Game reviews December 2020
Dec. 19th, 2020 03:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrPuzzle games: Shapez, Glass Masquerade, Mini-metro, Murder by Numbers, Depixtion
Farming/gathering/crafting: Littlewood
Visual Novels: Cafe Enchante, Nightshade, Our Life: Beginnings & Always, Arcade Spirits, Yearning: A Gay Story, When The Night Comes
Puzzle games:
Shapez.io: a free-ish fun little logistics puzzle game where you have to design simple machines to construct layered, coloured shapes from parts. It got samey eventually but was fun for a while, and is enjoyably low stress since you can't ever lose, just progress slower. The browser version I've linked is free, there's a paid desktop version with a few more features that I haven't tried.
Glass Masquerade: a jigsaw puzzle game using pretty art nouveau-ish 'stained glass' art. Very samey, and a little janky, but the art is pretty and it's a nice mindless, pretty distraction. I got it very cheap on special.
Mini-metro: a spatial design puzzle game about efficiently placing train lines that was not fun for me at ALL but seems generally well liked.
Murder by Numbers: Phoenix Wright style murder mystery visual novel, but where you find clues by doing picross style logic puzzles. It was initially very much my jam, with a fun retro 90s aesthetic, slightly bitter divorcee heroine, robot sidekick, etc. But it leans a little into stereotypes and I just hit a case set at a drag bar and came to a halt. I may finish it one day!
Depixtion: a simple picross game with a mildly interesting layering mechanic that broke after I'd only played it for 45 minutes >:( I was having an ok time before then.
Farming/gathering/crafting:
Littlewood: A very cute little farming/gathering game about being a hero who saved the world and is now settling down. There's no real plot, and the characters are very thin, but there was enough thought and creativity put into the fantasy setting and varied characters to make things mildly interesting. All the other characters are male or female, but your gender is never stated, and you can flirt with/marry literally anyone except the Old Man. My fave is the super-strong orc girl who thinks noone will ever find her pretty. Many of them will flirt with you whether you want them to or not, and some express attraction to other villagers of the same gender. But mostly this is about exploring/gathering/crafting etc, and I found that gameplay very enjoyable. There's no combat, just monsters in some places you have to avoid. I found this pretty easy and there's no major penalty for failing, but it does require some hand-eye coordination. I didn't so much finish the game as get bored and just stop after 36 hours of having fun.
Visual Novels:
Cafe Enchante: I posted a full review over on![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
otomegames. But in short this is a very sweet romance/fantasy story about running a cafe frequented by supernatural creatures. Switch only.
Nightshade: In case you missed my summaries, this is a Japanese otome m/f dating sim about a sad ninja princess questioning whether her life has meaning. It's great! I haven't played all the routes but the ones I did were really well done. They're all ninja she has complicated quasi-incestuous relationships with and tend to involve a certain amount of Angst And Drama About Being A Murderer For Hire, and either you're into that or you're not. But the relationships are all also very sweet and romantic with plenty of light moments, and the stories fit together nicely. Content notes: suicide, emotional abuse.
Our Life: Beginnings & Always This competently made, free visual novel is 20% soft friends to lovers romance, growing from childhood with a male friend, and 80% plotless slice of life fluff about Regular American Kids Spending Summer At The Beach. I enjoyed the romance a lot (he's very sweet and shy) but found the rest so boring I eventually just skipped through it all, which made for a rather short game, especially the one time I tried just being friends: it turned out to be just like the romance, but with less scenes. But hey, it's free! There are CONSTANT choices for customising your character, like...height, tastes, diet, even freckle locations, and beyond what pronouns people use these generally have NO EFFECT on ANYTHING beyond SOMETIMES a line or two of acknowledgement. There's personality sliders for you and the love interest but I didn't notice them having much of an effect, and felt unable to actually roleplay genuinely different characters. Also I found the Generic Middle Class Americanness of it off-puttingly bland and alienating. But I talked with someone else who loved how fluffy and sweet and plotless it is, so. If you're into that, have fun!
Arcade Spirits: Romantic comedy VN about working in a video arcade. Competently made, inoffensive, and diverse, but didn't grab me. I chuckled a few times and didn't HATE it but eventually got bored. Lots of character customisation, including the option to use "they" pronouns. Here's a more positive review (which reminded me I hadn't finished this post haha)
Yearning: A Gay Story: Free, light slice-of-life with mild m/m romance about a Nice Normal American Boy starting college. Seems good for what it is, and had heart, but is not my sort of thing. The creator is a really lovely dude and actually added autoplay just because I asked, so if this is your sort of thing go play it so I don't feel like such a jerk for putting him to so much trouble then not finishing the game >.>
When The Night Comes: Entertaining if slight fantasy romance, where you can have she or they pronouns and there's the option of poly which seemed intriguing... but there's no autoplay even though this is a Ren'py game, and the devs didn't reply to me asking about it >:( So I had to stop playing, but you may have fun if that's not a dealbreaker.
