Game 1 of 2025 - The Crush House

The Crush House

Developer: Nerial
Publisher: Devolver Digital
Platform: PC
Genre: Dating Sim/Mystery

Difficulty: Easy
Hours: 6

Finished: Yes
Final Rating: 6/10

The Crush House is ok. 

You work as a producer on a Real World-esque reality show. You choose four contestants to live in the house for a season (which is only a week) and if you are able to satisfy certain audiences, you get to keep your job. As you play, you discover that the Crush House has a dark secret.

The positives: The game is often very funny, and some of the audiences you have to satisfy are just hilarious. In addition to your drama queens, teenagers, and wine moms, you've also got plumbers, conspiracy theorists, spiral enthusiasts (never figured this one out) and lighthouse fans.

The negatives: The dialog is pretty much the same from season to season. You have the same pool of characters to choose from, which kinda makes the mystery of the game obvious from the start. Despite having unique personalities, they all kind of act the same. Also they're all crazy and their behavior from one scene to the next is completely inconsistent.

This is tough to recommend, but if you find it on sale, maybe give it a shot.

Game 19 of 2024 - Not For Broadcast

Not For Broadcast

Developer: NotGames
Publisher: tinyBuild
Platform: PC
Genre: Adventure/FMV

Difficulty: Easy
Hours: 8

Finished: Yes
Final Rating: 8/10

I forgot to get screenshots of this one, too :(

At the beginning of the game, Dave, the editor, runs off on holiday and pressures you, the janitor, into doing his job for him while he's gone.

Classic Dave.

Dave of course never comes back, so now you're thrown into the fire as a full time live news editor. Apparently the National Nightly News' bar for their editors is pretty low.

Not For Broadcast, which has a record-setting 42+ hours of full motion video, is something of a political satire. It's a bit... on the nose for my liking, but generally the writing is good and the actors are fantastic. Bonus points for Paul Baverstock (Jeremy Donaldson), Andrea Valls (Megan Wolfe), and Lucy Foley (Stacy). 

I found some of the mechanics annoying, but you can turn the ones you don't like off. There's a ton of little jokes and gags throughout the scenes, and while you might be too busy doing your job to notice them during the game, you can replay the footage to catch everything.

Overall, a fun game with some perhaps confusing political messaging, but that might be the point. 

Game 18 of 2024: Darkside Detective

 Darkside Detective

Developer: Spooky Doorway
Publisher: Akupara Games
Platform: PC
Genre: Point and Click, Adventure

Difficulty: Easy
Hours: 5

Finished: Yes
Final Rating: 8/10

Darkside Detective is a rather small adventure game filled with separate bite-sized cases to solve.

See? Cases.

You play as detective Francis McQueen, lead investigator of the Darkside Division. McQueen and his partner, Officer Dooley, take on the supernatural cases of Twin Lakes City, including gremlins, lake monsters, and poltergeists.

And toilet ghosts.

Darkside Detective plays like most point and click adventure games, but perhaps even simpler. Your inventory never grows too big and I didn't find any puzzles particularly difficult. It's a charming enough game that provides a chuckle here and there, and the low-res pixel art is particularly nice. 

I'd play that game

If you feel like playing something spooky (without actually being spooky) this time of year while waiting to hand out candy to the neighborhood kids, Darkside Detective might just scratch that itch.

Game 17 of 2024: Dungeons of Hinterberg

 Dungeons of Hinterberg

Developer: Microbird Games
Publisher: Curve Games
Platform: PC
Genre: Action RPG

Difficulty: Medium
Hours: 20

Finished: Yes
Final Rating: 8/10

Crap, I forgot to get screenshots. :(

Pretty fun little ARPG. Maybe a few too many dungeons? 

Dungeons of Hinterberg has a fun little story about a junior lawyer discovering her taste for adventure in the magical Austrian town of Hinterberg. See, sometime ago, dungeon portals just started randomly popping up throughout Europe (and I guess other places), and a tourist industry catering to would-be dungeon delvers emerged.

Hinterberg is such a place. You play as Luisa, a young lawyer on holiday looking for a little meaning in life. You begin each day having breakfast at the hotel, and your afternoons exploring one of the four different areas looking for dungeons to crawl. You don't even have to do a dungeon if you don't want, you can find a scenic spot and just chill for a day.

After your dungeon run, you come back to town to do your shopping and decide what to do with your evening. Do you want to see a movie or take a rowboat out onto the lake, or do you want to hang with that weird influencer or see who's by the campfire and chill with them?

You can forge relationships with a variety of different folks in town, and this was my favorite part of the game. Hanging with different people raises different stats, and when your friendship advances, you get certain perks, like additional tumbling stamina or specific upgrades.

