Necrobarista
Full review (including score): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vnutf8U-ZaE
Summarized review below!
A visual novel with almost Persona-style graphics? Sign me right up for that. I’ve been playing through a lot of visual novels lately with the same 2D art, so it’s about time for a change of pace.
Note: Had to trim review to fit character limit, check video for full version!
Pros:
- Really cool visual direction. Necrobarista may not have the best graphics, but it makes up for this with some of the best visual direction I have ever seen in a visual novel. By visual direction, I’m referring to the lighting, camera angles, framing, and everything else that goes into presenting the graphics to the player. It is some very cool stuff here, with the camera constantly shifting between characters, going wide for certain lines to add emphasis, and even omitting dialogue entirely and just showing little snippets of animation to better illustrate certain scenes. It’s like a movie in a way and was definitely a nice change of pace compared to the usual flat backgrounds with 2D sprites popular in the medium.
– Real player with 11.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best Beautiful Indie Games.
I waited three years for this game and I don’t regret a thing.
I have some qualms with the “Memories” system- it’s somewhat arbitrary, and some of the short stories have stronger narrative impact if you read them earlier in the scenario rather than later (which will more likely be the point where you’ll get to read them)- and some characters that are more-or-less prominent in the trailers don’t actually stay their welcome long at all, but aside from that this was one of my favorite visual novels to read and experience of all time, and I had high expectations just from teaser trailers. (EDIT: Most of this has been recently addressed. More details at the end of the review.)
– Real player with 9.7 hrs in game
Haunt the House: Terrortown
–-{Graphics}—
☐ You forget what reality is
☑ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ Paint.exe
—{Gameplay}—
☐ Addictive like heroin
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ It‘s just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Starring at walls is better
☐ Just don‘t
—{Audio}—
☐ Eargasm
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ Earrape
—{Audience}—
☑ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☑ Average Solitare Players
—{PC Requirements}—
☑ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☐ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boiiiiii
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer
– Real player with 19.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best Beautiful Indie Games.
Haunt the House: Terrortown is a charming side-scrolling game, in which you play as a mischievous little ghost. When the night falls, you float from your home in an old clocktower and start wandering around the town, scaring people to death. You can possess objects and interact with them, making townfolks running away terrified.
The game has colorful and cartoony graphics that really stand out. Each playable ghost has its own style and signature howling.
The soundtrack is fitting and catchy, I really love the North Pole theme.
– Real player with 10.4 hrs in game
Ginkgo
Alright, so I’ve played this game a fair bit, especially since I’ve found out that you could speedrun it (personal best is 3:12, but record is 3:08, held by my friend).
Summary: For a demo, it’s really solid. If you play the game properly, it should work as intended and you’ll have a smooth gameplay experience. There’s some bugs here and there that would cause your game to crash, but it’s few and far between.
Story: 8/10
The premise is really interesting. In my playthrough, I located all secret rooms and read all the dialogue possible for the full experience. The only reason it isn’t any higher was I definitely wished there was more, but it is just a demo.
– Real player with 3.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Beautiful Puzzle Games.
Curator page here-- [url] DaRevieweD #36[/url] -- [i]New review every Sunday[/i]
Ginkgo is a game made by a group of talented students under the University of Southern California (USC) Games Program! Now I’ve yet to review anything made by anyone still in school before- I guess technically everyone was a student at some point in their lives. Anyways, it’s just such a weird feeling for me, but good! Though it’s labelled an early access title, I’d say it’s more accurate to be termed as a demo! I really hope this project does come to fruition~ However, for now how does this game do!? Oh the SHEAR anticipation! XD
– Real player with 1.1 hrs in game
Ghost in the pool
For a short horror VN, the game was pretty decent. I did enjoy reading the story, which was pretty straight forward and to the point for the most part. There were some bits that I was a bit confused by even though I could probably connect the dots (
! specifically talking about the cat…). There are three different endings, which I do like the variety. I also do like the route map and that different choices did slightly change a few things (though the endings themselves do not change). The graphics were great and I loved the sounds.
– Real player with 7.5 hrs in game
Curator page here-- [url] DaRevieweD #61 [/url] -- [i]New review every Sunday[/i]
CASCHA games is a solo developer from China working on two visual novels; Ghost in The Pool (GiTP) and in-development Sunset Paradise. GiTP is a joint effort with author and comic illustrator JOEY, to bring the latter’s horror works to life in a new medium. Due to a language barrier, sadly I cannot (though I’m Chinese) read nor check out the comics. However, I was hooked into this game because the title reminded me of a widely debated mystery in my hometown.
– Real player with 4.9 hrs in game
Haunted Hotel: Lost Time Collector’s Edition
love the game just thought it was too short
– Real player with 5.5 hrs in game
Nice. Graphics were great. I will definitely play this game again.
– Real player with 5.2 hrs in game
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
This review is for both The Vanishing of Ethan Carter and The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Redux. I’ve played both games, they are the same, the redux version has better graphics and some small interface differences. At the end of this review i explain more about the differences*.
