If you’re reading this you’ve most likely come from my video where I went over the 28 games in the bundle that I really enjoyed. But after sampling 550 games, there were quite a few that didn’t quite make the cut, but are still worth talking about for one reason or another.
It’s worth bearing in mind that all of this is once again in my very subjective opinion. These are the games that still lingered in my memory even after I moved on to other things, and that’s not necessarily an indicator of quality. So if a game is not included in this article that doesn’t necessarily mean that it was a bad game.
Originally I was going to include a few games that pissed me off that I wanted to rant about for a bit. But when I went back through the games to get the pictures for this article I found that the game that pissed me off the most wasn’t working, and I would have to try to reinstall it. And I figured you know what, fuck it, let’s just not bother. After all, if a game pissed me off, the last thing I should give it is any more of my time and attention.
So this article is just going to be strictly positive (well, mostly positive), and will only cover the games that I think are good. They either weren’t for me, or aren’t ones I feel inclined to come back to, but I still feel that they had good qualities and deserve a little more attention.
2064 Read Only Memories
This game was okay, but not for me. I liked the characters and the setting, but found the gameplay to be dull and the UI to be clunky. The story was also pretty standard. If you like traditional point and click adventure games you’ll like this, and if you’re a sucker for cyber punk stories it’s worth checking out. But otherwise it’s nothing remarkable.
Amelie
This is a visual novel about two girls who start off as pen pals, and then decide to meet up in person. One is Amelie, who lives in an old fashioned house with her old friend Lilika, and the other is Sofia, who comes to Amelie’s house to visit her in the midst of an unspecified pandemic. From there the two talk and bond, but mysterious things about the house are gradually revealed.
While it has some creepy and macabre elements, including several rather unsettling endings, at its heart it is a love story between the two main girls, and when you reach the main official ending they both get a happy ending. There are a few twists and turns, and there are a few plot elements that don’t quite make sense, but overall I enjoyed it well enough.
Originally this was on the list of good games, so it would have qualified for the video. However, it ended up feeling a bit underwhelming compared with the visual novels that did make it into the video, so I settled for including it in the honorable mentions.
An Outcry
This is a short but creepy visual novel. It’s very surreal and strange, and I’m not entirely sure what it’s about, as what the characters say is very cryptic and vague, and could be interpreted in several ways. It was unnerving but memorable, and I assume that was the goal, so it succeeded. For me at least, I could fully understand if someone else went through it and just thought it was stupid. But it left an impression on me, so it’s worth a mention.
Back to Bed
It’s a puzzle game in which you have to guide a man back to his bed while he sleepwalks. It’s nothing amazing, but it’s a decently put together game, and I think the way it handles failures is pretty clever. If the man walks off a cliff, he just falls down and lands back at the start. It’s dream logic, but since the game is about dreams it fits in perfectly, and is much better than an annoying game over screen.
It’s also from the developers of Figment. I think I’m noticing a pattern with them.
Bard Harder
This is a short visual novel about a person who joins a DND group and goes through a campaign. It was okay, but the only real reason I remember it is because I just happened to play it around the time I attempted to join a DND group in real life in the hopes of meeting some new people and improving my nonexistent social life. But while Bard Harder makes it look super fun, in practice it’s pretty dull, and I lost interest quickly. It has its moments, but there is a lot of trough to go with the peak. Video games and board games are a lot better because they have a more definitive structure and goal, and aren’t dependent on the imagination and charisma of the DM. (or GM, I don’t know which is the proper term)
Batbarian - Testament of the Primordials
This is a metroidvania game in which you take control of a barbarian who has a pet bat. The barbarian can jump and fight, while the bat acts as a light source that can illuminate the darkness.
As far as metroidvanias go it’s pretty decent, and you can tell that a lot of effort went into it. But it never really clicked for me. Part of it is that the game has a slightly off sense of humor that seems excessively self deprecating. If you want to know what I mean, I would recommend watching the Bathos video OSP made on youtube. But another factor is that, well, Hollow Knight has kind of ruined a lot of metroidvanias for me by making my standards a lot higher than they used to be. If you really love metroidvanias this one is worth checking out, but otherwise probably give it a miss.
Cardinal Cross
This is a sci fi visual novel. It’s actually quite well written and well paced, with good artwork and a memorable cast of characters. My only real gripe with it is one I have with a number of visual novels, namely the ones that aren’t content with just being well told linear stories, and pretend to still be video games with token and entirely vestigial interactive elements. The main character is Lana Brice, and throughout the story you’re often presented with several different ways you can respond to characters, which will supposedly change how the character perceives her. But it’s unclear how exactly these choices will affect things long term, and some choices don’t appear to actually matter at all. Broadly speaking the story plays out more or less the same, and the only real difference is the exact ending you get.
