minor sub-quests, a cute story and graphic-style and some dungeons. As a change in pace, the dungeon ends with boss fights with a rhythm game. Though you can do this on easy where it is hard to fail. If you are going for the achievements though ….. you need to beat all of them on hard with a S-rank which is challenging already. An impression of this can be found in this totally unrelated to me video link. Reason the game is beaten but not completed is because of a timed achievement bound to Christmas. And I bought it after and played it after. I could technically switch the system clock but meh. Will wait a year (just need to remember ^^’).

Crypt of the Necrodancer - Synchrony: I don’t think I have to explain much about this game as it should be widely known. A rogue-lite dungeon crawler where you and the monsters move at each beat with set patterns. Simple learning, hell in mastering, especially with all the additional characters. Last time i stopped playing I had 34 of 44 achievements. With the rest simply being out of my skill level. And then five yeary after a NEW DLC dropped introducing more characters. So I challenged the Crypt one more time and actually managed to beat all new characters and their challenges as well as some other minor new achievements like Aria No Beat mode and another character. Now, I am standing at 44 of 53 achievements still missing the same bullshit difficulty stuff. Great game though and there are people which actually can beat this fairly. Not me though. DLC is still early access, so they might add more or change things. But for now I have completed the DLC.

And that’s it. Next will probably be Cross Code. Or maybe I try some more mana spark or go for one or two other achievements in No More Room in Hell. Or finally back to RE0? I think Cross Code is the most likely.

Short Pre-Christmas Update

Was considering just changing the game status. But as I sometimes use these posts to re-check something, I will give some words.

• The Unfinished Swan
  

  5 hours playtime

  10 of 10 achievements

• Viviette
  

  6 hours playtime

  6 of 6 achievements

• FINAL FANTASY XII THE ZODIAC AGE
  

  114 hours playtime

  41 of 41 achievements

The Unfinished Swan: I did expect a bit more of this game. I think. It was okay but even with the short time it sometimes dragged around. The story was cute enough. Gameplay-wise you shoot ink in order to colour the world. Hereby, you have different mechanics in different worlds. In the first you need it to find your way around as everything is white. In the second-world you need you it to activate some water-based machines. In the third world to make plants grow and so forth. Overall, enough difference. What had been an issue for me has been the contrast though, especially in the first world. Because either everything was white and you couldnt see anything or if you’ve overdone it, everything was black and you didn’t see anything. A simple mechanism so that corners and edges not appear as massive samey surfaces.
Achievement-wise, the game was fairly easy though with some collectibles and with a level-select system. Overall okay game.

Viviette: A 2d-Resident Evil does fit as description quite well. You have a large mansion, a re-occuring enemy (Nemesis-System), keys and doors and weird puzzles. All-in-all I really liked the game, although the puzzles are with issues as you sometimes you don’t get the connection. Pretty early in the game for example I brute forced a clock puzzle because I was in a locked room and thought I had to solve it to leave it (but apparently I missed clicking the person sitting on the table). I also brute forced the bookshelves puzzle, although that one is very easy if you just understand it.
Suspense is most of the time there and your nemesis can be avoided regularly. However, she is often close-by. Bright side is that there are areas she can’t access. Story is also interesting enough to follow. The one thing you have to watch out for though, is the good ending which can be missed very easily (would still recommand to make a blind playthrough first) by doing something to early and by accidently spilling blood (didn’t even understand what happened until reading what happened much later). Achievement-wise you need some playthroughs as there is an achievement for collecting all notes, speedrunning and without dying (reloading your save does not help, it is tainted). But since you can complete the game in less than a hour it doable quite easily. An interesting aspect is that the puzzles are randomized, so you can’t look up the solutions only (though you can look up the logic behind it). As said, if you don’t get the clue some puzzles might appear very difficult, but they all follow an easy logic. The hardest puzzle which was based on music has also been nerfed. So nothing to fear here. Other than that knife-swinging woman following you.

Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age: Japanese RPG with lots of hours to play, large world to explore and some interesting fighting. Don’t think I have to explain much about Final Fantasy. So, I will just go about random tidbits. First thing first, I played FFXII on the PS2 and one thing I was annoyed back then was that everyone had the same license board which meant, I could make them all the same. As I like playing in roles better, I limited myself by only giving them weapons which I considered fitting. But as said, in the end I limited myself. My girlfriend at the time, did the other way and stacked up skills and magic and same weapons ultimately wiping the floor. So as I heard of the international Zodiac system, it sounded more interesting to me and then with the Zodiac Age (a bit different again), I used the chance to re-play the game. And I liked it a lot more as it fitted more with how I play naturally. You can still stack and powergame but I didn’t limit myself so much in comparison. Even when chosing each available job, you could still get a functional and strong team. This way also needed some thinking on which classes to combine and who to get which summon.
Overall, a huge improvement on gameplay-fun for me. Story-wise the game is more political and while some players say that it drags on to much, I liked this kind of different setting. Also, while re-playing I did not finish the game back then, so the finale was new to me. Other stuff I remembered positively from back then were the hunts, which is a bounty hunter system for stronger monsters which add more challenge but also reward with better equipment. In contrast to back then, I tried to get as far as possible without using guides and it makes the experience a lot better instead of looking everything up directly. But a lot of stuff is so hidden within the game (systems) that I needed them for the bonus stuff in the last third. The world is huge and there are several large areas you don’t even need to go to to find stronger Espers or better equipment. You can easily spend 50-60 hours with the game. Music is FF-typical also very good. Gambit-System is also strong, although I remembered it even better. Basically, it allows to automize your characters, so you don’t have to micro-manage them all the time. Achievement-wise it is obviously grind heavy (Asian game), however not in the worst way possible. You need to get all Espers and need to complete all hunts, also find every map. But overall, the game didn’t ask for finding/trading each weapon/item/equipment. It was basically at a point which I would consider myself completion myself without going to much extra-miles. Only exception was finishing the monster catalogue as some enemies can be missed. Still not to bad, and getting all magic and techniques is something you should do anyway. So, I feel mostly positive with the achievements. Oh wait, getting all Myth fusions was a bullshit achievement and I used an autokey program script from the forum. Bullshit.
All-in-all, I enjoyed my return to Ivalice in a grown-up story and a fantastic world-setting with game mechanics more in line with my gameplay preferences. Can’t remember correctly anymore but I think the Zodiac Age is a good chunk easier than the original game for the PS2. Also, the speed-up function is very appreciated. Normal speed feels extremely slow after a while, especially when grinding.

So that’s it. And since I won’t make another post before the end of the year I can already tell you: Happy Christmas and a good end for this year and a good start in the next one! And now back to consider which game to play next. Maybe return shortly to NMRIH, they updated a while ago (again), or making another map for CC HD (you should play all my maps and vote for them!), or something on my unfinished/unplayed pile (+ shadow backlog). But only for a week, and then it goes to Norway for vacation!

Retromania

I think most games in todays update fit somehow in the retro theme with just one notable exception.