The dungeons range from breathtaking to downright annoying (especially the wind dungeons, God I was so glad to be done with those); the frozen snowboarding dungeons in Kolmstein being my favorite.

I guess if I had any complaints, it's that the game gets a little repetitive near the end. By then you've fought every monster type enough times for fights to feel like a chore instead of a nice respite from solving dungeon puzzles. A pretty minor complaint to be fair.

Hinterberg is rendered in a pretty cell-shaded style that I really think does the subject matter justice. Every NPC is thoughtfully designed and visually distinct.

Dungeons of Hinterberg draws a lot of comparisons to the Legend of Zelda games, and I think that's mostly fair. They're clearly a huge influence, and if you're going to be influenced by something, it might as well be the best.

Game 16 of 2024 - Star Wars: Outlaw

Star Wars: Outlaw

Developer: Ubisoft
Publisher: Ubisoft
Platform: PC
Genre: Stealth, Adventure, Open World

Difficulty: Medium with some stupid hard bits
Hours: 12

Finished: No
Final Rating: 7/10

The jank is strong with this one.

It's pretty but there's just not much under the hood. Star Wars Outlaw certainly nails the used future look of the original trilogy, but after that nostalgia rush wears off what's left is just... fine.

Used future means toilets

Star Wars Outlaws is basically a stealth game, and it's not a great one mostly thanks to some stupid enemy AI. I've literally shot stormtroopers 30 feet away from their comrades with my loud-ass blaster and no one blinked an eye. Sure, they might check out their buddy's corpse for a minute, but then it's back to business.

You play as Kay Vess, an aspiring uh, outlaw? trying to make her way in the Outer Rim or whatever. You'll primarily be doing jobs for three criminal organizations: The Hutts (violent gangsters), The Pyke Syndicate (those stupid lookin fish guys from Book of Boba Fett), and the Crimson Dawn (ugh, an uninspired, generically edgy organized crime group). You can often betray them, say, by taking a job to retrieve a datapad of sensitive info and selling it to another org. Your reputation with each group fluctuates depending on the work you do (or don't do) for them, but it's usually not hard to get back into a group's good graces after you screw them.

This is awesome.

Great idea, but in execution it's somewhat... simple. Do the job, watch the bar raise. I guess criminal organizations don't have a great memory. I was doing Crimson Dawn jobs mere hours after clearing warehouses of their goons. 

I don't care for stealth games that much, but the promise of exploring open world Star Wars planets was too tempting to pass up. I think Outlaw pretty much delivers here. The worlds are beautiful, and there is much to discover out their on your own without the standard Ubisoft map icon checklist. Jetting around on your janky old speeder is pretty fun.

I'm just gonna have a sit down and think about playing something else.

I had my Star Wars fill at around the 10 hour mark or so. I think you'll get a lot more mileage out of this if you're a fan of the stealth genre, but even if you are the frustrating enemy behavior is sure to get on your nerves after a while. 

Game 15 of 2024 - The Excavation of Hob's Barrow

The Excavation of Hob's Barrow

Developer: Cloak and Dagger Games
Publisher: Wadjet Eye Games
Platform: PC
Genre: Adventure, Horror

Difficulty: Easy
Hours: 6

Finished: Yes
Final Rating: 8.6/10

Check out this fuckin' guy.

Give us a kiss love, eh?

That's Arthur. He's a bit of a dipshit. We first meet him as he stumbles, drunk, out of The Plough and Furrow, and accosts our heroine for a kiss. Despite this borderline sexual assault, Arthur actually becomes one of your closest allies in your quest.

Thomasina Bateman arrives in the fictional town of Bewlay to excavate Hob's Barrow. She's an antiquarian like her father, who lies comatose after a mysterious accident years before.

I'm a sucker for this art style.

Players will notice immediately that this bucolic little hamlet has sinister undercurrents. Thomasina, a highly educated and rational individual, soon has the limits of her rationality tested as the tale unfolds, transforming from a historical adventure into a folk horror tale with it's origins in the Bronze Age.

Sweet, sweet, rest.

The Excavation of Hob's Barrow plays like a pretty standard point-and-click adventure games. The puzzles all make sense for the most part, and there aren't any irritating pixel hunts like in lesser games. What really elevates it is the story and the performance of the voice actors. There were times I felt like I was taking part in a period drama rather than playing a game. I'm a big fan of the genre, and this is probably one of the best examples in recent memory.

Kudos.

