what it says on the tin. games and game-adjacent things and what I feel about them. I give hearts instead of star rankings because how much I like a game doesn't always correlate with how good I think the game is.
mainly video game focused but maybe I'll throw some physical games in here too.
rolling in a full month late to playing this. I'm not very good at the combat in deltarune but I had a lot of fun!! creative gameplay, just the right level of humor, and a few more breadcrumbs towards the overarching plot. I know I only scratched the surface of what's available in these two chapters and will be chewing on it for a while...
short indie horror game that has just enough weirdness in it to delight me. it takes inspiration from FNAF and inscyption, but spins the mechanics in ways that feel fresh. the story starts straightforward but becomes more obtuse in the latter half of the game. gives me something deeper to chew on. I think the monster design, while simple, is really cool... overall a neat little game that I'm glad is getting popularity.
when u walk away, u wont't hear me say..... pleaseeeee oh baby don't go...
kingdom hearts has been something on my periphery for. probably as long as I've been on the internet but I never made more than weak jabs at getting into it until 2025. the amount of media for the series makes it feel a bit impenetrable but I am shrimply starting with the first game and moving from there. that preamble aside, the first KH is. fine. it's very early 2000's RPG meaning that if it came out today it would probably feel somewhat basic. which isn't a criticism! I just don't have the nostalgia of having played it when it came out in 2002 so my frame of reference is RPGs of this day and age. it's basically square enix and disney playing toys with their IPs and that is really fine. halloween town still goated tho. perhaps I would rank this higher had I actually played it instead of watching a let's play. unsure! I respect the original kingdom hearts for laying the foundation for the series, at least.
play here
short doomed yuri VN dealing with isolation and the internet. it was made over two months, so it is understandably rough around the edges, but the core is solid. it did remind me of needy streamer overload. even going into it knowing that it wouldn't end well, I still wish I could have helped yuuna...
forgot that I watched a playthrough of this wayyyy back in september before it blew up which is a bit weird to look back on conversations I had about it with my friend prior to it being A Big Thing. I think unfortunately I am a bit of a crotchety hipster with this because I kind of feel like it was better before it got fandomized but. ah. that's a topic for a longer blog post not a quick review blurb. poignant, heartbreaking, agonizing. I hope this hurts. maybe I'll write a longer post on this at some point.
play here
a short rpgmaker game about two men working in the meat packing industry in chicago, 1883. has some interesting ideas and provides an enlightening view into the setting of the day. ends rather suddenly, but on reflection, it does feel fitting.
play here
a short rpgmaker game about searching for your roommate in the forest and encountering a strange girl. quaint, flawed, charming characters, and high contrast art that draws you in. I love how mala writes character relationships....
if you told me in 2023 that in 2024 I would play a horror BL vn from 2008 and become so possessed by it that I would write 6,000+ words about it for my website I would laugh at you. but here we are. there's a full review on the horror part on my site but I will just say that it's peak fiction and will live in my mind for a long, long time.
the latest ffxiv expansion at the time of writing. I really enjoyed this, although not quite as much as dawntrail. if anything I'll say I did not find a little freak (tm) to latch onto as hard as I have zenos.
play here
a short, dreamlike VN about a lolita searching for healing. charming and heartfelt; I felt moved by the raw emotions depicted in the game.
havent touched my account in weeks (months?) but damn I went apeshitt for boothill. the characters are fun and the visuals are great but the thought of grinding out my team in a timegated fashion made me quit for the moment.
not the fighting game. not the 3D rpg either. the original browser gacha game. I've been chained to this game since 2018 with periods of inactivity whenever I get too fed up with the grind. consider the 3/5 heart rating an average over the years I've played the game, since sometimes the events are Peak and sometimes they are dogwater.