#random game roundup

[legy]

random game roundup

yeah baby lets go i hate posting things at a time people will see them

Meeting in the Flesh - PWYW

actually im obsessed with this one. holy shit. it fucking rules. its free and i think you should play it

this is a self-described "cozy horror-based dating sim" and i personally didnt think it was like. scary horror. but i absolutely loved it.

the premise is that you are vil, a salt courier in a city that um only eats salt and things mixed with salt? and the eclipse is approaching, a time of great significance in local culture.

i played the full yiestol route which took about 45 minutes. the art is gorgeous, and the writing was compelling enough that i kept playing past the usual 15 minutes. if i have a complaint its that the music was much more "miss" than "hit". you should play this one!!!!!

Flying Frags - World Tour - PWYW

this is. unreal. its a very visually interesting looking fps that is hampered by having some of the least responsive controls ive ever experienced in my life. i have no idea what is going on here lol. it would take two solid seconds of mashing the shoot button (both ctrl and left mouse button) before my gun owuld start firing. i wish i recorded myself playing this thing bc all i could say the entire time was "what in the goddamn"

Eternia: Pet Whisperer - $3

Included in Indie bundle for Palestinian Aid

this is a visual novel about going to a shelter to adopt a pet but all the animals at the shelter can talk. found the loving realistic paintings of the animals very funny when contrasted by the more typical visual novel sprite of the protagonist. also that you have one interaction per day implying you spend like a month at this shelter where the inhabitants kind of hate you lol

Six Match - $2.50

Included in Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality

i forgot to take a screenshot lmao

this is cute! six match is a match 3 puzzle game where you control a little guy who shuffles around the board. you have to make a match within six moves or you lose. it's pretty difficult (im bad at match three...) and kept my attention well the entire time.

i think generally the presentation is extremely good and the sound effects are satisfying but it does feel weird to me that there is zero music at all. overall this is very charming and worth a few minutes at least

Occupy White Walls - Free!

this is "an" "mmo" so kind of hard to get a taste of in only 15 minutes but by god did i try

occupy white walls is an art gallery sandbox. you have your own space to build a place to display art. i spent most of my time running around various recommended player spaces but it looks like it's very robust and interesting to build in

also this runs like ass in "high complexity" spaces despite the fact that it was not really taxing my hardware at any point. idk what was going on with that. this is completely free and on steam so if you want to go wander around some online art projects you could certainly do worse

[legy]

random game roundup

Small Town Emo (demo)

Included in Queer Games Bundle 2023

this is actually a homebrew gameboy game. a first in all the probably over a hundred games ive played with this method??

insanely charming, i was really caught off guard when my timer went off. you are ken and you have a crush on your neighbor fergus and also its 2007 and you have to get ready to go to a halloween party together. worth playing for sure imo

Dogfight 1942 - $9.99

(game does not let me take screenshots for some reason)

where the actual fuck did i get this from? apparently i bought it in 2014??

anyway this is pretty fun. it's a very arcadey dogfighting flying game that is very unfortunately story-heavy and set in wwii with no qualms with the. well. the content that you would expect with it being set during wwii.

Jurassic World Evolution - $44.99

no picture for this one because i had to actively fight for five minutes to get it to boot even once, i closed the game before remembering to take a screenshot and now i cant get it to load past the developer splash screens lol. awesome. glad i got this one for free

15 minutes is really really really not long enough to evaluate jurassic world evolution. i tried the campaign which was very slow to start. i LOVE tycoon games <- guy with 80000 hours in zootycoon and i think the idle game management aspects are a good addition to the mix. i do think its really funny how dr malcolm shows up and is like "hey this idea is fucking stupid and you should not be doing it" and every other talking head is like no lets go jurassic world rules :)

i might revisit this if the game will ever load again for me lmao. what the fuck is going on with that

Making Friends - $5

Included in Queer Games Bundle 2022

i did one playthrough of this, definitely seems like it intends you to do multiple runs to get a true ending but that ended up being like exactly 16 minutes lol

art style is really cute, i think the design of the titular made friend is absolutely fucking adorable. i think the mechanic of picking emotions vs the typical dialogue choices in a visual novel is a clever way of handling things and is also a good way of tying in the game's general themes of being at that point in adolescence where you're still figuring out emotional regulation etc. this isnt like outstanding but it is pretty cute