Game 14 of 2024: Skald: Against the Black Priory

Skald: Against the Black Priory

Developer: High North Studios AS
Publisher: Raw Fury
Platform: PC
Genre: RPG

Difficulty: Medium
Hours: 18

Finished: Yes
Final Rating: 9.2/10

Hell yeah.

I've been waiting for this one. As a card-carrying old guy, I cut my teeth on CRPGs like Ultima, Baldur's Gate, and the Gold Box games. I checked out the Skald demo a year or two ago and was hooked.

And I'm happy to say I was not disappointed!

Everything from the crisp pixel art, the soundtrack composed on a Yamaha YM2413 sound chip, and the sword-and-sorcery cosmic horror story comes together beautifully to create an end product that is a worthy homage to the classics while being mindful of a modern audience.

You can pet the dog! And also cats.

Skald starts off the old fantasy classic: a shipwreck leaves you and your crew stranded on The Outer Isles, an Imperial backwater that has been experiencing strange events lately. You're tasked by Lord Berryn, a friend of your father's, to find Embra, his daughter. Embra's gone missing, and Lord Berryn thinks she was headed to the Outer Isles.

That one-eyed guy in your party is Roland. He carried me through this game.

Your custom player character has to explore the Outer Isles looking for clues to Embla's disappearance while helping the locals and putting together a ragtag crew. 

Hell yeah, Ibn! Let's, uh, shit on that!

Combat is turn based and tactical. You get the chance to deploy your party when you get jumped which helps to get your melee guys into range and your tanks to protect your casters. You get a variety of weapons, armor, and spells, but honestly, I didn't use magic other than healing all that much. The sword was mightier than the pen in my playthrough at least, as some combat spells just seemed a little underwhelming. When you do need magic users, though, make sure you have plenty of attunement potions to keep up their magic points; they can barely make it through one fight let alone many.

I ran into a few minor bugs, nothing I really cared about. Sometimes while shopping I would accidentally click on a character's portrait twice, which would immediately take me out of the shopping window and into the inventory screen. Not really a big deal.

The story is pretty standard sword-and-sorcery fare, and for the most part I really liked it. I could have used a little more background on the side characters, but for the most part it was enough that we faced supernatural horrors together to make me attached to them.

My playthrough came in at just under 20 hours, and I felt that was about right. I did all (I think) of the side quests and thoroughly explored the Outer Isles.

RPG fans, buy this game! It's pretty great!

Game 13 of 2024: Ghost of Tsushima

Ghost of Tsushima

Developer: Sucker Punch Productions
Publisher: Playstation Publishing
Platform: PC
Genre: Action/Adventure

Difficulty: Medium
Hours: 36

Finished: Yes
Final Rating: 9/10

Sure, I could write about all the things I liked about Ghost of Tsushima; or I could just post a bunch of screenshots and let the one bot that reads this decide for themselves:

One of the most beautiful games I've ever played

here have another one:

Seriously

and another:

You can pet the fox!

Sure, Ghost of Tsushima might be a romanticized, Western telling of a samurai story, but it's compelling with great characters and a gut punch of an ending. Combat is excellent, and Jin, our protagonist, is truly a killing machine. Seriously, I guess if I had one complaint, it's that too many of the missions (and there are a lot) involve you facing wave after wave of Mongol warriors. But hey, when you get tired of murdering, you can just wander the forests in search of flowers and crafting materials.

Game 11 of 2024 - Jack Move

Jack Move

Developer: So Romantic
Publisher: HypeTrain Digital
Platform: PC
Genre: JRPG

Difficulty: Moderate
Hours: 7.1

Finished: Yes
Final Rating: 8.4/10

Jack Move is slick, bite-sized JRPG that satisfies without giving you the meat sweats. My playthrough was a little over seven hours, which includes some light grinding towards the end, and I feel that was the perfect length. It was enough to get a sense of the world , the characters, and the conflict, and the shorter length really helped keep the story grounded.

You control Noa, hacker extraordinaire and resident of Bright Town. Most of the game takes place in the Bright Town's surrounding areas, which helps anchor the story and give it a sort of cozy feel. Bright Town is your standard cyberpunk neighborhood, lit with neon and a chrome veneer that just barely disguises poverty. You'll explore sewers, slums, corporate buildings, and virtual reality, and meet a crew of colorful, beautifully animated characters.

Bright Town

Jack Move's pixel art is gorgeous and colorful, and each sprite is meticulously animated, accentuated by a solid soundtrack. The story isn't particularly groundbreaking or challenging, which might be a letdown to some fans of a genre that often explores some heavier themes. That being said, it's fun, paced well, and short; it's not trying to be something it's not. It's more about the parent-child relationship than transhumanism (touches on this one though), income inequality, or drug culture.

