What I've been playing lately

Posted 9/26/2024


I've been trying to make a considered effort of… "relaxing" as of late. I work a day job and then when I get home I go right back to working, but this time doing sewing or game development work. Or I lay down in my bedroom in the dark for 1-2 hours because I am overstimulated. But sometimes that can end up being 4-5 depending on how I'm feeling. I'm very tired all the time.

Rest being an effort is so fucking stupid but when you live like me, well. You gotta. So I don't explode or actually actually burn out so hard I can't do anything.

So here's the games I've been playing recently

Little Goody Two Shoes

I'm a really big RPGmaker horror fan, I've played all of the big great ones that came out in the 2010s, though going to college kind of put me out of the scene so I don't know what new stuff is coming out. Little Goody Two Shoes are made by some RPGmaker horror veterans, they made Pocket Mirror, a game I never played but kept up with its development for a little bit when I was in the scene. Little Good Two Shoes has RPGmaker horror baked into its DNA so hard and it is so good for it.

I'm really enjoying my time with it. Steam says I have 7 hours in the game, and I have no idea how long the game actually is (though it is implied that the game takes place over an in-game week, I have no idea if it'll stick to that). It has great characters, good design work, fun minigames, and an intriguing story.

There are two drawbacks a bit to this game, in that it mixes together sooo many art styles in various ways it can get pretty overwhelming at times as it switches styles and tones between the art, but all the styles within are used effectively. The other is that there are quite a variety of endings to this game. I've already put 7 hours into this game with no way of knowing how close to the end I am, and I don't know if I want to replay it all through again to see the different dates you can go on, while there's very few "choices" and the game is highly linear.

Loop Hero

This game is my "dinner" game, as multiple parts of the game play itself so I don't need to be clicking or moving a controller constantly so I can take some bites of food. Good dinner entertainment.

I've gotten to the 3rd "map"? difficulty? but haven't lived long enough in those loops to summon the boss yet. But I've gotten close and I get better every single run and I think I'll get there soon.

The conciet of Loop Hero is so interesting, but so strange, but it all works. I think it's really cool and how it handwaves the "rougelike" aspects of it is believable within how the rest of the game operates. I'm very bad at the basebuilding part of the game though and I don't know if I'm setting things right or doing it well. I just wanna set a bunch of forest tiles on fire. I don't know what I'm doing.

TOEM

I got it on sale, I think it's still on sale on GOG even though I got my copy on steam. I've completed the base game and I'm now on the extra level but I'm almost done with all those tasks.

This game is something very special. Your main mode of interaction being just taking photos makes for interesting ways to solve puzzles and build the story and quests.

The art style of this game is great, I love a 2.5D type game and the way the monochrome coloring.

This is a really good game. I wanna try 100%ing it if I have the time (and patience) for that.

Dungeon Clawler Demo

This is another "dinner" game. I love claw machines so much, I have a project in the works that involves claw machines, and this game has managed to come up with the best digital claw machine.

This is a rougelike game, where you add items to your pool of stuff that can be in your "machine" which can range from weapons, shields for defense, items that alter your power, filling your machine with water, etc. Whatever you manage to pick up from the machine is what is used in battle. It's a neat system! I like it.

It's not being released until Q4 but I think it's in beta now, but there's a bunch of content just in the free demo alone so try it out.

Eastward

I haven't been able to pick this one up recently, but I played about 6 hours of it so far. It wears it's Earthbound/Mother and Ghibli inspiration proudly, but it comes at the RPG genre with some very stylish pixel art, intriguing world, quirky and cool characters, and fun battle gameplay. This isn't a turnbased RPG, wouldn't you know lol.

I haven't gotten that far into it yet, but the world opens up slowly and in ways I don't expect. I love Sam and John and I want them to be a family 5ever. I'll get back to this game when I have more time to deticate to sitting down and playing an RPG because I love just exploring every new space I find.

This game is really cute and I've heard it said before that its only failure is that it accidentally came out on the same day as Deltarune Ch2, which no one could've ever predicted so it flew under the radar.

Honorable Mention: Elden Ring

I've been far too busy to play Elden Ring as of late, but I've been playing a seamless co-op run with a friend. When we finished last we had just reached Radan and realized we were way too underleveled for him so we gotta do some grinding lol.

I think it's a neat game! It's the first souls-like I'm commited to finishing. I started Sekiro, but I hadn't yet realized I could take dramamine for my motion sickness with games yet so I couldn't play for long before both sickness and difficulty forced me to give up.

Yeah, I do have to take medicine in order to play this game, I get sick with any game with a 3D camera, I can't even play Toem for that long at a time despite how little you need to move the camera. At least I have a solution now if I know in advance I'm going to be playing a 3D camera game, but it's still a bit of a hassle and especially if I accidentally forget.

Anyway.

Send me an email at orchidrabbitrr@gmail.com with games that you're playing recently! Maybe I'll add them to my list of stuff to try out and play next month when I have better free time. Thanks for reading!