#project noba24

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Spark the Electric Jester 3 (Project Noba24)

I guess third time's the charm. And what a charm it is!

I don't mean to talk about yakkocmn twice in 24 hours, but I feel I should mention him again here because he's the one who first told me about this game, in a video he made devoted solely to this game. I, a fool, played the first two games, having learned nothing from Baldur's Gate 3.

This game is Very Good at what it wants to be. Playing the first two games and watching this developer flex his creative muscles better with every installment was an unexpected treat, considering where he started and ending. This game almost* renders Spark the Electric Jester 2 obsolete, and for reasons I'll get into below it kinda actually does. But that's light gameplay spoilers, so it'll be in its own section. Regardless, this game pulled a trick on me, as well: it made me re-evaluate the vision of Spark 2.

I wasn't quite on-board with the combat system. I thought it was fine in the previous game and tedious in the first game, but with the tweaks put in place (and the little extra tutorials to get you on-boarded with what this game's going to be) it turned out to be an engaging system built into the platformer. In fact, while the two controls don't have a great deal of overlap, it turns out there's a lot more use for the platforming controls during combat than I would have expected: the dash and jump surprisingly kept me alive through to the (very fun!) final boss.

The story is also about what you'd expect from these games, but with some unexpected twists. In particular, the final level is a grueling marathon; most levels take 2-5 minutes to beat but this level takes about 30 minutes to get through, but the reward is a story reveal that made my jaw drop. I won't spoil exactly what happens but it's like settling in for a Punch and Judy show only to have your chair spun around and a therapist starts asking you uncomfortably-knowledgeable questions.

This game made me see the developer's vision. There's a clear understanding of both sets of mechanics that makes this game a delight to play and a challenge to master. Any Sonic fans would find themselves seeing what Sonic Adventure 2 is in our memories, and at times it feels like it's pulled from an alternate universe where Sega won the 3D game wars and this is the result. I cannot recommend this game less highly; it's a truly wonderful achievement, and deserves to be experienced.

Time played: 6.6 hours (beat the main game, not going for 100% completion)

Next game: Pizza Tower

Spoilers below.

*There is a post-game mode you can play, which I dabbled with but didn't get into, including a 100-floor arena (charmingly played in an endless fall, so the floors are negative numbers) and all the levels from Spark the Electric Jester 2, so if you like you can take this game's more-polished state and replay the original levels. At the game's price I consider it worth it.

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Citizen Sleeper (Project NoBa24)

I was first aware of this game from a review by yakkocmn, and I was further made aware of it when the game's creative lead, Gareth Damian Martin, played a TTRPG set in that world with the good folks at Quinn's Quest. So I thought "Well, these folks have fine tastes, might as well put it on the list." I am glad I did.

Citizen Sleeper is a game set in a world of grinding space capitalism, and you are a sleeper, a robot with the consciousness of a real person layered onto it, to be guided from a distance, but severed and cut away, left to suffer under the cruelest kind of planned obsolescence and eke out a living on the Eye, an old space station set to independence after the collapse of its founding corporation.

The gameplay consists of received a number of dice rolls per cycle (since days don't exist on the spinning station, you tell time by a rotation) that you spend at tasks, with higher dice rolls guaranteeing better results, but lower rolls being capable of giving you something for your trouble. You have to spend this on a variety of tasks and resources, from money to food to personal tasks to getting stabilizer, something designed to keep sleepers' bodies going. The balance of these tasks makes up the bulk of the gameplay, and you often have to choose between eating or getting paid.

It's also a game that's not afraid to let you fail. Thrice I failed to complete a Drive (this game's name for quests): first, when I was afraid of being suspicious and left my past buried; second, when I was so focused on work that I failed to help a welder and his daughter; and third, when I saw I had been screwed over and left to wallow in disappointment. If I hadn't managed those systems I get the feeling the game would've had no qualms about letting me die completely.

