Hey all. As someone who talks often about games on this blog, you could imagine I also play a lot of games, and while I don’t play as many games as I’d like I still do play a solid amount. As such I end up going through a lot of different games, having much to say about them and no one to say it to.

So I’ll start making occassional posts here talking about games I’ve played and what I think of them. If I have some big takeaway, if I recommend them, or if they were wholly underwhelming. I’ve made a post like this before so I’ve tagged it retroactively as this new “series”¹. Let’s get to it.

• Thomas Was Alone: The game I’ve most recently played, having just finished it this afternoon. It’s a lovely little 2~ hour platforming game that does a lot with very little. Minimal visuals, minimal gameplay mechanics, and yet a lot of fun to be had. Despite only being two hours I do feel like the story dragged out, because it felt like it reached a very natural conclusion around the end of the 7th chapter, only to keep going for another 20 levels after that point.

• Blasphemous: I’ve had this game sitting in my inventory for a while and I was originally turned off by the soulslike gameplay and heavy christian themeing. Coming back to it, I actually really grew to like the christian iconography and visuals in this game. It’s dark and gruesome in the way some may describe as “beautiful,” and the fact the game revels in this contrast of what people describe as “pious” as opposed to the actual suffering taking place is something I enjoyed. Enjoyed from a safe distance. I still don’t really like this game’s reliance on waiting for victory. It feels like the game isn’t actually hard in many parts, just glacially slow, and the game punishes you heavily for trying to rush through it. There’s a difference between “patient gameplay” and “oh my god please just let me through”, and I think this game edges too close to the latter. I’ll still play it to completion, I’m really enjoying it.

• Cruelty Squad: A game I’ve previously played before refunding because it geniuenly distraught me too much. I got it again at a friend’s recommendation and actually enjoyed it a lot more than before. I only played about 3 levels so I really should go back to it, but the game’s downright demonic aura turned to hilarity when I had moments of realization such as “oh my god that’s bin laden’s house.”

• Post Void: MY FUCKING EYES AUGH

• BPM: Bullets Per Minute: This game is not very original, and it doesn’t have to be. It’s a melting pot of roguelikes, rhythm games, and fps’s, with nothing particularly new to say about any of them. However, what it does do it does very well, because by copying the notes of more unique games it gives you a little taste of various fun gameplay sequences. To be entirely clear, this is a recommendation; the music is great, the gameplay’s good enough to loop through and not get bored, and overall it’s a solid package. I still prefer hellsinger tho.

• Inbento: A simple, cheap puzzle game with cute visuals. I think the visuals and gameplay are both great but do not fit eachother at all. The puzzles are based around destroying tiles by placing a limited set of new tiles over them, trying to create a pattern shown at the side of your screen, but the theme is making a box of food. If I were to place salmon over some rice, I would not be obliterating the rice from existence, unless I was a horrible cook or using some legally dubious salmon. This issue bothered me as I played but the gameplay and thematics are still very good in their own (individual) right. Right now it’s like 2 dollars, so I’d recommend picking it up if you like puzzle games.

• TIS-100: A game recommended to me by a programmer I know, described as “the best game [she’s] ever played.” This game is fascinating, but it’s also 200% for programmers and programming-adjacent geeks considering the entire gameplay loop is just writing assembly code for a fictional computational device². I am serious; the game comes with an instruction manual you have to read through to play. Still if you are a programmer (and I am assuming most of my readers are, you fuckin’ nerds <3) I highly recommend it.

• Rhythm Doctor: If you do want an innovative rhythm game though, I can’t recommend Rhythm Doctor enough. Sure, the actual rhythm part is fairly normal and even easier than other games in the genre, but the visual presentation is really something. I won’t tell you everything, but in one of the levels the game window is forced to be windowed, and the window flies across your screen as the music plays. It’s pushing the medium in ways that other games didn’t even consider and it’s really impressive.

• 4D Golf: To finish off, we have a game that I bought on day 1 because I was so fascinated by. 4D Golf uses a very simple gameplay mechanic (mini-golf) to explore the mind-bending idea of moving across a fourth dimension. Doing a game in a fourth dimension is something that was possible to do for years now³ but (as far as I know) wasn’t really attempted in any meaningful way. This game makes beautiful 4th dimensional stages that are surprisingly easy to comprehend spacially. Major props to the devs.

And that’s it for now! There’s some other games I’ve tried out recently but I don’t think I’ve played enough of them to have a proper opinion on them.

If you know of any unique/cool games and you wanna ramble/recommend them to me, please do send me a message! I check my inbox regularly and would love to read them!