I don’t know, I just really wish visual novels would dispense with the pretense and just embrace the fact that they are visual NOVELS, and accept the strengths and shortcomings that come from noninteractive mediums. Trying to also be a video game at the same time while lacking any real gameplay just muddies the water and cheapens the experience. Either be content just being a linear story, or have some actual gameplay, because this half assed middle ground just doesn’t work.
Catlateral Damage
This is a silly game where you play as a cat, and your goal is to roam around the house and knock things over. It’s a cute idea, and while it didn’t really grab me, if you’re a cat person you might get a kick out of it.
Celeste
When I got this bundle I saw several comments saying that because this bundle included Celeste, that alone made it worth getting. I’ve also heard positive things in general about this title. Unfortunately hype can be an insidious thing. Sometimes a game lives up to the hype and you fully get why people praise it so highly. But other times the game fails to live up to the hype, either because it wasn’t actually very good, or more commonly because it was good, but it just doesn’t click with you for whatever reason.
Celeste is a fine enough game, and clearly a lot of time and effort has been put into it. But for me I just couldn’t get into it. Ideally the story and gameplay should meld together almost perfectly, but in Celeste the story and gameplay are largely kept in separate boxes with minimal overlap. Now this would be fine if the story was more simple and just served as a framework for the gameplay. We see that kind of story in games like Super Meat Boy or They Bleed Pixels, where the core of the experience is a series of tough as nails platforming challenges. There is a story, and it is amusing and thematically appropriate, but it’s not the focus. If Celeste was going for something like that, then it would fit with the style of gameplay Celeste has, which is a series of difficult platforming challenges.
But that isn't the case. Celeste seems to be trying to go for a more mature and nuanced narrative with actual depth, and while the characters and story beats are good, they feel disconnected from the gameplay. There’s one part where the protagonist is being escorted through a hotel by its ghostly owner, but their interactions are regularly broken up by platforming challenges that neither character really acknowledges, which ends up feeling rather bizarre. But probably the biggest example of the disconnect between story and gameplay is a scene where the protagonist has a panic attack on a gondola. After all the crazy heights she’s climbed and all the insane death defying stunts you had her pull off in the gameplay, having her suddenly having a panic attack over something comparatively tame feels extremely incongruous.
In general the story and gameplay feel directly at odds with one another. In the story the protagonist is just supposed to be a normal person, but in the gameplay they’re a super athletic jumper and climber who is dealing with ridiculous and unrealistic hazards. It just feels weird. If you want your game to be narrative driven and your protagonist is supposed to just be a normal person then the gameplay should reflect that. A good example of how to do this would be the Silent Hill and Fatal Frame games, where both the story and the gameplay convey that the protagonists are just normal people way in over their head in an unusual situation. If you’re looking for a 2D example Limbo pulled it off pretty well too.
But if you want the game to remain focused on the elaborate platforming challenges then the story should probably take itself less seriously. As it stands, while both are good, it feels like the gameplay and story are appealing to two different audiences. If you like the gameplay then the story will probably feel like a waste of time you’ll want to skip, and if you like the story then the gameplay will quickly start to feel like a tedious and frustrating chore getting in the way of the good stuff. Personally I fall into the latter camp. Though maybe it’s just because I’m not as fond of these types of tough platformers as I used to be. I did like the characters, but not enough to push through the gameplay.
Like I said, Celeste is a fine enough game, and I’ll admit that some of my issues with it are subjective. But after how much it was built up I was left feeling rather disappointed. It’s good, but it just wasn’t for me.
Chronicles of Two Heroes
This is a platformer very reminiscent of the NES and SNES eras. In it you take control of two characters, a samurai and a ninja, each with their own specialties, and you can swap back and forth between them depending on the present challenge.
I’ll be honest, I did find it annoying to have to constantly switch back and forth. But while it’s an annoying mechanic, it at least works. The controls are fluid, the sound and visuals are solid, and overall it’s a nice callback to old retro games while still incorporating the benefits of modern design. It didn’t really grab me, so I didn’t play it for long, but I can recognize that a lot of work and talent went into it, so it deserves some credit for that.
