2022 (2/3): Bugsnax on Top

As I've stated in my last blog, I'll split my blog in three parts this year to hopefully make these easier to read through and allow myself to speak in more depths on the topics I cover in each blog! This blog will cover the games and other such things I've experienced from May to the end of August 2022. 

No life stuff this time around, as I didn't have any sebaceous cyst on my back or anything! That wound's completely healed by now too, though I suppose it has left me with a discoloured spot on my back. Yes, I'm sure the very many men who get to look at my back will ask a myriad of questions. All zero of them!!

See also my blog about Pokémon Reborn, which I had to cut out of this blog because it was literally like half the blog and 10,000+ words!

Bugsnax

I've already had quite a bit to say about this game before! This was a pretty personal blog, and it was difficult to write, but the reception to it has been very positive I think. I then did not go on to ramble in chat some months after about all of the bizarre games I'd been playing, leaving a veritable tsunami of Mania Moments in my wake, as I most definitely learned my lesson about doing something stupid like that. Right? Right! This is a sensible way to open up this blog, I think.

I love this official art. It's so clean and nice.

Oh, right, I was gonna talk about Bugsnax. Ah, Bugsnax. I'm quite confident this is going to be my GAME OF THE YEAR, as I truly did enjoy it in all aspects. While I talked a lot about some bits that personally resonated with me in that blog, I'd be remiss to not discuss all the other aspects of the game I enjoyed!

L-LIZBERT MANIAFIG??

Which is... All of it! I love the goofy muppet-like designs of the characters! The cute designs of the Bugsnax! The bizarre mutations you can give them by feeding them snax! The bright and colourful aesthetic! The rad OST! All the character arcs, interwoven with the overarching mystery! The surprising and dark turn of the game towards the end! It's not for nothing that I whole blog about how certain themes in the game resonated with me, the game's very diverse cast of weird characters means there's something in there for everybody I think. The setting of Snaktooth Island as a place where people go who are just at the end of their ropes makes for such an interesting gaggle of characters. Though my favourite, if I had to pick one, would of course easily be Chandlo. How can anyone not love Chandlo? Ahh, Chandlo...

Chandlo, my beloved.

Bugsnax still lingers with me after those months, I still find myself looking up fanart and such. That kind of thing happens only rarely for me, especially for this long. I think that's the hallmark of a good story, if it sticks with you and makes you want to see more. And despite that, I still also feel like the game itself concluded satisfactorily. The free content update that happened in 2022 really did a lot to shore up the setting and whatnot, while also leaving what seems to me like clear hints there might be more still for Bugsnax? It's hard to know given the way the game ends! 

And let's not forget just the basic gameplay of catching Bugsnax! It's not too common for me to go for a full and total 100% completion in games, but for Bugsnax I did go out of my way to catch them all and finish all of the game's many sidequests, since I just enjoyed that core gameplay loop of catching the titular Bugsnax with my traps!

That's what I wrote here at first, but looking back at what I wrote here after going full MANIA MODE when talking about Pokémon Reborn, AI: Nirvana Initiative and Small on Top leaves me thinking I surely have more to say about Bugsnax! So let's!!

This is just me when I'm writing blogs

While I did talk about the thing that really caught my eye about this game in my prior blog, it was also my further research that roped me into playing it. A game about muppets that eat weird bug/snack bybrids and their bodies transform?? That's just so weird, right? The gameplay itself also is hard to really categorize, Wikipedia categorizes it as "adventure" which is of course super vague! If anything, I guess I'd call it an "emergent puzzle game", as a big part of the game comes not just from observation and timing, but also the ways all the game's systems interact with each other organically. Everything follows rules, but these rules feel a lot more natural and organic than they would in a more straight-laced puzzle game. I think that's where a lot of the fun in catching the Bugsnax comes from, there's almost always several different methods to success by combining the several traps, or having the Bugsnax do the work for you with a clever set-up.

I also just really appreciated the overall tone of the game's character writing, and how the characters all go through their arcs. There's a stark dissonance between the cutesy muppety designs of the characters and their actual surprisingly grounded dialogue. Seeing the tiny goofy pink Grumpus called Gramble Gigglefunny deliver a plethora of epic scorches over the course of the game never stops being funny, these Grumpuses can be downright savage, and the degree of hostility there is between some of them makes the cutscenes so much more interesting than if everyone just kinda gets along. It really is striking how much outright hostility there is between much of the cast initially. It also helps that the characters are very expressive, the expressions always match up well with the dialogue! It also makes it so much more satisfying when they do finally start to see eye-to-eye as their personal arcs get resolved. 

Big oof.

It also really does make that final sequence so harrowing if you don't do their quests and fuck up when the Bugsnax turn hostile. The game's sudden tonal shift near the end feels very jarring, but the whole game up to then has also pretty much been one big build up to that big reversal. It's also helped by the music score ramping up the intensity for that final encounter and incorporating so many leitmotifs from earlier segments. While I do wish the finale had more time to breathe and more dialogue in it, the stuff that is there just feels so good. 

Also the part where everybody's sidequest ends on a somewhat bitter note. Lovely!

Even though I didn't go over all of them in my prior blog, I did like the character arcs for the characters I didn't mention. Floofty learning to be more approachable to people was nice to see, and also I just love how completely unhinged they are. Like, their plan was to cut off their own head and have Bugsnax pumped into the neck stump to see if their head would regrow? That's ridiculous, right? That's the sort of thing one'd expect to see in a twisted horror game, and no doubt it'd turn into a nightmare scenario if they did go through with it. 

What

I also like Gramble's arc where he just keeps trying so hard to make family out of the Bugsnax and it's super obviously not sticking with any of them except for one of them he did somehow connect with. The game never actually explains what did happen with his old family, it seems they just straight up one day ditched him entirely. I find it interesting to see how a lot of people take what he says about the Bugsnax being his family at face value despite the game making it pretty clear they really don't care at all. He's basically wasting his love on something that'll never love him back. It also it pretty gruesome where in the bad end he forcefully is fed the Bugsnax and seems almost happy he finally gets to be part of their family before he turns into Snakmatter. That's pretty rough. I can't get over how downright depressing some of those bad endings are, these dumb little muppets just giving in to despair or manic delusions and literally unraveling. Brr.

Don't worry, that's chocolate. Not... Something else.

I also really do like this game's overall aesthetic. People really kinda joked about the game when the first trailer hit because of its graphics not being ultra super duper HD, but the actual look of the game itself is just pleasant. Everything is colourful, the wildlife is silly and fantastical, obviously there's the muppets who come in all colours of the rainbow and then some. It's just pleasant. 

