#Do Not Buy This Game

[prostocupoftea]

Sometimes PC stands for "Player Cat"

aka these games made me feel like a cat pushing a glass off a table so i drew it.

The Cat Parable

C.a.t., Stop

There Is No Cat

The Catridor

(i know he says "how dare you" not when you push the button but when you boot up a game... which is even funnier... but im an artist, its gonna be like dat in my comic-)

Do Not Buy This Cat Demo

Extras! Character design sheet and some uni sketches (:

[mxsamwood]

My Presentation On Why You Guys Should Watch/Play The “Do Not Buy This Game”

[okayto]

Mini-Reviews: Game Demos I Have Played Lately

Vampire Therapist

Guide vampires through centuries of emotional baggage, decades of delusions and the odd bout of self-loathing with real cognitive behavioral therapy concepts and become a Vampire Therapist! Even vampires need a shoulder to cry on when a neck to bite just won’t do.

This visual novel is fun, humorous, and also contains actual cognitive behavioral therapy concepts. Protagonist Sam, a vampire turned during the age of the Wild West, realized that vampires have a tendency to some defeatist or self-destructive thought patterns, and has reached out to an ancient compatriot to better learn how he can help other vampires. I'm no therapist, but the concepts portrayed in the game seem fairly basic—basic concepts that let the player and characters identify surface-level things and move the story along, without going deep enough to mess up or portray ~woo~ (beyond the inherent woo of, y'know, vampires). (I recommended it to my professional counselor sibling, so I'll be interested to find out if they agree with my impression.)

The demo lets you play through your first two clients. That, combined with the opening story that sees Sam getting to Germany to meet the ancient vampire who'll train him (and meeting some other characters along the way), gives you enough to decide if you'd like to try the full game. It doesn't end on a cliffhanger, but it definitely left me wanting more.

Demo Playtime: Took me about 1.5 hours

Release Date: July 2024 (demo still available as of post date)

Find It: Steam, GOG

Do Not Buy This Game

Are you really reading this to find out more? ...FINE! If you DO buy this game, expect me to narrate in your ear for around 2 hours about your poor life choices, all while I'll try to create something resembling a game for you to walk around in.

This seems like it would be incredibly appealing to people who like The Stanley Parable, a game that mostly involves walking around an eerily-empty building while a sarcastic narrator repeatedly breaks the fourth wall, because this game also involves walking around a mostly-empty space while a nervous narrator repeatedly breaks the fourth wall. I really, really liked the narrator, and found myself wishing there was a way to respond. Or make friends. (Talk to me, narrator! Tell me why you don't want me to proceed! Play a game with me!) The phrase "comedy walking sim" wouldn't have sounded interesting before, but now that I've played it, I'm eagerly awaiting more. The game has a solo developer, so it seems slow-going, but he did update just a few months ago confirming it's still being worked on.

Demo Playtime: About 20 minutes

Release Date: TBD/Unknown

Find It: Steam

The Rise of the Golden Idol

Uncover the truth behind 20 strange cases of crime, death and depravity in the 1970s. The world has changed dramatically - the sins of humanity have not.

This point-and-click detective game has you initially investigating two unrelated crime scenes, discovering clues and keywords to make deductions by correctly filling-in-the-blank, before a third scenario shows that the scenes are connected and there may be a deeper conspiracy.

I've never played another game that works this way: when you investigate a scene, you discovered keywords (such as names, locations, and actions) that are put into a word bank; to solve things you must put the correct words from that bank into the correct spots. Intriguing! I did need to check guides a couple times, but I am notably bad at deductive games (as noted in previous game reviews), so I can't say that means this is actually difficult.

This is listed as the sequel to The Case of the Golden Idol (demo also available; I haven't played it), but at least as far as the demo goes, there wasn't anything in this game that was confusing or seemed to lack context.

Demo Playtime: ~60-90 minutes

Release Date: November 2024 (demo still available as of post date)

Find It: Steam (demo and game); game without demo available available on PlayStation, Switch, Xbox, and iOS/Andriod mobile via Netflix.

Blue Prince

Welcome to Mt. Holly, where every dawn unveils a new mystery. Navigate through shifting corridors and ever-changing chambers in this genre-defying strategy puzzle adventure. But will your unpredictable path lead you to the rumored Room 46?

A strange, shifting house, and you're trying to get from one end to the other. You have a limited number of times you can pass through rooms, and you choose which rooms appear from a limited selection every time you open a new door. Within you limits, can you uncover secrets, collect items, and find a path to the final room?

This is fascinating, and it was easy to forget I was playing a demo as I spent hours trying to navigate through the house. You won't get lost—you have a map showing all current rooms—but trying to balance the limited number of rooms I could go through with options, like "should the next room be this bedroom that replenishes me, but has not other doors? Or this room that costs gold to create, but has two more doors I could leave through, potentially helping me avoid a dead-end? Part escape room, part mystery, part luck of the draw[ing room], this has a small but dedicated fanbase already, and it's easy to see why.

Demo Playtime: 6 hours and counting

Release Date: "Spring 2025" (demo still available as of post; online comments indicate it has bounced between available and unavailable in the past year)

Find It: Steam

If you’re interested in a game described above, it may also be available in other formats or platforms than what I played. If you liked this post, click my “reviews” or “video games” tags below or search on my blog to find more.

[honehonn3honey]

Board games with uncle Sukuna :)

They are taking this thing seriously, already take the cards out of the game

[tootietwo2]

hearing about the new switch 2 games price point like

[corvustion]

i seriously have high hopes for this game.... the creator is so charming..

