Karen: An Outrage Simulator
I went into this game expecting 45 minutes-1 hour’s worth of silly little content that would give me, someone who’s worked in food and retail, a good laugh.
What I got was 3 hours of organ rupturing good humored, nail on the head scenarios that were so scarily familiar but also insanely ridiculous.
Without spoiling anything (yes, yes, there is a plot, and it is delicious), you go through a good handful of incredibly unique, inconvenient situations that could truly happen to anybody. No level feels like a repeat, no joke feels overused or like low-hanging fruit (unless you count the entire premise of the game as low hanging fruit). If you play on Normal mode, you have to figure out how to manipulate different characters to get what you want purely through intuition and guess work, WITHOUT you (Karen) becoming outraged and making a disaster of the place.
– Real player with 4.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best Conversation Memes Games.
Similar to other reviews, I thought this game would be shorter…offering maybe an hour of content. I ended up streaming it for over 3 hours.
I played this with a couple of other friends and we all took turns voice-acting Karen and the other characters. We spent so much time laughing our sides were sore!
I’ve also worked 7 years in retail and, again like other reviewers, have encountered my fair share of “Karens” and this game accurately depicts the stereotypical Karen in her natural habitat.
– Real player with 4.0 hrs in game
The Away Team: Lost Exodus
Don’t be fooled by its simple, rétro appearance and pixel graphics: this is a real hidden gem, with very solid writing and an interesting plot that will keep you playing, solar system after solar system, gameplay minutes turning into hours, wondering what will happen next, both to you and to your crew members.
The game has a lot in common with choose-your-own-adventure gamebooks (when your humans explore planets, you’ll have to help them decide what they’ll do, pulling a lever, exploring a certain zone, being friendly or hostile, and different choices of course mean different consequences), but adds to it a simple but effective simulation part (you have to carefully manage your fuel and food reserves, and find more if you deplete one or the other) and a deeply interesting crew member personality system, which adds a ton of replayability: a strong farmer will act, speak and perform differently than a genial but disabled scientist.
– Real player with 40.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Conversation Narration Games.
The year is 2127. Earth has been destroyed, made uninhabitable by war, climate change and famine. You play as the AI on a ship containing the last known humans in the universe. Can you keep them alive as you search for a new home?
The Away Team is superbly written interactive fiction, a modern day ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ set in space. There are survival elements too, in that you have to scavenge planets for food fuel; otherwise you’ll end up starving, or stranded in space forever.
The graphics are basic, but for what’s essentially a sci-fi novel, they fit well enough. The music is atmospheric and calming, the sort of thing you can have a good afternoon nap to (I’m so rock and roll, I know).
– Real player with 13.5 hrs in game
More. The Eternal Utopia
To tell the truth, this feels like a fan fiction someone plastered with supersaturated colors and one image of Thomas More. All the images seem extracted from somewhere in the internet and I can’t help but squint my eyes at the color overflow. The story is a bit random, starting in Thomas Mores' study room, but some incident throws him in the present world. There are some philosophical ideas hidden in the conversations, but I felt like being put on rails. Everything passed and after half an hour of reading dialogues and monologues, I reached an end.
– Real player with 0.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Conversation Story Rich Games.
Mothmen 1966
Mothmen 1966 is set during the Leonid meteor shower of ‘66.
You are Lee, a college student obsessed with the American Civil War. Someone at school told you about Holt’s gas station outside town, just the spot to watch the upcoming meteor shower for a perfect date with your girlfriend. But at Holt’s you’ll meet Lou Hill, a writer investigating the link between these meteor storms and sightings of human-size winged creatures with red, glowing eyes. It seems to Lou that whenever these ‘mothmen’ are spotted, bad things happen…
Created by novelist Nico Saraintaris and artist Fernando Martinez Ruppel, ‘Pixel Pulps’ are a fusion of exceptional writing and stunning illustration, inspired by mid-20th century pulp fiction and 80s home computer graphics. Mothmen 1966 is the first of three Pixel Pulps coming in 2022.
Mothmen 1966, like all the Pixel Pulps, is made to be played by anyone who enjoys fine storytelling:
-
Rich, branching narrative
-
Evocative illustrations fuel your immersion in the story
-
Accessible, ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ style gameplay, with life and death consequences and many mysteries to unravel
-
Multiple endings, and many paths to reach them - repeat playthroughs will continue to surprise
Nice to NO you
My Experience
After my first in-game day of choosing whose memory to wipe, I was annoyed. I didn’t feel like the flow of the game made intuitive sense. Initially, you’re choosing which three of the citizens to move forward to the next stage of the process. Then, at the next citizen line-up (after questioning each citizen you’ve sent forward), you’re choosing which two of the citizens to dismiss. I feel like it would make more sense here if you chose a citizen to move forward - in the same fashion you did at the first line-up.
– Real player with 2.5 hrs in game
The Entire Game in a Nutshell
-
Wait 5 seconds for the people to line up.
-
Read a 3-5 sentence reason for them being there.