And the musical score that accompanies it also feels super comfortable, it's honestly just a great OST, which of course is all a way for the island itself to lull the player into a false sense of security. That whole façade is torn away during the ending where a sickly red hue tints everything into a darker look, this really just uncanny food matter starts sprouting out everywhere that feels deeply wrong and the music goes real sinister and intense. I really do all that. And it's what makes me so curious a sequel to this game could even look like, given the whole thing was built on top of a façade that gets torn away. Where could they go next? Or is this perhaps it for the Bugsnax universe? I do honestly want to see more of this society these muppetfolk have built.

AF:C

Ah yes, I truly got to stretch my creative brain far with AF:C this time around. Very far... Perhaps too far.

WHERE NO DICE HAS GONE BEFORE

It's been some time since I've participated in that collaborative quest, but that time has been spent on brewing the most flabbergasting stew. A curious concoction of HOPE and DESPAIR. Building the OVERLAY NETWORK. Engaging in the ULTIMATE DICE BATTLE. Yes.

Very Zetsubou Dragon

Honestly, doing all that was a lot of fun! I looked back at that period in which I put these ideas into the quest, and it seems I did it all in the span of a week! Wow! I'm surprised I got that much done so quickly! Perhaps too quickly, as I only later looked back at my notes and thought "oh wait I forgot to put in these cool ideas". Ah well, even now the thing I did put in is so bloated! 

The effects of NEXTRA have been disastrous

Perhaps my next blog I'll once more get to write about AF:C? We'll see! Any one such musing about AF:C could always be the final one, after all. I certainly didn't think years ago I'd still be doing something with this engine now... But if anything, I am consistent. Unbending. Unchanging. Uncompromising. Inflexible.

Stanley Parable Deluxe

Did I ever write about The Stanley Parable in my blog? I could swear I did, but a quick search would indicate I did not. Strange! 

And that is honestly what this whole expansion was: Strange! And in the best possible way! The Stanley Parable really kickstarted somewhat of a trend in games, is a vague statement I feel comfortable just throwing out since nobody can interrupt my train of thought when writing this blog. This thing in games where they examine the medium of gaming itself, or are about aspects of it and such. And I find those types of experiences and narratives, games that are about games, genuinely interesting! That's why I was exciting for the NEW CONTENT in this Deluxe version!

OMG, VETRIX NARRATOR MODE

And it delivered! It was far beyond what I was expecting it to be, and I eagerly explored all the new stuff! The new dialogue and endings were all just as amusing as the old stuff, while also just offering a lot of interesting thoughts on the nature of feedback, having fan expectations and what it even means to be a "sequel" to the Stanley Parable. It's a very weird narrative that only feels like it could have been pulled off by making this expansion to The Stanley Parable, and it all just felt like it fit right in.

The hope of gaining the bucket

I don't regret any of the time I spent exploring all the stuff there was to explore with this one. And at the end of the day, I think that's a sign that the game succeeded. I look forward to seeing what Davey Wreden will be putting out next! 

And then: Games from the Bundle!

An intermission here, the next gaggle of games were all some leftover games from back when I got the racial Justice Bundle from itch.io back in 2020! I'd made a shortlist back then, and these were the games I still had left on that list! I won't have as much to say about these games, as they were mostly games I'd just streamed in a few sittings before moving on!

Clam Man

This was the first one I picked, and it was immediately the best one! Clam Man was just an earnestly fun and quick-witted point-and-click adventure game that never felt like it overplayed a joke or overstayed its welcome. Something that I can hardly say for many other adventure games out there!

I actually made screenshots for this one!

The fact that the game makes it so that the gameplay always takes place in very limited locations means that there's none of the usual endless backtracking and trying everything on everything stuff, since even if you do get stuck somehow it won't ever take long to just brute force. I only had to look up what to do once, and that was for a puzzle.

I love this game

It also helps that the game was just overall funny. I had a lot of moments of small laughter, just from the casualness of the game and how it keeps adding in new and idiosyncratic gags. Again, it never felt like it wore its jokes too thin, it was always kinda just on the go and moving on to the next bit and setpiece. And that's something I can really respect in a genre that's so infamous for being the opposite of that. 

Islands

This game reminds me of GNOG, which I discussed in my 2020 blog. The core gameplay is pretty similar, you're presented with a strange 3D scenario and have to click on things in the right order for the scene to play out. These scenes are very ethereal and are a blend of real and abstract, or rather, they are weirdly abstract renditions of real objects and scenarios? 

The deeper meaning of this scene revealed.

It's overall in interesting experience, but not once I walked away from feeling much about either way. It's kind of a big nothing in the end, which leaves me with little to say about it now. I did find some sequences to be rather slow and tedious! 

Kids

One of those weird, quicky and short art games. You probably best know this one from that meme about a figure walking through a crows and everybody flocking away to keep distance. 

Chat when I hyperfixate

Apparently, the full title is "KIDS - A Game Of Crowds"? Or perhaps not, but it'd be a fitting title since that is overall what the game is about... If one wanted to take it seriously. Considering I streamed this game, we were mostly laughing about the voice clips like "this way" "no, this way" "I agree". Overall it was just one of those fun experiences that you just don't think about afterwards. So it's like Islands, but with a much brisker pace, less abstraction and more giggling.

Parallax 

Parallax is a nifty FPS puzzle game that's purely focused on gameplay. The idea the whole game's based on is that there's these portals that when you go between them shift the world between two states, which is also where the game's two-tone artstyle comes in, kinda like the Obra Dinn, but sleek and modern. 

This world is but a simulation.

More than anything this game reminded me of classic puzzle games you'd find on flash sites like Kongregate and such, with a sequence of puzzles of increasing complexity and with new gameplay elements added now and then. There's not much more to it than that!

Ruya 

Another puzzle game that feels like something from a flash site, but in a good way. This one is a 2D puzzle game where the goal is to cluster up orbs of the same colour, kind of like games such as Bejeweled or PoyoPoyo... Though it's a lot more slow-paced than those games. The game's overall aesthetic is very comfy, so I enjoyed spending some time getting through this. 

Of course, I didn't take any screenshots, to...

IT'S ORBIN' TIME

I did lose interest halfway through all levels, though, and I never figured out how the game's scoring system worked. There also seems to be a plot to the game, but it's all kept rather vague through very limited, dialogueless and short cutscenes.

Your Future Self 

This game seemed interesting, but I couldn't get it to work! 

Yeah, I get that a lot.

Apparently it's a game about convincing your future self that whatever atrocity they committed was wrong. But I couldn't say if that's true or not, since it didn't work! Too bad.

UnderHero

UnderHero? More like UnderWhelming!!