Cloud Gardens
A simple game where you try to grow plants in slightly unusual floating environments. It has a calm, zen like element to it, and if you just need something straightforward and nonthreatening to unwind with it’s got you covered. It didn’t really click for me, but I can see why it might appeal to other people.
Containment
This is a grid based puzzle game in which you have to use antibiotics to kill bacteria before they spread and take over. In order to kill a bacteria you either need to reduce its health to one, or you need to isolate it from all other bacteria. You have a limited number of doses, and they only affect a limited range, so you have to choose carefully and be strategic with where you strike.
The game has good presentation, and the core concept is solid, and it is very fun. But the problem is that the game doesn’t feel properly balanced. Some of the levels feel a bit too easy, while others seem downright impossible, and while in general strategy and careful planning will see you through, sometimes it feels like it’s down to luck, and some levels feel so insanely stacked against you that winning is next to impossible. And it seems that I’m not the only one who didn’t think the game was properly balanced, because after only a few levels the game throws up its hands and gives you a creative mode where you can determine the various factors for yourself, indicating that even the developers weren’t sure how to properly balance the game and so just unlocked the level editor in the hopes that the players would figure it out.
That’s not good, because as a player I play games to have fun, not to have to carefully balance them so that they become fun. Because, you know, properly designing and balancing the game is the developer’s job, and a creative mode or level editor should be a fun bonus, not one of the main parts of the game.
Still, despite this problem I did have fun with this game, but this issue did stop me from including this game in the video.
Cosmic express
This is another puzzle game. This time the premise is that you have to build a space railroad in such a way that it picks up the various alien residents and drops them off at their homes before ending at the exit and moving on to the next area. It’s a cute idea, and the puzzles are for the most part pretty clever, starting off simple but soon requiring you to think things through carefully. I enjoyed it, but it’s got some issues. One is that the game has an annoying habit of switching back and forth between providing you with one or two passenger cars, which can mess you up when planning a route, as you’ll think you can pick up two passengers at once, only to realize you can’t. It also has a problem with some solutions being far too obtuse. I think this is an issue where when you’ve been working on a game for a while you become so intimately familiar with it and with the mechanics, and so you think that the solutions are reasonable to figure out. But to people who are not so familiar with the game the solutions might not be so obvious, which is why it’s important to playtest your game at least a little, so that you can get other people’s feedback and adjust things accordingly.
Still, despite its issues I did enjoy it, and it’s worth a look if you like puzzle games.
CrossCode
This game has a really strong opening. I liked the story, the characters, the overall presentation, and the combat and puzzles seemed quite good. But once the game proper began the core gameplay became incredibly tedious, grindy, and boring, and I found I just couldn’t keep going. Still, if you like RPGs or MMOs or that sort of thing you’ll probably like this. Just keep in mind it has real time combat, not turn based combat.
Death and Taxes
From the somewhat dreary title I’ll admit my expectations were low. But fortunately the game quickly won me over. In it you play as a Grim Reaper who works in an office for a man with a cat called Fate, and your daily job is to look over the profiles of various humans you are given, and to decide who lives and who dies. However, there are rules and limits to it, and if you deviate from them you might get in trouble. Or you might not.
It reminds me a bit of Papers Please, in that both games have you doing a tedious day job that nonetheless gives you a snapshot into the wider world, and gives you power to affect those who come your way. Where they differ is in style and execution.
Papers Please focused almost entirely on the border checkpoint, and left the protagonist's life outside of the checkpoint mostly up to the imagination of the player, only conveyed with little text scrolls at the end of each day, which were more tell then show. But everything at the checkpoint was extremely fleshed out and well put together, so ultimately this didn’t really matter. Death and Taxes, on the other hand, allows the player to explore a little bit outside of their day job. While they are confined to the same building, there is a tiny amount of exploration you can do inside the building, and a few colorful characters you can meet. However, there’s really not that much you can see or do, and the most interesting area, the bar, is only open on weekends, which limits your options even further.
And the actual main part of the game, the part where you decide who lives or dies, gets a bit tedious after a while. I get that that’s partly intentional, as the game points out that you’re dealing with a matter of life and death, yet after a while it loses its weight, which is kind of messed up but also an inevitable part of the job. But even so, the gameplay really doesn’t change or evolve over time, at most you can see how much you can bend or break the rules without getting in trouble. This is another area where Papers Please really shined, because the gameplay did change and evolve over time, maintaining the mundanity of the job but still introducing new elements to keep it feeling fresh and engaging.
