Tag Archives: Video Games

Review: Summer Small Games

Lately, exhaustion has been the name of the game. My energy for larger scale games and projects has collapsed a good bit, so instead, I’ve been gravitating towards games on the shorter or nonlinear variety, things to check in on every once and a while, and pick up and play type titles.

1. Pixross by Kenney

A play on picross, Picross is a classic for short visual puzzles and needed a few minutes to just fiddle. Each board offers a cute pixel image for you to uncover, and I never really feel the urge to burn through puzzles at a rapid pace. With over 170 puzzles, different challenges, effects and unlockable to go through, it’s a nice game for pulling myself out of a digital haze if I’ve been stuck in the same place for some time.

2. Garden Galaxy by Anneka Tran

Another game that joins us in the paced and relaxing categories but brings on a designers and idle game twist. Ironically, I think fans of the Minecraft game mode Skyblock would get this quite the kick out of this game. Starting on a floating grassy platform, you earn coins from little garden creatures, and slowly unlock ground, water, decor, and various style sets for you to discover. What I love about this game is the ways the creatures gather when you’re away, and the sheer number of materials and configurations means that each island gets to be an unique experience that feels really peaceful to assemble. The soft graphics, the sounds, everything comes together for an experience you make, I found my playtime with it especially meditative as I’d come up with design areas and slowly build to my goals.

3. KittyToy by Rakqoi

A precious game inspired by Neko Atsume, You take care of and adopt cats, slowly earning kitty coin to purchase things for the creatures and decorate your home. Nothing about the game is particularly new in concept, but it executes everything quite well, with some fun mechanics for petting and giving your cats affection, playing and bouncing with toys, and bizarre and adorable names.

A screenshot of KittyToy, featuring cats with the names, from top left: Sage Sticky, Stardust, Spinny, Pita Jr. and Sweet and Sour Almond
These cats love to hang, a big crowd here, featuring Sage Sticky, Stardust, Pita Jr., Spinny, and Sweet and Sour Almond

Being able to adopt cats with a collar meant that I could keep some of my favorites, like Stardust in this case, but not every cat stays forever, and we got a lot of strange and silly visitors, which you can keep track of in game!

A screenshot of Warlock Churro (Copyrighted) a white cat sitting asleep in a cat bed.
One of our stranger little visitors, Warlock Churro (Copyrighted)

4. Passion Paradox by Denparin

A recommended title from Kishux, Passion Paradox is a visual novel, focused on a flushed, awkward and impassioned Mia, and her love for a piece of history, the story and the sacrifice one woman faced in the 1600s.

This is a fairly short visual novel, with not much decision making involved, just you are being led through Mia’s world. A dissatisfied museum worker, her heart lies on a pot depicting Sybil Godwin, and her brain lies within the story of her death.

ot from Passion Paradox showing Sybil Godwin, a redheaded woman, pressed into the back of Mia Gonzales, who has black hair obscuring her flustered face.
Sybil, pressed into Mia’s chest, guiding the woman through yarn work, though Mia is far more concerned with Sybil’s touch.

A culmination of small scale social and material dissatisfaction for one modern woman, getting something she dreamed, and giving herself to this dedication. This has some of the classic tropes and niceties of the genre, so if a cosmic dedication to a woman that goes beyond time interests you. You can even play it in browser.

Since this is a shorter romp, and you can read it, I encourage you to play the game (and check the content warnings before proceeding.)

All in all, this hasn’t been a huge time period of gaming for me, but these are some of the highlights, beyond the games I come back to. Let me know if you’ve checked any of these games out, or if you have suggestions for more games I can play and review! Comments are appreciated <3.

A screenshot from the game Serre, showing Oaxa, a pink and yellow bee alien with six eyes, looming over Arlette, a blond earthling woman, with her two large insect claws.

Review: Serre by Insertdisk5

Serre is a short and sweet visual novel from the makers of In Stars and Time! Featuring an alien sent to concur Earth, and an awkward woman alone in her greenhouse.

This game was originally submitted to the Yuri Game Jam 2017, though caught my eye through it’s submission for the Palestinian Relief Bundle. Before I talk about the game, though the bundle itself ended May 6th, you can still donate to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, the target organization the bundle supported now.

I wanted to play Serre primarily because I recognized the developer! Browsing through Ardienne Bazir’s work as a game designer, this game stood out for its warmth and brightness, a focus on romance, and enchanting character design that similarly pulled me into In Stars and Time!

The play time on Serre is fairly short, it took around 45 minutes with me reading both voice parts to my partner to get through the entire piece. With a short story like this, and the meet cute formula of Oaxa; the alien we meet after crashing into the greenhouse, we get a great look at the character voices and ways they express themselves incredibly naturally through precious sprite design and well written dialogue.

There are absolutely shades of In Stars and Time through the short stint of Serre, where @butchcats pointed out how similar Oaxa was to Mirabelle throughout, I found Arlette; our human protagonist, to exhibit some of the writing tropes and internal voice present in Siffren’s writing as well. While I’m not quite ready to review In Stars and Time quite yet, given my familiarity with the game at this point, Serre felt like a welcomed and softer approach to the skills that went on to make the stunning title.

Since this game is so short, you should honestly play it for yourself! I know for me, taking the time to indulge in Serre’s world and the way love and hope for a future played out within the piece made for a perfect late-night game to share with my lover.

If you enjoy the game, or have any thoughts, feel free to talk about them here!

2023-06-21-Tetris and The Games We Play

2023-06-21

Starting off this blog with a YouTube recommendation and some thoughts on video game history, as well as some musings on the state of the industry.

The Story of Tetris | Gaming Historian

I was not familiar with Gaming Historian’s work before this, but I quite enjoyed this video. Where I went in expecting what’s familiar to me in the realm of vintage video game history, I wasn’t expecting such a constructive look at the political, legal, and tactical side of what brought the game to international stardom.

Obviously, capitalism and communism played big parts in the ideological and market framework all the rights parties were butting up against. I did find, however, where the stage was set for capitalism to benefit all those rights holders there were underpinnings of anti-capitalism throughout Tetris’s history. The years when the rights essentially did not matter were arguably where the most widespread development and passion for the game grew, in the form of developing versions for different computer hardware at the time.

Tetris was Shareware!

Of course, as we saw outlined here, it couldn’t stay that way forever.

There is something to said, as well, for the Gaming Historian’s team to highlight the creator, the singular person to make this happen. Alexey Pajitnov did not receive royalties, rights, even money! for his game until far later in life.

I am well aware I cannot speak for the economy then, given the complexities of the USSR’s economy at the time and his employment, but what I can say is this; Alexey’s story, at least in the beginning, feels sort of common now doesn’t it?

The games industry is complex. It always has been. I don’t have any claim to the AAA industry, and its inner workings, and I trust other journalists and writers to deliver informative and critical analysis of it.

I do know several indie developers.

I can’t help but ask myself after going through the history of a game with such staying power if we are losing so much within the world within this art form because of the stranglehold the current state of industry and economy have on the PEOPLE who make the games we love.

Tetris is a success story in this lens of history, this is a feel good story when the money and the contracts shake out.

I’d argue the art also benefited, given the variation in the way the game was programmed, with all of the weird rabbit holes each contain, and how Pajitnov initially distributed the game was the catalyst for the history we’re reliving.

I think if I got anything from this, other than the fantastic history lesson, is the hope for stability for developers in the future. Not only that, but I think artists deserve to live alongside and have a say in the things they love, especially for an industry as vast and multidisciplined as video games.

I hope you enjoyed this recommendation and my thoughts, if you have any thoughts or anything leave em in the comments.

Thank you :]