Ok, I had to get that one out of the way. This one is more substantial than the ones above me here, and I went into it with some expectations! The game then just didn't really meet them. It's a fine game overall, but it felt lacking in some areas despite being polished to a shine in others.

I appreciate the incredibly noticeable gorillass. Delicious.

Most notably I found the writing and story in this one rather bleh and undercooked. The game's writing feels like this weird off-brand Nintendo writing, but it's also a lot more self-aware and edgy and mature? It just never really clicked, it felt like the game was constantly trying too hard to be funny and relatable and whatnot.

I don't think this is helped by how the game begins with very little gameplay and a pretty big hub world to explore instead, filled with NPCs and whatnot. It just keeps piling on the mediocre writing, and it just battered me down. And this is coming from someone whose standards for comedy in games is honestly pretty low, it doesn't take much to amuse me. 

I did laugh at the PISS DUNGEON. Definitely a real thing that happens.

The plot does also get more serious and whatnot, but it all feels like it's too little and too late. None of the characters ever get fleshed out sufficiently. The protagonist feels like a completely uninteresting blank slate, the sword partner lady feels like discount Starlow from Mario & Luigi, the main antagonist is a bargain bin Tumblr Sexyman... 

There's other characters too, but they often just don't get that many scenes like the bosses, they just aren't that interesting to begin with like the spectral candle, or they appear too late in the game to do much. The science shark seemed cool but he got so little screentime, the twist with the princess felt like a big whatever since she was so irrelevant before, and the twisty true final boss doesn't even ever get a proper explanation for why they were doing any of the things they did. 

More of this guy, he's jawsome.

It feels like all the pieces of a good Mario RPG-esque story, but through the lens of a minion, are there... But it's just not clicking together right. 

I also feel rather mixed on the game's implementation of the combat system. The battles with the enemy mooks use this really interesting blend of turn based combat, active time combat and Mario & Luigi-esque dodging and countering your opponent's attacks... But then the boss battles largely ignore that aspect altogether and just play out as regular platforming sequences where you dodge their attack patterns until they tire out and you get to wail on them using the combat engine. Only two boss battles really use the mook battle system properly, and one of those also mandated that I perform perfectly timed parries to actually stun them and attack them, which just made it into a miserable battle... Oh, and the very final boss battle, while super cool, was also super easy!

MURDER THEM ALL. MWAHAHAHA.

This all leaves me very ambivalent on the time I spent on the game! As I said, some parts of the game feel very polished, such as all of the artwork and the animation! It's a pretty-looking game, very vibrant and colourful! There's a ton of distinct events, the game's often switching things up! But none of that can patch up the problems with the game's plot and writing, or the lackluster boss battles. I didn't wholly enjoy or regret my time spent on the game, but it leaves me with somewhat of a bitter aftertaste. This knowledge that this game could've been so much better, which is sad to say about a game where I also very clearly felt the effort put in by the developers!

Oh, one more thing that did really strike me is how really very unfortunate the game's name is. I completely went into this thinking it'd be "like Undertale" in some way, and that didn't do my initial impressions any favours. This game's very clearly trying to be a Mario RPG, not the next Undertale! I mean, it still doesn't do a good job emulating the charm of Mario RPG writing, but it's definitely not trying to be the same as Undertale in any thematic or narrative sense!

Card Hunter: Celestial Forge

Another blog, another Card Hunter update! I keep being surprised these keep being made, since I do not get the impression the game's audience has expanded much. It does make me wonder what the game's finances are like, and how many new expansions we can expect to keep getting...

But this is about the expansion itself! Finally, an expansion with both a sizable set of new items and new modules! It's been a long time since we've had one of those!

Though there's only two new modules, they make up for it just for how many maps these modules do have. The first one is pretty short and simple, but it's tightly themed! The second meanwhile is a 9-battle gauntlet with a big bag of tricks that is mixed up from stage to stage. Overall I did find most levels to still be rather easy, especially when you can counterdeck for each specific map, though some of them are quite tricky indeed and demand some pretty specific things from the deck to be ran smoothly. 

CAN WE FIX THIS PLEASE

The new items are somewhat of a mixed bag. Some of them open up new ideas and avenues in deckbuilding, particularly the Handicap Tutoring of Curse Attraction. But some of the cards just feel like they don't do much, or they're just not itemized well... The introduction of a new type of power token also feels hamstrung by how little they can actually be used in the game right now. 

Flaxative has, to my knowledge, been the creative drive between much of the latest expansions, but apparently he no longer works on CH. It again leaves me wondering what the future of CH is going to be. I suppose that remains to be seen!

PC Trials

But then something unfortunate happened. My PC just up and broke! It wouldn't boot anymore or anything. I had to take it to the repair shop twice to get it fully fixed, and they had to get both a new SSD drive and hard drive... I did lose some stuff when they copied over the data from my old drives, but most of it was still there. It still took some getting used to, though!

And those periods of having no PC felt like such a waste too. Just whole days spent on my mobile phone... Needless to say, one of the first things I did when I got my PC back was install Duel Links and Master Duel on mobile, and link my accounts. 

The Looker

I've seen this game described as follows: 

"If you loved The Witness, you'll like The Looker. If you hated The Witness, you'll love The Looker"

And that's just a perfect summation, because I know I sure did love The Looker. 

This type of game, a game that specifically parodies one other game in particular, is always walking a very tight line. It's easy for this type of game to backfire completely if it becomes clear that the developer's understanding of the thing it's parodying is incorrect or incomprehensive. But playing through this, I truly did get the sense that the creator loves The Witness, understands The Witness, and thinks things about The Witness. 

Beautiful

Every aspect of this game screams The Witness, from the presentation to the gameplay. It keeps twisting its puzzles like The Witness does, it has audio logs like The Witness. It really is like The Witness, while also constantly making jokes. And the jokes just keep landing. One moment you're in an on-the-rails shooter, one moment you're playing Snake, one moment you're solving the back of a cereal box, it's all great. One of the final puzzles seemed to me like it was literally just a big pile of The Witness style symbols, as if to say that some of the obtuse puzzles from the game it's parodying are a joke in and of themselves. Splendid. 

Witness Momento

Oh, and it's free! So you can just go to Steam and install it and play it! Wowzers! Go do so now! I order you!!

Second Screen!!

As if to balance out the prior despair of those darned PC trials, I was also blessed with a sudden gift during this year: A second screen for my PC!! Wow, that sure does come in handy! Makes it a lot easier to multi-task, or switch between screens and whatnot. I definitely would recommend it!

Dicey Dungeons: Reunion

Oh hey, Dicey Dungeons! That's been in my blog a few times now. It got an official expansion, one new episode for each of the six characters! These episodes got kinda wild compared to the regular game, they break a lot of established rules and whatnot!