Death and Taxes unfortunately gets rather repetitive, and the extreme limits placed on what you can do when you’re not in the office only compounds the issue. I could be wrong, but based on the layout of the building, I suspect that this game was originally going to be bigger and more ambitious, with more things to do and more characters and story threads to explore. However, it appears that they were unable to flesh things out as much as they wanted, and so some corners had to be cut. Which is understandable, but even so it’s not a good sign when the corner cutting is painfully obvious.
I did enjoy my time with Death and Taxes. It’s got a lot of charm, some likable characters, and memorable moments. And the voice acting is all really good too. But it’s not a great game, and given how tedious and repetitive the core gameplay loops ends up being, and how little there is to do outside of it, I don’t know if I’ll ever play it again. I might, but it’s not one I see myself returning to often.
Democratic Socialism Simulator
The title of this game might sound a little controversial, especially if you’re a US citizen with a stunted understanding of politics. But to those of us who bother to expand our knowledge of the world outside of right wing echo chambers the title sounds rather intriguing.
In this game you play as the president of the US, who in this case is a progressive Democrat, as opposed to the corporate Democrat currently in the white house at time of writing, and you play a simplified and streamlined simulator of various policies and decisions you must make while president. There are several meters you have to keep an eye on. One is the amount of money you have in the budget, and while you can still spend money while running a deficit, it’s obviously best to try to get it back up to a surplus, or at least breaking even. Another meter is the amount of power the people have. At the start of the game the meter is empty, and one of your goals is to try to fill it up by giving more power to the people. The last meter is the greenhouse gas emissions level, which starts off completely filled, but can be lowered with green policies.
One other factor is the voting population. The various decisions you make can make different voters more or less likely to vote for you, and typically certain policies will make some people happy but will alienate others. There are three elections, the midterms, the re election campaign, and then the second midterms. How the people vote will determine how much control of Congress you have, which in turn will determine whether or not you can pass certain laws or policies.
All of this sounds really complicated, but in practice it’s really not. You’re presented with a series of situations and dilemmas, and you’re given one of two options to choose, which will have consequences relating to one or more of the things I outlined above. After that, you’re presented with another situation that you are given one of two options to choose from, and so on until the game is over.
It’s a cute idea, but it really is streamlined and oversimplified a lot. I understand that this was probably put together by a small team, possibly even a solo developer, but when you’re dealing with something as complicated and touchy as politics, it’s hard not to notice the limits and problems.
It will often act like certain policies are a no brainer, or that certain things are obviously bad. That certainly is true in some cases. For example, trickle down economics is demonstrably bullshit, and anyone claiming otherwise is either lying, or is an idiot who listens to liars, so I can’t blame the game for taking a not so subtle jab at it. But there are other issues that are less clear cut, like organic farming or renewable energy. The game seems to think that organic farming is a completely good thing when in reality it has some real problems, and when discussions of energy come up nuclear energy is never mentioned once, despite being more reliable than solar or wind energy, and at the very least being objectively better than fossil fuels. While those who lean politically right seem prone to ignoring facts they don’t like, those who lean politically left are also guilty of it too sometimes, as can be demonstrated by this game’s blind spots.
In fairness there is some nuance. There are some situations where there isn’t a clear answer. Sometimes a policy will sound good, but then there’s the worry of how to pay for it. Sometimes doing what seems right is deeply unpopular with most voters, and on the flip side sometimes doing slightly sneaky or underhanded things actually attracts certain voters without alienating the others. There’s even certain scenarios where siding with the evil lobbyists is actually the best option, because the reality is that the world is complicated, the problems facing the world are complicated, and the solutions will necessarily also have to be complicated.
Still, while the game is short and rather simple, its message is ultimately a positive one. Things can be fixed, things can get better, and while it won’t be easy or fast, it’s a process worth undertaking.
Brief soap box, but while both major parties in the US are deeply flawed, it’s not even a close contest of which one is worse. The Democratic Party pressured its candidate to drop out because he was old and cognitively declining, and he eventually listened and put the good of the party and the country ahead of his own ego. Meanwhile, the Republican candidate is not only an old man who is cognitively declining, he’s also a convicted felon, a corrupt businessman, a sexual predator, a serial liar, and a divisive demagogue. And yet despite all of these glaring character flaws, the Republican Party hasn’t even tried to pressure him into dropping out. Instead, they flat out deny that he has any of these flaws, flagrantly disregarding observable reality in order to stubbornly stand by their dear leader.
One of these is a political party, the other is an authoritarian cult. And until the Republican Party stops being an authoritarian cult, it should be the number one priority of every sane citizen to make sure they never regain power. Especially with project 2025 being a factor.