More than 20 years ago, when i first played Myst i remember thinking, well, this game seems cool and all, specially the graphics, the story is very vague…and i don’t really see too many things to do…i hope i soon have some things to do.. because if i don’t i’m not so sure this is gonna work out….aand, of course, turns out, in myst, i did have some/several things to do, but in an original and unexpected way and there was a story, although not like you were expecting it to be, and it became one of the most known adventure games of the 90s (even though, it wasn’t considered an adventure by many…). And that’s fine, because the game was anything but a normal adventure, it was something else. You could like it, or hate it, but it was difficult to remain indifferent (once you played it).
– Real player with 5.7 hrs in game
Paul Prospero, a detective with a unique skillset, is called towards a piece of fan mail as though the sirens themselves would emerge the moment he sliced the licked adhesive apart. A boy named Ethan Carter writes to him, detailing some dark happenings in the hidden countryside town he resides in. Paul realizes that Ethan wouldn’t have chosen him if these dark things wouldn’t require his particular abilities. His last case shall be this one, Paul decides, and sets out to the breezy hillsides of Red Creek Valley. Within minutes of arriving, he comes across a series of potentially deadly traps in the woods just on the outskirts of town. This case will be anything but ordinary for most people, but Paul Prospero is used to it.
– Real player with 5.1 hrs in game
Lost EVE
Lost EVE is a dark, atmospheric puzzle-platformer, the story of which unfolds in a post-apocalyptic future about 3 thousand years after a nuclear war.
With the departure of the dryad on the Moon, the power of the magical obelisks that supported life dries up and the forest gradually fades.
The forest has changed a lot, now it is ruled by strange semi-biological, semi-mechanical creatures.
A magical and very unfriendly world is waiting for you. The main character becomes involved in a spinning carousel of events, where he remains until the end of the story.
Lunar Axe
Lunar Axe is a point-and-click adventure game with locations and story inspired by real places with incredible hand-drawing art.
STORY
After a big earthquake in the city, ruins of an old building collapse and you end up trapped inside a big abandoned house. Find a way out and unravel the mystery of the inexplicable tremors, meet the guardian spirit of a mystical artifact and learn its relation to recent events, before it’s too late.
IMMERSIVE
Investigate, collect, match clues and objects through various puzzles and HOG scenes. Find historical items that will help you understand the mystery that surrounds the city. Explore different locations based on real environments that offer a perfect combination of legend and history, learning more about the real facts that inspired the game with a gallery of references.
PUZZLES
You must solve puzzles and explore different environments to find a mystical weapon and discover the mystery behind earthquakes that are destroying the city.
Features in full version:
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35+ Diferent scenes based on real locations
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30+ Puzzles and HOG scenes
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Amazing hand-drawn 2D art
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Original soundtrack
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History inspired by Brazilian folklore
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Bonus material with storyline references
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Prevent the destruction of the city of São Luís
Metamorphosis
In the spirit of full disclosure, I have not completed Metamorphosis. However, I have spent enough time with the game that I believe I am safe in writing a review.
Metamorphosis is one of the most unique games I’ve played. It is a first person adventure, played as an insect. Instead of seeing your hands, you see your front legs and instead of footsteps, you ‘skittle’ along surfaces. When you miss a jump and fall to the floor, the sound is unmistakable as the ‘squish’ of an insect death. From this perspective, exploring drawers, crevasses, desks, filing cabinets, and the spaces humans can only imagine is quite a change. Kudos to the development team for crafting such marvelous visuals for a view that they, themselves, have never experienced!
– Real player with 28.2 hrs in game
Introduction
You know how some games claim to be “Kafkaesque”? Well this title is literal Kafka, something which the uncrowned Master of Absurd would definitely have been proud, if not for his crippling shyness and desire to destroy his own writings. More on a that a bit later. For now let’s focus on Metamorphosis, the video game adaptation. As the second Steam project to date for developer Ovid Works, they certainly made a bold choice when compared to their debut, a VR-exclusive that was a rather tame Cold War spoof. “Interkosmos” does share the DNA of absurdity with Metamorphosis, so I regard it as a natural progression towards more mature themes. All In! Games took a chance with this publishing, yet I am certain that it paid off considering the title at hand.
– Real player with 9.7 hrs in game
Type Knight
I decided a few months ago that I wanted to learn how to type without looking at the keyboard; I’ve tried this before, but it’s so easy to slip back into bad habits! I can happily say now, thanks to Type Knight and some other typing tools I can type without looking, and pretty quickly too! Type Knight is a super fun typing tool. I found that typing short words in the lower difficulties helped me learn to type those words quicker. By starting small, the daunting task of no-look typing felt a lot more manageable! Normal typing tools always bored me. I’ve found that by gamify-ing typing, I was working harder to beat my high score and then in turn improve my typing speed and accuracy more than I would have with just a basic ‘learn to type’ program.
– Real player with 12.9 hrs in game
Summary: Type Knight is a small but solid typing game with great atmosphere and the ability to import your own scripts for tonnes of replayability. It is a game that any fan of typing games should definitely check out. 8/10
A full detailed video review can be viewed here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjJCWKQF_KA
Plot:
The plot to Type Knight is extremely simple, but throughout the gameplay, there are intervals where light plot progression occurs through small text passages, there being 20 in total. While the plot is nothing complex or massively engaging it is always interesting to see such intervals where the plot does progress as you get insight into the mind of the knight and how his quest is affecting him the further, he progresses.
– Real player with 3.5 hrs in game