This was a fun expansion overall, and since there's just 6 episodes, I can give some brief thoughts on them all!

The crew's back together!

Thief: Probably my favorite episode, since this one is just a combination of the Thief's first two episodes! Being able to steal enemy equipment was always fun in the original, and it gives you a lot of control over the build you want to lean in on. 

Jester: This one is very strange, every item now rerolls your dice upon use rather than consuming your dice, but you only get one dice per turn and a limited set of items to use per turn! Apparently this one is very much charted out depending on the build you lean in to. It's an interesting idea, but I didn't feel like it really clicked much with me. It doesn't feel as compelling as rolling several dice per turn.

Warrior: Warrior gets some cool new items and a nice new signature ability, but the big deal for this episode is the one-use Workout items that give powerful payoffs or permanent boosts, but also require more dice investment than usual. Apparently this one doesn't have that big of an item pool, and I often found that I didn't need to rely on the Workouts all that much. There's also a recurring set of abilities that have a big payoff if you commit to them, but it just really doesn't seem worth it to go for. 

Witch: Probably the most out there episode, this replaces the whole game with a sequence of puzzles that require you to manipulate dice to get a specific outcome. Neat, but not what I play Dicey Dungeons for. 

Robot: This is a really fun one. All dice are replaced with... Coins! There's also a lot of neat mechanics, such as items with high costs whose costs carry over between turns. There's a lot of set-up and pay-off potential. Definitely one of the better episodes of the expansion.

Inventor: Another banger of an episode, this one forgoes the usual sucky gadget scrapping mechanic for a combination of the limited use mechanic and the item randomizer bonus rule. Every time an item's uses are used up, it's randomized into a different item. It's surprisingly fun! There's also a surprising amount of different run styles to go for using the passive items, like choosing extra dice for a higher ceiling, or increasing an item's uses every turn for a guaranteed floor.

Into the Breach: Advanced Edition

Hey, I talked about this game in my 2018 blog! And now in 2022 the official expansion has dropped, with new missions, new enemies and new pilots. I was quire excited to jump back into this game!

Of the new stuff, I'm definitely most fond of the new pilots. The game already had a pretty broad arsenal of unique pilots with cool special passives, and these new ones fit right in. The one that gets a permanent Boost status (+1 damage dealt) while at max HP is definitely the big standout of the new pilots, there's so many mechs that benefit greatly from that +1 damage. There's also various new skills that are unlocked when a pilot levels up, far more than the 4 there were in the base game. I am disappointed that they still kept the +3 Grid Defense skill in there though...

What do you want from me?!

The new missions and enemies I'm more mixed on. The new missions vary from hair-pullingly frustrating to surprisingly easy or fun, which isn't too far off from how the missions are in the base game, but there's definitely some growing pains with a few of them. The new enemies are mostly fine, I do enjoy the added variety, but the new basic Moth enemies are way excessive. They're easily the most troublesome enemy in the game now, given how common they are and how unreasonably difficult they are to deal with. I have no idea why they have 3 HP instead of 2 HP... There's a point where it goes from Advanced to downright Overpowered, and Moths are definitely there.

Satisfying.

Out of the five new crews, I definitely like the Bombermechs, Arachnophiles and Mist Easters the most. The first two have some very interesting turns where they can spawn additional units to the field as well as having some pretty complicated Science mechs that make for very big thinky turns, while the latter is just fun to play around with and it feels nice to swarm the field with smoke. The Cataclysm squad relies pretty heavily on its unique tile cracking mechanic, which is interesting since the payoff of cracking tiles is a lot more strategic and long-term, so it feels like a very cerebral squad. The fifth squad is the Heat Sinkers, and eh, I haven't even tried them. They seem like a squad with a weak earlygame both on a turn-to-turn as well as island-to-island basis, which makes it hard for me to want to even try them. I'd say that overall the squads are definitely on average more interesting and well-designed, but also more complex. That makes sense though, it is the Advanced Edition! 

Pictured: How to win at ITB

So, overall I'm satisfied with the expansion, it's hard not to be when it's free! I did about a dozen or so runs of it so far, I'll see how many more I do. 

Pokémon Reborn

My ramble about this was so long, like over 10,000 words long, that I quarantined it into its own blog.

TL;DR: This game is so dumb, stupid and edgy. I love it. It's sincerely fucking epic. 

Small on Top

What better way to unwind from that whole Reborn thing than a comedic, pornographic gay furry JRPG? I guess this is where I put my NSFW warning, though I won't be sharing any screenshots that show like actual penises or anuses or whatever. But I will talk about them! There's a lot of those in the game, it'd be hard to not mention them!

Consider this your final warning.

So, this was actually a really interesting game to play. Like, even the process by which I found it is unusual. I came across it from my Twitter feed through a retweet by one of the various people I follow on there who have that ever-indicative🔞symbol in their username and profile, this inexplicably hilarious series of comics about some rabbit dude who keeps coming across all these incredibly horny, beefy guys who just really, really, really want to get dicked. Dicked in the mouth, dicked in the ass, just all of the dicking. They need that dick! And just a bunch of other gag comics of a similar nature. These comics were like the Nirvana of comedy to me. Like I had to find all of these, these were laugh out loud, genuinely hilarious to me. And scrolling through the Twitter feed I quickly realized these comics are actually a sort of little addendum to a whole erotic game of this nature.

Extremely erotic

Hell yes. I had to get in on that. Everything about that was like totally up my alley. 

And honestly, this is the most fun I've had with an RPG since UNDERTALE and DELTARUNE! A lot of the game reminds me of those two, actually, though obviously this game is faaaaar smuttier than those ever were. Again, it is straight up pornography much of the time. But the actual writing, the idiosyncratic nature of all the jokes and gags, the overall silly tone that also contrasts with the suggestion of a more ominous overarching narrative? It really gave me Toby Fox vibes. Though obviously also more crass.

;-;

So many times playing I had these moments where I felt like "THIS GAME WAS MADE FOR ME!", in a way I rarely felt before. It was actually quite incredible, and I teared through the about 12 hours of content the beta has so far rather ravenously, making sure I don't miss anything.

Ok, so what is this game actually about? What's the core concept? What's the angle? What fetishes is the game catering to? 

While there is seemingly a larger narrative behind the events of the game, the core idea of the game is best described by its creator on the itch.io page: "I started the game because I love bigger dudes being on the bottom being rawed by smaller, regular guys. So the game features you going around having sexy times with big muscular men!" Honestly, yeah, that is pretty exciting. 

We need more of this.