That's not to say Jack Move doesn't have heart; the developers clearly put a lot of care into their world. Most NPCs are named and at least have the framework of a personality rather than being info dumps, graffiti decorates the walls of buildings, and the world is sprinkled with small businesses just trying to get by. It's a story with characters in a world that feels lived in.

Plus jigawatts.

Combat is the meat and potatoes of most JRPGs, and I think Jack Move (mostly) delivers here. It doesn't bog you down with overly complex systems and gambits and whatevers. Nora has different types of attacks at her disposal: hacks (physical), wetware (purple stuff), electroware (blue stuff), and cyberware (green stuff). These come in the form of software that you install in your cyberdeck. Your cyberdeck is limited by the amount of RAM it has, but you can upgrade this during the course of the game. Most enemies are weak to a specific type of attack and they are usually color-coded to give you a hint. Your cyberdeck can be upgraded with hardware as well; this gives you more RAM, boosts to attack or defense, or some other ability.

You should sit this one out, Executive Power Dresser.

Be warned: Jack Move uses random encounters. You can tweak these and even turn them off (although you shouldn't because money and xp). Despite that, combat is mostly pretty easy. There are a few enemies here and there that give you a run for your money, but you level pretty quickly and money was never an issue so I was able to hang without really grinding (until the end).

If I had to complain about something, it would be the final boss. Without spoiling anything, the final boss has a HUGE difficulty spike and the fight took me something like 45 minutes. I feel like a boss battle shouldn't be like an 8th of your game's run time.

Anyway Jack Move is decent and you should check it out.

Game 10 of 2024 - Redtape

Redtape

Developer: Pollaris Studios
Publisher: DreadXP
Platform: PC
Genre: Adventure

Difficulty: Easy
Hours: 1.5

Finished: Yes
Final Rating: 6.5/10

You're an angel that has fallen to Hell under mysterious circumstances. The question is - can you be a good enough worker bee to ascend the corporate ladder and maybe even uncover a vast conspiracy that threatens Hell's very existence? Yes, you can, and it's not particularly difficult or time-consuming.

Biblical angels go pretty hard.

My playthrough of Redtape was about 100 minutes, most of which is walking around doing fetch quests. The idea is kinda cool and I loved the art style which is very reminiscent of early 90s 3D games like Doom or Daggerfall. Hell's denizens are a strange mixture of what I think is a mix of royalty free and classic art. It's neat to look at.

Aristotle is sick of being Hell's receptionist.

As far as gameplay goes, there's not much here. You're pretty much just fetching things for Hell's higher ups and letting the story unfold. The problem is that there isn't that much story to experience. It's not that funny or well-written; it's just kinda... there. Which is fine, this is a niche game made by a small team for a low price and I have a great deal of respect for that.

There's also a minotaur. No, you don't fight him.

My major issue with the game was the end. The end is a an absolute bullshit parkour sequence in a courtroom where you dodge attacks while Hell's lawyer finds you evidence to hand to The Gamemaster (God). Does that sound cool? Well, it isn't. It's unbelievably frustrating. If Hell was a real place it would consist of this awful parkour sequence over and over again, so if Redtape was trying to convey that experience then mission fucking accomplished.

Redtape has its moments but it's hard to recommend. There's a lot of potential here, though, so I'm glad I gave it a shot. Despite my issues with the game, I love that developers are making this weird niche stuff, and I will continue supporting them as weird niche games are sort of my thing.

Game 8 of 2024: Moonring

Moonring

Developer: Fluttermind LLC
Publisher: Fluttermind LLC
Platform: PC
Genre: RPG

Difficulty: Pretty Hard
Hours: 6 and counting

Finished: Not yet
Final Rating: 8.3/10

If you love old-school RPGs like Ultima and Pool of Radiance, Moonring is for you.

If you love actually typing in what you say to NPCs hoping to find hidden topics, Moonring is for you.

If you love being out in the wilderness, surrounded by monsters, out of food, wondering what you're going to do to survive, Moonring is for you.

If you like seeing screens like this over and over again, Moonring is for you.

Everything kicks your ass in this game

You're not a hero in Moonring, you're an adventurer. You'd be well advised to remember that on your journey to find the gods' relics and become the Archon. They say discretion is the better part of valor, and in Moonring, that was my mantra. Moonring doesn't care what your stats are; if you're in the mountains, you're going to encounter scary mountain shit. Make sure you save those pennies for good weapons and armor, because you're going to need them.

These goddamn hornets can fuck all the way off.