But while the early gameplay is tense and difficult, it eases up as you level up, to the point that I stopped struggling once I could add +1 to my die results on every skill and I stopped caring what those were. The third quarter, I would say, is the easiest, because as you get into the habits of staying alive and thriving you've built up a plethora of resources to get going. The extra patched-in missions do really put the kick back into the difficulty, however, and I will refrain from talking about them because they do have some of the best writing in the game, and also some of the worst typos.

I could talk about many things; the vibe of doing odd jobs and meeting interesting people; the worldbuilding, the utter crushing reality of living under capitalism; the characters, all of whom are more complicated than they at first appear, for better and for worse; and the sheer number of non-binary characters, including the main character, courtesy of its likewise non-binary developer. Hell, I could talk about how utterly hypnotic this game is: I sat down to play at 5:00 pm on Sunday and didn't stop playing until 11:00 pm when I needed to go to bed for work. If you're interested in playing this game, I recommend choosing a Friday or Saturday to just sit and absorb everything, lest your sleep schedule be fucked! The game nags at the back of your head when you're not playing it, or at least it did for me.

But I keep coming back to the idea of progress and ultimate success on the Eye: as you get better at things you learn to live and thrive in the constraints placed on you, and it feels so... I don't know. I feel relief at seeing a game that can imagine peeking out from those constraints, and it feels nice to manage your circumstances, and it also feels weird that a game about soul-crushing capitalism can be made easier by consistent hard work. I don't know how much that plays into the bootstrap myth, but it is strange. Some things in the early game happened that made me absolutely furious with how unfair they were, and less of that happened as the game continued. Is it because Sleeper stopped being someone easily taken advantage of? Is it because we had a reputation? I don't know. This, too, nagged at the back of my head.

The story feels complete, however. One resident's struggles to survive that turned into thriving that led into making positive changes. There's two endings you can get with the extra missions, and even though I went back and saw the one I didn't choose, I almost didn't want to, because it felt like one cohesive whole, and I knew if I started looking at alternate routes I would start seeing the holes. It's a beautiful game, a tragic game, a game about carrying on despite everything. Something I really needed right now, the kind of thing that doesn't hit in the moment, but sits in the back of your head, nagging at you to think about these things. I don't think I'll stop thinking about it for awhile.

Time played: 10.5 hours

Next game: YEAH! YOU WANT "THOSE GAMES," RIGHT? SO HERE YOU GO! NOW, LET'S SEE YOU CLEAR THEM!

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DNF: Pizza Tower (Project NoBa24)

When I started this project, I knew there would almost certainly be a game I wouldn't finish. Completion I would almost always skip over, but finishing? I thought I'd be able to do that. Alas.

Pizza Tower was released almost two years ago to almost-instantaneous acclaim, or at least it was nowhere on my radar before everyone was talking about it and also making thirst art of Peppino. I heard a lot of claims of Wario Land similarity thrown around, but as I've not played those games I can't say if the comparison is justified; I'm also not likely to check those out at this time.

Like Cuphead this game has a distinctive art style, though using simple high-contrast digital art rather than Fleischer-style cartoons. I was reminded fondly of my days editing sprites on Smackjeeves (before that site went away) and examining the color work was a fun nostalgia trip. But like Cuphead, Pizza Tower is willing to lock all the art behind a difficulty gate, a choice I find artistically commendable but frustrating in this specific context.

There's a lot to love about this game: the plot is absolutely simple (Peppino's restaurant needs money and so he ascends a magical tower to seek its fortune) so that you can focus on the gameplay and sprite work. Peppino is an astonishingly-dynamic and fleshed-out character for a guy who barely speaks, having poses and animations for many specific and varied contexts. He's an anxious mess, giving Luigi a run for his money as the most fearful Italian video game character, but also capable of locking in and getting things done, though no less fearfully than before. There's a sense he's hanging on by a thread but determined enough for that to be all he needs. And as for the gameplay, the moves you can do are incredibly varied, starting with jump and grab and from there to dash, climb, long jump, dive, rush, uppercut and, later, fire a shotgun. There are so many options for you to blitz your way through the levels and arrive at your goal.