The intro of the game is interesting to take a look at, since it puts quite a lot of scenes together in a pretty short timeframe. Don't worry, there's no NSFW images in this video. I cut it off before it gets to that.

One thing that struck me very quickly is how pretty the game looks, the pixelated artstyle without outlines looks very clean and vibrant, and the game's got very expansive tilesets and diverse NPC designs. Seriously, there's a lot of the typical mammals, but also a surprising amount of reptiles, birds, fish, and other assorted characters. Dragons and orcs, too. And even NPCs of the same species still look very distinct from each other. Like, pretty much every single NPC who's not a common enemy has a unique design and they all also have unique talk sprites for their dialogue boxes. It's earnestly impressive how much effort went into this, down to the most inconsequential joke NPC.

This one gets a second expression just for this gag.

I think my favourite bit of the game is how it just fully commits to its premise, you're put on this island that's like 90% populated by incredibly buff men who are also all the most submissive bottoms ever. They're all super horny, they want you to dick them, slap their butts and ogle them and all that. It's super contrived but also just hilarious when somehow there's still like that one pink dragon who's SUPER CONVINCED he's totally not gay (he's super gay), or how somehow there's still a vague stigma on big buff guys being bottoms. It actually makes me wonder whether the island itself is somehow exceptional within the setting, as some NPCs mention that what happens on the island is considered taboo in their domestic cultures. It hardly takes all that much effort to pierce these façades, and I think the TABOO nature is part of the appeal. The sexiest cookie is always that last cookie you're told you can't have. That's the cookie that's the most satisfying to crumble. 

Least gay dragon

Of course not all NPCs are there to have sex with, a lot of them are just horny but you don't interact with them beyond them talking about that, and there's still also some NPCs who are just there to make a gag or a pithy comment. The NPC dialogue just had a lot of laugh out loud moments for me, whether they're horny or not. I adore how the game just keeps putting random profanity into sentences for comedic effect, it never fails to make me laugh. 

Based grannie

Also the way the game keeps treating cum as this magical substance that is both the most delicious addition to any meal and also the most potent healing substance just keeps cracking me up. Every time I inspect a cup of coffee there's about a 20% chance it'll be a joke about cum and it's hilarious every time and it will continue to be so until the heat death of the universe. Or how every time someone cums in a cutscene it's still just there during gameplay, and you can just bottle it up into an empty bottle and use it during combat for a full HP and MP heal. Fantastic. Wonderful. Delicious.

Thick, creamy cum.

Speaking of, the game does also have a combat system, which is mostly standard except for the protagonist having UNDERTALE-esque ACT commands, which more often than not are of an erotic nature. I remember joking about "haha wouldn't it be funny if there was an RPG where you win if you make the opponent climax" in the distant past but now it's here and actually it fucking rules and is awesome and hell yes. Boner is an actual status effect, which I think really adds to the player/protagonist synchronicity. Ohyes.

Fight, flight, fuck

There's also a surprisingly deep variety of equipment you can use to lean into certain builds, though most of the battles were easy enough not to warrant too much thinking. It was interesting making my mage specialize in Max MP of all things, as his thunder spells dealt damage that scales with how much MP you have. 

Basically my combat strategy.

I also do like the character writing, the characters may mostly be horny but they still feel very distinct from each other. Lace the birdman, the first party member, is a total nerd and constantly gets flustered around all the brazen horniness of other men, and he gets all hot and bothered when he asks the player to hold hands. How lewd! And then there's the best character in the game, Wulfric, who is like the most aggressively submissive person ever. He wants everybody to know that nobody is more submissive than he is, which is just such an almost paradoxical concept in and of itself and leads to so many just ridiculous scenes. He really livens up the plot. 

Maybe my favourite line in the game. It's so good.

I think the next character to join the party will probably be Captain Fucko, which is just an amazing name, and he's like this sharky pirate captain, but they're pirates with HEARTS OF GOLD and they're seemingly more interesting in cocks than actual piracy. But they only have like one guy in the crew who ever tops, so they usually just do group faps. Finally, some good pirate lore!! He also has some super good expressions, and he makes Lace super flustered because the Royal Alchemist can't work with a Pirate, oh no!! I really do wanna see where this game goes next.

Probably you, reading all this

There's also this recurring trend I kept noticing where the game points out the physical impossibilities in some scenes, such as how you didn't get crushed by a giant sea monster while fucking him in the ass, or how your pants never seem to get dirty despite the truly ridiculous amounts of cum flying around in every scene, or that one time you cum so hard it comes out the other guy's nose and mouth. Maybe, just maybe, reality itself has bent over to get fucked by the protagonist, making the whole universe our bottom in a sense? It might be a bit abstract and conceptual, but you can't deny it'd thematically fit.

Fucking the laws of reality.

So, one question that might linger now: Did I seriously play this game just to cum? And honestly, not really. I went into this game looking for a fun and memorable experience, and I don't think whether it was that or not depends solely on that question. It's definitely a pornographic game, but that doesn't mean it only has value if you can get off on it. Not every scene did, but that doesn't mean those scenes didn't have value. 

And it is certainly taboo for me to even talk about this game at all, right? A lot of people just don't want to even hear about that kind of thing at all. Talk about dicks this, cum that. But this is my blog, damnit! I'll talk about all the dicks I want! Life is too short to be emberrassed about these kinds of things. 

So let's do it. Who are the cutest guys? The cutest gays? I'm gonna go through the game's character roaster and give my FAVOURITES. And by that I mean, I'll list like ¼th of the game's cast, because they're all just so YUMMY. There's so many BIG BEEFY BOIS. My god. These gays are THICC AS FUCK. I'd add screenshots to all of these, but that would both take forever and also I'd need to crop out so many pixelated and non-pixelated penises. 

Lace: I love this dumb nerd bird. He's so precious, always being coy and shy. Going to the forest to ask the slimes to fuck him to collect slime samples. Honestly what a great introduction to the game, taking the typical JRPG starter enemy and asking it to fuck you, it's just incredible.

Polite bird.

Wulfric: Ahh, Wulfric, how could I get enough of him. All of his liners are just amazing bangers, and his battle sprite when he turns docile is adorable. He's the most shamelessly slutty guy in the game and it makes for such a good contrast with Lace.

Sigma Male

That dog in Safen that wants you to check his gains: Why is he so adorable. 

That seagull that wants you to slap his rear: WHACKAGEDDON THAT ASS YES. Just went by again and I unlocked the ability to paddle him. Incredibly eye to detail.

WHACKAGEDDON

The extremely gay Pink Dragon: The way this guy keeps doing the most gay shit ever and then coming up with the filmiest excuses why he's definitely not gay is hilarious. He does finally change his tune when he finally opens up. Great scene, that.

