demagogue on 27/3/2022 at 07:13

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Through the Fragmentation. It's kind of on the Flash end of an FP adventure game (I guess we're still calling these walking sims?)... as in nothing really animates except the character's head. Events happen & things pop in and out.

And speaking of characters' heads, the character design is kind of cringe, but I think that's more of a feature than a bug. (The world is pretty simple, but in a nice way.) It's basically a 30-Flights style Blendo game with awkward crow people.

And like a Blendo game (which I imagine had to have been a big part of its inspiration, "30 Flights" most transparently), it has an immersive sim heart, a good sense of humor, and I liked the story & short form intrigue. There are multiple ways you could end it, which was okay since it was short. Since it's exploration based, it's better this way than a one-shot story.

All in all I liked it because I feel like it's one of "our" kind of games. It has that TTLG spirit, which makes sense since I think Blendo games are our kinds of games too.

henke on 27/3/2022 at 12:21

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Ok I played 1.5h of it and got 2 of the endings. Pretty wild stuff! I wouldn't really call it a walking sim since they're usually more passive, you have a lot of agency in this one and there's puzzles and whatnot. Yeah, anyway, it's a good one! :thumb:

Briareos H on 29/3/2022 at 12:31

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I've been spending a lot more time playing since I got a Steam Deck:

Beyond a Steel Sky, despite the relative blandness of its visual style, starts strong with interesting and natural ideas on how to merge traditional point & clicks and Telltale-style adventure games, with an exciting ramp-up that is quickly deflated as you settle into the uninspired core gameplay loop of the second half. Overall still not bad, a worthy sequel to a title that was far from perfect itself.

Behind the Frame: The Finest Scenery. It's not often that I feel cheated by an art game but here you go. It's lovely, it's cute, it's well-made but the puzzles are so basic and rehashed and the daily life of a painter so idealized and superficial that it all felt kinda insulting to me.

Following last year's replay through the GBA Castlevanias:

Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow is a fine Igavania. It doesn't do anything special for me but is a worthy sequel to Aria of Sorrow.
Castlevania Portrait of Ruin disappointed me. I like the character switching but the level design feels mostly empty and disjointed.
On the other hand, Castlevania Order of Ecclesia surprised me -- it's the only one of the three that I hadn't finished on NDS itself, probably because it's much tougher and I had given up at the time. It's very, very good. It uses the Igavania layout with a linear progression straight out of classic Castlevania games in a way that works well and the combat is fantastic -- every encounter must be carefully prepared.

Hyperbolica, because I have a fondness for maths and for the previous work of its main developer CodeParade (e.g. Marble Marcher). The game itself is nice but nothing too deep, and while navigating the hyperbolic space is trippy as hell, it sounds a bit cooler than it actually is. It's short and I didn't have a bad time though, and I'm yet to try it in VR to induce the full nausea.

I love Norco. I love the unashamedly poetic writing that manages to avoid pretension, I love the idea of a slice of life in a magical realist post-cyberpunk deep south -- in fact that might very well be the best setting for a game ever. I love how effortlessly it manages to root itself in reality, much more than, say, Kentucky Route Zero.
After playing the demo I was expecting the full release to be the second coming of Christ. And while it might be in some way, it also goes in a much different direction than I imagined. The full story is a wilder ride than the first act lets on, which is not necessarily a bad thing, in fact, it's its own thing, a unique game which deals with mundane and current topics in a way I haven't seen often in video games, and while I've read reviews that state that it will never be as impactful as KRZ, in my particular case I disagree. Yes, its conclusion feels like there wasn't ultimately much to say, but I still can't stop thinking about it.

Vampire Survivors has no right to be so addictive and I wish I never had bought it.

Nameless Voice on 30/3/2022 at 11:41

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I tried playing this a while back, but it was too buggy for me, so I didn't get anywhere with it.
I can't remember the exact problems I had now, but they were bad enough that I decided not to bother with it at the time.

Desperados: Dead or Alive is great. I bounced off Cooper's Revenge hard. It tried to do the 3D thing and failed at it, and also seemed to have a lot less charm than the first game. The voice actors didn't reprise their roles, and the new Doc especially just sounded really Wrong.

I think Commandos has a similar problem. The first game + expansion was great, the second was okay but lacked a bit of the charm, and the third also tried to do the 3D thing, badly, and just didn't click with me (so I never finished it.)

The modern tactical-stealth games from Mimimi are great. Desperados 3 and Shadow Tactics. Strong recommendation for both.
They manage the switch to 3D and do it well, taking what was great about the old games and innovating on them.
I recently played the new standalone DLC for Shadow Tactics, Aiko's Choice, and it was nice to get back into that world for a few extra levels, even if the DLC was sadly fairly short.

Harvester on 31/3/2022 at 20:08

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Impostor Factory is the third game in a series by Freebird Games, the brainchild of Kan Gao (three major releases, a few minor games notwithstanding). At first it seems to be unrelated to the other games, but to speak about how it ties into the series would be a spoiler. Again, this game features lovely pixel art with good animations, beautiful music, and touching and also sometimes goofy writing. What I liked a little less about this game compared to To The Moon and Finding Paradise is that while the overall plot is clear, some of the specifics concerning simulations within simulations remain a little muddy. But what I really play these games for - aside from the lovely retro aesthetic - are the emotional moments. The whole second act of the game is basically a long version of the first 15 minutes of the movie Up with similar themes, and the game ends on another such sequence. These sequences, where you see a whole life play out, were done well enough to make me have to struggle to hold back tears. It's safe to say that if you liked the previous game, this game is also easily worth the $8.something dollars for the 4 or 5 hours it takes to play through its poignant story. There's no challenge to its gameplay, it's just the story, but that was more than enough for me.