You'll also need to manage your hunger and avoid disease. Alchemy ingredients are aplenty, so make sure you stock up so you're prepared when the inevitable rot, madness, or poisoning happens.

Moonring isn't for everyone, but for those who give it a shot, they will find a surprising deep game with an interesting world filled with secrets. At the low, low price of $free, what do you have to lose?

Game 7 of 2024: Mothmen 1966

Mothmen 1966

Developer: LCB Game Studio
Publisher: Chorus Worldwide Games
Platform: PC
Genre: Visual Novel

Difficulty: Easy
Hours: 1.3

Finished: Yes
Final Rating: 7.2/10

Mothmen 1966 is a fun little 'Pixel Pulp' visual novel with an awesome pixel art style that uses a very limited palette to replicate early 80s computer graphics.

The story follows Lee, Victoria, Holt, and Lou, with each chapter centering around a different character. Taking place in 1966, mostly around Holt's gas station, our protagonists discover a startling connection between the Leonid meteor shower and mysterious creatures.

lmao fuck them kids

Mothmen 1966 tells a pretty spooky story that's enhanced by some excellent art. I wouldn't call the story amazing or anything, but I was engrossed enough to finish the game.

awesome

Like most visual novels, you pretty much just click and read through text. This is broken up with a few choices and puzzles here and there, but I am not sure the choices really matter much and the puzzles aren't particularly hard.

Honestly, the art alone is worth the price (which is like nine bucks). Check it out if you like spooky stories.

Game 6 of 2024: Sea of Stars

Sea of Stars

Developer: Sabotage Studio
Publisher: Sabotage Studio
Platform: PC
Genre: JRPG

Difficulty: Moderate
Hours: 28

Finished: Yes
Final Rating: 8.5/10

Many, many years ago, a young me sat down and played Final Fantasy VI (then called III here in the US) and my little adolescent mind was blown. I was legitimately invested in the adventures of Terra and company, and I was bewitched by FFVI's compelling steampunk/fantasy setting. Your traditional generic medieval-esque settings didn't cut it anymore; FFVI opened my mind to a whole new era of RPGs. I still consider it the best of the genre.

As I sit here after finishing Sea of Stars, my opinion hasn't changed. FFVI is still the best of the genre. 

BUT.

Sea of Stars is pretty freaking great. Top 10 JRPGs maybe? I can't really say, it's a genre I don't often play anymore, at least not since high school. I still fire up the occasional JRPG when the mood for nostalgia strikes.

Sea of Stars isn't exactly re-inventing the wheel, but it pays homage to the greats while freshening things up a bit. The story is your fairly rote RPG faire; extraordinary heroes must learn to harness their innate powers in order to save the world. Of course, heroes can't do it alone, so they meet a variety of colorful characters along the way.

Enemies have amusing names, and reskins are almost non-existent.

The story and writing might actually be the weakest part of Sea of Stars. I wouldn't say it's bad, just sort of amateurish I guess. However, it has a sort of earnestness and innocence to it I found quite charming, so this didn't bother me that much. Maybe an eye roll here or there.

When it comes to environments to explore, Sea of Starts shines particularly bright. From haunted swamps to meat castles to space stations, the world is lovingly detailed in gorgeous, colorful pixel art. And you don't just walk around either; you'll climb walls and ledges, traverse tightropes, and solve several puzzles while exploring. Seriously, exploring in this game is one of the best parts.

Stunning vistas abound in Sea of Stars.

Of course, a classic RPG wouldn't be a classic RPG without combat. Sea of Stars is turn based, of course, and I found myself mostly enjoying myself. Combat involves a bit more that just wait for your characters turn to attack, as you can swap characters in and out of battle, chain your attacks to break enemy locks, and use powerful combo attacks. Combat is fast and fun, and you aren't bogged down with a shit ton of random encounters. 

Sea of Stars has some pretty neat boss monsters.

The difficulty, however, is a little wonky, especially in the early to mid game. On several occasions I would find myself limping back to a campfire after a rote encounter, only to steamroll a boss a few minutes later. Something strange happens around the halfway point, though. The game just... gets easier? Gaining levels results in small but vital increases in stats, so I guess at some point my defense stats just outpaced the amount of damage enemies did. Early game encounters had me carefully planning my attacks and using my special abilities, while I could just sit back and relax in the late game.

I can't remember what this town was called. Brick?

There's a lot to love here and I hope the developer keeps at it. Sea of Stars is a nice length for this type of game, clocking it at around 30 hours (plenty more if you want the true ending). While it does occasionally feel like the story has a lot of unnecessary padding to make it longer, the game still remains fun with several activities to keep you occupied.