Self-loving swole slime: That one slime that asks you to get him flowers so he can propose, and then he goes to the pink slime and she's all like "OMG YES FINALLY" and he's like "Nah, you suck, I'm proposing to myself. Self-love, yeah!" and it's super based. And then he goes to the gym to get swole, so you help him with that, and now he's living in Lace's house on the second floor and you can feed him dyed slime cum to change his look and he has like 3 different sex positions and this game is insane and this game is good.

He does get swole. And a thicc slime bennis.

That bee that gives you "honey": It's cum. It's not honey. It's cum. 

Horny pervert: He's got energy to spare. Love the totally manic expression he has.

Himbo bird in Shiptown: Uff, big bulky birdman... 

Morca: BIG TIDDY. Huge mantiddies. Big orca tiddies. Yesyesyes.

Basically this game summarised.

Valentino: This crocodile just leaves a note in his house asking people to super definitely very much absolutely not pull the dildo out of his ass while he lays in bad, because he totally super very much wouldn't enjoy that, totally!!

That super spindly stickbird guy in Shiptown: I just love his proportions. Everybody is ripped as fuck and this guy's like one pixel wide. Hilarious.

That sassy snake guy in the crossroads: His disappointed stare fills me with awe.

Horny logger crocodile: An expert at woodwork, I hear. I might have a weakness for crocodiles...

Fucking, the best biceps training technique.

Thirsty scalie logger: I think I just have a weakness for scalies. Help. 

Silky: Big huge pink giant tiddie spider with many thicc arms. Yes yes yes yes yes yes.

Those beta wolves in the gloomy forest: It's so cute how they pretend to be tough but how easily you can break the façade. Also how Wulfrick like dominates them by yelling at them that he's super submissive. 

That couple in the sex club: Yeah, eat that ass. I love how whenever someone's eating ass or cock their dialogue is just a garbled mess, that's always funny. 

That poisonous frog: The despair of having toxic cum. Actually, is it a frog? Is it a slug?

That incredibly buff snakeman: What the fuck, why is this guy so buff. He stands out so much, come on, he's gotta have a sex scene at some point.

V-vore?!

Super puffy nipples tiger: Some of the best facial expressions in the game.

The brown dragon in the sex club: The way he jiggles his butt in his sprite. Unf.

Raccoon bar owner in Docktown: I love how he goes from gruff and aloof to not that after some good dicking. Very cute.

Chad: ULTRACHAD. I'm not sure what species he is, actually, some kind of lizard? Honestly the name alone is already 10/10.

Seriously, what is he?

Those royal guards: These dweebs are so thin and small. Adorable.

That dragon that explains the statue in Docktown: Dragon bussy connoisseur.

Mallard in Docktown: Ok I definitely have a weakness for birds. I really liked that scene with him in the docks, oh yes.

Wizzy: Serving up that classic FF Black Mage aesthetic, but like with rippling pecs and a big dick. Nice.  

Anubu: He's got the Millennium Codpiece. 

Sword: This guy is probably going to be relevant to the plot, being the big bulky captain of the Royal Guard. Totally has a kink for calling everybody Sir.

Bird sailor at the docks: Ok I think we know now.

Inexplicably hilarious line.

MANta ray: Never thought I'd see a furry manta ray, but I have, and I have seen the light. Blessed.

That fish at the docks: I think I might have a thing for furry fish too now...

Speedo loving swordfish: I love that scene where he talks about how he likes how tight his speedo is, and then it snaps off. Beautiful. Also has an incredible gag where two of his talk sprites are just his incredibly long nose, that's so cute.

TFW Mania's talking about literal porn in his blog

Cock-loving toucan: Total bro, keeps saying bruh.

Diving otter: What a cutie. Not really much to this one, but, he's got such a handsome face. 

The underwater... eel?: Not really sure what species he is, but he's he colourful and pretty, kiyaaaah.

Vibrant! Also, Aqualung!!

Dummy himbo sea monster: This dumb bottom is afraid of the sea monster, not knowing he's the sea monster. Adorable.

Big dick purple shark: big dick

Scarrr: I think he's an eel? I love how rhymes his R's. Also he's got a nice rack of abs and pecs.

Squido: SQUID TIDDIES!!

Paprarot: So cute and colourful! 

In this blog we stan Fucko

Degradation kink royal guard: What a slut. What a bad guard he's been. What a cutie.

Captain Fucko: God he's hot. Can't wait to see more of him. 

Extremely fuckable.

Flameron: Literally hot, since he's a rocky magma monster. Would roast marshmallows with. 

Duiro: Incredibly buff millipede fire guy. I like how the ACT for him is to make him flex so hard he breaks his own armor. Oh and then he stops fighting since he's just so into flexing. Nice.

Magano: ALEISTER THE PENIS EVOKER

Yes.

Fire Guard: I love how he gets more and more flustered the more you flirt with him.

Fire Imp: Goblin energy. One of the game's very, very few characters who's a top rather than a bottom, therefore he is of course a twink. 

Prisoner: I like the "shadow with glowing red eyes" look. I also like how they try to be menacing but they're too horny so they immediately start blushing and stammering when you flirt with them. Also they get an erection. Because of course.

Rubyro: This guy is HUUUUUUGE. He's by far the biggest character in the game. Therefore, he's a super bottom and wants your divine dick. Give it to him.

Also, story stuff?!

Death: Apparently if you die 5 times, you get to fuck Death. That's hot. 

Ok that's a lot. I was gonna have screenshots, but like that was gonna take forever and also I'd need to do so much cropping out of dicks and I don't feel like it. Either way, damn this game's full of cuties. It's not often that I get to play a game that so thoroughly panders to me, so this was really nice. Also I guess I have a preference for scales and feathers? So there you go. Of course, the ultimate furry will always be Goblins. Cause Goblins are 100% furries and you're lying if you think they're not.

There's also a bunch of other NPCs, and not all NPCs are there to be sexy. The ones that aren't usually have some of the funniest dialogue in the game. I love how the game is just completely unfiltered and will let NPCs say all kinds of absolutely insane things if it's funny. A lot of the dialogue you get for examining furniture and the like is hilarious and random too, I appreciate that every single instance of such dialogue is hand-crafted and unique. Special shout-outs to that carrot patch where the writer's having a breakdown over how many carrots you can examine.

Santiago's favourite fucking carrot.

I should mention that there are some things I didn't quite like. The game only has two dungeons with random battles, but the random encounter rate is very high and random, so sometimes you finish a fight, take two steps and immediately get a fight again. It's not so bad in the rat maze, but it's really annoying in the lava dungeon. 