• Snail Trek - Chapter 1: Intershellar
  

  59 minutes playtime

  6 of 6 achievements

• Snail Trek - Chapter 2: A Snail Of Two Worlds
  

  61 minutes playtime

  6 of 6 achievements

• Snail Trek - Chapter 3: Lettuce Be
  

  2 hours playtime

  8 of 8 achievements

• Snail Trek - Chapter 4: The Final Fondue
  

  2 hours playtime

  9 of 9 achievements

• Orwell
  

  14 hours playtime

  27 of 27 achievements

• Ocean's Heart
  

  12 hours playtime

  21 of 21 achievements

• The Corruption Within
  

  2 hours playtime

  10 of 10 achievements

• Milkmaid of the Milky Way
  

  2 hours playtime

  6 of 6 achievements

• Crystal Caves HD
  

  33 hours playtime

  32 of 32 achievements

Snail Trek - Episode 1-4: I did duck away long time from purchasing this, simply because I would have preferred this to be one game instead of four separate ones. Well, you can’t have everything. Snail Trek awakes long distant memories from my childhood. What you have here is a simple and extremely short (all episode together take about 4-5 hours to beat if you don’t use guides) adventure game. The gimmick? It is a text parser game. No clicking involved. Just moving your character(s) with the keyboard and everything you want to do, you have to do by typing the correct words in the command line. This means that the first thing you do in a new screen everytime is typing “Look around” to get some descriptions. From there you have then to start figuring out the finer details and solve the existing puzzles. On the “modern” side, if you stand in front of something and type “look” or “press button” it will consider that you mean the thing you stand before. It also has a word suggestion and completion function which helps a bit. But all in all, it still feels different to the classic P&C since you don’t know what items is actually of importance and your “possibilities” are larger (in realitiy more restricted as the developers usually just foresee very specific commands. Story-wise I expected a light-hearted adventure about snails and puns. What I got was expression with a unusual dark theme hinted at in episode 1, giving you the first wtf moment at the end of episode 2 and culminating in episode 4, betraying everything you usually expect from you P&Cs. The puzzles themselves are mostly fair although there have been parts where I was stuck a while, especially in the second episode and also the fourth episode which is the most complicated. But I figured nearly everything out myself in all episodes outside of some specific achievements.
All in all, I enjoyed the game and would like to try some more text parser games as long as the theme seems interesting to me. After all, Hugo’s House of Horror (and the two sequels) have been games which helped me learn english in my childhood. Who knows those here?

Orwell: Gameplay-wise this doesn’t fit the retro theme today. Although if I want to stretch it is heavily based on 1984, so there’s that :P I think this was free at one point so most people should be familiar with it. You are playing a citizen outside of the nation hired to engaged with the new Orwell system in order to monitor some suspects concerning a terror act. This means reading all their private data and upload what seems important to you and hence influence the decisions of your supervisor and the outcome of the game. The story is divided in different chapters, where each chapter describes a certain event. How the event takes place is in your power though which makes it feel like you have influence. The overall story though does progress anyway. At times the game feels exhausting with all the text, even if the upload chunks are specifically marked. It also doesn’t make sense that the give informs you about conflicting data chunks for data you have not yet found :P But overall, it was an interesting read and experience. It was pretty clear from the beginning that the game tries you to convince that monitoring citizens is bad and shouldn’t be done. Although it also takes time to make you understand that there was some benefit. So overall, it tries to draw a balanced line although it favours the first scenario. I liked how the whole games did fit together but - although not exactly predictable - a lot of the happenings where horribly cliched, especially in the last episode.

Ocean’s Heart: Looks like Zelda? Plays also like Zelda. Although you don’t have the rigid 8 dungeons structure, you earn new items over the course of the game which helps you to reach new areas. All of this is mixed with a lot of optional sidequests and exploring and for the most part being very fun. There is also some story about pirates and the protagonists father and all that. Not much to add here. Colourful, some puzzles, lots of exploration, the possibility to make the game harder or easier in-game. As said, liked this very much, so it seems strange to me that I can’t write a lot about it ^^’

The Corruption Within: Another short (about 2 hours) adventure game in retro graphics. A P&C adventure with a dark theme and undertone sometimes even feeling a bit unsettling. You play a man on vacation with his family which then disappears. And you go searching for them, asking for help in the nearby mansion. Classic puzzle adventures and for the most part very fair. Only thing a bit unusual is the usage of a lot of NPCs acting as dynamic element. You have access to most of the areas in the game right from the start. But you often need to talk with people first, so that you can interact with certain stuff. They also sometimes change places and making space so you can visit previously occupied or non-interactable rooms. For the most part interesting but very short (not that I wanted it to drag on longer) for the price. Also contains five decision points which will give you different ending messages.

Milkmaid of the Milky Way: And another P&C adventure betraying my expections. I expected a light-hearted tale about a Milk Maid and some space stuff in rhyme form. I got a tale about a girl having lost both her parents, following her kidnapped cows to an alien race with a tyrannic queen. Same as before, the puzzles have been mostly fair outside of the final one. Graphic is nice enough and the rhymes are a fun difference to the usual. Still didn’t expect this to be for the most part so dark and hoped for some conclusion concerning a specific matter which has not been given by the game.

Crystal Caves HD: This has been imported straight from the nineties of the last century (and millenia). Although imported is wrong. It has been completely remade in Unity but still plays absolutely identical to the original (so take the HD addition with a bit of salt). At least I think so because I can’t remember how it played, just that I played it. Simple platforming fun and going for high scores. Comes with some achievements, a save function, leaderboards and a robust level editor with currenty about 700 custom levels. I also made some, so if you have the game, play and vote for them! So yea, it seems Apogee is back and some other games received an update too. However, they don’t seem to hold the IP rights on Commander Keen and Duke Nukem which is a shame.

Strangely enough I haven’t written much about achievements today O.o If you have quesionts concerning them, just ask. Oh, I also have a Steam Deck and try to figure what to best play on it.