[noodles-and-tea]

Biyahoo!

[the-meme-monarch]

category 7 looey moment

the doodle page was drawn before all their conversations were found, but their trinket Had been, (and my sibling got the scraps convo before it was put on the wiki) so i was anticipating them being more friendly w razzle & dazzle(complimenting trinkets) and goob(both having dual colors) than they turned out to be <:] but he IS very friendly with poppy and that makes me happy. also shrimpo death threats

none of this is ship art 👍💥💥

[rottengurlz]

she’s like if the virgin mary smoked a pack of pall malls every day 🚬

[notbecauseofvictories]

I realize this is a bit like complaining that water is wet, but it does annoy me on a deep level how many big public events are rooted in buying things. Craft fairs, art expos, even street festivals where ostensibly everyone is there to listen to music and drink in the sunshine---yet the sale of things is so integral to what's happening that you can buy food or buy things, and those are really your only options.

[burningcheese-merchant]

I think more ppl need to see this

Yeah for real lol. That's exactly what it is with him. Not to toot my own horn too much but I believe this post I made ages ago hits the nail on the head haha

"I'm bored" is... technically true. In a sense. Personally, I think it's a very simple and vague allusion to the real problem. That thin sheet of snow coating a massive, freezing cold iceberg. Just barely obscuring it from proper view.

imo it's been a bit disappointing seeing people take to extremes with Burning Spice's character. I've seen people either woobify him, downplay or excuse his actions by saying "he's not evil! He's hurting! He's depressed! He doesn't hate people, he's lashing out because he can't internalize his pain anymore!", or just demand he be put to death immediately on sight without trial. You can like a morally repulsive character and sympathize with their issues while also acknowledging that they're repulsive and need to face justice for their crimes. Burning Spice is one of my favorite characters, I love everything about him, he's sexy as fuck, I understand why he's the way he is, I'm still happy to see his ass beat because he's a piece of shit and he deserves it lol.

Not to throw shade at "simpler" villains ofc. I love me some assholes that are assholes just because they can be. Like Jack Horner in Puss in Boots 2. But Burning Spice isn't Jack Horner and he honestly shouldn't be. The deeper, sadder, more complex reasons governing his actions suit him better than just "I'm bored fuck this shit" and nothing else ykwim

and of course, he's still wrong. Burning Spice's view of the world is wrong. Does a book begin just to end? Does a song play just to finish in a few minutes' time? No. They begin so that we may read, listen, and enjoy. So that they may make us laugh, or have us shake our heads in disappointment, or tell us some hidden truth. Make our days and lives a little more interesting than they were before. Life is beautiful BECAUSE it is fleeting. Born, grow, wither, born, grow, wither. Yes, that's how it goes. But there's so much more to those things than just what we can gather from those three words. Every day is different. Though the sun rises every morning without fail, it's never quite the same color, is it? Always a bit of a different shade of yellow, orange, red, bleeding into the sky a little differently each time. There are so many things to see and do, games to play, people to meet and love and cherish. Maybe some of those things and those people won't be here someday but that doesn't mean their existence never meant anything. We are not born to die, we are born to live. We must die for those who are to live, and live for those who have died. Regardless, we must never lose sight of the intrinsic value of all that surrounds us. Burning Spice very much did. Underneath his bitterness and anger and (not unfounded, to be fair) lamentation for the unstoppable cycle of life and death is a deep-rooted selfishness and fundamental lack of understanding and appreciation for life and other people. In the face of despair, he gave in and chose evil. He was and is wrong for doing so, regardless of why he did it. He could've stepped down. He could've just admitted he didn't have what it took to be the Herald of Change. Hell, if he really hates being alive so much, he would've committed suicide a LONG time ago. But he never did any of that; instead he chose to inflict an equal or greater suffering on everything and everyone else, even the undeserving. And for that he MUST pay. And Golden Cheese, with her personality and her experiences and the wisdom she came to attain when faced with the exact same despair as Burning Spice, is exactly the right person to make him do that

[soadscrawl]

i was saying this to my best friend the other day but why are voltron aus making keith either rich or like a prince or something. why must you take his poor kid sparkle. that man knows a 7/11 slurpee he knows a walmart brand bottle of soda. he deserves to know the simple pleasure of an inflatable backyard pool. I know he got those fuckass black jeggings from a thrift store. and that fuckass mullet is from great clips. is keith kogane truly keith kogane if hes not taking his change to the coinstar at the grocery store. dont take this from my man!!!!!!

[kikker-oma]

If sketch requests are still open, I wish to see Wind, Four, Hyrule, and Time playing Monopoly.

Four is a smart man who values his life😳

[the-architect-of-ferrari]

Carlos “The Main Character” Sainz

[bunabi]

Dragon age really was over before it started, huh

Real and it pisses me off badly.

Incredibly fun world-building, a story so engaging fans fight over it, talented devs who love the studio and actually understand what makes single-player RPGs special, a GOTY win under the belt, tons of supplementary media + merch sales, iconic characters, and still a troubled development every single time. I hate it so much, I hate those that contributed to it, I hate how common this all is.

But I'm proud of everyone who did what they could with what they had. Even the few folks who drive me insane out of my mind ballistic sicko-mode. Because at the end of the day: they fought for DA. They really did. Which is more than I wouldve done in their shoes. One (1) disparaging comment about a project I'm devoting 40+ fucking hours a week to and I would've crashed out big time.

[glassygaze]

nothing but pain and misery