Hey, it's the thing from the title!

Game 5 of 2024: Home Safety Hotline

 Home Safety Hotline

Developer: Night Signal Entertainment
Publisher: Night Signal Entertainment
Platform: PC
Genre: Interactive Fiction/Horror

Difficulty: Easy
Hours: 2.5

Finished: Yes
Final Rating: 7.8/10

I love interactive fiction, but I am not crazy about horror. With a few exceptions, I don't really care for horror games, movies, books, whatever. Well, I am happy to report that I like Home Safety Hotline.

Another 90's computer simulator.

Really love that CRT filter they've got going on.

Much like Hypnospace Outlaw, Home Safety Hotline takes place in the 90's. It gives you a pretty authentic looking Windows 95 desktop and interface. Each day you log in and take calls from people who have strange occurrences that are outside the purview of the normal authorities. It's up to you to pull from your database of hazards, critters, and supernatural horrors and determine ails your caller. And hey, sometimes you get it wrong and they call you back to chew you out.

I've got one of these at my house.

While it doesn't have any jump scares (thank God), Home Safety Hotline packs in the creepiness. You get glimpses of office like through calls with your supervisor, Carol, and mysterious emails from an unhinged former colleague. The calls range from kinda funny to unsettling to downright horrifying. I really have to give Home Safety Hotline a lot of credit for not relying on a bunch of violence and gore for thrills; they give you just enough and let your imagination do the rest.

It's fairly short at maybe two or three hours and sure, it kind of drags here and there, but Home Safety Hotline is well worth an afternoon. 

Game 3 of 2024: Saltsea Chronicles

Saltsea Chronicles

Developer: Die Gute Fabrik
Publisher: Die Gute Fabrik
Platform: PC
Genre: Narrative Adventure

Difficulty: Easy
Hours: ~6

Finished: Yes
Final Rating: 7.4/10

Saltsea Chronicles is an narrative adventure game where you guide a ship's crew in search of their missing captain. You journey through a post-Flood world, in which many of today's cities have been submerged and tales of the Hoarders of times past warn the inhabitants of Saltsea against greed and selfishness.

Saltsea is beautifully illustrated in a sort of cutout style that is reminiscent of children's picture books. The gameplay is mostly reading, but you do make a lot of choices that can affect tensions among the crewmembers. Some characters will argue and make up, some will develop feelings for one another, and some issues between characters will go unresolved. You can view all the current issues in your logbook, so you can keep track. This adds a nice layer to the standard visual novel format.

The islands you get to explore are vibrant, interesting, and quite frankly the best part of the game.

You can make choices as to where your crew goes at certain points in the story, but there is no free roam around Saltsea, which I actually appreciated in this narrative-heavy game. There is a card game you can play on most of the islands that's reminiscent of Hearts, but I don't care for card games all that much so I mostly skipped it.

The characters are all diverse and interesting with their own hang ups and skills and while I enjoyed getting to know them over the course of the story, the real hero here is the world of Saltsea itself.

Saltsea is an archipelago isolated from the world at large by a great storm. As far as they know, they are the only people left after a worldwide apocalypse known as the Flood. The islands you visit are populated by unique animals and their own interesting societies, and I made sure to click all the prompts so I could learn as much as I could before moving on.

The story itself is decent, if a little, I don't know, twee? It deals with themes like loss, betrayal, climate change and capitalism and while it's fine, it took a back seat to the world itself.

You collect some cool stickers as a record of your travels.

I'd give Saltsea Chronicles a whirl if you're into narrative adventure games like me. If nothing else, it presents a really interesting world to explore with a fascinating history. The narrative might be a little simple and kinda feels like a YA novel at times, but it's mostly well done and even has some replay value.

Game 2 of 2024: Shadows Over Loathing

Shadows Over Loathing

Developer: Asymmetric
Publisher: Asymmetric
Platform: PC
Genre: RPG

Difficulty: Moderate
Hours: ~14

Finished: Yes
Final Rating: 9.5/10

I absolutely adored West of Loathing. I played it with the Steam Link app on my phone so I could play it in bed before finally going to sleep. I wandered the map in hopes of more zany random encounters.

But.

Is the same true of Shadows Over Loathing?

Yes! Yes, yes, yes, a million times yes.

Well written, clever, hilarious, and surprisingly deep, Shadows Over Loathing is a hearty, satisfying experience.

There's an arachnophobia and arachnophilia setting if you're into that kind of thing.

The story starts off with the main character, custom made by you of course, getting a letter from their Uncle Murray beseeching them to come to Ocean City to help with an experiment.

