Rogue Islands won't be for everyone, but I thought it would be useful to explain why it's for me!
In terms of where this opening salvo of game leaves me, I'm interested to see how some of the characters progress and wary of others.
Slime Rancher is a delightful, irrepressible thing with a manageable space to venture out into. A bouncy rainbow in a sludge of sprawling, mud-coloured shooters. I am so glad it exists.
It struggles with characterisation and motivation at times, BUT it also made me laugh out loud and furnished me with an unexpected weepy moment.
Old Man's Journey is a game with all of these prickles of delight but where the interstitial matter often feels humdrum. It's short enough that you can still pick those delights out even if you're not satisfied with the rest of the interactions, but you can't help but wonder, what if it had found a way to make the whole thing shine?
Cosmic Express is just as delightful to look at, and has a really solid core of puzzling to get your brain around!
I'm not sure how to sum this up for a review, truth be told. I have notes written from early on when I was brimming over with excitement and wonder and I'm pulling them together having lost that sense of connection with the game in its later stages. I think I would have felt differently if I'd played as a non-reviewer and walked away when I felt that interest wane instead of ploughing onward.
A House of Many Doors has so much lovely writing and is so ambitious. It’s also so entirely in the shadow of its spiritual sibling. As a result it can’t hope to escape constant comparisons even if it proves preferable to the narrative tastes of some players. It’s the Dannii to Failbetter’s Kylie.
It is lovely, though, and one of the friendliest, warmest logic puzzlers I’ve played.
It’s definitely got a place in my games library, and it’s a really good way to play a version of the board game my friends and I enjoy even though we’re rarely in the same city at the moment.
I'm far less sure of how someone without that attachment to the originals will perceive the mix of flaws and strengths. For me the chance to revisit one of my first game infatuations did reduce the annoyances, or at least they became part and parcel of going back – you take the irritants with the joys because without it it wouldn't be the same.
It comes so close to being something I love and then it has a hollow core.
It’s a gentle seafaring tale I’m looking forward to playing through with a child when I next see my smaller family members but which I’m more than happy to play for my own enjoyment as well. I think I’m on my sixth distinct playthrough at the moment and still discovering new things.
Ultimately, it’s competent, but without the systems or story being on the same level as the aesthetic Seasons After Fall will soon fade from memory.
It’s a blessing for people like me who will tussle with it over a series of lovely evenings or keep it running in the background to fiddle with throughout the day. For others it will be a royal pain in the arse, an utterly inaccessible gem taunting them with its low poly style and seemingly-simple gameplay.
Where I'm at with the game now is that I do enjoy playing and it's because it offers a beautiful and non-overwhelming survival option. I also find that the repetition of crafting and of landscape and of encounters combined with changes in biome end up feeling like verses in a song – familiar but with some of the beats changed up. But I also find that I feel I'm spinning my wheels a lot, that the systems aren't creating interesting or varied stories.
Oxenfree was an unexpected delight for me. Atmospheric, beautiful and with the ability to feel real connections between its characters.
I associate Agatha Christie with a paciness and lightness of touch. It was there in this game at brief intervals but would then get obscured again as a scene dragged on for too long or you had to hover your mouse over a cigarette someone was holding AND a box of matches AND an ashtray in order to deduce they were a smoker. Eventually it just felt like the interactive elements stopped being a mild diversion and became an obstruction.
Coldwood did put their hearts into Unravel and I can definitely feel that when I play. But despite his woollen charm, Yarny stayed well away from my own heart strings.
The best way I can think to sum up this feeling is to say I enjoyed Everybody's Gone To The Rapture far more on PS4 and that was because after the first chapter I lay on the sofa watching and listening and luxuriating while my companion dealt with the controls.