Two reviews recently from me:
King of Seas, looks promising, playing was frustrating to start, got better for a few hours, but got really repetitive. I didn’t finish, but I think I saw all aspects of the game to be able to judge it:
The Steps as we know them is a simplistic path-finding puzzle game that’s pretty fun if you don’t mind getting stuck every once in a while. It took me 4 hours or so to finish, but I played a few levels every day for about a week to finish.
I forgot what diplomacy does in King of Seas, but I remember noting it was incredibly worthless and to not bother with anything related to it.
A couple of reviews this week:
Hokko Life is still in Early Access and has some rough edges, but is quite well-made given that it was primarily done by a single developer, even though it’s published through Team17. It’s kind of like Animal Crossing, and still has some details to hash out to be made a lot better, but I look forward to how the final product will end up being. It’s super casual and there are no time pressures doing anything at all. No farming yet, you can only plant trees, grasses, and flowers at the moment, but the farming update should be coming soon. There’s no endurance/fatigue factor either, and the day flows rather a bit slower than Harvest Moon/Stardew Valley so you have plenty of time to get things done. Not that it really matters, because you won’t see any time constraints. Only some tasks/jobs have a time limit but if they time out, they will just cycle back anyway, and the gameplay loop is shallow on that front. The biggest draw in this game is the item design system where you can practically build anything using the materials that you gather.
Alekon is practically like playing the old-school Pokemon Snap with similar art styles and also music, and the gameplay is similar too. It isn’t perfect but it is pretty fun to play. It has the standard on-rails photography session and after you have unlocked and explored all of the paths in each zone, you can then go into the zone and do a freely wander session, trying to perfect those photos that you may not have been able to get while under time+movement constraints and pressure. So in some ways it’s more casual. But then again, it has some mini-games that are neither easy nor hard, so it’s not entirely a completely casual game.
Fresh off the press (metaphorically I guess) is my review for Scarlet Hollow, an excellent VN with diverging paths and your choices mattering a whole lot. 21 different character builds for replay value. Episode 1 is free, and only Episode 2 is currently available in the actual product. Price will remain the same throughout Early Access (projected update is 1 episode every 6 months. There’s one person doing the art and the writing primarily, and another person doing the programming, troubleshooting, etc.). To keep the flow smooth I am not surprised that it takes that long, especially with limited (wo)manpower–the two people are married. I cannot wait for the game to be completed, probably will end up being one of my favorite VNs of all time.
On the other hand, I think many of us, especially in the US who watched TV in the 90s would recognize the allusion for the title, even though it really doesn’t have much to do with the TV show. Though I have to admit, the title kind of got me motivated to playing the game, even though I am no good at rhythm based games. This game is actually hard, well, hard for me anyway, and I cannot finish it. It has a freestyle (beat free) gameplay option, but I feel that it would take away from the game too much to take that beat off. Instead of rhythm-based and turn-based like NecroDancer, this is more of a top-down action game. Anyway, it’s not for everyone, but it’s made quite well.
Wrote a couple of reviews as well. One for Trials of Fire and the other one for ELEX.
https://steamcommunity.com/id/DontBeSillyWrapYourWilly/recommended/1038370/
https://steamcommunity.com/id/DontBeSillyWrapYourWilly/recommended/411300/
Well, let’s see…
It’s been about a month since my last update here, and I haven’t written all that many, only 3 reviews, even though I keep planning to write more. Time constraints are very real.
Positive reviews:
Negative Review:
A couple more to share, I know I am very wordy, but as long as it’s helpful in a way, then I suppose it’s all right. I have trouble being concise, it’s a major problem:
I have not been the best at updating as I go, but I haven’t had a whole lot of time as of late, so here’s the batch of my reviews from the last month or so:
Here’s a review for a free game, only takes 30 minutes to run through, a pretty good experience. 
This is a pretty easy and fun puzzle platformer, also notably short… Easy to get 100%, especially with a guide. A good work of art and quite an experience altogether:
The other game I just reviewed happens to be a top-down space shooter in early access and could use some improvements, but can be good for the arcade-style score-chasing arena-survivor gamer among us. It’s more limited in scope and is quite expensive, but does have plenty of RNG for replay value.
Same here. I’ve bought lots of games because of YQMaoski however Spelunky is not one of them 
One more here, with a rather slow-paced 2D platformer game with permadeath and a upgrade/progression tree. The platforming isn’t all that smooth and the game could use some improvements. It’s also a bit expensive. It’s missing that satisfying punch in a lot of the gameplay, though after playing a while, I got used to it and felt more comfortable with it. Pretty reasonable to just keep waiting on this one until a sale is steep enough or at least until the game is completed to its final state.
A couple more updates:
This is decently fun for a couple of hours at first, then it feels rather tedious the rest of the way. I gave it a thumbs down, but it does have some good concepts, and maybe will be better at the end of development.
This one is more of a middle of the road HOG that’s nothing remarkable. It takes about 2.5 hours to 100%, so good for achievement hunters. A bit overpriced though.
Another phenomenal review by yours truly… for a Autumn Sale Steam badge… *
- To give some clarity to this particular Steam review, in the vast majority of conversations held in Days Gone, the MC’s full name Deacon St. John is spoken. 730+ is a reference to how many days are gone when Days Gone starts.
…inline with my other highly received reviews…
Looks like some of my reviews posts got lopped off when the server got changed, but that’s okay, no biggie. Here’s the latest, I guess it’s my first review in a couple of months:
I would like to know if anyone owns this game
and what your opinion of the single-player portion of it is please?
Is it worth the asking price? I’ve yet to see it on sale either on Steam or GOG.
Thanks for any feedback you can offer.
Ila in Maine