Super Slime Arena - $14.99

Included in Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality

one of the devs of this game let me sleep on their dining room floor for two weeks in 2018. i cant actually play this because its multiplayer only but it came up in my shuffle and i wanted to give them a shoutout anyway

[legy]

epic battle fantasy 4 addendum

i regret to inform you the flash game from 2014 has a character who shows up wearing definitely-not-an-SS-uniform

[legy]

random game roundup 1

The Other Side

included in: Indie Bundle for Abortion Funds but also it’s pwyw with no minimum

this is a game where you are trapped in a room and need to follow instructions on the terminal to drill through the walls and escape. it is very short (i completed it in about 14 minutes). this game excels massively in atmosphere in art direction. i found that interacting with objects was not extremely clear (as in it was hard for me to figure out where exactly it wanted me to be clicking). really enjoyed having to diegetically press the keys on the keyboard to interact with the terminal.

overall would recommend if you want a quick horror experience, especially for the asking price of “free”

My Little Pony: Super Ethical Shipping Climax!

included in: Indie bundle for Palestinian Aid, also it’s free

i am not the target audience for this game.

Naughty Elves - Christmas puzzle game

included in: Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality, Indie bundle for Palestinian Aid

not porn :/

fairly straightforward puzzle game. santa’s elves stole all the presents so you need to throw snowballs at them through the window until they fall over. i think it’s really funny but not very well communicated that you are stuck outdoors (presumably can only enter houses through the chimney)

i don’t think you should play this

Attention Heroes!

included in: Indie bundle for Palestinian Aid & it’s pwyw with no minimum

required minimum of two players so unfortunately i will have to skip. the description is really funny tho i really want to find out what self-centered gameplay means

Epic Battle Fantasy 4

included in: Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality

honest to god fucking flash game. fantastic. this is a jrpg which are typically very hard to get an impression of in such a short time period but fortunately this one lets you loose basically instantly. i can tell theres insane depth to this already. the humor is really dated (its from 2014 so whatever) but the art style is generally very cute. music is hot ass tho. i am actually probably going to come back to this one after i’m done with this post

Discovering Colors - Animals

included in: Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality

Bara Blackjack

included in: Queer Games Bundle 2022

this orc did not come dressed for strip poker.

it’s literally exactly what it looks like. which is awesome. main complaint is that his dialogue would show up and vanish so fast i had no idea what he said most of the time. he really wanted me to see his penis though

he’s circumcised btw

Hungry Frog

included in: Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality, but it’s also free

no shit this is frog fractions but sincere

1977: Radio Aut

included in: Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality + it’s free

i didnt realize peppino was a real name i thought pizza tower made it up

this was really cool tho its a short biography on the life of a communist who was killed by the sicillian mafia for standing up against them.

This Call May Be Recorded

included in: Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality + it’s free

 what if telemarketing had undertale combat

i kinda didnt like this at all tbh. it didnt feel like it was trying to make a point. like not even the point of expressing frustration at working at a call center. the people you call are all really annoying caricatures and you are just a poor guy following an incoherent script. this really needs more time in the oven

[legy]

i have a habit of buying game bundles (esp those itch mega-bundles) and sporadically i like to set a 15-minute timer, pick a random game (using playnite which has a select random game function, thank god) and then write a short review. ive been posting these all on twitter up to this point but i think i am going to migrate to tumblr because i constantly run up against the character limit

i love doing this though. pretty often i’ll look up a game i’ve played and i may have been the only person to ever post about it online. the fundraiser bundles are an awesome boon for visibility but only for the guys that filter up to the top. i love student projects and i love single person works of passion and i love ugly ass games that hundreds of people have scrolled past. and also i just bought a bundle of 300 gay porn vns and i think that’s going to really sprinkle in some spice

[legy]

random game roundup

Robotex

Steam - $9.99

it looks like i bought this for 14 cents, i think when i was getting really into trading card flipping given the 2 hour playtime

anyway i. think i respect this games committment to have as little informative text whatsoever. does not mean i had any desire to stick with or learn it.

robotex is. i think. an auto scrolling platformer. you gain speed so long as you dont hit an obstacle and its very unclear which obstacles just stop you and which just kill you. this is not very fun and its kind of ugly to look at also

Hover-Pixel 384

Itch - $3.84. included in Indie Bundle for Abortion Funds

pretty neat! i can't complain. it's navigating a randomly generated maze. i really liked that all the menu options including picking the seed for the map are all handled diegetically and the game definitely kept my attention the entire time. i really enjoyed how the maze changes in appearance as you descend and the music is pretty solid too.