Okay, soap box over. This game was cute, and while short it clearly had effort put into it. But I don’t see myself returning to it again. It’s okay, but because of how simple it is there’s not really that much variation in what can happen.
Also, if my soap box offended you, well, sorry, but facts don’t care about your feelings. That’s a true statement, even if the guy who coined that phrase frequently ignores it when it suits him.
Don’t Escape - 4 Days to Survive
This is a point and click adventure game that actually managed to draw me in. The premise is you take control of a man who is in the midst of an unspecified post apocalypse scenario, and each day you need to find a way to survive. The first day you have a dream about being devoured by a swarm of locusts, and when you wake up you see a cloud of locusts on the horizon, and you have until nightfall to prepare. Something similar happens the second day, and so on.
It has really solid atmosphere, and I found myself getting invested. The cause of the apocalypse is slightly novel too, as apparently the moon broke into several pieces, and it will soon crash to earth. It’s an interesting idea, and the visual of the broken moon in the sky is a striking one. Still, my suspension of disbelief did take a slight hit because the moon breaking up like that and slamming into earth completely defies the laws of physics, so unless God or highly advanced aliens are involved it’s just not possible.
What ultimately kept me from continuing was a common issue with point and click adventures, namely it has one specific way to solve problems, and if you can’t figure it out things descend into frustration and guessing games. The first night took quite a lot of trial and error to survive, because if you don’t find a way to keep out almost all of the locusts you die, but I did eventually figure it out on my own. The second night though the problems and their solutions were much more convoluted and obscure, and I could not for the life of me figure out what the hell the game wanted from me. I also think it was a mistake for the game to introduce more characters to follow you around, as it kind of ruins the lonely atmosphere of desolation that the game had effectively cultivated.
Still, while it annoyed me enough that I didn’t finish it, it did a lot right, and does deserve credit for the things it does right.
Eatvolve
Imagine a cross between EVO: Search for Eden and a Kirby game. That’s basically Eatvolve in a nutshell. For those unfamiliar, EVO was a game from the SNES era that tried to simulate the gradual process of evolution, as you start off as a fish but gradually evolve and get stronger as you progress. It was an interesting idea, but the execution was rather mediocre. And of course in Kirby games you consume your enemies and take their powers to use for yourself.
In Eatvolve you start as a tiny helpless little worm, but you can eat the other creatures in the environment and gain their abilities to help you get stronger and navigate the game’s obstacles. The levels are procedurally generated, and one hit is all it takes to kill you and force you to start again. This is mitigated slightly by the fact that most enemies die in one hit as well, but even so you have to be hyper vigilant. Because if you die, it doesn’t matter how strong you’ve gotten, you go straight back to being a helpless little worm.
Personally I prefer roguelikes that will allow you to gradually unlock new things and abilities, so that even if you die and are sent back to the beginning you still made tangible progress that will make the next run a little more manageable. This one seems to be one where no progress is saved at all, and you have to start over completely from scratch each time you die. Combined with the fact that you die in one hit, and this game is brutal.
Given that evolution is a central theme of the game, it feels like a missed opportunity to not have each death and rebirth represent a new and slightly more advanced generation. Ultimately I found it to be a little too hard and frustrating for my liking. The procedural levels are also a bit flawed, as it is quite possible to end up in an area where there is no way out, and all you can do is starve and try again on the next run. But even so, the core idea and design is solid, and while a little rough around the edges it plays well and presents well, and deserves more attention. It wasn’t for me, but I respect it enough that I’d like to do what little I can to make it more visible.
Elephantasy
This is a cute little title that I think is trying to mimic the look and feel of old game boy games. In it you play as an elephant, and your goal is to explore and use items to collect gems. And that’s about it. It was okay.
Fake Illusions
This is a puzzle game where you are presented with a bunch of different shapes, and you just have to click the one that is different from the rest. Sounds simple, but it gets harder as it goes on, and it takes advantage of quirks of human vision to make the solution tricky to spot.
It’s decent, but the actual puzzles are a mixed bag. Most of them I was able to figure out, but some of them I couldn’t figure out what the hell the game wanted from me no matter how hard I tried. It also hinges on the player having good eyesight, so if you have visual problems, and especially struggle with spotting tiny details, this game will just be an exercise in frustration. Still, it kept my attention for a lot longer than some of the other puzzle games in this bundle, so it deserves some credit for that.