Farming/gathering/crafting: Littlewood
Visual Novels: Cafe Enchante, Nightshade, Our Life: Beginnings & Always, Arcade Spirits, Yearning: A Gay Story, When The Night Comes
Puzzle games:
Shapez.io: a free-ish fun little logistics puzzle game where you have to design simple machines to construct layered, coloured shapes from parts. It got samey eventually but was fun for a while, and is enjoyably low stress since you can't ever lose, just progress slower. The browser version I've linked is free, there's a paid desktop version with a few more features that I haven't tried.
Glass Masquerade: a jigsaw puzzle game using pretty art nouveau-ish 'stained glass' art. Very samey, and a little janky, but the art is pretty and it's a nice mindless, pretty distraction. I got it very cheap on special.
Mini-metro: a spatial design puzzle game about efficiently placing train lines that was not fun for me at ALL but seems generally well liked.
Murder by Numbers: Phoenix Wright style murder mystery visual novel, but where you find clues by doing picross style logic puzzles. It was initially very much my jam, with a fun retro 90s aesthetic, slightly bitter divorcee heroine, robot sidekick, etc. But it leans a little into stereotypes and I just hit a case set at a drag bar and came to a halt. I may finish it one day!
Depixtion: a simple picross game with a mildly interesting layering mechanic that broke after I'd only played it for 45 minutes >:( I was having an ok time before then.
Farming/gathering/crafting:
Littlewood: A very cute little farming/gathering game about being a hero who saved the world and is now settling down. There's no real plot, and the characters are very thin, but there was enough thought and creativity put into the fantasy setting and varied characters to make things mildly interesting. All the other characters are male or female, but your gender is never stated, and you can flirt with/marry literally anyone except the Old Man. My fave is the super-strong orc girl who thinks noone will ever find her pretty. Many of them will flirt with you whether you want them to or not, and some express attraction to other villagers of the same gender. But mostly this is about exploring/gathering/crafting etc, and I found that gameplay very enjoyable. There's no combat, just monsters in some places you have to avoid. I found this pretty easy and there's no major penalty for failing, but it does require some hand-eye coordination. I didn't so much finish the game as get bored and just stop after 36 hours of having fun.
Visual Novels:
Cafe Enchante: I posted a full review over on
otomegames. But in short this is a very sweet romance/fantasy story about running a cafe frequented by supernatural creatures. Switch only. Nightshade: In case you missed my summaries, this is a Japanese otome m/f dating sim about a sad ninja princess questioning whether her life has meaning. It's great! I haven't played all the routes but the ones I did were really well done. They're all ninja she has complicated quasi-incestuous relationships with and tend to involve a certain amount of Angst And Drama About Being A Murderer For Hire, and either you're into that or you're not. But the relationships are all also very sweet and romantic with plenty of light moments, and the stories fit together nicely. Content notes: suicide, emotional abuse.
Our Life: Beginnings & Always This competently made, free visual novel is 20% soft friends to lovers romance, growing from childhood with a male friend, and 80% plotless slice of life fluff about Regular American Kids Spending Summer At The Beach. I enjoyed the romance a lot (he's very sweet and shy) but found the rest so boring I eventually just skipped through it all, which made for a rather short game, especially the one time I tried just being friends: it turned out to be just like the romance, but with less scenes. But hey, it's free! There are CONSTANT choices for customising your character, like...height, tastes, diet, even freckle locations, and beyond what pronouns people use these generally have NO EFFECT on ANYTHING beyond SOMETIMES a line or two of acknowledgement. There's personality sliders for you and the love interest but I didn't notice them having much of an effect, and felt unable to actually roleplay genuinely different characters. Also I found the Generic Middle Class Americanness of it off-puttingly bland and alienating. But I talked with someone else who loved how fluffy and sweet and plotless it is, so. If you're into that, have fun!
Arcade Spirits: Romantic comedy VN about working in a video arcade. Competently made, inoffensive, and diverse, but didn't grab me. I chuckled a few times and didn't HATE it but eventually got bored. Lots of character customisation, including the option to use "they" pronouns. Here's a more positive review (which reminded me I hadn't finished this post haha)
Yearning: A Gay Story: Free, light slice-of-life with mild m/m romance about a Nice Normal American Boy starting college. Seems good for what it is, and had heart, but is not my sort of thing. The creator is a really lovely dude and actually added autoplay just because I asked, so if this is your sort of thing go play it so I don't feel like such a jerk for putting him to so much trouble then not finishing the game >.>
When The Night Comes: Entertaining if slight fantasy romance, where you can have she or they pronouns and there's the option of poly which seemed intriguing... but there's no autoplay even though this is a Ren'py game, and the devs didn't reply to me asking about it >:( So I had to stop playing, but you may have fun if that's not a dealbreaker.