Quible Sphere

Itch - $1.99. Included in Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality.

i feel like i might be the most qualified person to state that the bulk of itch is platformer sludge and not vn sludge or whatever the reputation is

that said this one is pretty decent and is the sort of platformer that feels like i'm navigating a crowded parking lot. controls very well and ramps up in difficulty well. if this is your genre (and i have to reiterate i don't like platformers lol) this is worth checking out

[legy]

random game roundup

yuuuuuuuup

Escape from Life Inc

Itch - $6.99. included in Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality.

you ever play a game that has nothing to do with undertale but you can still smell it. thats escape from life inc

this is a lost vikings type of platformer where you control three animals with different skills to complete puzzles and move on. the movement is kinda sluggish and i really liked that it kind of just compromised on its premise frame 1 by giving the fish character legs. this is fine. perfectly servicable. if you like puzzle platformers try this

ZZZZZZ

Itch - $1. Included in Indie Bundle for Abortion Funds.

this is sludge. VVVVVV clone. completed in under 90 seconds. idk why swapping gravity is two different buttons. not recommended

Shrug Island - The Meeting

Itch - $9.99. included in Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality.

one of those art game point and clicks. you switch between two characters with different abilities to change the landscape and themselves in a way to keep traversing. i think i got stuck pretty early but from what i can tell this is a very short game so nbd. fun to look at, fun to poke at stuff. i think the vision mechanic that li has is really frustrating to deal with for any period of time because its just pixel hunting

it also sounds like it was a kickstarter episodic adventure game that dissipated into the ether. i love watching an iceberg pass by me peacefully

[legy]

random game roundup

thing i do sporadically where i hit random in my 4k game playnite library and whatever happens happens

The First Tree

Steam - $9.99. looks like it was free on epic games in april 2021 but i personally seem to have gotten this from the yogscast jingle jam 2021

man i fuckin dunno. i feel like im being mean to this game for no reason. but it really isnt working for me

journey did a whole hell of a job on the indie game scene and one of the problems with making a journey-like is that you are not going to survive the comparisons. the first tree doesn't. theres a lot of very small things going on in this game that add up to a frustrating experience and one really big one:

too bad i cant sit with the beautiful and contemplative experience because i have A GUY IN MY FUCKING EAR THE WHOLE TIME TELLING ME WHAT EVERYTHING MEANS!!!!!!!! can i have some subtlety PLEASE. cannot express enough how much better i might have enjoyed this game if i just had it on mute and i dont hear 250 words about how this toy boat i just dug up symbolizes how he was bullied by his classmates for his father being a woodworker and i could just. you know. use my brain cells to think about how this dreamlike environment may mean in the greater narrative. i just felt fucking talked down to lmao and the floaty ass controls and sluggish camera did not make me want to stick around for any longer

Yurivania 1: Uhaul of the Night

Itch - free

yup its castlevania but all the monsters are gay trans women and alarune and stheno are dating. unfortunately im not big on platformers to begin with and this one was unusually slidey and made a lot of the puzzles really unfun

also the music is BAD

MEDALISM Retaliation

Itch - PWYW

scratch what i said about yurivania this is actually one of the worst video game soundtracks ive ever heard

this game is DENSE. it (at least presents itself to) has an extremely intricate combat and progression system that i am not even going to begin to pretend that i understood lol. that said it is really slow paced (combat animations are all 6-8 seconds and encounters have a dozen or more enemies) so it was a little tough to keep my attention the whole time. i really like the character designs tho. i think this one is worth noting as a weird curiosity to check out especially for that asking price of free