And that's where my problems start. Pizza Tower is a different beast than something like Cuphead or Super Mario Bros. Wonder, both games I 100% completed, where you have much reduced controls in what you can do. Cuphead is just shooting, jumping and dashing, and Wonder reduces that to sprinting and jumping. There are further complexities in both, of course, but Pizza Tower starts from a complicated base and expands from there. I'm reminded of Pseudoregalia in a lot of ways, which also boasts a complicated moveset, but Pizza Tower is completely comfortable leaving you in the dark and having to train in the tutorial until you figure something out.

For indeed Pizza Tower is uncompromising in its design. The game is busy and brightly-colored, fast-paced and busy in a way that makes playing exhausting. I had finished the first four floors before I realized that I wasn't having fun playing them, which completely dispelled the illusion that the stress it was giving me was something I enjoyed. I also beat two of the three levels on the final floor, but only stopped at WAR! because I found it too stressful. From there I just watched a playthrough and considered myself content, for even if I had enjoyed the gameplay there was one thing I resolutely didn't enjoy.

I do not enjoy the boss battles in this game. The complicated control scheme is finicky and hard to use in the constrained space of the boss arenas, and the boss battles are memorable and unforgiving. They get more health than you, they can't be hurt except at key moments and they will recover their health for a second wind that annoys the hell out of me even in writing. I didn't enjoy any of the boss battles I beat, and when I looked up the final boss I decided it wasn't something I was going to be invested in beating.

I want to remind anyone reading this that the game is still fantastic. All the mechanics I talked about are definitely someone's cup of tea, and the game is rated Overwhelmingly Positive on Steam for a damned good reason. But someone is not everyone, and for every rule there's an exception. I wanted to like this game, and I tried my best to enjoy the experience, but at the end of the day I just have to understand it's not for me. Maybe I'll pick it up in the future, but not today.

Time played: 7.1 hours

Next game: Balatro

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Mouthwashing (Project NoBa24)

Look, I get it: when I got this game I should've checked the tags. Psychological Horror and Horror are right there on the front page. But still: Jesus fucking Christ.

The plot starts simple: a crew working for a space hauling company crashes and, due to desperation, opens their cargo to see if it's useful. They find millions of bottles of mouthwash. Things spiral from there.

The game has an excellent art style, decidedly retro (also tagged on the front page!) with blocky, geometric characters and layouts, that appears simple in coloring but actually hides a lot of technical wizardry unnder the hood. It's also not much of a game; there's a few puzzles and moments here and there that remind you you're using a keyboard or controller, but for the most part the story and gameplay are mostly segmented. I wouldn't say this is a drawback, necessarily, considering the tightly-paced story laid out before you. It's intriguing, dark and sticky, with an ending that feels cathartic and gross.

I was also dealing with food poisoning while I played this game, but due to a loosening in my stomach I can also say this game is pants-shittingly terrifying. Three times my stomach dropped out from under me, and I had to play a game whilst also wishing to be somewhere else. I'm not going back for achievements, I don't care that much.

I am not sure how to review this game; it's terrifying, horrible, and creepy. And when I say creepy, I mean the greater horrors are not the parts that scared me, but the undertones of the story, the little things in the environment that tell you what this place is like. The environmental storytelling surpasses that provided by Bethesda with their Fallout games, and they needed no skeletons to do so.

I can definitely see the quality in this game. The developers put their all into it, and kept track of details I wouldn't even think to look for. It's an astoundingly-strong work of art for the minimal space it takes up. On the other hand: I was unnerved the entire time, and deathly scared at the worst moments. If that sounds like fun to you, have a blast! I'm just gonna take some antacids.

Time played: 4.1 hours

Next game: Spark the Electric Jester 3

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DNF: Ghost of a Tale (Project NoBa24)

Set in a world where rats rule and the other species have to get by, a wandering minstrel (not that kind) named Tilo awakens in the cell of the rat king and must find his way out to reunite with his wife.

I have a soft spot for worldbuilding in the style of Redwall but especially Mouse Guard, and this game has no less of it. You're constantly aware of how small you are, with rats towering over you and even bigger creatures on the horizon. It's an intoxicating world to live in, and one I could spend hours on were it not for one tiny character flaw.

