Category: Diary

Lair of the Clockwork God (PC): COMPLETED!

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After Devil’s Kiss, this was the Main Event. A new Ben and Dan adventure game, and long awaited followup to Ben There, Dan That and Time Gentlemen, Please. Unlike those games, there’s a whole load of platforming mixed in with the point-and-clickery, as Dan has decided exciting indie platformer adventures are the in-thing, and Ben’s insistence on examining everything and refusal to jump even the smallest amount both clash and co-exist in a unique hybrid of styles. But it’s not …

Devil’s Kiss (PC): COMPLETED!

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Firstly, I just want to say that although this is a PC game, I played it via the Steam Link app on the iPad. Actually, it’s more complicated than that, but it’ll do for now. Secondly, this game came free with Lair of the Clockwork God – a new platforming/point and click hybrid game from Size Five Games. It was a surprise simultaneous release with that game, but instead of being either of those two styles, it’s a visual novel …

What Remains of Edith Finch (Switch): COMPLETED!

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It’s two years since I played this on the PS4, and having picked it up for just One United States Pound for the Switch, I thought it was high time I played it again. Most of the story I’d remembered, but the detail I’d forgotten. There was a lot of “oh yeah! I remember that!” while I played. And it’s still good, there are still great toilets, and it’s still the same game it always was. What I did expect …

Baobab’s Mausoleum Episode 2: 1313 Barnabas Dead End Drive (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Now this is better. Unlike the linear, disjointed approach of the first game, Episode 2 of Baobab’s Mausoleum works much better. You have a whole town to explore, and a day/night cycle (real-time, or skip by sleeping) to contend with. There are still TV and game references, and it’s still very weird, but it makes – in the context of the weird – much more sense. A girl goes missing and you have to find her. Only to do that, …

Baobab’s Mausoleum Episode 1: Ovnifagos Don’t Eat Flamingos (Switch): COMPLETED!

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A while back, I played the demo of this. Although short, it looked like it the full game was going to be a viewed from above puzzle adventure game with Twin Peaks overtones. And, when it came to playing the full game, for a while that was the case. Your basic zombie-lookin aubergine FBI agent’s car breaks down outside a mysterious town that only appears once every 25 years, and he needs to find a phone and get on his way. …

Isoland 2 (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Well, there was no way I could not play the sequel after the first game, was there? Especially since they’re both so cheap! Isoland is, as expected, more of the same. A different island to the first game, but the story is linked. The main difference here, though, is there’s a time-travel element which affects some of the puzzles. Other than that, it’s the usual Cottongame point and click stuff with tile-slidey/combination-findy puzzle elements. Also like the first game, you …

Batman: The Telltale Series (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Warning: this post contains spoilers. I don’t often write with spoilers but some of the things I wanted to mention are very spoilers and so I don’t really have much choice. But firstly, I just want to say that I have this game on the PS4 as part of PS+, but I bought it on the Switch anyway because who plays PS4 games in 2020? So it’s yet another Batman game. This one exists in its own, somewhat different DC …

Adventures of Bertram Fiddle 2: A Bleaker Predicklement (Switch): COMPLETED!

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This was the funniest game I’ve played in ages. I’m a sucker for terrible puns and Bertram Fiddle is filled to the brim with them. More so here than the first game too, I’d say. It was better than the first game in other ways as well, being both longer and more varied with locations, and having some better puzzles. The characters you meet are excellent, and the voice acting is perfect. There’s even a cameo from Professor Elemental, who …

Takeshi & Hiroshi (iOS): COMPLETED!

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At first glance this is a JRPG, but actually, it’s somewhat different. There’s a wrapper story (with really nice puppet stop motion animation cutscenes) about a brother who is writing a JRPG to entertain his sick little brother. The problem is, he doesn’t know how to code the AI, so he pretends to be the AI while his brother plays, and so, as him, you have to decide which enemies to have appear in the random battles. If you make …

Isoland (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Ages ago, I played a graphical adventure game called Mr Pumpkin Adventure. It was good, but very, very bizarre. Isoland is by the same guy and is also very bizarre, although perhaps not quite so much. You begin on an island, and although it seems your job might be to figure out where everyone has gone, in fact you mainly just discover the presence of aliens, and find clues and items to crack codes to open areas or activate things. …

Stuff I’ve Been Playing Recently

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Wow. Been a while since I did this. Azure Striker Gunvolt 2 (Switch) I’d finished it with Gunvolt previously, but now I’ve completed it with Copen. Who, despite feeling like the game was much harder with him, actually turned out to be much easier as, if you pay attention, he’s pretty much invulnerable. He does have some tricky platforming bits Gunvolt doesn’t, though. After that, it turns out you have to beat the final boss again, as each character again. …

Melbits World (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Bought on a whim because it was $1 as a download voucher from Target a while back, I really wasn’t sure what sort of game this was. From videos, it seemed to be much like Captain Toad, but in fact it’s just the graphical style and isometric view that it shares with that. What it actually is, is something closer to old Game and Watch titles like Mario’s Cement Factory, crossed with Lemmings, only in multiplayer and 3D. You have …

Azure Striker Gunvolt 2 (Switch): COMPLETED!

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And that’s the pair of them. I’d never played this sequel before, but it turned out to be just as good as the first game. There have been a few quality of life tweaks, such as not needing to choose which challenges to do before you do them – now they act more like normal achievements – and some of the upgrades upgrade themselves as you use them, rather than need improved versions synthesising. The gameplay is the same as …

Bury Me My Love (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Bury Me My Love is an interactive story, told through the medium of phone text messages, about a Syrian refugee called Nour trying to reach somewhere safe in Europe. You’re her husband, Majd, and you have to offer advice and support as she gets turned away from transport, borders and hotels, followed, trapped in refugee camps, left with nowhere to sleep, and potentially killed on the way. It’s based on real life experiences, and it’s a powerful story. Along the …