Of course, when you get there, Murray has vanished. You need to solve the mystery of his disappearance by travelling to such places as The Big Moist, a university where you can get jumped by frat dudes and clouds of abstract numbers, and a county that has been overrun by a fossil fuel company. There are a ton (and I mean a ton) of items to gather, from hats (which you equip for stat changes), pants (same), weapons, and shoes (which don't change your stats but change your walking animation). They are almost all hilarious and reflect the game's unique character.

Every scene is given that unique Loathing touch.

Combat is turn based and can get surprisingly hard at times. There are fights where the enemies hit like Mac trucks and you need to make full use of your items and abilities in order to time your attacks correctly. Shadows Over Loathing throws you a bone here; when you hover over enemies you get to see what their next attack is going to be (and they can't be cheesy and change it). This way you can prioritize your actions and make sure you survive another round.

Sometimes there are fights that are just too tough. When you get beaten, you don't die but basically expelled from the fight with an additional perk (sometimes good, sometimes bad). There are often ways to bypass these fights if you have certain items or perks or if your stats are high enough.

I guess if I had one criticism, it's that I had enough experience to buy all the abilities by mid-game, and I didn't really grind or anything. I did try and explore all the locations I found, which might have had something to do with it. I never found money an issue and was able to buy all the stuff I needed. You also find a ton of items and weapons in the field.

I know the art style isn't going to be for everyone, being a black and white stick figure game, but I think it's quite well done and effective. There are some cool, simple graphical effects here and there, but nothing I would describe as ground breaking. I guess if extreme graphical fidelity is something you need, steer clear, but I would urge any RPG fan to grab this immediately.

Game 1 of 2024: Robocop: Rogue City

Robocop: Rogue City

Developer: Teyon
Publisher: Nacon
Platform: PC
Genre: Action, FPS

Difficulty: Moderate
Hours: ~10

Finished: No
Final Rating: 6.8/10

Robocop: Rogue City presses all the right nostalgia buttons for 80s action movie fans while delivering what I would describe as a fairly mid experience. 

The game is faithful to the source material to a fault. Our protagonist, Robocop, is rendered in loving detail (seriously, he looks fantastic) and is even voiced by Peter Weller.  Detroit looks like it does in the movies, that is, a bombed out urban wasteland populated by desperate lowlifes and the corporate crooks that profit from human misery.

gee real subtle guys

First, the gameplay. Robocop moves around just like he does in the movies: slowly, with heavy footsteps. You can sprint, but it doesn't give you too much of a speed boost. You clear stages the same way Robocop would, by slowly and methodically shooting all the bad guys.

Robocop always has his trusty Auto-9, which has unlimited ammo, but can also pick up weapons from fallen enemies, like assault rifles and shotguns. The Auto-9 sounds like it does in the movie, and it's great fun to watch the blood fly as you blast away at the bad guys. What is less fun is the enemies themselves. You spend levels mowing down waves of the same three dudes whose AI ranges from ok to downright stupid. The game makes up dumb enemies by making enemies unerring marksmen that see you as soon as you appear on the level.

The enemies become bullet sponges later in the game, which can be a bit frustrating. Especially ED-209.

yooo fuck this guy

Robocop: Rogue City's environments and protagonist look amazing, but the character models could use a little work. They're fairly generic and often kinda creepy lookin'. Peter Weller's voice acting is excellent, but the same can't be said for the rest of the cast, who range from passable to downright cringey.

One of the best things about the action movies of the era is that they didn't overstay their welcome. They got in, did what they needed to do in around 90 minutes, and got out. They knew what you were there for and respected your time.

I can't really say the same thing for Robocop: Rogue City. I spent more time wandering the police station and hospital making idle chitchat (something that could have been a quick cutscene) and completing silly side quests like fetching a towel for some dude in the shower. I think the game clocks in at around 20 hours, which is way too long for a game like this in my opinion. You can skip side quests, but then you miss out on experience you can use to upgrade your abilities. Speaking of abilities, some seem downright useless (Psychology) while others are absolutely necessary (Armor).

Robocop: Rogue City is a decent game, but I can really only recommend this to diehard fans. If you're interested, maybe wait for a sale.

Hypnospace Outlaw - Game 20 of 2023

Hypnospace Outlaw

Developer: Tendershoot, Michael Lasch, ThatWhichIs Media
Publisher: No More Robots
Platform: PC
Genre: ...I'm not really sure. Puzzle? Adventure?

Difficulty: Some hard-ass puzzles
Hours: ~5

Finished: Yes
Final Rating: 9.7/10

I'm not sure how to describe Hypnospace Outlaw other than FuCkInG aWeSoMe!!!!!