-
Pick three to ask 3 questions.
-
Wait 5 seconds per character to walk off screen.
-
Wait five seconds per character to walk to the point you ask questions.
-
Ask three questions, or tell them to get lost.
-
Decide which one you want to wipe reading over the same information as when you first selected them.
-
Wait 5 seconds per character to walk off screen.
-
Wait 10 seconds for the person you picked to be wiped off screen.
– Real player with 0.8 hrs in game
Blake: The Visual Novel
Blake: The Visual Novel is the first VN I have played in a very long time, and I enjoyed it. To be fair it does start off pretty slow, but past the necessary introductions to everyone, and once the plot really begins, there is a lot to like!
The music is real cool and jazzy! I found myself really digging the ambient music in the ICC building! The characters are likable except for maybe Lee. Other than that the story that the game builds up in an intriguing one and the twist caught me by surprise!
– Real player with 6.3 hrs in game
I’ll be entirely honest that when I started this one I really wasn’t sure I was going to enjoy it. I am not really a huge fan of visual novels, and the game took a little while to hook me, but after getting in a little deeper, I found myself increasingly intrigued by the story. The game reminded me of games like Yesterday and The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker in terms of writing and characters. Overall I’m glad I played it, and I look forward to seeing what Ori Mees makes in the future.
– Real player with 5.7 hrs in game
Food Delivery Service
Food Delivery Service has promise, but does not yet feel like a proper game.
The story is interesting but that is about all it has. The play is fair to middling for a game of this price and the story means you’ll endure that quality of play for longer than you want to.
-
If you have enjoyed other Kimidori games you will likely enjoy this game, but be aware that it is less polished
-
If you have not played a Kimidori game, hold off on this one and play Forklift Load or Lost Egg as they are enjoyable and far more complete game experiences.
– Real player with 4.9 hrs in game
Gameplay is more fun than the story.
6/10
– Real player with 3.6 hrs in game
La Dimensione Interna
La Dimensione Interna (The Dimension Within) is a 3D narrative adventure game where you play as a young Italian journalist, named Giorgio, living in a small town in Tuscany. The game focuses on his personal struggle as he finds himself at the center of a chain of events he doesn’t quite understand, but feels responsible for. The player will be asked to guide him through a series of situations and decisions where time, the opinion of others, and his emotions will influence how the story unfolds, and ultimately decide the destiny of the protagonist and the people around him.
Through an innovative dialogue system, the player will be able to decide when to respond or intervene in a dialogue; he will also be able to decide what to say – and how to say it. All those elements will be taken into account by the characters involved, which will respond accordingly to what they feel, believe, and are trying to achieve.
However, not all options will always be available, and this will depends on Giorgio’s Principles: the player will be able to shape up his instincts and personality, which will enable some choices and hinder others. There are ways to force Giorgio to act against his will, to a certain degree, but it will have a cost.
Giorgio’s emotions are another important aspect the player will need to deal with: fears, anxieties, neurosis will make everything more challenging for him: on a wrong day, even innocent jokes can turn into mortal offences, and some NPCs will leverage this, in the attempt to manipulate him.
Another key aspect is that Time will always be ticking – even during conversations. Every line of dialogue pronounced by either the protagonist or other characters has a time cost associated. This means that even if NPCs will follow their own routine, your actions will impact what they will decide to do next, given they still have the time to do it… just remember that time won’t wait for you either.
The Wednesday
I can’t believe that the game cost me $15. You can enjoy a lot lot better games with way cheaper price. Do not buy it if you cherish your money. I purchase this only because I wanted to find out why many people blame this game so much. I didn’t want to criticize this game before I actually play it to the end. Now I can, so here I start.
Story was fair enough, but not great. Personally I thought the story was ok. It’s probably the only positive part of this game, but there is little to spoil so I don’t understand why they asked for not streaming the later chapters. The puzzles during the game were too easy so it’s not even worth mentioning.
– Real player with 4.1 hrs in game
Drinks With Abbey
All of the awkwardness of a first date without the price tag or the time wasted (that almost sounds like a reason to recommend this game…)
Unfortunately it’s not much of a game. It’s a 5 minute long choose-your-own-adventure graphic novel where you answer anywhere from 5 to 20 questions to get one of 9 different endings. I suppose if you’ve never had a date before this all might seem novel and interesting, but it’s just a cliché summary of stereotypical first-date night-at-a-bar tropes that ends long before it bothers to be unique or interesting.
– Real player with 1.2 hrs in game
Game emphasizes being honest
I say that the waitress isn’t that hot since she looked kinda “meh” to me
Abbey accuses me of being a lying bitch who’s just trying to impress her/not make her jealous
That’s when I learned that when a lot of people say “I like someone who is honest”, what they really mean is “I prefer someone who gives answers that I like”
Observe how she’s alright with throwing the wool over your eyes (the waitress, gives false idea of pool skills, etc.), yet if you tried to mislead her in any way, she’s all “dude wtf!?”.
– Real player with 1.2 hrs in game