I find I don't really have the patience for stealth games in the style of Thief. If I had bothered to look at the game genres I would have been aware of what I would've just said "not for me" and moved on. I don't think I'll even leave a Steam review for this one, so short is my playtime with it.

I can't fault the game or its story, because I won't get that far into it. If you like stealth games, give it a play through. If you like little mice getting into big adventures, keep your head down and save when you're hidden.

Time played: 33 minutes

Next game: Psychonauts 2

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DNF: Hi-Fi RUSH (Project NoBa24)

Every time I try a rhythm-action game, I think "Perhaps this will be the one" and every time I stop playing the game and concede "Perhaps not".

In a world... where robotics and humanity are crossing over, a young wannabe rockstar named Chai goes to get one of his arms replaced with a robotic version, but his music player getting mixed in with his body results in him gaining beat-based superpowers, the company hunting him down as a defect, and a corporate conspiracy that is being slowly uncovered. But it's not the kind of game to take any of that too seriously, and just focuses on the fun.

I've never quite seen a game so purpose-built to introduce and guide new players into the rhythm gameplay. The world around Chai will fluctuate, bounce or move to the beat of the music, he has a little robot cat sphere companion who flashes to the beat, and even Chai will keep time, snapping his fingers when standing still or stomping his feet when moving. And the music are all excellent choices and never overstay their welcome, at least for the two levels I played.

I really wanted to like this game. I didn't play it for very long but the process of dodging, attacking and laying down combos on-beat is addicting, and I thought about it when I wasn't playing. If ever there were a game that got me to love this genre of game it would be Hi-Fi RUSH, and yet...

At the end of the day, I just can't jive with it. This might explain why I'm not keen on Dark Souls either, but keeping time with the music takes me out of the game and reminds me I'm playing a game in a way that God of War (2018) and similar games don't. And it's difficult because I like this world, I like these characters, and even if the main character Chai is very stupid and annoying at times, I still want to follow him on this journey. But no matter the accessibility settings I turned on to make things easier, I just couldn't grok enjoyment of this game.

It's undoubtedly a good game, and it's a damned shame it led to the (albeit temporary) shuttering of its studio because a lot of hard work was put into it. I can see why people still talk about it, and I wish I could enjoy it as they do.

Time played: 92 minutes

Next game: Ghost of a Tale

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DNF: Void Stranger (Project NoBa24)

I don't get it.

The disconnect between art and art enjoyer is something that always has a chance to ruin the experience for the consumer. I'm usually okay with this; Pizza Tower and DREDGE are quality, polished experiences, and the fact I didn't enjoy them doesn't deny them their ability to be a damned good gaming experience. They did their level best to bring me into the game, and I couldn't do it.

I can't say the same thing is happening here with Void Stranger; the game is dense and unforgiving, unwelcoming to newcomers. Technically it's a sokoban-style puzzle game, and the fact that it has the appearance of a Game Boy game doesn't belie the sinister atmosphere it can create.

For all I don't like this game, one thing I will confirm from every other review is that going in blind is the go-to. I'm going to be cagey with the details of this review, both because I haven't beaten the game and the knowledge I've acquired came from extra-game resources. So that's no getting into the story, and no providing details about the themes, although I will be posting resources that delve into some of it. There will be spoilers down there. You've been warned.

This game is a story of conflicting design philosophies. It's a puzzle game that requires a level of dedication and perfection not usually seen in such trial-and-error experiences. It's supposedly dark, brutal and unforgiving, but also there's a bunch of big tiddy anime characters with designs straight out of Fairy Tail or some similar shounen series, and the silliness between them becomes difficult to ignore. The lore is dense and hidden away, worse than even than Dark Souls, because even if you don't find and read all the item descriptions, you can still enjoy the game, whereas the hidden lore here is the main fucking plot.

I could go on. I didn't enjoy playing this and I don't want to revisit it. And yet...