Find Me
This is a short platformer about someone who has a near death experience, and their spirit or shade or whatever has to make their way through a series of platforming levels while trying to stay out of the light, as their form fades and disappears when in light. It’s not amazing, but it’s decently put together, and it kept me interested enough that I was willing to finish it, so it must have been doing something right.
Fortune - 499
This game gave off a really good first impression, as it has an interesting premise, likable characters, and a unique RPG battling system that is a mix between fortune telling and rock paper scissors. But unfortunately it didn’t take long before I got to a point in the game where I was just flat out stuck, and couldn’t progress forward no matter how many times I tried. If I die in a game, I want it to feel like it was because I messed up, and not because the game was being unfair or was badly designed. This game fails in this regard, and so while I wanted to like it I just can’t.
Fostering Apocalypse
This is a very short game in which you take control of a man who finds himself in a post-apocalyptic world that has seemingly been destroyed by demons or something. He comes across a house full of crazy cult members and beats them all to death. He then discovers a strange tiny demon in a cage. However, the demon looks and acts like a confused and frightened child, and he finds he can’t bring himself to hurt it, and instead takes it under his wing. The two of them journey across the country until they reach the beach, occasionally stopping for food and other supplies as needed.
Like I said, it’s a very short game, and while there is some interactivity and a few different endings, there’s really not much to it. I did like it, but its short length does make it hard to remember or recommend. There have been plenty of short games in this bundle, but a lot of them still felt like finished stories and left you satisfied. This feels more like a proof of concept, a good idea that nonetheless isn’t fully fleshed out. Still, I did like it, though I doubt I’ll ever play it again due to how insubstantial it is.
Good Morning Hon
This is a short but grim game. It starts off fairly sweet, but quickly gets dark, and the implications for the main character are pretty messed up. I can see two possible interpretations, neither of which are good. I was kind of hoping that there was a way to change the ending, but as far as I can tell there isn’t, it plays out the same way each time, which may be intentional for thematic reasons.
It’s depressing, so if you prefer happy games this won’t be for you, and if you’re expecting an actual fully fleshed out game you won’t get it here, since it can be finished in less than ten minutes. But I must admit that it was effective and did stick with me.
Hypnagogia
This game feels rather reminiscent of the old platformers from the PS1 and N64 era. The main difference is that for some reason it has a first person perspective. It’s not bad, and it clearly had a lot of heart and effort put into it, but in the end it was just okay. Good enough for me to give it an honorable mention, but I highly doubt I’ll ever play it again.
INNMOST
I’m not really sure what to make of this game. On the one hand the core gameplay is good, it has solid presentation and atmosphere, and it has a lot of moments that were effective. But the problem is that the story is a bit too confusing and vague.
The game shifts between a little girl exploring and playing games in a house with potentially abusive parents, a man making his way through an old abandoned kingdom by solving puzzles and overcoming obstacles, and a knight going through dangerous dungeons and areas and killing everything that moves.
The problem is that it’s rather unclear how exactly all of these three storylines connect. Sometimes it seems like the game might be switching back and forth between different time periods in the same world, while other times it seems like the little girl in the house is the only real story and the other two storylines are just games and stories she’s making up to express her feelings and cope with her troubled homelife, but then there are other things that cast that idea into doubt.
It’s not entirely clear what exactly is going on, and that’s a problem. It’s fine for a story to make you think that one thing is going on only to later reveal that something different was going on. But in order to subvert expectations you have to firmly establish context about which you can have expectations in the first place. Because the game never really puts down any solid rules or makes it clear what’s going on, there’s nothing to ground the narrative to.
In the end I just kept going from set piece to set piece with almost zero understanding of what was going on, and just trying to enjoy the moment to moment gameplay. Thanks to a lot of cleverly designed puzzles, excellent atmosphere, and some effective character interactions, there was a lot I enjoyed about this game. But when it was all over I just felt confused and depressed. It’s got a lot going for it, but I found the story to be too confusing, disjointed, and even a little pretentious at times, and I think the game would have been better if the story had been less ambiguous and more clear about what sort of story it was trying to tell. As it is, I did like it, but I doubt I’ll play it ever again.
Interactivity - The Interactive Experience
It was okay. It’s basically like the Stanley Parable, except much shorter but with more interactivity in the environment. I’d recommend playing the Stanley Parable first, and if you like that then this game is worth checking out. But if you don’t like the Stanley Parable, this one is safe to skip.