The game also has some kinda uncanny sound effects during the sex scenes, where once they really get going this short loop of like anal sex sounds start playing, and it just sounds off. I'd hope they can add a toggle for that, though I guess it's also possible to just manually change the corresponding audio file. 

Anyway, yes, I just put the phrase "anal sex sounds" in my blog, so it's only downhill from here on out. Sorry, readers! This blog has peaked here. Or, should I say... Climaxed? Ohohoho!

AI The Somnium Files: Nirvana Initiative

AI: The Somnium files, a game series that manages to be only slightly less horny than the previous game I talked about here. I kid, of course, but the series certainly has a reputation for the sheer excess of horny jokes it contains. 

You know, the bit where I talk flatly and dryly about what a game actually is, that's always the most boring to write. So why should I? Screw it. You already know what this game is, so let's just flashback to that memory:

"AI: The Somnium Files – nirvanA Initiative, sequel to AI: The Somnium Files, is a mystery thriller visual novel by Kotaro Uchikoshi of Zero Escape fame. It follows the exploits of two very special police agents, Mizuki and Ryuki, as they tackle a mysterious serial murder case where victims are split in half only for those halves to appear six years apart from each other. 

The duo investigate the case in a flashback sequence taking place six years ago and in the present time, armed with a device that lets them delve into the dreams of persons of interest to reveal information they’re trying to hide, as well as sentient AI eyes to serve as their partners. What they are not armed with are the detective skills one would expect from secret elite police agents, but then again, Mizuki is just about to graduate from high school and Ryuki has unspecified mental problems so maybe we shouldn’t expect too much."

I dunno, Ryuki seems fine to me.

Going into this game as someone who experienced all Zero Escape games and the first Somnium Files, one of the first questions I had was "Is it to AI as VLR/ZTD were to 999?", and I think having experienced the game I'd say I'd put it far above ZTD in all aspects, and put it above VLR in most but not all regards. I did enjoy Somnium Files more overall, but Nirvana Initiative did have the upper hand in some areas and was very enjoyable for what it was.

Mama surprisingly gets some more focus here. I do like her!

I think the biggest improvement is how the Somniums have gone from being mostly trial and error to following a sort of logic. While I think that the story reasoning behind the Somniums are overall less interesting and compelling, often it's just "we looked everywhere for this person, now they won't talk, PUT THEM IN THE CHAIR", the way the Somniums play out are more satisfying overall. They all have their own unique quirks, they're easier to follow along and they're overall just fun when they need to be and creepy when they don't, in a way that feels more directed than the original.

Happy, happy Chikara!

The game's new characters are all rather fun, I find. The wacky scientist man, the crazy conspiracy lady, the guy with the mask, Minecraft Cube man, the cast overall certainly got stranger in this second game, though again not to the extent of how VLR was madder than 999, since things still overall feel rather grounded even when things do get bizarre. 

Pretzel Liiiife

But on the flipside, a lot of the reprised roles of older characters, especially the ones who are pushed out of relevance, just feel rather flat. A character going from being interesting and plot relevant to being almost entirely tangential while still eating up some screentime to just get kinda flanderized isn't what I was hoping for in a sequel, in that regard I think the game tried too much to be a sequel, it'd have been fine to let characters just be background bit characters rather than straddling this weird line between that and being an actually relevant character.

Iris and Ota have it pretty bad in this game.

The introduction of two new protagonists, Ryuki alongside Tama on one hand, and Mizuki with Aiba on the other is one of those things where I am happy with what we got, but I also would've wanted to see more of the new characters. The game once again straddles this weird line between being kind of a sequel,but also mostly being a standalone game, which leaves it in a tough spot when it puts an old character in the protagonist role. I think there's a good reason why VLR didn't star Junpei, and ZTD didn't star Sigma or Junpei. In that light I would've wanted to see more of Ryuki and Tama, it feels as if the moment where they get to be their most interesting is also where the perspective flips over to Mizuki. Not to diss her, I think she's great in this game and I love her writing here, but the sums of the halves of the story they share doesn't quite add up to the whole of the first game. 

I still love you, Mizuki.

A big talking point of the game is the Big Twist. It seems to be the most controversial thing about the game. Personally I loved the twist to bits, even though I can feel the moments where the game had to contort or limit itself to accomplish it. It's certainly leagues ahead of the nonsense twist of ZTD, or the rather bizarre twist of VLR. While I do like the twist, it really makes a lot of stuff add up, I do think it could've been better integrated and explained. Somnium Files had a very clear focus on what exactly it was all about, and the central twist was deeply rooted into what that stuff was all about, while AINI's twist concerns one aspect of the plot that isn't pushed much to the foreground throughout the game, despite being such an interesting idea.  

I need more of Gen dunking on Ota

Overall the game definitely does raise the stakes and ups the Uchikochi levels of being about various weird concepts regarding psychology and reality and all that, but also does this at the expense of AI's deeply personal stakes and tangible character growth. In that regard AI definitely is the odd duck out of all of Uchikochi's games. While there's plenty of aspects of AINI where I would've liked to see the game delve more into how characters personally relate to some twists and revelations, I still appreciate the game that's there. In the end there's one character where I feel like the largest share of the personal focus pie was handed out, and it kinda made me wish the other characters could've also gotten those pieces of the pie. 

Mr. ShovelForge

Having said all that, I think that there's a somewhat common trend to see AI with rosy glasses in retrospect. I regard it very fondly now, but I remember how frustrating a lot of that game's early bits are. In that sense I think that while AI reaches higher heights, it also goes to lower lows. A lot of this does depend somewhat on what order one plays the routes in, I suppose, and in that regard the second game is certainly a lot more consistent, since the direction of the narrative is more strongly guided than in any of Uchikochi's games. That's one area where I really was hoping for more.

Overall, I think where a lot of people are getting their negative reception from is that they went into the game expecting something different than what they got, or they get too caught up in this better realized version of the game compared to what it is. I enjoyed the full package, from start to end, and I think that's enough for me to say AINI is a good game. If I had to pull a series ranking out my ass I'd do it as follows:

AI > 999 > AINI = VLR > ZTD

Oh, I also should say that the OST is really good as is usual for Uchikochi's games. Somehow these visual novels keep putting out stellar OSTs. 

When the Pretzel Store opens

Also, crazy conspiracy lady is best character. I couldn't get enough of her. How is she so perfect? 

Telepath Tactics: Fate of the Wayward

I've written about Telepath Tactics before, but I want to spotlight this particular campaign for its innovative approach to mapmaking, and the enjoyable writing. 