...I cannot help but respect what this game is trying to do. The void as a central thesis and core mechanic is grating and the opposite of fun, and that's the fucking point. More than Undertale, even, this game is about determination and sticktoitiveness for the player, especially. I hated every second of it, I understood why it was happening, and anything I wanted that would have made the experience better would have undermined why it was designed this way in the first place.

It's a weird little game, and I can see why so many people devote so much time and energy to talking and thinking about it. I'm happy for them, truly I am! But I don't want to play this fucking game again.

Time played: 5.1 hours

Next game: Hi-Fi RUSH

...still here, are you? Alright, let's get into the lore.

This video goes into detail about the bad ending you will almost certainly get by playing this game. I watched it when I was struggling to continue playing, and while I don't deny it's a fascinating design choice, it wasn't totally persuasive to my continued experience.

This video laid out the entire story of Void Stranger (which is told out-of-order) chronologically, though even that may not help, considering some of the implications of the lore.

This link is to the Reddit page, where someone has kindly laid out all the solutions to all the puzzles (in multiple variations!) so that you can experience the game for yourself without the heartache that comes from trying and failing.

Finally, this may backfire if I don't enjoy it, but I'm planning on watching this playthrough to see the little extra details that weren't covered in the lore video above. At 3.5 hours I think that'll be enough to cover just about everything.

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DNF: YEAH! YOU WANT "THOSE GAMES," RIGHT? SO HERE YOU GO! NOW, LET'S SEE YOU CLEAR THEM! (Project NoBa24)

YEAH! YOU WANT "THOSE GAMES," RIGHT? SO HERE YOU GO! NOW, LET'S SEE YOU CLEAR THEM! is a game with clear intent. Taking on the shitty mobile game advertisements that depict gameplay that probably won't exist, and replicating it for Steam and PC games. Anything that YEAH! YOU WANT "THOSE GAMES," RIGHT? SO HERE YOU GO! NOW, LET'S SEE YOU CLEAR THEM! does to enact this vision will, therefore, be slightly resistant to criticisms I make, because the point of it is parody.

YEAH! YOU WANT "THOSE GAMES," RIGHT? SO HERE YOU GO! NOW, LET'S SEE YOU CLEAR THEM! runs you through five game modes with levels of increasing difficulty, and your cumulative score unlocks harder levels, meaning you either need to merely beat many levels or pass a few levels proficiently. I have to give props to MONKEYCRAFT for their dedication to making YEAH! YOU WANT "THOSE GAMES," RIGHT? SO HERE YOU GO! NOW, LET'S SEE YOU CLEAR THEM! replicate those games so proficiently, up to and including the hostile, targeted additions like timers, star ratings and very annoying music. I actually turned off the music and sound effects because I found them aggravating; this isn't like Balatro where the sound design is great but you can mute it for listening to podcasts, YEAH! YOU WANT "THOSE GAMES," RIGHT? SO HERE YOU GO! NOW, LET'S SEE YOU CLEAR THEM! almost requires that you mute it to get through.

Indeed, the entire ethos of copying the ads make you realize how shitty those kinds of ad games are, how they use scummy tactics to make you want to play more, rather than being a solid game. But therein lies the problem: if you ironically shit yourself, you have still shat yourself. Games don't necessarily have to be fun, and I will stand by that belief even as I say that this game would've been better with some touches to make it more fun.

The music is the main thing, but there are other ways to improve the experience. Remove the time limits and just let this be a puzzle game, that's an easy one. More complicated is an issue I found pervasive: there's no replay button after you beat a level. If a game insists you get a perfect score, then a replay button should be readily accessible. You have to click through two menus to jump back into a level if you didn't get a perfect score, which means beating a level is a game of whether or not you trust that you'll end up passing with 3 stars.

If you're curious about the best version of the ads that YEAH! YOU WANT "THOSE GAMES," RIGHT? SO HERE YOU GO! NOW, LET'S SEE YOU CLEAR THEM! lampoons, I think this is a fun diversion to demonstrate why that's a lost cause. But if you're just trying to have fun in your downtime, I don't recommend playing YEAH! YOU WANT "THOSE GAMES," RIGHT? SO HERE YOU GO! NOW, LET'S SEE YOU CLEAR THEM! at all.