Kids
This was a moderately amusing experience, but it’s pretty short, and I’m not sure what the point of it was. It feels like it was trying to have a deeper meaning, but it’s so vague that I have no idea what it could have been. There seem to be a lot of developers that are trying to be artsy and clever, but that only works if the end result is actually clever. If it’s not, then it just comes across as pretentious.
Lonely People Potion Shop
For a game that was apparently only developed in a month, you can tell that a lot of care and love went into it. It’s not a great game, and it feels more like a proof of concept than a finished product. But I really enjoyed my time with it, and I would be interested in playing a more fleshed out version.
Lucifer Within Us
This game is a murder mystery game that takes place in an interesting setting where the denizens are extremely religious but also technologically quite advanced. You play as an exorcist, and your job is to determine if anyone has been possessed by a demon. A string of murders occur, and you have to figure out who the killer is and flush out the demon that pushed them to kill.
It’s an interesting premise, and there’s a lot to like. It is neat how you can watch the testimony of each suspect unfold, and slowly piece things together as you figure out who is telling the truth, who isn’t, and what actually happened. I also do like the worldbuilding, as it’s subtle but interesting, and probably one of the most unique settings I’ve seen in a game.
There are some downsides. The biggest one is that the game has a bad habit of making the correct solution difficult to puzzle out. You can think you’ve figured out the logical way forward when you spot an inconsistency in a suspect’s story, but the game will just fold its arms and refuse to let you progress, typically because you didn’t ask the questions in the “correct” order. And on the flip side the “correct” questions can sometimes feel a bit random and arbitrary. As a result things will often descend into guessing games, which undermines the appeal of mystery games, namely that they let you feel clever for figuring things out. But on the bright side the game doesn’t punish you for getting something wrong and lets you keep trying as many times as you need to get it right, which is definitely better than forcing us to start over if we screwed up once too often.
Another issue is that the game is incredibly short. You only investigate three murders, and after that the plot takes a sudden drastic turn, and the story ends in a way that I guess was supposed to be dark and bittersweet but just left me feeling confused and underwhelmed. The ending could have worked if there had been more build up and foreshadowing to it, but because the game was so short that just wasn’t possible. Also, one nitpicky problem I have with the game is that some of the dialogue has voice acting accompanying it, but some of it doesn’t. This is a pet peeve of mine, but I’ve always felt that a game should either have all of its lines voice acted, or none of them, because anything in between just feels off.
But while it was short and flawed, I did still find it engaging enough to finish it, so it must have been doing something right.
Metamorphabet
This was a mildly amusing game that is clearly intended to be an instructional tool to help kids learn the alphabet in an interactive and fun way. I personally don’t have any kids, and unless my vasectomy fails that’s not going to change any time soon. But if you do have kids, or plan to have kids, then this is a fun way to teach them the alphabet that is worth checking out.
Midnight Scenes: The Nanny
This is a short point and click adventure game, and its goal is to creep you out. And I can say it definitely succeeded in that. It’s not a great game, but it is effectively creepy and unnerving, so if you’re looking for something spooky you’ll find it here.
Mostly Intense Monster Defense
This is a game where you control a legion of monsters, and have to keep humans and heroes from invading your lair. It’s very reminiscent of plants vs zombies. Or at least I think it is, I’ve never actually played plants vs zombies despite knowing about it. But it seems like the gameplay is quite similar.
It’s a decent game, but while it starts off pretty good, and gives you a chance to familiarize yourself with how the game works, it ramps up the challenge way too quickly, and I found I didn’t have the patience to keep trying again after each failure. Still, if you like bridge or tower defense games, this one is worth checking out.
Neo Guardian
This is a simple arcade like game where you defend a city from an alien invasion. And that’s about it. It’s not amazing, but it is fun, and after going through a whole bunch of similar retro style games that left little to no impression this was the only one that I felt like playing again, though admittedly not for very long.
Plunge
This is a roguelike game where you take control of a prisoner who is sent to a prison that is apparently at capacity, and so they are sent down a pit and take a plunge into a dungeon, where they have no choice but to keep going down until they escape or die.
It’s a decent rogue like, but personally I couldn’t get into it. It’s got an isometric perspective, which I find is one of my least favorite perspectives in a game, and as a result the controls feel clunky and weird to me. Still, I recognize that my issues with it are entirely subjective, and it’s got a lot of good qualities, so if you’re looking for a roguelike game that feels distinct this will certainly deliver.
Rite
This is a platformer where your goal is to beat each level, and that’s about it. It looks and sounds appealing, has good presentation, and is a fine enough game. But it helped me put a finger on why I just don’t care for a lot of these types of games.