Sadly there's not too much content to it yet, there's only the prologue and chapter 1 so far, but what's there is promising! I look forward to more!

The part where I talk about games I didn't really like

Getting sick and tired of this positivity? Not here to see me ramble about things in video games that are good, but actually, things in video games that are bad?! Well have I got the segment for you! The segment about games I didn't really like! Usually this is where'd I'd discuss shows I'd watched and comics I'd read, but I wanna do the latter at the end of the year and I didn't really watch any shows! My media diet is horribly out of balance, I've become nothing more than a Gamer! Oh no! 

See, and any real Gamer knows that real Gaming is not the Gaming you do, but the complaining about the Gaming you did. So let's do some real Gaming. 

Also, like, don't expect the usual overblown effort of spamming screenshots in these coming bits. I'm not gonna bother when it's about games I didn't much care for.

Starseed Pilgrim

Ok, so I got a lot of games from a bundle, right? So I kinda went into a lot of them with this ethos of "let's get this over with". That didn't go very well for this game.

So how this game went for me in practice is that it drops me into the game, throws some pithy quotes at me or something, then expects me to figure out what the fuck this whole obtuse mess of a game is about?

No. No, I won't. And doing further research shows me that apparently that was the right call, since there doesn't seem to be an satisfying payoff to all this. This whole game just seems like those times in The Witness where you need to figure out an obtuse rule, minus the handholding through several easier puzzles, or the payoff of finishing a puzzle and moving to the next. There's just a heap of mechanics here, that's it. But it's not even satisfying to play or control as far as I can tell.

Also, this thing is on Steam?? It costs money??? What the fuck?!?!

And to the people of the internet saying this is a deeply rich game about growth or whatever, no it's not, go play Small on Top instead. Way more personally enriching, and there's more than enough seed to satisfy you seed enthusiasts. God, the world needs more of that game and less of this.

Interactivity: The Interactive Experience

Stanley Parable, but budget edition.

There's not too much to say beyond that, honestly! What begins as a guided tour through a museum about levers and its many explanations quickly devolves into... Not much, really. The first bit about the levels is quite funny and felt inspired, but once you get to the inevitable "go off-route or not?" section it just becomes kind of a Stanley Parable clone, but without the tight writing or voice acting. It also doesn't help that some of these bits required finding stuff in the 3D environment, something that was never a thing in the Stanley Parable where everything was clearly signposted.

Yes

I wish this one just kept being about levers and buttons and switches and whatnot, I think there was more they could've done with that then what they actually wound up doing, which just felt so uninspired.

Social Interaction Trainer

You'll see that a lot of the stuff on this list is stuff I got for free! The threshold for me buying a game is much higher than the one for me to just get a game for free, which means there's bound to be more duds. And boy, this was a dud.

This game is just overall rather stupid. The goal is to properly time and manage your eye contact by guiding your eyes with your mouse, but the actual rules to do this properly are incredibly obtuse and nonsensical. It's just not fun. It's not compelling. The only thing the game has going for it is the visual and audio design, but the core gameplay is just bad.

The only thing notable about this game is that apparently the maker had a big kerfuffle over having one of the steam achievements only earned through an actual IRL auction. That just seems like a desperate ploy to farm for controversy and get clicks and attention... Though I think the game just got deleted off Steam instead? Kinda pathetic, TBH. If you're gonna hustle people who care about achievements, then don't chicken out when there's pushback. Not that I think this matters much at all anyway, Steam Achievements mean nothing.  

Paradigm

Remember what I said about Clam Man? How it's unlike the usual adventure game? Well, this game's like the exact opposite. This game is exactly that brand of point-and-click adventure game I just can't deal with anymore. 

Every screen is full of clickable nonsense, all the dialogue is voiced and the VA work is just kinda stiff and awkward. The game has way too many jokes, a lot of which are just duds. The game's plot overall looks like it's just going to be lolrandom nonsense, too. And everything looks kinda ugly and unappealing. 

I didn't even get beyond the second screen before giving up.

Katja Tactics Abyss

There's a bit of awkwardness here, I don't think I ever really was negative about an OHRRPGCE game I played. I think this game has a lot of things going for it, but it was conceptually just not going to work from the ground up.

Katja Tactics Abyss is a combination of Minesweeper and Turn-Based Tactics gameplay. The usual gameplay of minesweeper is now performed not through simply marking and clicking the tiles, but through a plethora of units, and there's randomly spawning enemies too.

I think the problem here is that these two genres are fundamentally incompatible, and the OHRRPGCE engine certainly isn't the glue to bind them together. The fun of minesweeper is in the quick pace of the game, it's as simple as can be: Use logic to mark tiles that are bombs, then click the safe tiles. Rinse, repeat, until the level is done, you mess up, or you make a wrong guess due to random RNG. 

Adding in a whole system of unit-based turn-based tactics doesn't do enough to make that aspect of the game more interesting, but it does slow it down to a crawl. The degree of button pushes I needed to do to progress through what would be a single stage of minesweeper is blown up by an incredible amount. It just gets slow and tedious! I got to the third stage before I gave up, as in that stage I already more than double exceeded the score I needed while still needing to move through like 20 tiles. That was going to take forever!

Cramped!

The way enemies spawn in honestly feels more annoying than anything, and the sheer amount of button clicks it takes to do just the basic gameplay loop per turn is way excessive. It gets especially bad when you get a crowded cluster of mechs in a mine-riddled area and nobody can move through other units. Mind-numbing!

I do wanna say that I think the idea is innovative at least, and certainly impressive given the engine usually's used for a very different type of game. The game's also got good aesthetic! 

Having the squad colour schemes be based on Pride flags is a cute idea.
Katja is based.

Wonder Boy The Dragon's Trap

The final game in this list! This one's apparently a remake of a game that came out in 1989! That probably explains why it's BAD!!

I didn't play this one too much, enough to get to the beach and give up. While the visuals and aesthetics are very impressive, the rest overall felt like the game was kinda cheap? Like playing a Flash game that just happens to look really nice. I'd rather play Clarence's Big Chance!

Yeah, not much to say about this one.

The End

Usually I wait until the end of the month to post there, but I started early on this one, and I felt that delaying the posting until the end of August was stopping me from starting on new stuff! 

I also got extremely carried away here! I just had a lot to say about Small on Top, no doubt since I had to hold back when discussing my hot takes while playing due to the explicit and pornographic nature of the game. I'd like to think my end of the year blog won't be this long, as the whole reason for why I decided to split these blogs up was to keep them shorter and easier to digest!

Well, this blog right here's about as easy to digest as the literal bottles of cum in Small on Top, so much good that idea did! I think that sentiment's as good as any to end this blog on!