Time played: 2.2 hours

Next game: DREDGE

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Balatro (Project NoBa24)

I'm not going to be done with this game any time soon, but I'm writing this review because it's gripping me by the throat and forcing me to watch the big number go up.

I'm not the first to describe this poker roguelike, using jokers to modify how many points you get atop other cards. It's fiendishly well-designed, giving just enough for you to overextend into failure, and the visuals and music combine so that you will happily watch time fly by just to reach for that next round.

This is not a game, it's a trap, a gilded cage of diamonds to store your heart while your productivity is buried with a spade. You'll have fun doing it, I expect; won't you join the club?

Time (for now): 5.5 hours

The next game is ostensibly Citizen Sleeper but we'll see how soon I get to that!

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Children of the Sun (Project NoBa24)

This feels almost like a spiritual antithesis of a previous game, En Garde! Whereas that was focused solely on a swashbuckling sword experience, this one is focused on psychic gun combat. And where En Garde! is charming and lighthearted even in the most dramatic moments, Children of the Sun is decidedly punk and grimy in its aesthetic.

After a cult tracks down and kills a former member, his daughter, one of the cult's successes when it came to awakening psychic powers, will track them down and kill them all with a single bullet at a time. And oh, how glorious this is!

The game feels chiefly like a puzzle, where your implement is a single bullet that must criss-cross the entire level and take out each target. In a way, this game feels a lot like Superhot, but from a colder, more analytical framework. You're not a trapped animal, you are the hunter, and these cultists are nothing more than a problem to solve.

I would also like to praise this game's aesthetics, both visually and musically. Cutscenes are in rough, stylized comic-book-style panels that look like the feeling of getting dirt under your fingernails in all the best ways, and during the levels the game changes colors so there's only your targets and the obstacles in the way. It's such a powerful statement to be able o make something like this - something explicitly designed to facilitate gameplay - into a core design flourish.

And if I may make a tangent here, but I must speak to the gameplay. It is buttery smooth, somehow making it so you can contain all of your controls to a mouse, without any keyboard (I would not recommend using a controller on this one; it's a high-precision game and a controller is both slow and imprecise) inputs to get confused by. This is why I made a favorable comparison to En Garde!: both games are trying to get as little between you and the events on-screen as possible so that you focus almost entirely on the gameplay.

But to return to aesthetics: the music! My God, the music! I'm not yakkocmn (who may have recommended it to me via video; I'm not certain where I discovered this game or why it was on my wishlist) and I suck at dissecting it, but the music is distinctly it's own thing, written by Aiden Baker whose genre is defined on his website as "ambient, experimental and slowcore". All I know is the electric guitars were staggeringly overpowering, where I can respect what the game is doing without necessarily liking it myself.

But it's not all perfect. In particular I take issue with some levels. In particular, these is the minigame maze level and the car level. For spoilers' sake I won't get too into the details, but for the former it comes at a weird moment and doesn't really add anything to the story that I could tell, and for the latter it required such finicky, precise shooting that I found it harder than the final level, which introduced a mechanic!

I certainly enjoyed my experience with this game, all the same. It lays out what it's about at the beginning, tells you how to go about doing cool shit and then lets you do cool shit. It's got a rough exterior that demonstrates its unwillingness to compromise or go half-baked; the developers stuck to their guns (ha) and delivered a short, intense story that gets the drop on you. I would recommend this game to puzzle gamers (there's no combat except in endless mode Nightmare Paralysis, unlocked after beating the game) and people who like to set high scores. Alas, I am not great at this game so I was consistently in place #4000 or greater, but the game has a scoring system that I can see lighting a fire in the heart of anyone who likes to see the number go up.

As for me? Once is enough. I don't think I'll play this game but it's such a singular experience that I want to introduce all my friends to it. And you should too, dammit!

Time spent: 3.8 hours

Next game: Mouthwashing. I've heard things.

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Aero GPX (Project NoBa24)

I haven't played any F-Zero games, before you ask, but this racing game is very good*.