The main issue is that the platforming challenges, while good, exist for their own sake. And I find that just isn’t enough for me any more. With something like Hollow Knight there are plenty of platforming challenges, as well as tough boss fights, but the challenges don’t exist for their own sake, there is actual context and stakes behind them. There is a tangible goal, a real story, a believable world to explore, an actual point to it all. And I find that I do need that context and narrative stakes in order for me to actually give a shit and tolerate the difficult challenges a game throws at me. Because the difficult challenges by themselves just aren’t enough to maintain my attention anymore, I’m much more likely to just give up in frustration.
So, yeah, Rite is a fine enough game, I recognize that it has good qualities, but because of my personal preferences and hang ups I just couldn’t get into it.
Rogue Slide
This is a roguelike game that involves sliding tiles around and making careful strategic decisions. It didn’t really grab me, but the concept was well put together and feels pretty unique, so I think it deserves a shout out.
Self Checkout Unlimited
At first I thought this was a horror game set in a mall, but as it went on it became clear that it was more of a philosophical walking simulator, with the mall acting as a framing device for the other set pieces that explore life and what it means to be alive. It’s a bit pretentious, but it’s got some effective moments, and I did feel engaged enough to finish it. So I’ll say that it was okay, and it was definitely the least shit walking simulator in this bundle.
Spell Casting
Despite the fantastical sounding name, all you do in this game is draw lines. That’s it. It’s kind of disappointing, but it does have good presentation, and if you have any kids this is another game that might be enjoyable for them, and might even improve their hand eye coordination.
The Fall of Lazarus
I remember liking this game, but at one point I got stuck on a puzzle later on, and I ended up putting it on the backburner for a while. I tried to go back and replay it from the beginning to refresh my memory, but every single time I tried to do that, the game crashed. I tried redownloading the game to see if that would fix the issue, but it didn’t, it still crashes every time I try to start the game. This game probably would have qualified for the video, but because it refused to work I have no choice but to relegate it to the honorable mentions. Given my own experience, I can’t really recommend it to anyone unless there’s a guarantee that the game will actually work. So if the developers happen to see this, fix it. I don’t know what the problem is, and even if there is a solution frankly I shouldn’t have to jump through extra hoops just to get the game to work when so many other games are able to run without issue.
The Search
It’s a point and click adventure game with a focus on painting, art, and creation. It’s short and incredibly pretentious, but it does have clever ideas, and it drew me in enough that I was willing to play it all the way to the end, so it must have been doing something right.
Underhero
This game has a lot of good qualities. It has a clever premise, the pixel art is decent, and clearly a lot of effort was put into it. But it just feels a bit off. The controls are clunky, the sound and animations don’t always sync up, which is rather jarring, the combat system is good in theory but rather awkward in execution. Awkward really is the best word to sum up my problems with the game. The presentation feels clumsy, and the gameplay was clunky and annoying, so I couldn’t keep going. I feel bad, because it’s got some good stuff going for it, and I can tell they were trying. But it just wasn’t for me.
Welcome to Elk
This is a rather strange game. It’s a narrative driven game in which you play as Frigg, a young woman who has just moved to the small town of Elk in order to learn how to become a carpenter. However, as she gets to know the people of the town strange things begin to happen.
I don’t want to call the game pretentious, because unlike some of the other games in this bundle which felt like they thought they were oh so clever, this game felt really genuine, like they were earnestly trying to get some sort of deeper meaning across. But the problem is that I don’t think they succeeded.
Throughout the game there are several times where the game breaks the fourth wall, and tells a story about the real life events that the story in the game was based on. It feels rather jarring, and ends up distracting from the narrative rather than enhancing it. If you want to talk about the real life events that inspired the narrative of the game, that’s fine, but it should probably be relegated to behind the scenes content. Including it in the actual game’s story is an odd choice, and in the end I don’t think it works. The game builds up the mystery of what’s going on in Elk, but at the end it just shrugs and says eh, doesn’t matter, it was a neat story though right?
I did like the characters, the visuals were simple but pleasant, and the story did have a lot of intriguing and memorable moments, and I was invested enough to finish the game. But in the end it’s not entirely clear what the point of the story was supposed to be, or if there even was a point to the story at all. It’s got some good stuff, but because it ultimately doesn’t amount to anything in the end and is just frustratingly confusing and vague, I doubt I’ll ever play it again.
Still, at least the ending just left me confused and unsatisfied, rather than actively pissing me off like some other endings I could mention.
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