I choose T4b1l3sp00n as my handle, which was funny to listen to the AI pronounce

Dive back into the 90s internet as a HypnOS Enforcer. Your job is to moderate Hypnospace, a network that users log into while they sleep. Users access Hypnospace via a special headband that they wear while sleeping, allowing their subconscious to socialize and browse while their body rests.

As a volunteer Enforcer, you'll be tracking down cases of harassment, copyright infringement, illegal file sharing, and malware. You're not paid in real money but in Hypnocoin, which you can use to buy  things like music, desktop wallpapers, and virtual pets.

The hypnopages just scream 90s internet, complete with cringy boomers, conspiracy theories, edgy spinning graphics, and embedded music. There's even a collectible sticker game (SquisherZ) which has a theme song and it slaps! It's these details that really help make Hypnospace Outlaw something great.

Even Hypnospace isn't immune to bullshit moral panics.

Hypnospace Outlaw also gets fairly difficult later in the game. The first few cases you get can be solved by just browsing some webpages, but eventually you need to peace together clues yourself, using snippets of information you get from webpages along with the search function to find the information you need. A few of these puzzles are tricky, but so rewarding once you find the solution. 

The game also has a great, tense, story that's told through webpages, email threads, and cases, which kept me playing late at night. It's not a horror game, but there are moments that are truly unsettling.

Hypnospace Outlaw is absolutely worth your time. I feel guilty grabbing it for cheap during a Steam sale, as I would have gladly paid full price for this one.

Gamedec - Game 19 of 2023

Gamedec

Developer: Anshar Studios
Publisher: Anshar Publishing
Platform: PC
Genre: RPG

Difficulty: Easy
Hours: ~4

Finished: No
Final Rating: 6/10

In Gamedec, you take on the role of a... Gamedec. A Gamedec is short for Game Detective, someone who traverses the virtual worlds of the near future and solves crimes.

Fletcher Garrett, my Gamedec

Gamedec takes place in future Warsaw; it immediately throws a shitload of jargon and worldbuilding at you and never freaking stops. You have a journal where you can look this stuff up, but that doesn't really do you a lot of good when you're in dialog and one of the options is "Use Screen Jibba Jab Matrix" and you don't know what the fudge that is because it's never come up before.

Honestly, I wish we spent a little more time in future Warsaw because it seems like a really interesting place. Instead, we are originally thrust into an extreme S&M virtual game (it's not really racy or anything). Following that, we visit Harvest Time, the future's version of Farmville, I guess.

The areas you explore are rather small and self-contained. What you have is a very linear story; once you're done in Farmville Harvest Time, you won't be coming back. The story, at least what I experienced, seemed decent. Both meatspace and the virtual worlds you traverse are populated with some interesting folks. You'll come across characters that are exploiting children for cheap labor (and pumping them full of stims), the spoiled, psychopathic scion of a wealthy businessman, and some cross between Cthulu and uh, It?

Subtle.

All in all, Gamedec isn't bad, but I just couldn't make myself finish it. Awkward dialog, limited exploration, and what I felt was a clunky deduction system all kind of took away from the interesting world I felt was there, but just out of reach.

Springblades - Game 18 of 2023

Springblades

Developer: Sokpop Collective
Publisher: Sokpop Collective
Platform: PC
Genre: RPG

Difficulty: Moderate
Hours: ~7

Finished: Yes
Final Rating: 7.5/10

Springblades is a bite-sized, Paper Marioesque turn-based RPG rendered in a juvenile MSPaint art style, which I don't mean as an insult because it's awesome.

The story is simple: the princess needs you to collect three gems possessed by three strong bosses. Along the way, you'll meet all kinds of enemies, like rabbits, horses, deer, flop ghosts, pet rocks, farmers, chickens, you get the idea.

In addition to the three super bosses (indicated by a red skull on the map), there are a host of other bosses, usually guarding a town or some other location you can buy stuff at. The map is larger than I expected, and when you unlock a new location (usually by beating the boss) you can use it to warp to other locations you've unlocked.

Character progression is simple. With each level up, you can choose more HP, more energy points (so you can do more on your turn in combat), or more BP (badge points). Badges are one of the three equipment types you get, the others being weapons and armor. They usually give you some sort of perk or special ability, like the ability to bite or a bonus to accuracy.

The player's abilities are derived from their equipment; the right combo can make a super-difficult boss (dwarven prince lol) trivial. I had a lot of fun tweaking my equipment to certain encounters, as some combinations which seem amazing (badges that deal free damage when an enemy misses, for example) can absolutely screw you over in certain fights.

Good stuff.