I was alerted to its existence by noted F-Zero fan and Normal Adult Man Luke Westaway, who played it on his YouTube channel. I was interested, so I put it on the list. It's in Early Access right now, so only about fifteen of the planned thirty characters are accessible or even playable, but the content available is quite extensive. Notably multiplayer isn't available yet, but has a planned release.

It's a lot of fun. The mechanics are engaging and fast-paced, the controls responsive yet finicky, a battle against the environment, your own machine and the other racers that goes by in a flash. It's helped by the fact that races are around three minutes long, so you can run a race a dozen times before an hour has passed.

It's also not newbie-friendly. I'm not familiar with all the mechanics of F-Zero even if I have seen it played a few times, and their implementation here is only half-explained in the tutorial. I have no grasp of how combat works and I don't understand sliding half the time.

But for all that the game is difficult, it's the kind of difficulty where I want to jump back in even still to improve my times, figure things out and come out ahead. If the game were fully-released I suspect this review would have taken much longer to come out, but as it stands I'm happy with what I got.

If you like racing games, give this one a try. Even if you don't I'd recommend it, just for the novelty of how racing games could work.

And the music...! God, don't get me started on the music. It feels like an expansion on the themes from Sonic Adventure 2 in all the best ways.

Time (on record): 7.5 hours.

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En Garde! (Project NoBa24)

This is a tough one for me.

En Garde!, if you can't tell by the artwork and the title, is a game that's all about that swashbuckling lifestyle. It's the closest thing I can imagine to being Zorro, swinging around a city waving your sword and flashing a grin like the scoundrel you are. It's a game that doesn't take itself too seriously. There are four principle characters, three with names, and one is called the Count-Duke (a title which does actually exist in Spanish history, surprisingly enough) and he is el villano malo. You must discover what he's up to and defeat him!... or something to that effect. The story isn't important as much as the gameplay.

And what gameplay! The swords are swishing, the swashes are buckling, the gays are gaying and the game is almost laser-focused on giving you the Zorro experience.

It also ramps up the difficulty tremendously in the last quarter of the game.

I can take a hard game, on occasion. I've beaten Cuphead on Expert difficulty, the main game and the DLC. I've beaten Hollow Knight and Jedi Survivor if I may give more of my gaming cred, but I'm variable when it comes to difficulty. If a game gives me something really interesting in exchange for difficulty, I can take it. Otherwise, not so much.

This game's very focused on the central experience, and while the atmosphere of the game doesn't take itself seriously the mechanics certainly do. It gives you everything you need to succeed in a fight where you're outnumbered, but that focus can be to its detriment. I almost wish the game was longer, not because I want more of it (I'm on the fence for that) but because a longer game could raise the difficulty more gradually, more carefully. That's a lot to ask of any studio, especially for one as small as this one, so we must deal with the game as it exists.

And for that: I was shocked by the difficulty spike by the end of the game. The first three levels were fun, the last one being the first that gets tough, but beatable casually. It's only for the final level that it ramps up so considerably that I was struck by Gamer Rage™ while attempting the bosses again and again. The second boss in the last level, in particular, really got to me.

But I did manage to beat it, eventually. And when it was done, I didn't have the relief and exaltation that most gamers feel in those moments, I just felt a cold finality. I was so annoyed by the difficulty spike that I almost uninstalled the game right then and there, wrote this review and have done with it.

I wanted to keep playing, however, to see Arena mode. For atop the story mode with its three difficulties (I played on medium; I don't want to see this game on hard!) there's a gauntlet where you have to fight a number of rounds (3, 4, 5 and 6 for each respective raise in difficulty) without dying and then defeat a boss at the end. I was able to clear the first three with the skills I had with this game, but the last proved too difficult for me. I came and wrote this review right here, and I'm trying not to uninstall the game in frustration and judge it on its own merits.

At the end of the day: know what you're getting into. I had no idea the silly Zorro-esque game would become such a THING to beat. That expectation drove me to enjoy the game a fair bit less.

Undeniably, the game is good, well-crafted and loved. It's charming and colorful and fun, and we need more like it. But it's also unpolished and unapologetic, and it's likely to get under your skin like a well-placed barb. You have to be in the right mood for it, and as for me, it left me stressed and unnerved, and I had dreams about that laughing pirate woman. If this strikes your fancy, I can't imagine you won't come away having had a great time.

Total play time: 4.8 hours.

[readingtoinfinity]

Viewfinder (Project NoBa24)

I love me a good, weird puzzle game. Ever since I played Portal and it blew my tits clean off I've searched out that mind-bending experience. I've played quite a few games that got close, but didn't quite scratch that itch, even if they were good or even great. And I'm pleased to announce that Viewfinder, also, gets close.

The story goes: you are working on a project to prevent climatological catastrophe. As part of this project, you start digging through an old virtual reality a number of scientists made for a weather-controlling machine, and start digging around to see if you can make heads or tails of what they were working on.

I kinda wish it didn't have a story and focused mostly on the puzzles. What I got was fun and fine, but even the most challenging levels didn't ultimately have a lot to offer me. There's a ton of concepts used throughout on their own, but none of them were combined into those hair-pulling, crazy brain-teasers that make finding a solution satisfying.

The story, also, didn't quite fit the mechanics of the game. I'm almost certain they came up with the mechanics first and then wrote a story. There's a brief message about affecting reality being harder than the virtual reality, but it feels half-assed. I dunno, I didn't really care and wasn't invested.

Do I recommend it? Sure. It's a fun puzzle game with a cute cat. But I don't think I'll be revisiting in the future.

Total play time: 5.3 hours.

[readingtoinfinity]

Project NoBa24 (November Backlog 2024)

The concept of a backlog fascinates me. I grew up rather poor and couldn't afford to get a game I wouldn't play all the way through, so I made sure to carefully check ratings before I bought something.

This carefulness has followed me into adulthood, where I find it difficult to buy a game without playing it. I have three games I haven't sorted in my Steam library, two of them I've already played and one I bought for less than $5; the rest have all been played and opinions formed.

But watching Daryl Talks Games inspires me to actually finish things. Not under a time crunch, of course, but to let myself try things out and pass them by if I'm not feeling them.

So: spurred on by having a little money saved up, the Steam sale and getting a gift card, I've made a purchase of 20 games. Short, long, cheap, expensive (the most expensive is $30, don't set your hopes too high) good or my taste, I'm going to try to play all of them. It won't be fast, but I hope to eventually get a take on all 20 as time goes by, especially if a hidden gem takes the cake.

I'm calling it "Project NoBa24", which seems to be a unique string of characters according to Google: November Backlog '24. I'll be writing a brief (maybe not-so-brief?) review here once I've decided to stop or beaten this game. A wide range of genres and YouTubers have influenced the decision, so I'll give some credit to them as well.

Up first: Viewfinder, a recommendation from Second Wind and Yahtzee and the newly-independent Frost. Looks to be my kind of puzzle game.

[readingtoinfinity]

DNF: DREDGE (Project NoBa24)

I played this game for a bit awhile ago, and then put off playing anything more until today. I was sitting down, minding my business, catching fish and selling them, and then it hit me: "Wait... I don't like fishing!"

Yeah. That's going to be the pettiest reason I don't finish a game on this list, and the time I spent avoiding playing it could've given me a clue. Nothing about the game's execution specifically drove me away; the art style is stylistically creepy, the gameplay is as streamlined for fishing as it can be, and the mechanics gradually unfold in a way that feels progressive and interesting to complete.

The horror genre might have something to do with me deciding to put it away for now; it's not my preferred genre, for sure, and I suspect I would enjoy this game less as I got into the horror elements. But to get to that point I would have to enjoy the moment-by-moment aspects of this game, and I just won't.

I can highly recommend this game to anyone who does like horror, or even fishing mini-games! There's something inherently satisfying about landing a catch and arranging your boat so that you can haul in as big a catch as possible. But if I played the game I would be playing it for what it isn't rather than what it is, and there's no reason to have another young witch in the Alps looking for a lost cat.

Time played: 38 minutes

Next game: Void Stranger